I'm in Connecticut, visiting my 91 year old mother.
I didn't arrive until 1:30 AM, the flight was late because of weather in NYC and it took nearly an hour for my bag to descend and the pickup area needed to be overseen by FEMA. Why is it everybody in America feels entitled? Especially the richer they are? This one person with a Range Rover wouldn't move, no matter what the "cops" said. Therefore, all pickup traffic was slowed-down and...
It was not like L.A. Where the gestapo reigns. Where it is not so humid. Where you can't get a good bagel.
Now my father used to visit the deli every Sunday morning. After Sunday School we had family brunch. With whitefish and herring and other seafood I never touched, as well as bagels and lox and pastrami... That's right, Jews never want to run out of food, if you don't have leftovers, you bought too little. And there were the milkshakes, made in the ancient blender, my father loved to buy used curios. From a player piano to a meat-slicing machine, he got a "deal."
But I never ate the lox.
And I didn't think twice about the bagels.
Our rye bread came from Richelsoph's, down on Black Rock Turnpike. We'd order and they'd run it through the slicing machine and I'd eat two or three slices before we got home, which was close nearby. My mother would always warn me that I would lose my appetite, but this never happened, an old wives' tale like waiting an hour after you eat to resume swimming, not that my mother was so rigid on that, but it's been recently debunked. But just wait another year and they'll reinstate the doctrine, kinda like stretching, you should do it and then you shouldn't. The science news is full of contradictions.
And the best part of the rye bread was the end, the heel. It's all about the crust, especially after the inside cools off. My mother never bought Wonder Bread, although I envied those at school who ate it, we all want to fit in. Then again, my mother never ever made lunch for us, we ate the hot meal in the cafeteria.
So when I arrive in Connecticut I get freaked out. Because not only is it so different, I used to live here and I knew no better. Didn't think twice about how green it was, about the rolling hills. The aforementioned humidity. And my mother's condo is full of pictures. All of us younger and thinner, some of us no longer here. At first it creeps you out, reminds you of the passage of time, how we're all just animals, here to reproduce. You're young and you think you understand the game, then you grow old and you realize there is no game. If you're trying to ascend the ladder, acquire possessions, the joke is on you, no one is really paying attention.
So it's disorienting. You think you know what's going on and then you don't.
And after sleeping I woke up to converse with my mother at the kitchen table. It's always at the kitchen table. And she asked me if I was hungry, after eating a coffee yogurt and taking my pills I said no, but then she said she needed a sandwich and I opened the fridge to find...
Lox.
Now I don't know when I started to like lox, maybe sometime in my twenties, when I was already living in Los Angeles. But that's faux lox, relatively dry, relatively tasteless. But east coast lox... It's oily and neither sharp nor tasteless, rather it's satisfying, with a soft solidity and a subtle palate tang.
And then there's the cream cheese. Sure, if you're on the run you buy Philadelphia, but when you go to the deli you always get the handmade stuff, which is thicker.
And I'm sitting there eating the lox and cream cheese because I'm not supposed to be eating carbs, and then my mother has half of her bagel left, that she's not gonna eat.
Now I toasted it for her. In the Black & Decker Toast-R-Oven. Remember when these were made by GE? When GE used to make everything? And bagels oftentimes did not fit in our regular toaster, the Toast-R-Oven was a breakthrough. But how do you get the browning right? Personally, I love a deep brown, my mother wanted a light brown, but you know how it is, the window is very short, and I didn't want to overdo it.
But a watched bagel does not toast.
But there are pictures on the dial. I chose the one that was half & half, half light, half dark, and the two sides of the bagel did not remain the same, one was darker than the other. Worried about burning I popped the window, shmeared the results with cream cheese, put the lox on top.
And...
Breaking the rules of my nutritionist, after getting a good report from the cardiologist, I ate the final half of bagel.
It was a REVELATION!
The bagel has been dumbed-down. Still round, still with a hole, but in most places it's akin to bread. Used to be you could use them as car tires in a pinch, today's bagels would just collapse. Certainly on the west coast. Even many east coast bagels, like the vaunted S&S, are too soft, a bagel's skin should be so hard that you might break a tooth when you bite into it, your choppers should leave a mark, it should be crusty.
And this one was.
And the dough, the inside, it should be stiffer than soft, and it should have the consistency of nearly-cured cement. It should be chewy. You should need to roll it around in your mouth a few times before swallowing it.
And this one was.
And my mother took it for granted, but not me.
This lox and bagel was the elixir of youth.
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Saturday, 28 July 2018
Friday, 27 July 2018
Nobody knows anything. Not only about show business, but politics and finance. This is the story of this generation, how the media missed Trump and so much else. Hip-hop is gigantic, but Drake, the biggest act in the genre, and red-hot Migos, can't sell every ticket and postpone opening dates for "production issues"... Like they didn't know they were going to play those buildings to begin with? Then again, you certainly can't trust entertainment reporting, where the scribes are sycophants looking for perks and will write anything their bullying patrons say. The Taylor Swift U.K. tour was a disaster, full of empty seats. But there was nary a word in the U.S. press, although the U.K. "Sun" printed pictures. But if you just push back hard enough, swing some swill about slow ticketing, then you get a pass.
But entertainment is irrelevant. Business and politics are not. The "New York Times" has been having a self-debate whether the Democrats are running too far to the left while the Republicans are saying that they are, laughing while they continue to define the debate, it's the right that's against Nancy Pelosi, and the Democratic powers-that-be will probably nominate another compromise candidate for President nobody wants. That's not 2018. People want something to believe in, which is why Trump won, which is why pop music failed, if you're thinking of appealing to everybody, you're appealing to almost nobody. And niches are strong enough to support you. You may not get ink, but the EDM and jam band acts are doing quite fine, thank you.
As is Facebook.
Don't think of it as the signature service solely, think of it as Instagram and WhatsApp too. The truth is there's little disruption in tech these days, because any disrupting company is either purchased by the big kahunas or put out of business via competition by these same behemoths. That's Amazon's business model. The only high-flying company that does not depend upon acquisitions is Apple, quite possibly to its detriment.
So now we've got Facebook missing Wall Street's numbers. BARELY! $13.2 billion in revenue instead of $13.4. 11% user growth instead of the previous quarter's 13%. This is like complaining your Prius got 43 miles per gallon instead of 45, your mileage is still PHENOMENAL!
Now Facebook might be overpriced, but the point is this double digit drop is a reaction to everything but the fundamentals. Facebook is the whipping boy for the anti-Trump forces. That's right, you've got to blame someone other than yourself. Not that Facebook is innocent, wow, Zuckerberg and Sandberg were ignorant as to the power of their platform and the ability of nefarious users to employ it. But social media survives. People have to connect somewhere. And Snapchat is fading and Facebook controls the big 3, Facebook itself, the burgeoning Instagram and the dominant outside the U.S. WhatsApp. WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
Oh, there's Twitter.
You read as much negative stuff about Twitter as you do about Facebook. People like Maggie Haberman lamenting the nastiness. Come on, when you decry online hate it just illustrates you're a newbie. Nastiness has been extant since the turn of the century online, if you've been playing, every day people tell me I'm an asshole, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And the truth is Twitter is the epicenter of breaking news. It's imperfect, but if you want a taste of America, a truth you might not be able to handle, even if it's riddled with falsehoods, you need to log on. Just ask the NBA, which lives on Twitter. But the mainstream media comes last, and that includes Fox and the WSJ.
But at least the right wing has a self-serving agenda.
The left wing media, the NYT, is all about self-flagellation and a return to the past. That's right, there was an article in the paper of record how to return to a flip-phone. What's next, an article how to return to standard transmissions, even though automatics can now shift more quickly and get better gas mileage?
Oh, then there's the canard that phones are distracting and we must turn them off, take vacations.
What hogwash.
People need to CONNECT!
We heard these same stories when teenagers were addicted to telephones.
I mean I'd love to live in today's world as a teen. Where you come home and connect with all your buddies, where you are not isolated. Sure, there's some increase in bullying, but every step forward comes at a cost. A/C in automobiles ended vent windows. We lived!
Wall Street is Las Vegas for experts and chumps.
