Kick out the jams and rock the block

[GaryE22 20]

Most of the better bands and musicians these days are on smaller or independent labels, many even start their own record label. They do it for the love of it and to create art.

To me, that's it. There are a lot of bands now I love. But almost all run themselves or are on small labels. They don't get invited to the grammys. And they get by - few become super wealthy. They play small clubs.

I find pop from the sixties, 70s, 80, 90s 00s, and now to be generally pretty bad, with a few exceptions every year. We've discussed before - I don't think 60s music was better than bands now, or bands in the decades that followed. There was an opening for bands and talented people got through and got heard. Bob Dylan or the Kinks did something different, and the industry then supported that. It doesn't happen now. Great songwriters often don't get heard much.

For a very short time, the creative edge was in the centre, and mainstream included some surprising musicians and writers, and not just music business algorithms. If you look at the old hit parade, the Archies and other manufactured bands did very well too. The industry music sold a lot in the 60s. I never once heard Little Feat on the radio, and where I worked, it was rock radio every day. I didn't know that band til I followed the leads in the other thread.

I worked in a factory for $2,25 an hour, and an LP cost $4.99. But shows were far cheaper until it all went corporate.

I think it's pretty normal I'm a musical dinosaur who doesn't get most current pop. I like Bad Bunny, but not many other hitmakers. I'm old and my tastes are from the past century. My Dad thought electric guitars were gimmicks, and that music ended when ww2 did. That's what happens. We all love the music of our youth because it was part of the fun of being young. It doesn't make it better.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford61 176]

Again I'm lucky to have grown up in Chicago and I was able to listen to 93.1 WXRT. Their format hasn't changed, and many of the DR'S from my teen and young adult years are still there. I listen to them on the internet now.
I just took a couple of screen shots from the songs played in the last few hours. Look at the variety of artists. You never know what you'll hear, including one William Shatner apparently.

 

[fishorama55]

My husband is, or was, a guitar & bass player & a big Hendrix fan. We both liked Monte Mongomery's Little Wing. He started by saying "that sounds like a Martin guitar" to "I might like this better than Jimi's". Both are high praise indeed & I didn't have to play "name that guitar" for acoustics, lol. We also liked the 1st Urge song for at least half, it got a bit repetitive. Punk made us have short song attention spans.

Blue Oyster Cult is a long time fav we've seen many times, I may have said. Some early stuff is what I'd call metal (as opposed to "nu metal", a term I didn't know before Cass told me). Often more straight rock with a few pop songs & dirge-y 1s., they're much more than "Don't Fear the Reaper". We sang "Pretty Girls" to our lovebirds, we all loved its pop lyrics! Sometimes angry music fits the mood like Godsmack & Limp Bizket but not often.

We're often stuck in the 60s-80s for our happy tunes. Motown, rock, pop, punk, ska...& Bugs Bunny for opera & jazz. Music is memories!! Let the good times roll as the Cars sang.

 

[GaryE22 20]

Music can work like smell - it can drop into another time at a gut level.
When I was a kid, my grandfather rented a cabin in Vermont across the road from a lakeside roller skating rink. One Saturday night there was a wild party because a few local teenagers were being sent to Vietnam, and this was their send off party. It was a sad thing for an 11 year old from a peaceful country to watch, and I remember really feeling for these obviously upset guys as everyone their age for miles around got completely blotto. Gary Puckett and the Union Gap - if for any reason I hear them, I'm that kid watching that sad party again. Janis Joplin. Otis Redding. The set list that evening is set in my mind. Even as a kid, I was a people watcher, I guess.
Put on the first Clash album and I remember a light bulb going off as those guys were playing in a way that I had never heard. The energy. It drops me back to 18.
Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town album is working in a steel factory on the evening shift. Sometimes I can smell steel when it plays.
And then it gets hazier. Sure there are songs that remind me of loves and moments, but the ones that are the most powerfully connected seem to have been before the age of 20. A lot of songs and artists remind me of periods in my past, but the ones that put me there in my mind were from that early period. For me, that says why we can get fixated on one period of music, because something in our minds works with that. I know the songs that mean the most to me are things I can't communicate why. I'll never get sixties music because I wasn't of music age when it was happening. I hear it with no emotional context. Sixties people hear my late seventies punk with no context or connection to their lives. Kids now who love listening to music are connecting their lives to k-pop or alternative bands, or video game soundtracks. They're falling in love with different people at a different time!

