| Author | Message | ||
     Wilson Davey Member Username: Wilson Post Number: 71 Registered: 05-2005 |
Ok, what track have you rediscovered (say, not heard for over 10 years)and then heard it afresh recently with a "knocked sideways" impact ?? I'll kick off with "party fears two" by The Associates. Absolute pop heaven, first it was goosebumps at the recognition and then, I actually started crying at the bit where Billy's falsetto goes into the stratosphere near the outro. Bloody unbelieveable pop music classic in the genuine, not over used sense. Haven't a clue what its about but WHO CARES. | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 605 Registered: 10-2004 |
Wilson, "Party Fears Two" has been one of my very favorite songs ever since first hearing it eons ago. It is an ingenious and stunningly catchy pop song. I agree, absolute pop heaven, indeed. That soaring, gorgeous melody, the sophisticated chord changes, that gutteral and driving bass, and MacKenzie's melodramatic singing all make it a masterpiece. I love the Associates. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 1272 Registered: 03-2005 |
"Aikea Guinea" by the Cocteau Twins. I had given them a very long rest indeed when I heard this again upon buying a copy of "Lullabies to Violaine" during a phase when they were being heavily discussed on here. Another one: "Vigilance" by Magazine from their unloved fourth album. I hadn't heard that one in well over 10 years. It really belongs in the Magazine canon. It was probably 20 years since I'd heard Michael Nesmith's "Joanne" when I came upon it on YouTube last week which induced me to blow the dust off the CD of his first album. And on a much, much smaller scale: "My Caravan" by the Hoodoo Gurus, of all people. It's the only thing on that particular album ("Blow Your Cool") that doesn't sound like everything else. It's essentially a college rock band doing Siouxsie. | ||
| Duncan Hurwood Member Username: Duncan_h Post Number: 77 Registered: 05-2005 |
I only know "Party Fears Two" from the Divine Comedy cover. It's not my favourite song from them, but maybe the original is better... Does anyone know what it's about..? | ||
| andreas Member Username: Andreas Post Number: 470 Registered: 04-2006 |
strange, randy. listened to the albums and 12" which i still owned last year after they were discussed here often and i had the same impression that aikea guinea is a gem. | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 727 Registered: 08-2006 |
This is gonna sound terribly lame, but I heard "Bell Bottom Blues" the other day while driving and it just took my breath away how much passion Clapton poured into the song. I am NOT a fan of Clapton's later work at all, but I think he dumped everything he had into the "Layla" record, and "Bell Bottom Blues" in particular. It just knocked me upside the head. | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 507 Registered: 09-2006 |
Not lame at all, Rob, just honest. Hopeless love, one of the more powerful forces in pop music, if not life itself. Of course, for Eric it wasn't hopeless...he got what he was screaming for on that album...and then slowly decided that the drugs were more important. I'm not sure if there's any moral there at all...  | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 510 Registered: 09-2006 |
Rob, another factor in your revelation may have been the "haven't heard that song in so long that it's not ossified in time and former association for me anymore, and has become a living thing again" factor. Happens to me pretty frequently. | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 730 Registered: 08-2006 |
That's true, Allen. I own "Layla" but I hardly ever play it, although I've always thought it's quite amazing start to finish. So "Bell Bottom Blues" did sound entirely fresh to me when I heard it on the radio. That part where he says "I don't want to fade away" comes off as so... authentic. The whole song is like reading this totally impassioned, totally anguished love letter. Kind of embarrassing, actually. | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 2079 Registered: 03-2006 |
Did that record win Patti Boyd back? I remember an interview where Clapton said he wrote "Layla" about her. The interviewer asked Clapton how Patti felt about it. Clapton's response: "she didn't give a damn". That is a great record. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 670 Registered: 08-2004 |
I've never heard Bell Bottom Blues & generally avoid Clapton's work, but Rob & Allen you sell it well. I take it Derek & The Dominoes are better than Eric & the heroin. I rediscovered The Associates about 10 years ago. Leafing through a 2nd record shop in Twickenham. They seemed to have all the old 12"ers from 81/82. It was 18 Carat Love Affair/Love Hangover that caught my eye. When I played it, it hit like a tornado. I'd forgotten just how awesome it was. They had to split after that, where else do you go after achieving perfection. | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 731 Registered: 08-2006 |
"Layla" is a damn fine record, Jerry, the best thing Clapton's been involved with bar none, if you ask me (unless you count his work with Delaney & Bonnie). Even the title track, beaten into submission by countless airings on the radio, sounds pretty amazing in context. | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 680 Registered: 01-2005 |