And the truth is some experts are not that smart to begin with. The index fund beats the pickers. And hedge funds are doing poorly. If it all made sense, there'd be better predictions, but there are not!
So Facebook stock will go back up, just you watch. It's not about the death of tech, but the power of tech. Where else are you gonna put your money, GE???
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But entertainment is irrelevant. Business and politics are not. The "New York Times" has been having a self-debate whether the Democrats are running too far to the left while the Republicans are saying that they are, laughing while they continue to define the debate, it's the right that's against Nancy Pelosi, and the Democratic powers-that-be will probably nominate another compromise candidate for President nobody wants. That's not 2018. People want something to believe in, which is why Trump won, which is why pop music failed, if you're thinking of appealing to everybody, you're appealing to almost nobody. And niches are strong enough to support you. You may not get ink, but the EDM and jam band acts are doing quite fine, thank you.
As is Facebook.
Don't think of it as the signature service solely, think of it as Instagram and WhatsApp too. The truth is there's little disruption in tech these days, because any disrupting company is either purchased by the big kahunas or put out of business via competition by these same behemoths. That's Amazon's business model. The only high-flying company that does not depend upon acquisitions is Apple, quite possibly to its detriment.
So now we've got Facebook missing Wall Street's numbers. BARELY! $13.2 billion in revenue instead of $13.4. 11% user growth instead of the previous quarter's 13%. This is like complaining your Prius got 43 miles per gallon instead of 45, your mileage is still PHENOMENAL!
Now Facebook might be overpriced, but the point is this double digit drop is a reaction to everything but the fundamentals. Facebook is the whipping boy for the anti-Trump forces. That's right, you've got to blame someone other than yourself. Not that Facebook is innocent, wow, Zuckerberg and Sandberg were ignorant as to the power of their platform and the ability of nefarious users to employ it. But social media survives. People have to connect somewhere. And Snapchat is fading and Facebook controls the big 3, Facebook itself, the burgeoning Instagram and the dominant outside the U.S. WhatsApp. WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
Oh, there's Twitter.
You read as much negative stuff about Twitter as you do about Facebook. People like Maggie Haberman lamenting the nastiness. Come on, when you decry online hate it just illustrates you're a newbie. Nastiness has been extant since the turn of the century online, if you've been playing, every day people tell me I'm an asshole, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And the truth is Twitter is the epicenter of breaking news. It's imperfect, but if you want a taste of America, a truth you might not be able to handle, even if it's riddled with falsehoods, you need to log on. Just ask the NBA, which lives on Twitter. But the mainstream media comes last, and that includes Fox and the WSJ.
But at least the right wing has a self-serving agenda.
The left wing media, the NYT, is all about self-flagellation and a return to the past. That's right, there was an article in the paper of record how to return to a flip-phone. What's next, an article how to return to standard transmissions, even though automatics can now shift more quickly and get better gas mileage?
Oh, then there's the canard that phones are distracting and we must turn them off, take vacations.
What hogwash.
People need to CONNECT!
We heard these same stories when teenagers were addicted to telephones.
I mean I'd love to live in today's world as a teen. Where you come home and connect with all your buddies, where you are not isolated. Sure, there's some increase in bullying, but every step forward comes at a cost. A/C in automobiles ended vent windows. We lived!
Wall Street is Las Vegas for experts and chumps.
And the truth is some experts are not that smart to begin with. The index fund beats the pickers. And hedge funds are doing poorly. If it all made sense, there'd be better predictions, but there are not!
So Facebook stock will go back up, just you watch. It's not about the death of tech, but the power of tech. Where else are you gonna put your money, GE???
--
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--
Listen to the podcast:
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Thursday, 26 July 2018
Sweetheart Of The Rodeo At The Ace
It was astounding.
If you want to know what it was like in '68, if you want to steep yourself in the concert experience from way back when, go to this show.
First and foremost it was in a theatre. Hard to believe, but the acts lamented the move to arenas at first, because of the SOUND! It was muddy, still is. Sit in the back and if you don't know the words by heart, you're in trouble. And with fewer people it felt more intimate.
And everybody sat.
I don't get the standing thing. I think it's just a way for promoters to make more money. But once they got rid of the chairs, the whole encounter changed. It used to be a religious experience, sitting in your seat, letting your mind drift. Then it became about a hang, a social scene.
But tonight was a trip to church, or synagogue, and even if you're not a believer, you would have bowed down to the music emanating from the stage.
On the surface, this is 1 + 1 + 1 = 4. That's right, Roger McGuinn's been singing the same old hits for eons, if you wanted to hear them live, you already have. And although Chris Hillman has experimented musically, he's in even less demand. But if you add in wild card Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, you end up with something you didn't anticipate, the whole enterprise is lifted to another level. OF MUSIC!
We've gotten so far from the music it's crazy. If you make hits, it's about the trappings, your stardom, curating your social media feed is part of your act, what's on stage is often canned, on hard drive, it's just a celebration of the rest of your career. But the truth is recordings are dropping in influence. It's what's done on stage that counts. And when you get it right, like the assembled multitude did tonight, it's TRANSCENDENT!
I didn't expect it to be a Byrds concert, I didn't expect it to be a celebration of what once was and still can be.
The show started with "My Back Pages."
Wait, they weren't immediately going to go into "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo" and play a few hits and exit thereafter?
And there were stories before each number, they gave context, not too long, but just right. And the second song was a cover of Porter Wagoner's number "A Satisfied Mind," sung by Marty. I never heard it, never knew it, but instantly I loved it!
Marty Stuart, the guy with the big hair who never crossed over to rock. His locks are white these days, but he's younger than me. He's lived in a parallel universe, and our paths have not crossed. But tonight!
The thing about these country players is they're TIGHT! You get the idea they play every day, whether there's an audience or not, they're cohesive, and strong, the sound is AMAZING! It's so weird to hear what once was and now still is again. There was nothing on hard drive, plastic surgery was not a factor, these were old guys who were still young.
Chris Hillman had to sit in a chair at times. McGuinn never doffed his hat. But when the band fired up it was just as vital as way back when. But curiously, there was no nostalgia factor, at least not until they paid tribute to Tom Petty at the end of the show.
You know, you go to hear the oldies, to trigger your memories. Hell, Journey is not the only band with a faux singer. It's about the songs, they're now ours. But these players owned the material, it was as fresh as today, you reveled in the sound, you expected them to come back next year with a new album.
But they won't. Because no one wants to hear it, that's not how it works anymore. Used to be you had to go to hear the new stuff, otherwise you might never hear it again. But now its just old nuggets, again and again.
But "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo" never gets play on stage.
But before that, in the first half, they toured their career, it was an Evening With.
And it wasn't just hits. Sure, we heard "Mr. Tambourine Man," amazing how McGuinn can still pick those notes, but there were obscurities, like "Time Between" and "Old John Robertson" and exquisite takes on "Wasn't Born To Follow" and "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man."
As for the second half...
That's what people came to hear.
The bass player switched to pedal steel, Marty picked a mandolin when he wasn't wailing on Clarence White's guitar, and after a couple of Marty and band songs, it was...
"You Ain't Goin' Nowhere."
I didn't buy "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo," at least not in '68, but in the fall of '70, I went to visit my high school buddy Marc at the first year of Hampshire College and he picked it out on his guitar, I was immediately hooked. Funny how the hits fade and the album cuts persevere.
"Life In Prison" had meaning beyond the original.
"Blue Canadian Rockies" had visions of mountains hovering in front of your eyes.
"The Christian Life" made you a believer.
And "I Am A Pilgrim" united the audience, we're all searching for song.
And then another take on "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," with the audience singing along, half the melody, half the harmony, and...
Even if you were not a fan of "Sweetheart," even if you didn't know the material well, you got it tonight, that's the power of music, that's the power of sound, that's the power of playing, that's the power of BEING THERE!
After twenty three numbers I wasn't sure there'd be an encore. And then they played "So You Want To Be A Rock 'n' Roll Star," after McGuinn said most people think it's a Petty song...
They went into Petty. McGuinn played his cover of "American Girl," which just made me miss Tom.
But then Hillman performed his cover of "Wildflowers," the same, but different from the original, and you almost weeped, for the loss, that's when I got nostalgic, for what once was and forevermore will never be. Aren't your elders supposed to die first? Not that they shouldn't live, but in the natural order of things shouldn't Tom be paying tribute to the departed Byrds?
