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Posted

I am completely satisfied with my decision. Yo La Tengo was playing on the stage with the fucked up sound (The PA for the stage they were on has been shitty for every show the past two years). And Ryan Shaw can sing. He sounds like Wilson Pickett or Otis Redding or Jackie Wilson. And I've seen Yo La Tengo in the past. Seriously, I don't know how anybody feels about good, old-fashioned soul/R&B, but Ryan Shaw is amazing.

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Posted

One of my high school's perennial substitute teachers always said that The Jackson 5 ruined Motown...thoughts?

 

 

Personally, I thought they were Motown's last truly great act (Boyz II Men notwithstanding but they came long after Motown had become just another record label). Some of The Jackson 5's ballads stand up to the strongest ballads put out by any of the bands on that label IMHO.

Posted

The New Architecture In Helsinki album is so-so. It has its moments, but it's kinda dull.

 

 

Guest Gym Class Fallout
Posted
One of my high school's perennial substitute teachers always said that The Jackson 5 ruined Motown...thoughts?

Well, what's the supporting argument?

 

Personally, I think Stax was superior to Motown. As great as that signature sound was, Motown Records as a whole seems so master-planned and assembly-line, whereas Stax allowed for more artistic and personal expression, and didn't concern itself with mass appeal the same way Motown did. Of course, that didn't do Stax a whole lot of good, because they ceased to exist.

Posted

I'm a big fan of Stax. The label's death was more due to really awful distribution deals, not having control of their masters and poor business decisions. If you ever get the chance, definitely check out the Stax museum.

Guest Gym Class Fallout
Posted

Already did, man. Great museum. Shame that it's in kind of a bad neighborhood, but they built the replica of the movie theater right where the original was, so there you go. There's a Stax Records documentary that pops up on public television every now and then, too. It was on back in July, I think.

Posted
One of my high school's perennial substitute teachers always said that The Jackson 5 ruined Motown...thoughts?

Well, what's the supporting argument?

 

I can't exactly remember but I'm pretty sure it had to do with them being the first Motown act to record in Los Angeles instead of Detroit and having their songs written and produced by The Corporation rather than Holland-Dozier-Holland.

Guest Gym Class Fallout
Posted

They weren't the first to record outside Detroit. There had always been sessions outside of Detroit.

Posted

Yeah, and Holland-Dozier-Holland were just one of many songwriters/songwriting teams responsible for Motown songs. The Jackson 5 have three amazing singles ("I Want You Back," "ABC," "The Love You Save") and then a whole lot of nothing.

Posted
They weren't the first to record outside Detroit. There had always been sessions outside of Detroit.

 

They may have been the first to record exclusively out of Los Angeles, outside of their demos, I think everything was recorded outside of Los Angeles.

 

I don't see how they ruined Motown though. It's not really their fault that Berry Gordy got sick of Holland-Dozier-Holland's egos and replaced them with lesser songwriters. It's not like they were going to write their own songs or anything.

 

RE: Stax Records. Oddly enough, I just bought the Soulsville U.S.A. book at a used book store this Saturday. I'm a big fan of Stax Records. Any of you guys here see Wattstax? It's a concert film about "The Black Woodstock" at The Coliseum in L.A. The concert lineup was entirely comprised of Stax artists; Issac Hayes headlines, Albert King, The Staples Singers, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, and The Bar-Kays are also in it. It's really a great concert film and you get appearences by Richard Pryor, Jesse Jackson, Melvin Van Peebles, and Ted Lange (Issac from The Love Boat!)

Guest Gym Class Fallout
Posted

For what? First of all, they get too much credit, second of all, their music isn't even THAT great in and of itself, and third, we're inconceivably in the midst of a pretty cool Stax Records discussion.

 

Wattstax is on my list of concert films to get ASAP, with The Last Waltz.

 

Youtube stuff I can find:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pMw6GaA1-Ug

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auZV2myICts

Posted

I love the Shaft clip with Issac Hayes taking his sweet ass time getting to the stage with his long entrance and Jesse Jackson standing onstage yelling "YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!" repeatedly.

 

 

The Rufus Thomas performance is pretty cool when he invites the audience on the field to dance then gets them all back to their seats within minutes.

 

My only complaint about the movie is they should have spent more time on the actual music. Though most of the Richard Pryor bits were funny

 

Fun fact; Wattstax was directed by the same guy who did Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory

 

Not Stax related really but another fun, little seen R&B concert film is Soul to Soul about Ghana's Independence Anniversary concert in 1971. It has Ike and Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett, The Staples Singers, and somewhat inexplicably, Santana shows up to do a longass jam.

Posted

Man, the New York Dolls' s/t was a pretty fucking great rock record. Top 20 material for me, definitely. Too Much Too Soon is good, too. We can pretend there isn't some people calling themselves the New York Dolls now.

 

Also, The Last Waltz is interesting from a historical standpoint, though really it's just two hours of cocaine and Scorsese fellating Robbie Robertson. But hey, maybe that's your idea of fun.

Posted

I wish Send More Paramedics would've done one US tour before calling it quits in approximately 26 days. I think that, with enough word-of-mouth, they'd have at least gotten a solid following, roughly the size of Municipal Waste's if not a little bit smaller. Gimmicked to the fucking max, but they make up for it with solid thrash.

Posted

Alcest are a pretty good band.

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