Drupelet

I assume some of you must have seen the brilliant Puddles Pity Party singing All By Myself on America's Got Talent this week? In case you missed it, here 'tis:

Ah. Thanks for the clarification, Kirk. I'd be severely dumbfounded, not only as a fan, but from an entrepreneurial sense, to discover that EC was performing and not making the shows available commercially. Phew!

Eric, I don't visit this site very often, so I just read this thread for the first time. I think it's one of my top-ten favorite posts of yours! All bands are eventually killed by conflicts of commitment and priorities. It's one of the most frustrating things to be on a team, to be putting in the most effort, to be generating a significant aspect of the success and being resented for it. Been there. The phony PR image of happy, democratic bands, along with my own tendency towards generosity definitely cost me big-time in group-based creative endeavors. Seems like you chose the right time to get out. I'm not trying to besmirch the other Raspberries, but I honestly can't imagine them ever making it out of Ohio without you. I guess that has been proven by their collective post-berries anonymity. In assessing any situation, reality always wins.

In the past, I recall Eric recommending books by Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. I don't remember if he included Christopher Hitchens, but it would make sense.

I'm not clear about this. Are these live performances in Japan by Eric? or are they tribute shows by other artists?

The song was published in 1975 on the LP "Eric Carmen". The publishing date on the single does not denote the date of the single's release. Does that make sense? ...or did I completely miss the point of your question?

I had heard he owned or built amusement parks, too. Smart guy.

Thanks, Matt. I usually don't grab all the Greatest Hits releases. I'll have to find this one.

On the original vinyl release of the Starting Over album, the song "Overnight Sensation (Hit record)" ended with a faint little snippet of "Go All The Way". None of the CD versions that I own of this album have that coda. They all fade out. Does anyone know if that original version was ever released on CD? Thanks!

...singing ABM on the Daily Show? Ha!

Just reporting: I saw The Beach Boys at the Santa Barbara Bowl last night and during the set break they played Let's Pretend over the house system. BTW, if you haven't yet, get Beach Boys tickets RIGHT NOW. You won't be sorry!

Sounds like C#7sus-F#7-Bm7 to me.

With no knowledge of this tour at the time, I spoke to Carmine about working with Eric. This was in 2008. It was just the two of us speaking casually—there was nobody else around and we were just hanging out. Anyway he smiled to himself for a moment and said how much he "really liked working with him." I don't remember much else in the way of details, unfortunately. Like I said, I didn't know about this tour at all back then. I thought we were only talking about "Tonight You're Mine." I got no sense of bitterness from him about it and I didn't get the impression he was just being careful in his speaking. Carmine's cool—the man, the mustache, the legend!

It could be done. It might be unrealistic to expect to recover the entirety of those expenses from ticket sales alone. It would simply require the full cooperation of the orchestra. They have funding—they'd just have to be willing to take it on as a project. The arrangements are something else altogether. Who would write them? EC? I don't know. Would he want to use his existing arrangements as a springboard or start from scratch? My guess is that he would want just a piano and orchestra situation and forego any electric instruments. Orchestra w/ rock combo has been done to death and I would bet that EC would want to take full advantage of the opportunity to highlight his melodies with orchestral support rather than smother them in electric guitars, etc. On the other hand, he may want to produce a 'product' with mass appeal... Of course, I have NO IDEA what he wants! Didn't I see him do this in Japan or somewhere? Fun, but, as I vaguely recall, not a very interesting use of an orchestra because of simplistic arrangements. If you've got 30-40 trained musicians up there, put 'em to work! Like, Led Zeppelin's Kashmir with a Mellotron? Quirky and powerful. With an large string section playing unison lines? Meh. They got my hopes up with that one and I was a bit disappointed. (Note that Plant & Page did manage to make a little money with that project in spite of my mild disappointment!)

The question really is: How many tickets would you have to sell and at what price to cover the cost of the orchestration of 90-120 minutes of your music plus union fees for the musicians and attendant crew for the performance AND union fees for enough rehearsal time for the orchestra so that they can play your music the way you want them to? I'd love to hear it, but it's a pricey project.