So, as I mentioned in comments the other day, I’m thinking it would be fun to do a music roundtable here at HU. I haven’t been exactly sure what topic to have us round upon, though, so I thought I’d throw out a few ideas and see if anyone liked them, and/or had ideas of their own.
So here are some possibilities:
— we could do a roundtable in which everyone writes about their favorite album. The advantage is that it makes participation easy. Disadvantage is that it’ll be fairly diffuse…and maybe just too conventional.
— we could try to pick a particular band or group or something to focus on. Steely Dan? The Beatles? Problem is that it might be hard to find something a quorum wants to write about…and also could seem somewhat random.
— we could pick a year and have everyone write about music from that year. I kind of like this idea. It would give enough range that lots of people could participate, but maybe enough focus that there’s be something to talk about. We’d have to figure out what year to talk about, obviously (I’m thinking about 1991 or 1992 for some reason…but obviously other suggestions would be welcome.)
— we could write about a genre…I’d kind of love to do a metal roundtable, but I don’t know that anyone else would (except Bert, of course….and actually I do know a couple of other people…hmmm. Maybe a small roundtable on metal would be fun….)
— Brian Cremins suggested everybody writing on their favorite album from when they were 10 (I think?) I’m a little leery of that I guess because I feel like I don’t necessarily want to determine that all the responses would be personal beforehand…though I guess if there’s a huge enthusiasm for it maybe I could go along.
Sooo…let me know if any of those sound appealing, of if you’ve got other ideas.
I vote for Steely Dan.
1992! I would participate in that.
What would you write about for 1992 Derik?
1792.
1992… Either “It’s a Shame About Ray” or maybe “Dirty”. But more likely the former.
Hell, I’m going to go listen to It’s A Shame About Ray right now!
Picking a year might be interesting. I’ll have to see what was released in ’92 if that is the one you go with. That would have been my sophomore year of college, so I was probably listening to a lot of The Sundays, Ride, and My Bloody Valentine…and The Byrds and Hendrix, but I’m always listening to the Byrds and Hendrix.
I’d also be up for a metal roundtable, but I don’t know how many people would be interested in contributing to it or reading it! (I’d probably go with something on Napalm Death, Celtic Frost, or Fates Warning if there’s a metal roundtable).
What about a roundtable on one song and its covers, or 2 versions of a song, whether it be a song and its cover, two incarnations by the same singer, etc?
I don’t have a favorite year, but I’m a big fan of guitar rock from about 1968-1988.
I’m also a huge fan of album covers from the late 1960s through the 1970s.
Huh…the covers idea is pretty interesting….
I’m often pleasantly surprised when my music interests unexpectedly line up with my comics/visual art interests (e.g. noted reggae producer and dub pioneer Lee Perry’s sleeve and label art frequently refers to comics).
For that reason I like Russ’ suggestion about album cover art. It would fit nicely with the interests of some of the regulars who aren’t necessarily music geeks per se.
I second (or third, etc.) the album art idea. Roger Dean! Pushead!
The idea on different versions of the same song is really interesting, but the album cover idea is also very promising–and sounds like it could be a lot of fun!
Actually, I have an album by Randy California from Spirit already in mind for something like that…
“I’m often pleasantly surprised when my music interests unexpectedly line up with my comics/visual art interests”
There was an interview with underground hiphop superstar Aesop Rock where he talked about how much he wanted to work with Chris Ware in any kind of collaboration. It would never, ever happen — you’d see Ware designing clothes for Ed Hardy before you’d see him having anything to do with hiphop — but wow.
Interesting! I’d certainly have loved to see/hear that!
Also, given Chris Ware’s interest in sheet music, I was slightly surprised that he didn’t get roped into Beck’s SONG READER project.
(SONG READER, Beck’s latest “album” exists only as a set of sheet music, there is no actual album and he has not recorded his own versions of these songs.)
I think I want to do a music geek one…but the album art sounds pretty fun too….maybe something to think about for later….
Yo if you do Steely Dan I will not visit for a solid month in protest.
We could do 1993, because that would be great and I could do Souls of Mischief. Also I could write about metal, if you were looking to do that (I’m writing about Dillinger Escape Plan for my blog right now).