LK, Rob, and Jerry, Eric did finally get back with Patti, but only after he kicked his heroin habit in 1974. During the Layla sessions, there were mounds of coke and heroin right out in the open that Eric, Duane, Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon would indulge in. They played basketball betweens songs to work off the drugs and booze, and then go back and record some more songs. Eric and Patti later married around 1975, had no kids, and divorced after a number of years. The slighly dreadful "Wonderful Tonight" was written for Patti as well. Layla is flat out the greatest album of unrequited love there is. No only the passion of the lyrics, but also the players. I also think it's the greatest guitar studio album of all time. My parents bought it for me on my 18th bithday in January of 1971, a month after it was released. I also have the 20th Aniversary box set, and a SACD of Layla as well. | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 514 Registered: 09-2006 |
LK, as I too-obscurely put it above, the record did eventually win him Patti (George Harrison's philandering ways helped) but then he blew it in the years that followed with drugs and alcohol (documented on the other big song he wrote about her, "Wonderful Tonight," where he praises her for putting up with his worthless ass.) | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 515 Registered: 09-2006 |
Ah, Michael, thanks for the much more detailed history...I was going mostly on memory and Wikipedia... | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 2081 Registered: 03-2006 |
It is a great great record, a classic of the unrequited genre (cue Loudon Wainwright's great song of that name and sing along: "I'm gonna kill myself and then the joke's on you!")... More random observations: 1) Layla should be on that thread about great intros, as it truly possesses an epic one. 2) The beautiful piano coda to the song has been ruined for me by its use in the scene where they're finding all the dead, decomposed bodies of people Robert DeNiro's character killed in "Goodfellas". Still beautiful music, but now when I hear it, "I see dead people". 3) It was written, was it not, by Jim Gordon, who had some sort of psychotic break and went on a murder spree himself. 4) The anguished, unrequited love thing, crawling across the floor, has great dramatic value and makes for compelling songwriting, but I think Leonard Cohen had it right, spoke the real truth of the matter, in the song "I'm Your Man" when he said, "no man ever got a woman back by crawling on his knees"...too bad that record came out after Layla. EC could've benefited from it. 5) "Wonderful Tonight" is a pretty sappy song, but Boy Howdy, in Looziana, at bars and parties, nothing got them out on the dance floor (for a slow dance) like it... | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 615 Registered: 10-2004 |
Going back to Aikea Guinea, the song "Quisquose," from that EP is one of my very favorite Cocteau Twins songs. The entire EP is quite good, but "Quisquose" was a song I first heard when just getting into the Cocteau Twins, and it increased my love for their music significantly. It was a revelation of sorts. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 272 Registered: 04-2005 |
Michael, What is the boxed CD set like of 'Layla'? I still have my original double vinyl, but it is pretty scratchy these days. But maybe in some way that goes with the generally rough sound of this wonderful record; Tom Dowd's policy seemed to be just stick on some more guitar + more guitar: goodness knows how many layers there are on 'Why does love got to be so sad'! I listened to it last night and even allowing for its familiarity the title song can still send shivers up my spine. Mainly due to Duane Allman's slide. I have a Capricorn compilation that features his playing on various others peoples' records and he was something special. 'Loan me a Dime' from Boz Scaggs' first LP is unbelievable. Back on 'Layla', many moons ago when I was playing in a band I got asked to pick my top 5 LPs for a newspaper. That album was in there then (deeply unfashionable in the '80s) and would be still be there today. | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 683 Registered: 01-2005 |
Andrew, By all means, get the box set. When they were remastering Layla for the box set, they found a missing section of track for "Keep On Growing" of a Bobby Whitlock lowd yelp. I was so good that it was inserted back into the song before Eric starts singing the lyrics. It was a great find! The rest of the box set includes a disc of jams, including one with most of the Allman Brothers Band. The third disc is the alternative tracks, which includes numerous takes of Eric and Duane performing "Mean Old World" on acoustic guitars. Also included in the box set is the 16 track sheets for all the songs, so you get to see how many guitar tracks are on each song and who was playing what. For those that don't know, Eric was playing slide guitar on some of the tracks, though not any of the standout ones. |