Posts by Backdrifter

  • New to me - "new" bands and music

    Quote from MoonlitKnight

    This one’s in the “new to me category.” Never heard Shuggie Otis until recently. It’s hard to believe he was a teenager when he started writing and recording songs like this. Of course I’d heard the more famous remake but his original version blows it out of the water.

    He did a couple of albums in the early 70s that are considered cult classics now, Freedom Flight which SL23 is from, and Inspiration Information which I think features one of the earliest uses of a drum machine. I too was a latecomer to his work, around 20 years ago. I agree his original is the best.

  • Seinfeld

    In The Good Samaritan, the jealous husband's warnings to Elaine - "Tell your friend George I'm gonna sew his ass to his face. I'm gonna twist his head round so hard his lips'll be his eyebrows!"

  • Seinfeld

    George and Jerry arguing over favourite explorers, George is dismissive about Jerry liking Magellan because he travelled the world.


    JERRY: Well who do you like?

    GEORGE: De Soto

    JERRY: De Soto? What did he do?

    GEORGE: Discovered the Mississippi.

    JERRY: Oh yeah right, like they wouldn't have found that anyway.

  • Your favorite tracks on ... "Abacab"

    Quote from MoonlitKnight

    Ah, Whodunnit. I remember being with my girlfriend at the time in a diner in Northern Virginia. Whodunnit was on the jukebox and we played it just to try to get a “WTF is that?”type of reaction out of the other people in the restaurant. As I recall everyone just went right on eating—no reply at all. Whodunnit was far from my favorite song on Abacab but I did appreciate its quirkiness and I actually ended up enjoying it live, with Phil wearing his weird mask and Mike on drums.

    I thought all the mask and goggles tomfoolery was pretty lame but I did like seeing the switched-around set-up especially the oddness of Banks centre-stage which for me was actually more odd than MR on drums.


    I agree with your assessment of the track. I don't think it's the atrocity many seem to regard it as - given the choice I'll listen to it over, say, Scenes From A Night's Dream every day of the week. And several other clunkers as well, come to think of it. I recall Banks saying they consciously created something they knew would likely piss some fans off. Job done I'd say. In that sense maybe Witchwood is on to something about alienating certain fans! Doesn't change the immutable fact that if you go to a gig and boo the band's new stuff you are a dim-witted twat. That's a truth that cannot be argued with.


    I like the big warp of noise at the start of Who Dunnit. I wish they'd done more oddball stuff like that.

  • Rank the albums!

    Big boost for NC there, which bar the odd exception was doing quite badly. Doesn't seem to be much love for it on this board, which surprises me.

  • Your favorite tracks on ... "Abacab"

    Yes, it would've been surprising if Genesis were the only band who didn't want to keep treading the same path. People age, they change, and members of these bands were now in or approaching their 30s which is a time when many experience various kinds of life changes which will inevitably lead to creative people creating differently. Changes in music technology will also have driven some changes of sound. And perhaps some bands really did make concerted efforts to sound more 'current'. It's all in the mix and to be expected.


    All the above variously apply to fans as well. Some of them will have just stopped liking those bands anyway but yeah there were some who objected to the new stuff. "Alienating their traditional fan base" is a slightly dramatic way of putting it though.


    A different kind of example as it involves a long hiatus but another that could go on your list is King Crimson, returning after 7 years with a sound bearing almost no resemblance to their 70s stuff and in my view, going on to the peak of their career.

  • Your favorite tracks on ... "Abacab"

    Abacab is in my top 3 as well but while I like it a lot, I do understand why many hated it then and still dislike it now. It was a significant change in their sound that many prog fans were inevitably going to be unhappy about and so it proved. Obviously I don't share those views but I totally get why some people have them.


    It's an opinion that's possibly exacerbated by knowing the band junked a load of new material because they realised it was sounding a lot like the last two or three albums. The Abacab haters might well wish they'd have stuck with that material and wouldn't have minded another album in a familiar mould. The band's decision to start afresh was bold and indicative of a self-respecting forward-looking band unwilling to get stuck in the past, and is for me one of many reasons I love Genesis.


    I completely disagree with this idea Abacab resulted from their sitting down and consciously deciding to capitalise on PC's solo success and/or "we'd better sound more modern and new-wavey". Both are silly notions. They didn't want to repeat themselves, simple as that and absolutely right too.

  • Tony Banks solo work?

    Quote from Henry Hamilton-Smythe

    I love Another Murder of a Day.


    Not sure which song you're referring to when you say "People who like this one probably also like One Man's Fool a lot". By "this one", do you mean Island in the Darkness or Another Murder of a Day?


    FWIW, I don't care much for One Man's Fool, either. I don't dislike it, it's just kind of 'meh'

    I don't mind Fool, it's not great but okayish, but like you, don't see any link with Island.