But then...
"It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down
I had the radio on, I was drivin'"
Whoa! What? That's right, Marty Stuart was singing RUNNIN' DOWN A DREAM! I thought back to buying "Full Moon Fever," that amazing run of songs on the first side, can those days ever come back? I'm not sure, as Tom is gone, but I'm still here and the band on stage was fully ALIVE!
The finale was "Turn! Turn! Turn!" and then they were gone.
To everything there is a season.
And we lived through it, the assembled multitude, no one under forty, most over sixty. When McGuinn wore his granny glasses on national TV, when we followed the personnel changes and stopped paying attention to sports, when there was a new exciting act on a regular basis, just like there was a new exciting app half a decade ago. We lived from one musical moment to the next, hopping along in ecstasy.
And then it ended. We loved that the young 'uns embraced Zeppelin and the Doors, but then melody went out the window and it became about melisma whereas subtlety used to have a place. And the oldsters sit around and bitch, wishing the old days would come back...
TONIGHT THEY DID!
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If you want to know what it was like in '68, if you want to steep yourself in the concert experience from way back when, go to this show.
First and foremost it was in a theatre. Hard to believe, but the acts lamented the move to arenas at first, because of the SOUND! It was muddy, still is. Sit in the back and if you don't know the words by heart, you're in trouble. And with fewer people it felt more intimate.
And everybody sat.
I don't get the standing thing. I think it's just a way for promoters to make more money. But once they got rid of the chairs, the whole encounter changed. It used to be a religious experience, sitting in your seat, letting your mind drift. Then it became about a hang, a social scene.
But tonight was a trip to church, or synagogue, and even if you're not a believer, you would have bowed down to the music emanating from the stage.
On the surface, this is 1 + 1 + 1 = 4. That's right, Roger McGuinn's been singing the same old hits for eons, if you wanted to hear them live, you already have. And although Chris Hillman has experimented musically, he's in even less demand. But if you add in wild card Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, you end up with something you didn't anticipate, the whole enterprise is lifted to another level. OF MUSIC!
We've gotten so far from the music it's crazy. If you make hits, it's about the trappings, your stardom, curating your social media feed is part of your act, what's on stage is often canned, on hard drive, it's just a celebration of the rest of your career. But the truth is recordings are dropping in influence. It's what's done on stage that counts. And when you get it right, like the assembled multitude did tonight, it's TRANSCENDENT!
I didn't expect it to be a Byrds concert, I didn't expect it to be a celebration of what once was and still can be.
The show started with "My Back Pages."
Wait, they weren't immediately going to go into "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo" and play a few hits and exit thereafter?
And there were stories before each number, they gave context, not too long, but just right. And the second song was a cover of Porter Wagoner's number "A Satisfied Mind," sung by Marty. I never heard it, never knew it, but instantly I loved it!
Marty Stuart, the guy with the big hair who never crossed over to rock. His locks are white these days, but he's younger than me. He's lived in a parallel universe, and our paths have not crossed. But tonight!
The thing about these country players is they're TIGHT! You get the idea they play every day, whether there's an audience or not, they're cohesive, and strong, the sound is AMAZING! It's so weird to hear what once was and now still is again. There was nothing on hard drive, plastic surgery was not a factor, these were old guys who were still young.
Chris Hillman had to sit in a chair at times. McGuinn never doffed his hat. But when the band fired up it was just as vital as way back when. But curiously, there was no nostalgia factor, at least not until they paid tribute to Tom Petty at the end of the show.
You know, you go to hear the oldies, to trigger your memories. Hell, Journey is not the only band with a faux singer. It's about the songs, they're now ours. But these players owned the material, it was as fresh as today, you reveled in the sound, you expected them to come back next year with a new album.
But they won't. Because no one wants to hear it, that's not how it works anymore. Used to be you had to go to hear the new stuff, otherwise you might never hear it again. But now its just old nuggets, again and again.
But "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo" never gets play on stage.
But before that, in the first half, they toured their career, it was an Evening With.
And it wasn't just hits. Sure, we heard "Mr. Tambourine Man," amazing how McGuinn can still pick those notes, but there were obscurities, like "Time Between" and "Old John Robertson" and exquisite takes on "Wasn't Born To Follow" and "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man."
As for the second half...
That's what people came to hear.
The bass player switched to pedal steel, Marty picked a mandolin when he wasn't wailing on Clarence White's guitar, and after a couple of Marty and band songs, it was...
"You Ain't Goin' Nowhere."
I didn't buy "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo," at least not in '68, but in the fall of '70, I went to visit my high school buddy Marc at the first year of Hampshire College and he picked it out on his guitar, I was immediately hooked. Funny how the hits fade and the album cuts persevere.
"Life In Prison" had meaning beyond the original.
"Blue Canadian Rockies" had visions of mountains hovering in front of your eyes.
"The Christian Life" made you a believer.
And "I Am A Pilgrim" united the audience, we're all searching for song.
And then another take on "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," with the audience singing along, half the melody, half the harmony, and...
Even if you were not a fan of "Sweetheart," even if you didn't know the material well, you got it tonight, that's the power of music, that's the power of sound, that's the power of playing, that's the power of BEING THERE!
After twenty three numbers I wasn't sure there'd be an encore. And then they played "So You Want To Be A Rock 'n' Roll Star," after McGuinn said most people think it's a Petty song...
They went into Petty. McGuinn played his cover of "American Girl," which just made me miss Tom.
But then Hillman performed his cover of "Wildflowers," the same, but different from the original, and you almost weeped, for the loss, that's when I got nostalgic, for what once was and forevermore will never be. Aren't your elders supposed to die first? Not that they shouldn't live, but in the natural order of things shouldn't Tom be paying tribute to the departed Byrds?
But then...
"It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down
I had the radio on, I was drivin'"
Whoa! What? That's right, Marty Stuart was singing RUNNIN' DOWN A DREAM! I thought back to buying "Full Moon Fever," that amazing run of songs on the first side, can those days ever come back? I'm not sure, as Tom is gone, but I'm still here and the band on stage was fully ALIVE!
The finale was "Turn! Turn! Turn!" and then they were gone.
To everything there is a season.
And we lived through it, the assembled multitude, no one under forty, most over sixty. When McGuinn wore his granny glasses on national TV, when we followed the personnel changes and stopped paying attention to sports, when there was a new exciting act on a regular basis, just like there was a new exciting app half a decade ago. We lived from one musical moment to the next, hopping along in ecstasy.
And then it ended. We loved that the young 'uns embraced Zeppelin and the Doors, but then melody went out the window and it became about melisma whereas subtlety used to have a place. And the oldsters sit around and bitch, wishing the old days would come back...
TONIGHT THEY DID!
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-TuneIn: http://tunein.com/lefsetz
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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--
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Wednesday, 25 July 2018
Even More Stereo Systems
People assume I'm an audiophile.
Always mixed on Auratone Sound Cubes or NS10-M's --
Healthy volume, 6 feet apart, 6 feet away. Rock & Roll.
Tom Werman
_______________________________
For some reason a video on Stereophile's website of me showing my stereo system has close to a quarter million views...blows my mind
https://youtu.be/H07NpWk_Xf8
Michael Fremer
_______________________________
I was a retailer for much of my early life in the 60's thru the 80's in Los Angeles. Although we carried high-end everything in our private department store, the audio department was my pride and joy. I usually had the best of what was available because I could. Just before we closed our business in 1985 (after 21-years), I contacted our NEC rep and purchased an NEC A-10 II Integrated Amp along with the matching tuner. This beast was never sold in America and they are very rare. Still using it (the tuner didn't make it) since the early eighties along with my ADS P2 semi-automatic turntable. I inherited some Yamaha MSP5A studio monitors from PF and intend to replace my old Bose speakers with them. Still have my 45rpm collection (2000+) from when Phil and I used to request demos from all the LA radio stations masquerading as the "West Hollywood Boys Club" or some such organization. That story is in the book. I was a printer in my early teens so I had the ability to print letterheads and business cards as needed. Nobody ever questioned us; we were believable, I guess.
Best,
Jered Cargman
_______________________________
I put together a cheap component system from Radio Shack. The amp blew a fuse every couple of weeks. It was a pain in the ass, but it was right next to my bed and I could play music anytime I wanted.
Loren Parkins
_______________________________
My first real stereo was a Marantz 2225 receiver (bar mitzvah present from my parents). I bought a Dual CS128 turntable, which I still have, with money I saved from my paper route. Played them through my dad's old AR 2A speakers, which he gave me when he upgraded to ADS speakers. That system got me through college and grad school.
Dusted off the turntable 3 years ago when I bought a new Integra receiver with a phono input. I had been lugging the turntable and boxes of vinyl around for probably 20 years. I'm not a Luddite or vinyl fetishist, and I love having the thousands of CDs I purchased over the years converted to lossless files on a hard drive, but the vinyl still sounds good.
Gary Lisker
_______________________________
Pioneer SX-626
Dual 1225 w/ Shure V15 Type III
Utah speakers
(cheap but played Zeppelin II pretty loud)
With a sense of irony the first album for that setup was Money as I had none after I left the store.
All purchased from Musicraft a local Chicago chain.
Upgraded to the Utah's to Visonik David's for my dorm room a few years later.
Neal Berz
_______________________________
Marantz and Advent. The memory of you followers amazes me more than the impressive systems.
At one point in the early 70s I purchased a tuner/amp with 2 FM tuners. (Can't remember brand) Local FM broadcasters simulcast stereo signals on specialty shows in south Florida. TV broadcasts did the same. Recollections are dim but I had fun with it.
Earliest memories are of a transistor radio with an earbud that would pick up clear channel signals from NY, Chicago and Nashville at night. 60s
Luke Lewis
_______________________________
I know i'm tardy with this but....
1975, my last year in school. My uncle was a dubbing engineer at Denham Studios and when he updated his system he gifted me the following:
Thorens TD125 turntable, Quad pre- and power amps, Tannoy speakers.
'Dark Side Of The Moon', 'Wish You Were Here' and Led Zep IV...oh my word, it was mystical! Rocked my world (and everyone else's at my English boarding school)
I later added a Revox 1/4" reel-to-reel to this system.
I know that, technically, modern gear delivers more clarity but I don't think I ever got a better sound, spiritually!
Keep on keepin' on, Bob
Simon TC, London
_______________________________
I was a bit young during the heyday of all this Hi-Fi ness but I saved my album collection with the idea I will buy a new system someday . Maybe you can start a new thread by talking about what records people kept throughout the years. My collection is only about 60 albums but I would put my collection up against anybody's. Everything from the double electric light Orchestra album to all the clash albums to beach boys, journey, the dead Kennedys, Zepplin, AC/DC with Bon Scott, and so many others. It would certainly be good stuff to hear what Records people played on their systems.
All the best
Johnny Vieira
_______________________________
Marantz
Scott Fennel
_______________________________
Hi, Bob. (We met at Amanda Palmer live interview, I did some magic, I'm the guy who helped her write her book.)
It was 1978 and after spending high school reading stereo mags and fantasizing over the ads, I finally had a few books and ran into a deal. I bought an Optonica SA 5151 receiver (85 watts RMS per channel, it was a brand created by Sharp when they moved into high-end audio for a time in the late 70s and early 80s); a top of the line Technics SL-1600 MK2 Quartz Direct-Drive Automatic Turntable with an Ortofon Concorde cartridge; and a pair of (now rare) Allison Two speakers. Some years ago the turntable stopped functioning and the speakers needed refoaming, and recently I found a terrific little shop here in San Diego manned by two OCD type audio geeks who did a terrific job refurbishing the entire system, even replacing a few of the tiny lamps in the tuner display of the receiver.
So I'm now back to listening to my 500+ LPs purchased back in the 70s and 80s, plus additions from local used LP shops, and the first time I played the system for my 14-year-old sons, raised on computer speakers and phones, they were dumbfounded. I bought them a smaller scale analog system and turntable for their birthdays, but I added a bluetooth wireless input so they can stream their phones to the big bookshelf speakers.
Still trying to tweak the best way to get decent output from my iTunes collection to the analog system -- solutions are clunky and less than elegant. But it's a joy to put on an original LP of Mad Dogs & Englishman or Live at Leeds and crank it up. Nothing else like it.
best,
Jamy Ian Swiss
P.S. BTW, what I learned when I pursued refurbishing my system as that bang-for-buck in buying vintage analog gear is terrific. My system -- the three pieces -- listed for $2350 in 1978. (I got a deal but that's besides the point.) With some effort you can buy that system today for $1100.
Funny thing is I put almost $900 into the repairs. BUT ... if you buy the stuff used, odds are you're gonna want to take the stuff to a guy like I found, and have them do maintenance and get the workings up to snuff anyway, so it really would cost you more than the $1100 to do it right. But this way I knew exactly what I had, and it's the stuff I'd been listening too since back when.
But really, good vintage gear is a bargain these days. There are only a few select items here and there that command high prices, like the Acoustic Reseach AR-3a.
And then there's new stuff like McIntosh which has managed to stay at the very top and will cost you the price of a car.
_______________________________
Stereo stuff was awesome back then. In the Northwest, we had Speakerlab and Speakerfactory to get hand made speakers to your liking. Cornerhorns were our choice to handle the power, friend of mine owned Speakerfactory, he made me very large bookshelf speakers, matched the wood with cornerhorn components, big mid range horns, 15" woofer and I ran a Phase Linear 700, which was a pure power amp also made locally here in Washington. Played a lot of air guitar in front of those speakers, as we built custom stands to get them off the ground.
Allan Gastwirth
_______________________________
My old buddy John Carter used to say; digital sound=florescent light, analog sound=incandescent light. I sure wish I still had my old MacIntosh MC-240 amp.
John Brodey
_______________________________
Purchased my first piece of gear in 1965, a Fisher 500B receiver, from the consignment shelf at Shore Drug in Shorewood, WI -- $60. Shore Drug was a pharmacy that also sold stereo equipment and cameras. That was the start of a wonderful journey that continues to this day.
Jim Charne
_______________________________
Around 1992 I was browsing in a used musical instrument store in Minneapolis, there was a 1974 Pioneer SA7100 integrated amplifier on the shelf that looked brand new, it was $20. I figured I couldn't go wrong with $20 and if nothing else it would be a good back up amp. When I got home and plugged it in I was surprised how much better and warmer it sounded than the current JVC unit I was using so I started using the Pioneer exclusively. I've used it every day since and it continues to work flawlessly and sounds amazing. Have never had single issue with it. 26+ years of service (and still running strong) for $20 ain't too bad.
Rob Radack
_______________________________
Bob - The subject of stereo systems certainly speaks to a certain generation of men. Me included. Sansui, Dual, KLH.
A simple set-up, but with enough juice to allow this high school kid from Edgemont, NY (68-72) to play some serious air guitar in the small apartment (bachelor pad) I shared with my 40-year old father.
My dad was the one to select the equipment from one of the many cool, hi-fi stores on the upper 40's in NYC. My dad was a hip dude. Jumping forward, in my senior year of high school he purchased a 1972 BMW 2002 in Colorado orange. Ya gotta luv it.
All thru high school and college, before the tech revolution, a trip to a stereo and/or record store, in NYC or White Plains, was a regular, must-take adventure. These stores, along with guitar and drum shops, were where we met face-to-face and networked with our music-centric community. The store was the original Facebook and Linked In.
The music maven in our community was my best friend from Edgemont HS, John Stix. John turned me on to the groups, which led to the purchase of the vinyl which was played over and over on my Dual turntable. Balancing the tone arm was as critical as tuning guitar strings or drum heads.
Our stereo equipment, along with our car, defined who we were. This was especially so in the freshman college dorm. Every dorm had the cool kid with the massive set-up. Technique turntables with the strobe light were the then new thing, as were Datsun 240Z's.
Later in life, I purchased a Carver preamp and amp, B&O turntable and Infinity tower speakers. I still have the Carver and B&O, but had to buy new speakers. Unfortunately I no longer have these set-up in my house. I plan to set-up the system in my garage, where I am hanging my old concert posters, art and photos. Aretha live at the Fillmore, '71.