Those Chicago playlists are quality.

 

[TwoTankAmin52]

Going through Rusty;s list I recognized all of 10 names. Of those I listen to about 1/2 and the others I know because I did not like their music all that much.

Little Feat was started because Frank Zappa booted Lowell George him from the Mothers band.

Music critics and fans view the original lineup of Little Feat as a brilliant, genre-bending powerhouse and the ultimate "musicians' band" of the 1970s.

I was never a fan of Zappa.

This is my idea of really good music.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford61 176]

Yeah Zappa is a bit out there even for me. I appreciate the experimentation he brought, but he's just plain weird.
I do love a good singer songwriter, and today I present one of the best, a legend. John Hiatt.
Hiatt's songs have been covered by many many artists including Eric Clapton & B.B. King, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Buddy Guy, Emmylou Harris, Joe Cocker, Three Dog Night, Iggy Pop, Jewel, Chaka Kahn, Linda Rondstat, Jeff Healey, and Rosanne Cash.
Hiatt grew up in rural Indiana and his Midwestern sensibilities are reflected in his songwriting with many songs written about family and friends. But you also may chuckle here and there as Hiatt infuses some humor in many songs. Like any outstanding songwriter Hiatt has a way with words. He can paint a picture and tell a story like few artists can.

His breakthrough came on his album Bring The Family where he assembled a backing band of his buddies. His band was comprised of Ry Cooder on guitar, Nick Lowe on bass, and Jim Keltner on drums. @TwoTankAmin those are some of your favorite guys. That foursome also later formed the supergroup Little Village. Check out their song about bald headed guys called Solar S*x Panel.
Ok let's get to the tunes.







Hiatt wrote a direct response to Nirvana after seeing them smash up their gear.



This one's for my bros. It's got a good dose of humor.


Now go find you some John Hiatt and crank it up to 11.
The hardest part of this post was posting only 5 songs, I could have easily done 10 and just scratch the surface.

 

[GaryE22 20]

I'm a fan of John Hiatt's songwriting. I saw him a couple of times, and the shows were decent.

Zappa? He seemed like a self indulgent jerk. I saw him too, and it was a long long evening full of guitar solos with no bite or direction. A "look at me, I'm brilliant" guy.

 

[TwoTankAmin52]

Hiatt et al are talented but he is too down tempo for me. I tried checking out more of his tunes but heard nothing that got me going. I did recognize Keltner's work but not Lowes. And I am a big fan of Ry but his earlier years than with the very short lived Little village. I have decide for this coming weekend's musical treat to post Ry Cooder And The Moula Banda Rhythm Aces – Santa Cruz '87 - Video restored [Best version online]. Ry was unhappy with the show and would not allow it to be released in the states. But it was in Europe. I managed to get a decent copy on a CD. Ry may have been unhappy with the show, but I think it was excellent. I tend to be mostly into uptempo stuff.

Here is the more modern Ry performing Prodigal Son for his 2018 album of the same name.




Here is what most folks do not get about the music from the back half of the 60s and some of the 70s. All radio used to be AM and what got played there was Payola based. FM broke that. And now it is back.

Payola is the illegal or undisclosed practice of paying a radio station, streaming platform, or influencer to promote and play a specific song while pretending the exposure is organic. [1, 2, 3]

What is Payola?

• • Definition: Secretly exchanging money, gifts, or services for airplay or playlist placement without telling the audience it is a paid advertisement.
  • The Problem: It tricks listeners into thinking a song is popular because of public demand rather than corporate spending.
  • Origin: The term combines "pay" and "Victrola" (a popular record player), coined by the magazine Variety in 1938. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

History and the Radio Scandals

• • The 1950s/1960s Boom: Record labels bribed powerful radio disc jockeys—most famously Alan Freed—with cash, gifts, and vacations to play specific tracks. [1, 2, 3]
  • Government Crackdown: Congress held major hearings in 1960, leading to strict amendments to the Communications Act of 1934 making undisclosed payola illegal under Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules. [1, 2]

Modern Streaming Payola

• • Shift to Digital: As analog radio lost listeners, payola moved to digital platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, TikTok, and YouTube. [1, 2]
  • Playlists and Influencers: Labels or independent promoters now pay curators, playlist owners, and social media influencers to feature tracks. [1, 2]
  • Regulatory Gray Area: Because online streaming platforms do not fall under traditional FCC broadcast rules, federal enforcement is much harder, though general advertising disclosure laws still apply.