But I’d prefer something that’s out of the whole overanalyzed and overfetishized old (white) guitar rock genre?
Lots of metal in 1991 and 1992.
Steely Dan is awesome, damn it.
What about a music roundtable where the entries have to link to comics in some way? And I’m not just suggesting that because I could write pt. 2 of my Phonogram essay and have it link to the roundtable, ahaha. I think there actually are a lot of links between the two, especially for fans of both who are interpreting the connection loosely. And then you get the fun of drawing outlanding connections.
Like, I would actually probably write about NANA and how Nana O. and Ren are “inspired by” Justine from Elastica and Damon Albarn from Blur… or actually I could write about that Japanese BL manga that’s TOTALLY about the Libertines…
Even if it’s just that your favorite comic artist recommended a band you liked, or your favorite band has a member who is a comic artist, or one of the members is a SF fan, or the band is associated with an arts scene or one of the members dated an artist, or something personal like you were listening to this album when you were reading these comics… half the fun would be trying to stretch the connection.
If the subject is 1992, I’ll probably have to pass. Although I could write about Blur’s Leisure and how Damon Albarn invented Coldplay Piano (“much like Sauron, the rise of his dark reign has been long overlooked” – my friend Sabina), I guess.
That’s a pretty fantastic suggestion, subdee. Would give people a chance to write about cover art too if they wanted…
What do other folks think? Sound like a plan?
Though of course the downside is that I really don’t know what I’d write about….
You mean, like, it was the Frazetta album covers that originally turned me on to Molly Hatchet?
Music and comics would be a fun topic/focus. Lots of possibilities…Chynna Clugston’s Blue Monday, Dave Gibbons’ The Originals, Love and Rockets, sections of Lutes’s Berlin, even the old issues of Captain Marvel where Rick Jones tries to make it as a folk singer in the Village, and, of course, Dazzler. Then there’s always cartoonists who are also musicians–Archer Prewitt, Tim Truman, Crumb, and (of course) C.C. Beck, just to name a few. And let’s not forget that Mike Baron & Steve Rude’s Nexus and Truman’s Scout came with flexidisc soundtracks back in the day…so lots of fun possibilities, not to mention that Frazetta album cover!
And there’s always Billy and the Boinger’s…
Forgot to mention John Porcellino and Sarah Becan in that list of musician/cartoonists whose work sometimes reflects their musical influences. There seems to be something about Chicago and the music/comics intersection!
Ha! I forgot about the Billy & the Boingers flexidisc. That was great. I have that around here somewhere. I should play it in my office as I grade papers.
Tori Amos and Neil is the obvious choice for comics-music, I think. Fits ’92 as well.
I think it would be fun to see what other people’s favorite albums of all time were, at some point, or see what particularly important (to them) album they’d write about. My own favorites are pretty boring I’m guessing–Closing Time, Veedon Fleece, Spy Boy. Nothing music critics probably haven’t heard, but I can listen to them forever. I do adore some weird Japanese guitarists, mostly sent to me by a dear friend, and I have an unholy fondness for Southern and blue collar rock (yes! I like Bob Seger). I remain unrepentant about my Seger selections ever since I read Noah’s own Billy Joel years.
Just weighing in as a reader – subdee’s idea: it is awesome. I would read that roundtable.
I could probably find some comics/music connection. There are a number of comic artist/musicians out there too like Brian Chippendale or C.F.
Okay…I think comics-music is what we’re gonna do, at least for the first one.
It sounds like we have buy in from:
Subdee
Derik
Brian C.
Bert
Russ (?)
If I’ve missed anyone or if you want to be on the list, let me know…I’ll start organizing it sometime in the not too distant future…
Gary Panter also recorded an album in the 80s (not talking about the flexi-disc that came with Invasion of the Elvis Zombies, though there’s another comic-music connection), Pray for Smurph.
Actually, the very first album I ever bought was comic book related, and boy, was I ever disappointed! It was titled “Comic Book Heroes,” and the musicians were listed as “The Capes and Masks.” It was the cover that hooked me, and I don’t know what I expected, but the all-instrumental tracks were a huge letdown.
Doing some quick research, apparently the music was actually done by long-time jazz composer and musician Shorty Rogers, so now I’m curious to hear it again after all of these years.
