Name that tune!

[fishorama]

My husband & I sometimes play a game while I'm cooking. He tries to stump me with either a song title or band name. Today I was on fire!! I guessed 1 correctly with no notes at all, lol. I got all but 1 right even though I could sing along. I guessed X but it was Missing Persons, so close!!

OK, after almost 49 years of married life, it's not as hard as it would be for others. Some are pop/rock favs, some more obscure & some are predictable.

Does anyone else play this? I don't think either of us could guess more modern songs or 1s too far off our usual playlists. Still good stuff to cook to & often to dance to ...or maybe just lame old people fun!

 

[GaryE]

My brain could have chosen to focus on many useful things, but no. It chose instant song recognition and fish stuff. I could wander way way west and join that game.
I'm just getting to know California punk. X is a new exploration to me. I can pick up most obscure British, French or Canadian punk from the late seventies to mid eighties, but American bands are a weak spot. MIssing Persons? They will be sampled!
I only have to hear a song once to be familiar with it, and now, my brain can often predict where new songs are going to go. I don't listen to pop as it slides right by like elevator tunes, but I'm an old guy. It has no context to me.
I recently found a recording by an obscure Boston garage band of the eighties. I'd had it on tape and hadn't heard it since maybe 1990, and I might have listened to it a dozen times back then. As I played it recently, I knew every song, every break, and even lyrics.
There's a downside - I get bored with music quickly and constantly seek new sounds. There aren't that many I can find, though I know they're out there.
I can't play the song guessing game with my wife, because her tastes are different.

I've reached the stage where many of the artists I'd like to see live probably aren't alive. But I've found great new bands who will never wander over to my little backwater city. Here, the touring bands are Queen or Rush imitators.

 

[fishorama]

We used to listen to Warped Tour CDs to hear new music when we couldn't go. We discovered a lot of new bands between seeing them & just listening to them. We wanted to see bands that didn't come to our area but finally saw Pennywise & a few others on our short list. Boston area was also good for punky & old rock bands. I miss that!

We are playing a mix of our old bands & 1s that were new to us back in the day. We talked to 1 Warped band & then went to see them again locally. Since we're older (ahem) the doorkeepers thought we must be family...No, we are fans & want to pay the cover charge. That wasn't the only time that happened, but not to me. My husband & his band's drummer were told "parents" get in free, 1 nice aspect of being old, lol! Sometimes politeness seems to be a lost art...

I know you're more focused on lyrics, we're not.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I am stuck in the 60s and 70s for the bands I like and to which I still listen. I was lucky in the 70s and was a partner in a sound company. One of the best bands we worked with was from Boston. The band was called Good Friend Coyote. Every member played more than one instrument and they could pay any style of music superbly. They had one song online but the link is now dead As good as they were they never made it big. But they had a loyal following.

We did do a show with Doc Watson and his son Merle. It was recorded by the Hartford, CT PBS TV station and later broadcast nationally on PBS stations. We cooperated with PBS and gave them a feed from our sound board. We also agreed to use condenser microphones supplied by them. When we attended the pre-show meeting with the Trinity college people, PBS and us, we agreed to help the PBS station in any way they asked. All we requested was that when the post show credits rolled on TV that our sound company would be credited as providing live sound at the concert. The said OK and then they screwed us.

I am not very good at "name that tune" and usually need a lot of notes before I might get it. There are some tunes I can name in very few notes. Like Satisfaction by the Stones or When I'm 64 by the Beatles. I do pretty well with Little Feat songs, too.

 

[fishorama]

TTA, you have to have partner that knows 'your' music to really win at "name that tune". I think your bro can beat you at Grateful Dead songs (RIP Bob Wier). You'll win at Little Feat, Stones & many more.

Husband tried to stump me today again, but I was all into it & got it a few notes! We also listened to our old fav band with new music (Blue Oyster Cult). Not fabulous, but after 40+ years maybe too similar to 1s we know & love more. Both the singer & guitarist/singer have lost a bit, they're in their late 70s/early 80s so not unexpected ( sigh).

Ooh, he just beat me at what should have been a Ventures song. He says it's a Green Day original...it might be Green Day...but has to be old, lol, I'm not going down without a fight! I think we've done this 1 before...& I lost...