The 1960s changed it all. Once FM stations started to sprout, the establishment did not see any value in them and did not try to influence them. So, great music got played where people could tune into it. Live music was everywhere and a lot of what you all call local bands got their shot. Some of the best music was coming for black groups who never got played on AM. The best that would happen is some white star or bands would do a lesser quality version and that got played on AM.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford61 176]

Sorry man but you're out of touch. Only old folks, myself included, listen to the radio. Radio is nostalgic at this point. The vast majority of music is consumed by streaming music on sites like Spotify or Apple Music.
I may hear an artist on the radio and gain interest in them, then I go to Spotify where I can hear any and all of their songs at my command any time day or night.

 

[TwoTankAmin52]

@Rusty_Shackleford

I apologize, I was wrong I just found this. I really do love slide/bottleneck guitar.




BTW, the only time I was in the audience of a television show was a 1965 or 66 recording of The Tonight Show with Johhny Carson. Even though ot was boradacast late at night, it was filed in the late afternoon.

 

[GaryE22 20]

I have a hard time with spotify because I'm more of a mix listener than an album person. But I'm too eclectic for the algorithm. I do like some "big" Sixties songs but if I play one, it goes right over to the era and drives me nuts. It can't seem to jump times or regions. I expect it reads my age and wants me to prefer what I'm expected to.

So I tend to buy downloads and make my own mixes. I'm happiest when a punk song feeds to folk ,feeds to R&B, then ska, then swing, then highlife, then Afro hip hop, then punk, then... and on we go. I like to be jarred by music when I'm driving. I listen on a lousy system in my fishroom, and a lot in the car.

I haven't listened to radio in 25 years. I tend to read reviews and then sample for new sounds. It means I miss a lot but I catch some gems.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford61 176]

I have a hard time with spotify because I'm more of a mix listener than an album person. But I'm too eclectic for the algorithm. I do like some "big" Sixties songs but if I play one, it goes right over to the era and drives me nuts. It can't seem to jump times or regions. I expect it reads my age and wants me to prefer what I'm expected to.

So I tend to buy downloads and make my own mixes. I'm happiest when a punk song feeds to folk ,feeds to R&B, then ska, then swing, then highlife, then Afro hip hop, then punk, then... and on we go. I like to be jarred by music when I'm driving. I listen on a lousy system in my fishroom, and a lot in the car.

I haven't listened to radio in 25 years. I tend to read reviews and then sample for new sounds. It means I miss a lot but I catch some gems.

I will sometimes listen to the Spotify curated lists. Sometimes there are some songs I'm interested in so then I can go back later and check out other songs by that artist. Most of the time I'm hitting the skip button though.
It has given me some gems though. Like a Toots and the Maytals reggae cover of Country Roads, but they changed the lyrics from West Virginia to West Jamaica.

I mostly create Playlist based on genres or my mood. I have one Playlist that has 121 hours of songs. That's the Playlist I used to take to the pool when I lived in Alabama. We had a nice group of neighbors that all lived in the same apartment complex and we would all meet at the pool, enjoy some cold beverages and hang out and listen to music on my Bluetooth speaker while in the pool. It was a good time. The complex hadba couple of gas grills by the pool and we would cook and everyone would bring something and we would have a great day. One time we even roasted a pig in a plywood box.

 

[TwoTankAmin52]

Not registered on Google or Spot a fly.......

 

[fishorama55]

Geez, we liked several Hiatt songs, 1st & 4th, etc. TwoTank that might be my fav Ry Cooder song you posted, also Little Village (& we've shared music for a long time ) I did have to dance a bit to all.

 

[TwoTankAmin52]

What I really like about the internet and youtube is the music I find. The version I posted above by Lowell George was his. But,

Lowell George did not write "Easy Money." He famously recorded a cover of the song, which was written by Rickie Lee Jones. George included his version of the track on his 1979 debut solo album, Thanks, I'll Eat It Here

Before either of them released it, the late Little Feat frontman saw Jones perform the song live in a Los Angeles club. He loved it so much that he asked for her permission to record it, using his industry influence to help mentor her and secure her own record deal with Warner Bros. Records.

Here is Rickie's version: