Thread: NRBQ. Danny Gatton. Yo La Tengo..

Originally Posted by lingcod

I'm pretty sure I was the only kid in Montana in 1978 who really, really dug NRBQ, or who even knew who they were..

I knew some Deer Logicians and Mazzolians who would debate that hotly, especially for the Carl Perkins era and the early 70s.

I first saw them in '78, so the Carl Perkins era was basically over but I must have listened to those records a thousand times.Distictly NRBQ and vintage Carl Perkins, good stuff.



All that old vinyl went up in flames in a house fire back in '85, damn shame.

For some reason I always associate NRBQ with Commander Cody. While NRBQ was way more accomplished technically (who the fuck knew who Sun Ra was that played this style?), that bar boogie style was something of the period.

Well they are sort of related. Bill Kirchen was in Commander Cody's band from way back, and he played with NRBQ a number of times, and they played dates together. Kirchen plays the Birchmere in Alexandria VA with some frequency still, I saw him most recently about a year ago. He is awesome, see him if you can.

Well, there you go. Anyway, that was a time for me in the mid 70s and Montana bar bands who played that style of boogie.

Originally Posted by Buster Highmen

Well, there you go. Anyway, that was a time for me in the mid 70s and Montana bar bands who played that style of boogie.

Big Sky Mudflaps?

Originally Posted by Meadow Skipper

Big Sky Mudflaps?

Yup. I remember the day of the crash too sitting in a shack up Missoula Ave along Rattlesnake under Mt. Jumbo.

Yeah that's Bill on the tele on that recording. Pretty iconic, eh?

dang, audio's not good.

Bill's gonna be playing in your kinda general area on this coming Monday Night in Port Townsend. Looks like it would be quite a drive but it would be fun: http://billkirchen.com/fr_home.cfm

Classic:


Likelihood of me going out to Port Townsend is pretty small. Life is busy. I don't even get into Seattle much.

This is worth it for the ad:

Originally Posted by Buster Highmen

Yup. I remember the day of the crash too sitting in a shack up Missoula Ave along Rattlesnake under Mt. Jumbo.

Huh, no shit? An old friend lived in a shack on Lee St. along the Rattlesnake near Broadway in the mid 70s. He turned me on to the BSMs. The shack's gone now - condos.

Damn, Bill Kirchen w/ Hot Tuna (electric) in Ohio in November. Sold out and too far away but damn.

Originally Posted by Meadow Skipper

Huh, no shit? An old friend lived in a shack on Lee St. along the Rattlesnake near Broadway in the mid 70s. He turned me on to the BSMs. The shack's gone now - condos.

Know Doc Halsell or Sara McCalman? Tom Wells? Boris? The days when the Adult Toy Store had a rolling paper dispenser.

Originally Posted by iceman

Damn, Bill Kirchen w/ Hot Tuna (electric) in Ohio in November. Sold out and too far away but damn.

Now that would be awesome. I respect your Gatton admiration, but Jorma is a hell of a player too. Honestly it's dumb to quibble about who's better technically since it becomes a matter of taste. Same with skiing to some extent.

Oh I love Jorma. I've already got tickets to see him in the fall when he's coming around. I pimp Danny because most people never heard of him but there are quite a few guitarists I hold on pretty much a similar plane. Hell, Bill Kirchen is a monster, puts on such a great show.

For years nobody knew who Alan Holdsworth was. Now he's getting the recognition he deserves, recognition Gatton never got. Now that T is 10, maybe L and I can start going out again...it's been wonderful but I could use more adult time and see some friends more.

Originally Posted by Buster Highmen

Know Doc Halsell or Sara McCalman? Tom Wells? Boris? The days when the Adult Toy Store had a rolling paper dispenser.

I don't know - I'm terrible with names and that was a while ago. Maybe, if they happened to drink at the Eastgate or Top Hat.

Originally Posted by Meadow Skipper

I don't know - I'm terrible with names and that was a while ago. Maybe, if they happened to drink at the Eastgate or Top Hat.

Doc played at the Top Hat some, but they didn't hang out there much. Penny Cofrin did.

Originally Posted by Buster Highmen

Now that T is 10...

Damn. Time flies when you're having fun I hear, so I must be having fun. Man he was just a little guy and you were still at the old place, it seems like just...

Joey's gonna be a HS Senior in the fall...you never met my daughter B. I don't think, but she's going to college in the fall (Wisconsin). Here's hoping modern medical science gets a move on, I'm not ready for The Big Sleep yet! Hell I'm just getting started. Full funding for Geriatric Research now!!!!!



RIP TOMMY!!!

goddam this was 2009, fuck death in it's stupid ass.

Terry on drums, YO TERRY!!

DTBFNR:



...no reason except I love them...

They're funny too, I like that.

"YOU ARE GOING TO ROCK SCHOOL!!!"

Great video, the Q at their height:



pure joy, to me.

I think the first ~2:30 or so may be my favorite piece of music ever. It's just so right. Just listen...

Originally Posted by Buster Highmen

Classic:


Likelihood of me going out to Port Townsend is pretty small. Life is busy. I don't even get into Seattle much.

This is worth it for the ad:

Well, now, the Commander and his Airmen, those guys came to Montana a lot: some shitty rodeo-grounds between Billings and Roundup (where headliner Jerry Jeff Walker came on so shit-faced that he literally dropped his guitar on the stage, then bent over to pick it up showing us high-schoolers a nice, hairy 6 inch ass-crack; my first exposure to musical un-professionalism), and Bozeman a bunch of times. This CC reference too made me smile as my sweet old Dad always loved the saddest / drinking-est / killing / divorce country songs from George Jones and Willie Nelson and the like. I loved those too. When I played him "Down to seeds and stems again blues" one day, he loved it so much that he became an instant CC fan, and I had to record 8 tracks and cassettes for him to listen to. When I told the old ex-Marine what the "seeds and stems" reference meant, he loved it even more. Damn. And since you're talking about Montana stuff, how about Live Wire Choir? Also, when you talk about a crash in Missoula, I was thinking of Mission Mountain Wood Band dying in that 4th of July-ish crash into Flathead Lake or thereabouts around 1982 or 1983? While I wasn't a fan of Big Sky Mudflaps, I remember seeing them around, but don't remember anything about a crash.

Originally Posted by Steven S. Dallas

Favorite YLT album, Ice? Fakebook doesn't count.

How come Fakebook don't count?


And while I ain't Ice, my favorite YLT album, hands down/bar none, is Painful. That album, from start to finish is brilliant. The fact that they bookend it with two different versions of the same song, "Big Day Coming" (or perhaps it's the same song just broken up and continued), makes it feel like the album never truly ends, but rather is an ongoing cycle that just repeats itself into infinity. IMHO, Painful is the album that expertly captures their fine-tuned balance between ear-splitting dissonance and sugary pop aural confectionary. I have the cassette permanently stashed in my truck; it's easily one of my all-time Top 10 favorite albums that resonates on a warm, sunny day just as much as it does on a cold and dreary, snow or rain socked day. Very few albums have that kind of emotional range.