For a specific generation of men...and women...the component stereo system created a gathering point where we listened, discussed and danced to the music of our lives. The current generation certainly does the same, but probably with Spotify thru an iPhone linked via Bluetooth to a Bose speaker? These are their good ole days.
Keep provoking us,
Patrick Sbarra
_______________________________
Another great column that caught my eye. Boy, was assembling a great stereo a preoccupation of my childhood.
For me and my geek friends, home-building the Dynaco PAT-4 preamp was a rite of geek passage. You could couple that with a brutish Dynaco power amp at 200 watts per channel. Dorm room convenience forced a replacement of that with the Sherwood S-8910 FM-only receiver at 80 watts a side. it was AM and not FM that was irrelevant then.
I accompanied that with an Advent turntable, later replaced it with a Dual 510, reputed to have zero tracking error. I had Dynaco A35 and A25 speakers, the latter of which hang on the wall of my garage to this day.
I couldn't afford JBL L-100's, so I built myself copies. I got a local Amish millwork place in Lancaster to build the oak ogee-cornered cases and mounted the three drivers flush with the surface of the front like JBL did, and sanded and painted the fronts with black resin so, like the JBLs, they looked as good with the grilles off as on. I sold them to a friend in college "with a lifetime guarantee" and he dropped one out his dorm room window 3 stories to the ground below. The force of impact knocked one of the woofer magnets loose from the metal basket, so I had to replace that, but the speaker went right back into service.
For tapes there was the first Pioneer auto-reverse deck with digital VU meters that looked VERY cool, and a cheap Superscope and then a 3-channel Nakamichi for Dead shows.
Aside from what I owned, I could dream: DCM Time Window and Dahlquist speakers, Macintosh tube amps, stuff that cost as much as a used car.
Thanks for a peek into a common thread of our youth!
Cheers
Henry Eshelman
_______________________________
Background. At the halfway point of my Junior year of high school my family moved from idyllic upstate NY to central Illinois. No more ski club and NASTAR winters, fantasies of sports cars fueled by the races at Watkins Glen, and contact with lifelong friends.
The only thing that made it were my albums. My parents in their effort to overcome guilt allowed me to buy a $45 compact all in one setup with a couple of shitty bookshelves speaks. My beat up on Zenith console didn't make the trip but that compact system made me understand the weight of that early 60s Zenith was for magnets. Found a record store in a shitty Decatur, IL strip mall where the only hippies, punks, metal heads and real country fans in town would gather and I got familiar with their schedules based on who was behind the register and what they played. One of the people I had met ran the local electronics store and recognized me when I came in to his store with my savings from busing tables after school and weekends to buy a "component" stereo, spent $250 on a Pioneer receiver, Dual base model turntable and some small JBLs. He offered me a job as they were starting to see sales and thought I could handle the gig.
There are hundreds of experiences in the 4 years I worked there but to the point of this email. Successful floor salespeople got terrific discounts. As it happens, people would ask "what do you have" all the time.
Damn near every bit of my paychecks went to albums, fun, and this setup.
4 Epicure 602 speakers, insanely inefficient, a larger Bose 901 format, amazing separation and depth.
2 Phase Linear 400 amps both with upgraded 700B driver boards.
Technics SU-9200 preamp.
Kenwood KD 500 turntable (massive, synthetic graphite base) without the tonearm.
Infinity Black Window graphite tonearm.
Audio Technica and Shure Cartridges available in mounts.
Macintosh MR something tube tuner with an 8 yagi antenna I put in the attic over my bedroom. KSHE from St. Louis, and out of Chicago WXRT, WMET, WLUP all from Decatur.
Pioneer CT-F1000 cassette deck
Dokorder 1140 4 track reel to reel.
oh, and 2 Koss Pro4 headphones cause...
All assembled while in my 16th and 17th year. Had room in my home bedroom and later dorm room for bed, albums and the above gear.
All I had in my teens was music and I worshiped sound. BTW had one of the first Rockford Fossgate DC amps in my 68 LeMans hooked up to homemade cabinets with EPI drivers mounted.
Keep sharing!
John Strong
_______________________________
You've hit a nerve.
I've been into stereos for quite some time. I've built multiple tonearms for turntables. One of my favorite materials was good chopsticks. Super lightweight high quality bamboo.
I've got a Marantz Model 150 FM tuner with the 2" scope recalibrated so it shows station modulation accurately. Then there's the 3600 PreAmp with the custom 70v per microsecond slew rate amp boards in it. They sound very clean and sparkly. The entire front panel still works on the 3600. Just the phono pre and the times-ten amp were bypassed with the high performance British boards internally.
I finally found a set of ESS AMT Towers, speakers I didn't even know existed. The high frequencies are so detailed that I found new things in recordings I had made in my own studio. That's where those speakers live now. They have 10" woofers on a transmission line, just like in the amazing ESS Transtatics (different woofer though).
I've adapted a pair of JBL CBT1000s to work on speaker stands, with Speak-on jacks on the backs. Are you listening JBL? (These speakers are made for permanent mounting only. I had to modify them.)
(JBL CBT1000 speakers use Navy sonar technology to get controlled dispersion in a small, lightweight externally amplified cabinet – 4' tall, 1' wide, 1 1/5' deep, 60 lbs. They put out 130db from 6 6.5" woofers and 24 1" dome tweeters. Tiny footprint, very hifi, very loud, good outdoors and in reverberant halls. Equalized using IK Multimedia's ARC2 system. The CBT1000s actually do what the Bose Pro speakers claim to do. There are tons of these speakers mounted up on poles all over Disneyland.)
I'm driving the CBTs with 3000 watts per channel – just about ideal. That's what I'm using with my custom keyboard system.
I enjoy playing things like old Cold Blood recordings and playing along with them on my hotrodded Hammond H100 (I did that mod, too.) No need to turn the organ down to mix with the sound.
Louis Hogan
_______________________________
I'll chime in as well. My adventures in the land of High Fidelity began in high school, probably around 1969. Curious coincidence, but my cousin Vinnie (literally her name), worked with the legendary Henry Kloss, just like Adam Pressman's father. I'll bet they knew each other. And Vinnie got me started with the KLH Model 17 speakers and the first KLH receiver. I also had a Benjamin Miracord turntable with a Pickering cartridge (the one with the dust brush, ha ha) and set of Superex Pro headphones. So I had some pretty decent gear for a 16 year old.
Cousin Vinnie then followed Henry Kloss over to Advent (which he founded), so I sold my KLH 17 speakers and stepped up to the original Large Advent speakers, which some 46 years later still work! The Benjamin Miracord turntable died, and it got replaced with a Dual direct drive 1219 turntable and Shure V15-IV cartridge. The KLH receiver also died, and got replaced with an Onkyo TX-4500 quartz locked receiver (probably in 1976) . When I came to LA in 1978, the Large Advent speakers, Onkyo receiver and Dual turntable came with me. And all of this vintage gear still works!
I know this is getting long, but a little bit more of Hi-Fi history is in order. Henry Kloss had a dream to bring to market the first large screen consumer projection TV, which he did while at Advent (my cousin Vinnie sent me a letter describing Henry's dream TV). Unfortunately, Henry was way ahead of his time, and the $10,000 price tag for a TV back in 1978 was astronomical – and that venture plunged Advent into bankruptcy.
But Henry Kloss rose from the ashes to launch yet another company, Cambridge Soundworks, which offered as its first product the Ensemble speaker system, consisting of two satellite and two subwoofers! This speaker was only sold direct to consumers, and the ads began with the following quote from Henry Kloss: "If I Had It To Do All Over Again…And I Do…This Is How I'd Do It." So of course, I retired my Large Advent Speakers (they sit comfortably in a closet) and bought Henry's new Ensemble speakers in 1988. And they still work as well (and sound quite respectable as my music- only living room system). When Advent went under, my cousin Vinnie didn't follow Henry Kloss to Cambridge Soundworks, instead casting her lot with a fairly new company called Apple.
These days I have great set of Paradigm speakers ( 5 speakers plus powered subwoofer) and a Yamaha surround sound receiver, which are admirably accurate, whether in stereo mode for music or surround mode for video. But I am, like many people, indebted to the late, great Henry Kloss for his game-changing contributions to the faithful reproduction of music. RIP Mr. Kloss…and thanks!