I bought the album in the late 1960s at the National Food Store that used to be on the southeast corner of Laramie and Chicago Avenues in Chicago. It’s the same store where I later bought a copy of magazine-sized “The Spectacular Spider-Man” #1 (1968), and an issue of “Creem” with a feature story about the Marvel Comics crew and offices. Why I remember this stuff all these years later I’ll never know. I guess they were all “significant emotional events.”
Sounds fun. I’m in.
And, even though I’m originally from the Northeast–which I guess means I should be more of a Springsteen fanatic?–I also want to express my affection for Bob Seger. “Night Moves” never fails to move me when I hear it. And “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man”? As rockin’ as anything by The Stooges or Rocket from the Tombs. I enjoyed his recent album, Face the Promise, too.
Not to start a fight or anything…but Bob Seger is really dreadful.
Not necessarily worse than Billy Joel, but not good.
Not one vote for the late 1600s? Even the early 1700s? You know, they had a Biber back then also …
@Mahendra – “François Couperin and the history of drone music”. I am so there!
@Russ – did you ever hear “The Marvel World of Icarus” album? Hard rock band with a flute singing songs about the Marvel superheroes. Not nearly as interesting as it sounds.
But the best superhero cash-in record of all has to be the Batman theme as performed by Al Kooper and members of the Sun Ra Arkestra. It is truly a thing of beauty and you can hear it here:
http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/2006/02/bat/01_-_Sun_Ra_and_the_Blues_Project_-_Batman_Theme.mp3
More details and tracks here:
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/02/sun_ra_and_the_.html
Dick Dale did a good Batman theme song version too, if I remember right….
Are you sure you’re not thinking of the Kooper/Ra version? That was released under the title “The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale”, which could lead to some understandable confusion. A quick Googling of the relevant search terms doesn’t yield anything on a DD Batman cover, though I could be mistaken.
yeah; it’s Dick Dale. Or at least, it’s on a Dick Dale CD I’ve got if I’m remembering right. I’ll try to find it later today maybe….
Daniel — Thanks for the link. I was just listening to Kooper’s second album, “You Never Know Who Your Friends Are,” just a couple of weeks ago!
Daniel — Never heard of the “The Marvel World of Icarus” album. Sounds esoteric.
superhero music? … you must be talking Wagner … Hank Wagner and his Sons of the Luftwaffe … rock on with his “journey to the center of the gotterdamerung”, “innagada-Brunnhilde” and of course, “smells like teen liebestod”
I had a philosophy professor in art school who loved to reference “Night Moves”, which was super confusing to me, cause I didn’t know the song.
Recently purchased the Prince Batman soundtrack. Maybe not the best buy…but it’s Prince. “The town needs an enema.”
R.E.M. did a funny cover of the Batman theme as well…called “Winged Mammal Theme”–It was on some collection of rarities and b-sides.
Like I said, Noah, it’s definitely an unholy fondness. Seger is terrible, but I love him anyway. ‘Roll Me Away’ is beautiful. Cliched, dreadful, but beautiful. I should maybe explain that around here, we have several classic rock stations but not one adult alterna or classical station. We don’t even have oldies anymore. I was raised on classic rock, so it’s probably a largely Pavlovian reaction–windows down, fast car, sunny Sunday = Seger.
Derek, that is hilarious.
I only have a few Seger songs on my playlist. Of those, I guess my favorites are “Feel Like a Number” and “Shakedown.”
mahendra — Wagner? Sure. “Ride of the Valkyries” is a no-brainer. That reminds me. I’ll never forget when I saw “Doc Savage: Man of Bronze” in the theater in 1975, and during one particular scene where Savage beats the shit out of some bad guys, the background music was John Philip Sousa’s “The Thunderer.” I was so embarrassed after that film was over I practically crawled under my seat.
Sousa is even better for American comix soundtracks … less umlauts, more apple-piey … homegrown bombast is always more authentic
gosh, Doc Savage
There’s also the parody of the 60s Batman theme that climaxes Sick Man, supposedly about Nick Cave.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m3SSvM_Vds
1983 was a good year for metal.
and the Austrian garage band BATMAN & ROBIN do a fine song called “Who The Fuck Is Superman?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fei6FnhnB5k
I’m in Noah!