Let 'em back in? (Part 3)
Posted by Twangothan on 2 June 2008 - 3:44pm.
Received email from a mate with normally impeccable musical tastes, viz:
I may as well confess as no doubt the news will leak out but I went to see the Osmonds live last night at the O2 (last night of their 50th anniversary farewell tour). My get out was that it was free tickets in VIP area . BUT it was really, really good - including Ginger Baker-esque (I kid you not) drum solo, some cracking country numbers , a 10 minute proggy piece from 70's concept album 'The Plan' and just fantastic singing and playing (and yes cheese a plenty in places ). Altogether now "Crazeee Horses - wheee , whweee"
How do I respond to this? Surely this is one step too far?
Yrs
Speechless
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I read something in some blog. . .
along very similar lines only a few days ago. Stuh-range.
We could do a list of other Seventies reunions that would easily fill the O2 and be top-notch entertainment, but for some reason have never happened (yes, Noddy, that means you).
Perhaps his or her judgement was impaired by...
the strange, hallucinogenic effect produced by the stage lights reflecting off their whiter-than-white gnashers.
Or maybe they were just really good...
I'd be concerned...
If a band weren't really good after a 50-year career.
But there's something rather disconcerting
about a 50-year-old man singing "Puppy Love".
Yes.
This is quite true.
i was at kings x station on friday afternoon
and there were hordes of middle aged ladies getting off the trains from the north wearing pink sparkly cowgirl hats and osmonds scarves down for t'gig; some of them (scarves & certainly all the ladies) that were vintage from first time around.
I was nearly trampled underfoot.
There is too much misty eyed revisionism going on here:
Who are the Osmonds "for": if it is for hoary old rockers who would have bitten off their own heads than see or listen to Les Freres Osmond, fine, on your own heads be it. But they weren't, they were for braindead young girls, in the main. Be off with your rose tinted spectacles. Remember who you once were. Have some respect for the "you" of 75-95 or whenever the years were most formative. All this is a very close and dangerous step towards sugesting Sing Something Simple had some merit. A turd may polish up well and be executed with some artistic precision, but admiring its shape, smell or substance doesn't take away the fact that it is still shite.
Enough of all this Gilbert O'Trexsladeosmondsquatro claptrap.
P.S. Roy Woods Wizzard were alwas good.
In one, Retro
You have it in one Retro - with one tiny modification...
(snip)Enough of all this Gilbert O'TrexsladeosmondsquatroABBA claptrap (snip)
Be honest
Mr O'Sullivan's debut album (Himself) is damn-near flawless. The Osmonds were not without merit - Donny's '87 single Soldier Of Love is rather wonderful and Goin' Home by the brothers from '74 was a great single.
Abba...won't have a good word said about them. All of their useless records belong in hell. The Brotherhood of Man were far better.
Can't say I'm much of an Osmonds fan, but
in my experience "hoary old rockers" are far more "braindead" than most young girls. And they have much worse taste in music. I've said it before and I'll say it again: as a general rule the pop music liked by teenage girls is far better than that admired by supposedly tasteful, discerning music-paper-reading older boys who like to think they're a cut above commercial pop music and can easily be sold any old rubbish.
Oh, and Down By The Lazy River rocks.
Thanks for that, Richard.
Another of your well balanced and thoughtful comments, I see, amply demonstrating your understanding and overview of the Word demography and readership. Irony is just dandy but us "Older Boys"/"Hoary Old Rockers" just don't get it, having neither the benefit nor the burden of the gravitas inherent to both you and to most young girls.
I wasn't being ironic
I just think criticising a commercial pop group for being a commercial pop group, and dismissing people who like them as "braindead", is the sort of thing most people grow out of when they're about 18. Even the "Word demography and readership" which you seem to have appointed yourself the spokesman for.
Bollocks.
You can keep your bubblegum and I'll stick to my Bob Downes Open Music LPs on Vertigo, thanks.
"Brain dead young girls"?
People go to different forms of entertainment for different things. I don't think there's evidence the IQ level at an Osmonds concert in 1974 would be any higher or lower than at the Neil Young concert down the road.
Tell you what, Twang,
I'd have loved to have been there, enjoying it for what it was; a band of more than competent musicians and singers having a ball in front of an excited audience of women my own age or slightly younger, rather than sitting in the back room of a dingy pub with Retro talking about Jethro Tull albums.
Go on, admit it, so would you.
Oh, and "Teddy Bear's Picnic" by Uncle Mac was the apogee of cutting edge musicality in the late 1950s.