Michael R. Morris
_______________________________
Congratulations on your JBL L-100's, Bob. You could do a lot worse. Also the Technics SL turntable. Non pareil.
However, if you're a professional (musician, music critic, etc.), or just serious about music, you should afford a professional sound system, in a room with padded carpet, drapes and acoustic panels to prevent reverberation
I recommend a Marantz pre-amplifier, Model 3200 or 3600, because none better have ever been made. Carver also made fine electronics, but too many bells and whistles for my taste. Then you need and electronic crossover and separate power amplifiers for low and high frequencies. You won't find them at Best Buy, but Guitar Center and professional audio shops have them. This is called bi-amping, and while it's popular in car stereo equipment, it's practically unknown in home stereo.
The reason for bi-amping is that in a single amplifier or receiver, the smaller high frequencies ride on top of the larger low-frequency waves, and when you turn it up, only the top and bottom of the low frequencies encounter distortion, but the smaller high frequencies are totally into distortion. This is obvious on an oscilloscope. See the attached.
Also, the passive crossovers used to separate the highs and lows inside a speaker cabinet are sources of distortion themselves, and should be avoided like the plague. They are acceptable between a mid-range speaker and tweeter, because at those frequencies the distortion is minimal, but not between a woofer and mid-range.
Then you could upgrade to JBL 4330 Studio Monitors for a system equal to a recording studio. I like Phase-Linear power amplifiers, but then I'm "old school." Note that the high-frequency amp needs only half the power of the bass amp.
Also, avid sub-woofers. I like my bass notes to Hu-M-M-M, not THumP!
--Tyco Tom
_______________________________
You need to talk to this guy about his loudspeakers: http://www.tektondesign.com, which will change your life. Seriously. They absolutely trounce everything I've used in my professional career, including multi-thousand dollar stuff from PMC / ATC / Wilson / etc. They just totally slay the 'competition'.
Michael
_______________________________
Bob, I miss my old stereo - along those lines...I'm not sure if you have addressed this before but could you weigh in on the compressed music trend?
I think that is one of the big things wrong with the music biz. These horrible mixes where everything sounds muddy like you can't even pick out the individual instruments. They're all mixed to be played loud and its horrible!!! What's up with that? When people say new music sucks, I think compressed mixes are the culprit.
Sara Joseph
_______________________________
Says it all….(via Bill Murray and the National Lampoon crew)
https://open.spotify.com/track/6pE93QbGFpv8FaAoj6iACh?si=WSN9BVrVTpOI98HE0fB5tg
cheers
Philip Mortlock
_______________________________
I don't remember the exact details of my circa 1976 system which I bought with my first real job, but I'm pretty sure it went to 11. At least, I got yelled at enough by neighbours and the landlord, so it must have.
Jim Carroll
Always mixed on Auratone Sound Cubes or NS10-M's --
Healthy volume, 6 feet apart, 6 feet away. Rock & Roll.
Tom Werman
_______________________________
For some reason a video on Stereophile's website of me showing my stereo system has close to a quarter million views...blows my mind
https://youtu.be/H07NpWk_Xf8
Michael Fremer
_______________________________
I was a retailer for much of my early life in the 60's thru the 80's in Los Angeles. Although we carried high-end everything in our private department store, the audio department was my pride and joy. I usually had the best of what was available because I could. Just before we closed our business in 1985 (after 21-years), I contacted our NEC rep and purchased an NEC A-10 II Integrated Amp along with the matching tuner. This beast was never sold in America and they are very rare. Still using it (the tuner didn't make it) since the early eighties along with my ADS P2 semi-automatic turntable. I inherited some Yamaha MSP5A studio monitors from PF and intend to replace my old Bose speakers with them. Still have my 45rpm collection (2000+) from when Phil and I used to request demos from all the LA radio stations masquerading as the "West Hollywood Boys Club" or some such organization. That story is in the book. I was a printer in my early teens so I had the ability to print letterheads and business cards as needed. Nobody ever questioned us; we were believable, I guess.
Best,
Jered Cargman
_______________________________
I put together a cheap component system from Radio Shack. The amp blew a fuse every couple of weeks. It was a pain in the ass, but it was right next to my bed and I could play music anytime I wanted.
Loren Parkins
_______________________________
My first real stereo was a Marantz 2225 receiver (bar mitzvah present from my parents). I bought a Dual CS128 turntable, which I still have, with money I saved from my paper route. Played them through my dad's old AR 2A speakers, which he gave me when he upgraded to ADS speakers. That system got me through college and grad school.
Dusted off the turntable 3 years ago when I bought a new Integra receiver with a phono input. I had been lugging the turntable and boxes of vinyl around for probably 20 years. I'm not a Luddite or vinyl fetishist, and I love having the thousands of CDs I purchased over the years converted to lossless files on a hard drive, but the vinyl still sounds good.
Gary Lisker
_______________________________
Pioneer SX-626
Dual 1225 w/ Shure V15 Type III
Utah speakers
(cheap but played Zeppelin II pretty loud)
With a sense of irony the first album for that setup was Money as I had none after I left the store.
All purchased from Musicraft a local Chicago chain.
Upgraded to the Utah's to Visonik David's for my dorm room a few years later.
Neal Berz
_______________________________
Marantz and Advent. The memory of you followers amazes me more than the impressive systems.
At one point in the early 70s I purchased a tuner/amp with 2 FM tuners. (Can't remember brand) Local FM broadcasters simulcast stereo signals on specialty shows in south Florida. TV broadcasts did the same. Recollections are dim but I had fun with it.
Earliest memories are of a transistor radio with an earbud that would pick up clear channel signals from NY, Chicago and Nashville at night. 60s
Luke Lewis
_______________________________
I know i'm tardy with this but....
1975, my last year in school. My uncle was a dubbing engineer at Denham Studios and when he updated his system he gifted me the following:
Thorens TD125 turntable, Quad pre- and power amps, Tannoy speakers.
'Dark Side Of The Moon', 'Wish You Were Here' and Led Zep IV...oh my word, it was mystical! Rocked my world (and everyone else's at my English boarding school)
I later added a Revox 1/4" reel-to-reel to this system.
I know that, technically, modern gear delivers more clarity but I don't think I ever got a better sound, spiritually!
Keep on keepin' on, Bob
Simon TC, London
_______________________________
I was a bit young during the heyday of all this Hi-Fi ness but I saved my album collection with the idea I will buy a new system someday . Maybe you can start a new thread by talking about what records people kept throughout the years. My collection is only about 60 albums but I would put my collection up against anybody's. Everything from the double electric light Orchestra album to all the clash albums to beach boys, journey, the dead Kennedys, Zepplin, AC/DC with Bon Scott, and so many others. It would certainly be good stuff to hear what Records people played on their systems.
All the best
Johnny Vieira
_______________________________
Marantz
Scott Fennel
_______________________________
Hi, Bob. (We met at Amanda Palmer live interview, I did some magic, I'm the guy who helped her write her book.)
It was 1978 and after spending high school reading stereo mags and fantasizing over the ads, I finally had a few books and ran into a deal. I bought an Optonica SA 5151 receiver (85 watts RMS per channel, it was a brand created by Sharp when they moved into high-end audio for a time in the late 70s and early 80s); a top of the line Technics SL-1600 MK2 Quartz Direct-Drive Automatic Turntable with an Ortofon Concorde cartridge; and a pair of (now rare) Allison Two speakers. Some years ago the turntable stopped functioning and the speakers needed refoaming, and recently I found a terrific little shop here in San Diego manned by two OCD type audio geeks who did a terrific job refurbishing the entire system, even replacing a few of the tiny lamps in the tuner display of the receiver.
So I'm now back to listening to my 500+ LPs purchased back in the 70s and 80s, plus additions from local used LP shops, and the first time I played the system for my 14-year-old sons, raised on computer speakers and phones, they were dumbfounded. I bought them a smaller scale analog system and turntable for their birthdays, but I added a bluetooth wireless input so they can stream their phones to the big bookshelf speakers.