@GaryE Do you know Bad Religion? They've been around since the 70s & still play. Check out their earlier stuff, that's what we know & like (Modern Day Catastrophists, American Jesus, I Give You Nothing for 3). The singer/song writer is a religion prof at NYC college? TTA, you will hate these, not your kind of music, don't bother...

If either of you like The Ventures (Telstar, etc), you might like Huevos Ranchos "Get Out of Dodge". They're from Calgary, pretty far from you both but good stuff in a similar way. Not at all punk...or really rock, just good mostly instrumental music...check them out!

 

[gimme30]

but it was Missing Persons, so close!!

Walking in LA cracked me up every time I heard it. Mostly because I couldn't 'squeak' out the A like Bozzio could.
Kinda miss new wave, it was happy music.

I play the solo version of name that tune when listening to the radio, (rare) but it's too easy. Especially since every 5th song is going to be Sweet Home Alabama.

 

[GaryE]

I just keep listening for tunes I can't name. I avoid the radio, because the car is where I listen to loud stuff, when I'm driving alone. I stick stuff on a key and play it shuffled. Spotify or streaming doesn't work for me because they don't vary enough - I don't seem to fit the algorithms and they lock onto songs I play out of curiosity and give me their genre, which always tries to get back to famous bands I don't need to hear. It's boring.

I'm of the Clash, Ruts, Pistols, Fela Kuti, Gang of Four, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Specials era. That fed into the Pogues, Rancid, Bad Religion (a little), the Dropkick Murphys and onwards. My songwriters are the Mountain Goats (early), Tom Waits and people like that. I'm listening to a lot of Fontaines DC, Yard Act, and new bands, many of them Irish, that I haven't decided on yet. It's a scene that's happening, and a lot of it seems very good.

I have too many favourite bands and songs. It's like picking your favourite fish. Why have a favourite?

My Sixties/seventies bands I wish I'd seen are the Rolling Stones and the Velvet Underground. The fish just listen to them on my cheap fishroom speakers running off a windows 5 notebook, but the fish wouldn't have gone to the shows. They have their own things going on, and they just watch the old mammal sometimes dancing badly while it changes water. Fish don't judge your musical tastes.

 

[gimme30]

You had to have heard this one.....

An old man sits next to a punk on a bench in the park.
The punk has a mohawk 16 inches high and all different colors and the punk can just feel the old man staring at his hair. After a few minutes, the staring gets too much and the punk turns to the old man and says:

"What's the matter old man? Never did anything crazy before?"

The old man replies:

"Well I had sex (original verbiage x rated) with a peacock once, just wondering if you're my kid"

 

[gimme30]

Here's some Norwegian punk to make up for that^^^^^

 

[fishorama]

@gimme30, we're watching football, but I'll check out your vid soon. We like the Aussie young punks "The Chats". We didn't know them until husband's old bandmate sent some in the last couple years. They played fairly near us last year but way too late for us old folks. Where do you do you hear these of these interesting bands?

@GaryE knowing you are a lyrics man, I'm surprised you like some of the Clash. I can pretty much ignore lyrics or even sing along...but they could be pretty offensive...many punk bands are like that. I pretend it's meant to be humorous or satire. We don't like the Sex Pistols or at least any we've heard. Given our tastes, they are often suggested by AI but no!. NoFX (when they not just talking & time wasting time, offensive warning! Pimps & Hookers is 1 of my favs...ahem), The Vibrators & The Dickies (anything can be punked up! Moody Blues "Nights in White Satin" live is very fun!!). We never liked the Queers studio music at all, but live they were quite fun. I've heard of some of your bands but not all. Another clue to new/old music.

My fish don't seem to mind loud music or even floor shaking pogoing, should the dancing mood hit, lol. I think they're just hoping to be fed soon.

 

[gimme30]

Where do you do you hear these of these interesting bands?

Radio Garden mostly, or recommendations from friends. And threads like these! Sometimes I'll get lucky on youtube. I've been on kind of an international bender for the last few years, always looking for something new and exotic. Lately it's been Indian music....what they call punjabi (like old school American rap with an accent) is popular now but I'm not a huge rap fan. It's definitely better when you can't understand the lyrics.

I can listen to music at work so I've pretty much always got something going and I can only take so much of even my favorite bands.