Honestly I wouldn't
They looked ridiculous then and even worse now. Their rocking makes me cringe and the "romantic" ones even more so. Each to their own of course, which was my response to my amigo. I do have to wonder what next.
BTW - noticed today that Daevid Allen - yes, that one - is playing a tiny music club in Hitchin doing "Early Soft Machine and Gong".....NOW yer talking. He was mad as a box of frogs then - god knows what he's like now!
Better keep your fingers crossed
for an ongoing lack of adverse celestial vibrations, or he'll decide the ides are inauspicious and bugger off at the last minute.
JT albums?!
Keep up, Foxy, can't stand the buggers. Just cos I bought Living in the Past once as a callow youth.....
It would be an entertaining evening nonetheless. In fact, I would even prefer an evening of discussing Supertramp to the Osmonds.
(Fact: Crazy Horses was always crap.)
Crazy Horses
As any fule kno, is a thinly disguised polemic about the dangers of vehicle pollution, far-sightedly predicting Global Warming and its dire consequences long before the Green lobby became trendy and all those bands like ColdPatrol, Radiobottom and what have you jumped on the bandwagon.
The Osmonds should have been engaged to write a theme song for the Kyoto protocols; we'd all be living in a sustainable utopia, in polygamous extended families with perfect dentistry and pristine white suits by now.
Tchoh! The moment's gone, and we are all lost.
Oh c'mon
Cheers for dissing so totally the child I was in the early 70s - I may have been a Donny Osmond fan but that doesn't mean I was braindead - I just liked the tunes, and considering that the alternative was probably something like ELP or King Crimson and not aimed at me, well, I'm 7 years old, I'll take the Osmonds, thanks.
I don't care that I still like the unfashionable songs of my youth, I still love Gary Puckett's Young Girl FFS, but it sits comfortably alongside the 'cred' offerings in my shelves (hello Sigur Ros, Thee More Shallows, King Creosote, Fourtet, Van, Dylan, R Thompson esq., Nick Cave, etc etc). Should I 'know better' now that I'm past 40?
Just because you don't like it, doesn't make it instantly crap...and just because other people like it, doesn't make them braindead or stupid.
It's just pop in the end...
Bad then.
Bad now. Bad always.
Such fun.
I know you weren't being ironic, Richard, but maybe my response was. Or maybe at least a tad tongue in cheek. Actually Em says it so much better than either of us: we are all victims of our childhood ears and they continue to hold us to ransom, irrespective of our later visioning/revisioning. I was mid teens and listening to Salisbury/Uriah Heep when the Osmonds broke thru to my consciousness. Uncertain whose longevity embarasses me more, but I would not give earspace to either now.
Self appointed spokesman? God, I hope not, Groucho Marx and his comments about the sort of club that would accept his membership come to mind, however much I enjoy the banter with all my electronic chums......
Very 'Eavy
Very 'Umble.
Don't dis the Heep. Magician's Birthday still rattles the crockery 'round here from time to time. Mick Box is a God.
Is there no turn unstoned....
...by me without then a faithful fan not rising up to cast me down?
I note a favourable review for their latest waxing, in Unshod, I believe, commenting on Mr Box's sole custodianship of the flame. Whatever happened to Ken Hensley? He seemed a decent enough cove, even if I always confused him with the similarly be-coiffed Vincent Crane, sort of finger in the mains box moptops both.
In truth,
one of the Heep's most endearing qualities was the fact that my mates and I could gaze upon their fizzogs and think, "If those ugly buggers can be a successful band, there's hope for us yet."
Heep were/are great...
...and I'll be stumping up for the new album even if nobody else will! As for Ken Hensley, he quit in 1980- a period which was probably their lowest ebb, lots of infighting and record label problems. Since then he kicked his drug habit and discovered God- he's put out a few solo albums that reflect this. He joined them again for a one-off gig in 2001 or so at the Astoria, though.
As for The Osmonds and their ilk, I could play the 'before my time' card but then most of my record collection originates from the 60s and 70s anyway! But yeah, these pop boy bands are always going to be there and I've never been too bothered about them either way to be honest. There are 'rock' bands that bother me far more!
Talking about drum solos, I defy anyone to sit through the 'How The West Was Won' version of 'Moby Dick'. It's sheer torture! I have a Ginger Baker's Airforce album somewhere too...probably played it once and that's it.
The bit that worried me
was his approval of the Ginger Baker-esque drum solo.
How many copies of the live half of Wheels Of Fire are there with most of the disc worn out yet Toad remains almost pristine?
Helping to bring about the death of the drum solo was perhaps the outstanding contribution of punk to western civilisation. Unfortunately I've been to a couple of gigs in the last year or so where the drum solo is showing signs of resurrection.
While Toad croaks,
I've always had a whale of a time anticipating the guitar re-entry at the close of Moby Dick, which then slides so mellifluously into Bring It On Home.
Never mind the Osmonds
We went to see High School Musical last night and it was bloody brilliant. We took our daughter and i was dreading it ...... here we go,another night of complete tosh. I was wrong - it was funny,moving and greatly entertaining.
Em is on the money too - my colleague at work is a massive Madonna fan and I spent too much time aggressively criticising her as being a performer rather than a singer. This may be the case but what right do I have to rain on someone elses parade just because it doesn't move me?
Posh Spice better than Ray Charles
One of the best gigs I ever saw was The Spice Girls (pre-split), just in terms of sheer, unbridled fun. They worked their socks off, were endlessly self-deprecating, and enormously entertaining. They put on a show - and there's nothing wrong with that.
Compare that, say, to a miserable Ray Charles performance I saw on the South Bank towards the end of his career, and I know which evening I'd rather repeat.
Mainstream pop does a great job of entertaining the mainstream. I don't think there's much to be gained by getting sniffy about it.
Tammy Wynette better than Bowie
Just replace the names in the appropriate places in Fraser's post.
Not...
The Glass Spider tour, surely?
No, it was. . .
Heroes, although to be fair to the Dukester she was also a lot more entertaining than the Eurythmics, Van Morrison, the last time I saw Dylan and the last time I saw Elvis Costello & The Attractions. In fact she was very nearly as good as Mud.
Ah, Tammy. How can you not love a performer whose intersong patter includes references to events in her long career not based on the actual years when they happened but because it was "aroun' the sivinth tahm I had surgery own mah stomick"?
(I saw her at the Festival Hall around 1987. Brilliant show in every respect.)
Yes but
Tammy is a totally cred artist, one of the greatest female country singers of all time. Getting back on piste, she is hardly comparable to the Osmonds. Doesn't surprise me in the slightest that she was better live than Bowie.
Cred here, perhaps
But it's taken me 20 years to even admit that I was at that gig. It's a jungle out there, Twango.
Be proud
Be proud (Slips on "The only way out is to walk over me")
Ah, Mud.
That's the first time I've seen them mentioned here, and it's about time too; they were a fantastic live band. I'm not sure if anyone will get sniffy about a reconsideration of their merits, all I know is they played our Summer Ball (twice, if memory serves) during University days and were excellent value for money.
All together now, "really love, really love your Tiger Feet, uh-huh-huh".
At risk of incurring someone's opprobrium
Mud have been mentioned before. I can't recall if I was supporting someone or they were supporting me, but you get no argument about Mud's live credentials from me Vulpes. We had them at Birmingham University around 1976.
Osmonds or Prog?
Give me The Osmonds any day. Two songs I can remember vividly from the early 70s (I was only 4 or so) are Crazy Horses and Long Haired Lover From Liverpool. I used to sing the latter very loudly at dinner time!
And One Bad Apple - to these ears at least - now sounds like a pretty good piece of blue eyed soul.
Osmonds and Prog!
I'm not a committed fan of either but I can't understand why I'm only allowed to like one of "Crazy Horses" or "And You and I" as opposed to both. Some music I like, some I don't and there's a massive amount in the middle. Labels don't come into it.
Goin' Home and Crazy Horses
...both rock.
My comment...
...When I was 13 or so , the LP sleeve of the album that had " Down By The Lazy River " - showing them all barefoot , sort of illustrating the song ( " Homegrown " , ws the LP's title . ) rather creeped me out !!!!!!!!!
Oh , and for just one more , Donny's follow-up comeback single " Secret Emotion " was nice , as well .
Forgive me
But the second gig i went to was "The Monds" at the Rainbow in Finsbury Park about 1972/3 as i had to take my younger sister (honest thats why i went) As an 10 year old lad i really wished i was anywhere else than amongst a group of young girls literally wetting themselves at the sight of the boy Donny in the flesh. The tickets were supplied by my Uncle who had organised the Rock n Roll beverage of choice for every right thinking Mormon beat combo...Lucosade.It took me another 6 years til i went to my next gig,The Boomtown Rats, which was a slightly different show!!