Still trying to tweak the best way to get decent output from my iTunes collection to the analog system -- solutions are clunky and less than elegant. But it's a joy to put on an original LP of Mad Dogs & Englishman or Live at Leeds and crank it up. Nothing else like it.
best,
Jamy Ian Swiss
P.S. BTW, what I learned when I pursued refurbishing my system as that bang-for-buck in buying vintage analog gear is terrific. My system -- the three pieces -- listed for $2350 in 1978. (I got a deal but that's besides the point.) With some effort you can buy that system today for $1100.
Funny thing is I put almost $900 into the repairs. BUT ... if you buy the stuff used, odds are you're gonna want to take the stuff to a guy like I found, and have them do maintenance and get the workings up to snuff anyway, so it really would cost you more than the $1100 to do it right. But this way I knew exactly what I had, and it's the stuff I'd been listening too since back when.
But really, good vintage gear is a bargain these days. There are only a few select items here and there that command high prices, like the Acoustic Reseach AR-3a.
And then there's new stuff like McIntosh which has managed to stay at the very top and will cost you the price of a car.
_______________________________
Stereo stuff was awesome back then. In the Northwest, we had Speakerlab and Speakerfactory to get hand made speakers to your liking. Cornerhorns were our choice to handle the power, friend of mine owned Speakerfactory, he made me very large bookshelf speakers, matched the wood with cornerhorn components, big mid range horns, 15" woofer and I ran a Phase Linear 700, which was a pure power amp also made locally here in Washington. Played a lot of air guitar in front of those speakers, as we built custom stands to get them off the ground.
Allan Gastwirth
_______________________________
My old buddy John Carter used to say; digital sound=florescent light, analog sound=incandescent light. I sure wish I still had my old MacIntosh MC-240 amp.
John Brodey
_______________________________
Purchased my first piece of gear in 1965, a Fisher 500B receiver, from the consignment shelf at Shore Drug in Shorewood, WI -- $60. Shore Drug was a pharmacy that also sold stereo equipment and cameras. That was the start of a wonderful journey that continues to this day.
Jim Charne
_______________________________
Around 1992 I was browsing in a used musical instrument store in Minneapolis, there was a 1974 Pioneer SA7100 integrated amplifier on the shelf that looked brand new, it was $20. I figured I couldn't go wrong with $20 and if nothing else it would be a good back up amp. When I got home and plugged it in I was surprised how much better and warmer it sounded than the current JVC unit I was using so I started using the Pioneer exclusively. I've used it every day since and it continues to work flawlessly and sounds amazing. Have never had single issue with it. 26+ years of service (and still running strong) for $20 ain't too bad.
Rob Radack
_______________________________
Bob - The subject of stereo systems certainly speaks to a certain generation of men. Me included. Sansui, Dual, KLH.
A simple set-up, but with enough juice to allow this high school kid from Edgemont, NY (68-72) to play some serious air guitar in the small apartment (bachelor pad) I shared with my 40-year old father.
My dad was the one to select the equipment from one of the many cool, hi-fi stores on the upper 40's in NYC. My dad was a hip dude. Jumping forward, in my senior year of high school he purchased a 1972 BMW 2002 in Colorado orange. Ya gotta luv it.
All thru high school and college, before the tech revolution, a trip to a stereo and/or record store, in NYC or White Plains, was a regular, must-take adventure. These stores, along with guitar and drum shops, were where we met face-to-face and networked with our music-centric community. The store was the original Facebook and Linked In.
The music maven in our community was my best friend from Edgemont HS, John Stix. John turned me on to the groups, which led to the purchase of the vinyl which was played over and over on my Dual turntable. Balancing the tone arm was as critical as tuning guitar strings or drum heads.
Our stereo equipment, along with our car, defined who we were. This was especially so in the freshman college dorm. Every dorm had the cool kid with the massive set-up. Technique turntables with the strobe light were the then new thing, as were Datsun 240Z's.
Later in life, I purchased a Carver preamp and amp, B&O turntable and Infinity tower speakers. I still have the Carver and B&O, but had to buy new speakers. Unfortunately I no longer have these set-up in my house. I plan to set-up the system in my garage, where I am hanging my old concert posters, art and photos. Aretha live at the Fillmore, '71.
For a specific generation of men...and women...the component stereo system created a gathering point where we listened, discussed and danced to the music of our lives. The current generation certainly does the same, but probably with Spotify thru an iPhone linked via Bluetooth to a Bose speaker? These are their good ole days.
Keep provoking us,
Patrick Sbarra
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Another great column that caught my eye. Boy, was assembling a great stereo a preoccupation of my childhood.
For me and my geek friends, home-building the Dynaco PAT-4 preamp was a rite of geek passage. You could couple that with a brutish Dynaco power amp at 200 watts per channel. Dorm room convenience forced a replacement of that with the Sherwood S-8910 FM-only receiver at 80 watts a side. it was AM and not FM that was irrelevant then.
I accompanied that with an Advent turntable, later replaced it with a Dual 510, reputed to have zero tracking error. I had Dynaco A35 and A25 speakers, the latter of which hang on the wall of my garage to this day.
I couldn't afford JBL L-100's, so I built myself copies. I got a local Amish millwork place in Lancaster to build the oak ogee-cornered cases and mounted the three drivers flush with the surface of the front like JBL did, and sanded and painted the fronts with black resin so, like the JBLs, they looked as good with the grilles off as on. I sold them to a friend in college "with a lifetime guarantee" and he dropped one out his dorm room window 3 stories to the ground below. The force of impact knocked one of the woofer magnets loose from the metal basket, so I had to replace that, but the speaker went right back into service.
For tapes there was the first Pioneer auto-reverse deck with digital VU meters that looked VERY cool, and a cheap Superscope and then a 3-channel Nakamichi for Dead shows.
Aside from what I owned, I could dream: DCM Time Window and Dahlquist speakers, Macintosh tube amps, stuff that cost as much as a used car.
Thanks for a peek into a common thread of our youth!
Cheers
Henry Eshelman
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Background. At the halfway point of my Junior year of high school my family moved from idyllic upstate NY to central Illinois. No more ski club and NASTAR winters, fantasies of sports cars fueled by the races at Watkins Glen, and contact with lifelong friends.
The only thing that made it were my albums. My parents in their effort to overcome guilt allowed me to buy a $45 compact all in one setup with a couple of shitty bookshelves speaks. My beat up on Zenith console didn't make the trip but that compact system made me understand the weight of that early 60s Zenith was for magnets. Found a record store in a shitty Decatur, IL strip mall where the only hippies, punks, metal heads and real country fans in town would gather and I got familiar with their schedules based on who was behind the register and what they played. One of the people I had met ran the local electronics store and recognized me when I came in to his store with my savings from busing tables after school and weekends to buy a "component" stereo, spent $250 on a Pioneer receiver, Dual base model turntable and some small JBLs. He offered me a job as they were starting to see sales and thought I could handle the gig.
There are hundreds of experiences in the 4 years I worked there but to the point of this email. Successful floor salespeople got terrific discounts. As it happens, people would ask "what do you have" all the time.
Damn near every bit of my paychecks went to albums, fun, and this setup.
4 Epicure 602 speakers, insanely inefficient, a larger Bose 901 format, amazing separation and depth.
2 Phase Linear 400 amps both with upgraded 700B driver boards.
Technics SU-9200 preamp.
Kenwood KD 500 turntable (massive, synthetic graphite base) without the tonearm.
Infinity Black Window graphite tonearm.
Audio Technica and Shure Cartridges available in mounts.
Macintosh MR something tube tuner with an 8 yagi antenna I put in the attic over my bedroom. KSHE from St. Louis, and out of Chicago WXRT, WMET, WLUP all from Decatur.
Pioneer CT-F1000 cassette deck
Dokorder 1140 4 track reel to reel.
oh, and 2 Koss Pro4 headphones cause...
All assembled while in my 16th and 17th year. Had room in my home bedroom and later dorm room for bed, albums and the above gear.
All I had in my teens was music and I worshiped sound. BTW had one of the first Rockford Fossgate DC amps in my 68 LeMans hooked up to homemade cabinets with EPI drivers mounted.
Keep sharing!
John Strong
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You've hit a nerve.
I've been into stereos for quite some time. I've built multiple tonearms for turntables. One of my favorite materials was good chopsticks. Super lightweight high quality bamboo.