 

[GaryE]

I don't like playing things too loudly in the fishroom as the fish do have that lateral line/vibration sensor structure, and I've never been sure music, especially heavy bass, wasn't disruptive. They get a lot of background noise in rivers, but I dream of having a sound system that really kicks. I don't have such a thing so the fish are safe.

This may say a lot about me, but I've never found a Clash lyric that was a problem. They did some weakly written stuff on Sandinista! and a stupid live recording of I fought the Law, but while they had an occasional poetry shortage, they had no shortage of ideas. Their first album shocked me when it came out - I was surrounded by a world of progressive rock songs about fairies climbing stairs, country guitar rock about nothing much and commercial pop, and this record sounded simply bizarre on the first play. But there was an energy to it, and I kept playing it to try to get it until I realized it had gotten me and there was no going back.

@gimme30 - thanks for the tips. There's a vast network here with the internet and the openings it brings, but accessing non English, non western music can be hard. There's brilliant stuff going on. I didn't know about radio garden, and I'm going to enjoy that. When I travel, I hear great stuff out of car windows in traffic, and I never know what it is. Plus my travel has been very limited. All my friends are locked into eras, so they rarely suggest anything new, and I find some music by reading reviewers from all kinds of sources. I got into Punjabi music from students (the drums, such drums!), but now that I'm retired, I no longer have kids listening to my lunchtime weird background music and then coming in and saying "Sir, I think you might like this....". That was fun, as sometimes I did like the music. Sometimes it was painful stuff. But it was usually worth checking out, so at least if I didn't like it, I knew why.

 

[fishorama]

Thanks @gimme30 , we'll check out Radio Garden!

@GaryE, like I said I can ignore some racist, sexist, gross, etc. lyrics or I probably couldn't listen to punk or many other genres. I do dislike having lyrics explained as referencing stuff. How did "they" decide what was meant by a phrase? Unless it's the songwriter(s), it's just woolgathering by others with too many "thoughts"...

We have some albums I don't know the names of so I'm not sure which Clash albums I know, maybe the 2 earliest. I know we don't do politics, etc., on TFF so I won't comment...but well...it seems plain to me. The original of "London's Calling" is "London's Burning"...

My husband sometimes plays DJ while I cook. So, I get his favs unless I say I want MY music. He used to make mix CDs for my car & depending on punk or Motown themes, there were 2 songs guaranteed to be on them that I really don't like much at all, but he loves.

His band had a couple younger than us guys, so that exposed us to more grunge & pop rock. Song choices by committee, any 1 could veto a song, 1 cover per band/year. But we also heard their friends & relatives music even if it didn't become a band cover. They had a few originals, but they were equally problematic. Boring drum line, iffy lyrics, needs 2 guitars, etc., lol.

Do you know The Dead Kennedys? Holiday in Cambodia is great but we like Let's Lynch the Landlord & some others too.

 

[GaryE]

I never got into the Dead Kennedys overall, but there were some great tunes. But we can't discuss politics as much as I wish we could, and that makes a whole set of leftie punk bands like The Clash become off limits for any serious looks. London's burning with boredom reflected its times.

I always had the sense the California punk scene was one thing, and the New York one was another, with the UK one being the most interesting to me. They didn't all understand each other.

I was listening to a 1969 Stooges album in the car yesterday, and may have found a sixties band I like. A first time listen sounded familiar because all three late seventies scenes borrowed heavily from that one. I used to think there was such a gap between musical generations when I was 19, and now, I realize the Beatles were done less than 6 years before punk hit. People now listen to 60 year old rock, which would have been like if we had been into 1920s jazz. I used to love listening to the old 78s my Dad had, some of which were from his family and stretched back to when the tech was new, and the records were made of wax. But their era was as close to my youth as Queen or the Beatles are to people now.

I do listen to 1920s tunes though, in the right mood. They're better than Queen...

 

[gimme30]

LOL Queen is one of those bands people seem to either love or hate.

Just a note about Radio Garden....I use the free version so maybe it's different with a subscription, but be warned not all the stations you'll run across are worth listening to, fidelity-wise. And it's ad supported, so there's that. I put up with it because it's just so cool to be able to listen to the same thing they're listening to in Prague, or Milan, or some other place I'll most likely never be able to visit.