I've got a Marantz Model 150 FM tuner with the 2" scope recalibrated so it shows station modulation accurately. Then there's the 3600 PreAmp with the custom 70v per microsecond slew rate amp boards in it. They sound very clean and sparkly. The entire front panel still works on the 3600. Just the phono pre and the times-ten amp were bypassed with the high performance British boards internally.
I finally found a set of ESS AMT Towers, speakers I didn't even know existed. The high frequencies are so detailed that I found new things in recordings I had made in my own studio. That's where those speakers live now. They have 10" woofers on a transmission line, just like in the amazing ESS Transtatics (different woofer though).
I've adapted a pair of JBL CBT1000s to work on speaker stands, with Speak-on jacks on the backs. Are you listening JBL? (These speakers are made for permanent mounting only. I had to modify them.)
(JBL CBT1000 speakers use Navy sonar technology to get controlled dispersion in a small, lightweight externally amplified cabinet – 4' tall, 1' wide, 1 1/5' deep, 60 lbs. They put out 130db from 6 6.5" woofers and 24 1" dome tweeters. Tiny footprint, very hifi, very loud, good outdoors and in reverberant halls. Equalized using IK Multimedia's ARC2 system. The CBT1000s actually do what the Bose Pro speakers claim to do. There are tons of these speakers mounted up on poles all over Disneyland.)
I'm driving the CBTs with 3000 watts per channel – just about ideal. That's what I'm using with my custom keyboard system.
I enjoy playing things like old Cold Blood recordings and playing along with them on my hotrodded Hammond H100 (I did that mod, too.) No need to turn the organ down to mix with the sound.
Louis Hogan
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I'll chime in as well. My adventures in the land of High Fidelity began in high school, probably around 1969. Curious coincidence, but my cousin Vinnie (literally her name), worked with the legendary Henry Kloss, just like Adam Pressman's father. I'll bet they knew each other. And Vinnie got me started with the KLH Model 17 speakers and the first KLH receiver. I also had a Benjamin Miracord turntable with a Pickering cartridge (the one with the dust brush, ha ha) and set of Superex Pro headphones. So I had some pretty decent gear for a 16 year old.
Cousin Vinnie then followed Henry Kloss over to Advent (which he founded), so I sold my KLH 17 speakers and stepped up to the original Large Advent speakers, which some 46 years later still work! The Benjamin Miracord turntable died, and it got replaced with a Dual direct drive 1219 turntable and Shure V15-IV cartridge. The KLH receiver also died, and got replaced with an Onkyo TX-4500 quartz locked receiver (probably in 1976) . When I came to LA in 1978, the Large Advent speakers, Onkyo receiver and Dual turntable came with me. And all of this vintage gear still works!
I know this is getting long, but a little bit more of Hi-Fi history is in order. Henry Kloss had a dream to bring to market the first large screen consumer projection TV, which he did while at Advent (my cousin Vinnie sent me a letter describing Henry's dream TV). Unfortunately, Henry was way ahead of his time, and the $10,000 price tag for a TV back in 1978 was astronomical – and that venture plunged Advent into bankruptcy.
But Henry Kloss rose from the ashes to launch yet another company, Cambridge Soundworks, which offered as its first product the Ensemble speaker system, consisting of two satellite and two subwoofers! This speaker was only sold direct to consumers, and the ads began with the following quote from Henry Kloss: "If I Had It To Do All Over Again…And I Do…This Is How I'd Do It." So of course, I retired my Large Advent Speakers (they sit comfortably in a closet) and bought Henry's new Ensemble speakers in 1988. And they still work as well (and sound quite respectable as my music- only living room system). When Advent went under, my cousin Vinnie didn't follow Henry Kloss to Cambridge Soundworks, instead casting her lot with a fairly new company called Apple.
These days I have great set of Paradigm speakers ( 5 speakers plus powered subwoofer) and a Yamaha surround sound receiver, which are admirably accurate, whether in stereo mode for music or surround mode for video. But I am, like many people, indebted to the late, great Henry Kloss for his game-changing contributions to the faithful reproduction of music. RIP Mr. Kloss…and thanks!
Michael R. Morris
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Congratulations on your JBL L-100's, Bob. You could do a lot worse. Also the Technics SL turntable. Non pareil.
However, if you're a professional (musician, music critic, etc.), or just serious about music, you should afford a professional sound system, in a room with padded carpet, drapes and acoustic panels to prevent reverberation
I recommend a Marantz pre-amplifier, Model 3200 or 3600, because none better have ever been made. Carver also made fine electronics, but too many bells and whistles for my taste. Then you need and electronic crossover and separate power amplifiers for low and high frequencies. You won't find them at Best Buy, but Guitar Center and professional audio shops have them. This is called bi-amping, and while it's popular in car stereo equipment, it's practically unknown in home stereo.
The reason for bi-amping is that in a single amplifier or receiver, the smaller high frequencies ride on top of the larger low-frequency waves, and when you turn it up, only the top and bottom of the low frequencies encounter distortion, but the smaller high frequencies are totally into distortion. This is obvious on an oscilloscope. See the attached.
Also, the passive crossovers used to separate the highs and lows inside a speaker cabinet are sources of distortion themselves, and should be avoided like the plague. They are acceptable between a mid-range speaker and tweeter, because at those frequencies the distortion is minimal, but not between a woofer and mid-range.
Then you could upgrade to JBL 4330 Studio Monitors for a system equal to a recording studio. I like Phase-Linear power amplifiers, but then I'm "old school." Note that the high-frequency amp needs only half the power of the bass amp.
Also, avid sub-woofers. I like my bass notes to Hu-M-M-M, not THumP!
--Tyco Tom
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You need to talk to this guy about his loudspeakers: http://www.tektondesign.com, which will change your life. Seriously. They absolutely trounce everything I've used in my professional career, including multi-thousand dollar stuff from PMC / ATC / Wilson / etc. They just totally slay the 'competition'.
Michael
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Bob, I miss my old stereo - along those lines...I'm not sure if you have addressed this before but could you weigh in on the compressed music trend?
I think that is one of the big things wrong with the music biz. These horrible mixes where everything sounds muddy like you can't even pick out the individual instruments. They're all mixed to be played loud and its horrible!!! What's up with that? When people say new music sucks, I think compressed mixes are the culprit.
Sara Joseph
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Says it all….(via Bill Murray and the National Lampoon crew)
https://open.spotify.com/track/6pE93QbGFpv8FaAoj6iACh?si=WSN9BVrVTpOI98HE0fB5tg
cheers
Philip Mortlock
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I don't remember the exact details of my circa 1976 system which I bought with my first real job, but I'm pretty sure it went to 11. At least, I got yelled at enough by neighbours and the landlord, so it must have.
Jim Carroll
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Re-Duchess/Genesis
"Duchess" is utterly magical…the 1980 tour was, in my estimation, the band's last truly great one…although there were a few small club shows in '82 that were astoundingly great as well. I'll send you a show that is just unfuckingbelievable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZnP6eq9kcM
Scroll to 42:56 for "Duchess", but the entire gig is a killer.
Michael
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Yes...Yes....Yes!!!!!!
When I was 11 years old I had my own little stereo. It was pretty crappy (a record player with two speakers that were wired directly into it, volume knob on the front). It was nothing like my Dads' Denon turntable, Sony reel to reel, and Klipsch speakers that were taller than I was. But...it was MINE!
I basically listened to hand me down records from his collection, CSN, Four Tops, and the Doobie Brothers.
Around this time I started hearing some music that resonated with me that wasn't in my Dads' record collection. It started with a couple of my cousins' Styx records and the first Van Halen record. But what REALLY turned my head one day, was hearing the song "Misunderstanding" on the radio at summer day camp. The camp counselor (who was named Reagan) told me that this was a band called Genesis. I heard the song about three or four more times that week and just absolutely loved it. It was time to talk my parents into letting me tape a penny to a postcard and join a record club. I could order some music that wouldn't be my Dads' records. They would be MINE!
The day the albums showed up was a great day. I had ordered no less than three Styx records (thanks to my cousins) Van Halen's "Fair Warning" and Genesis "Duke". I skipped through the others and went right to "Duke"
Those were truly the days. The first thing that got me was the cover. "Was that Duke? What was he looking at out of the window?" I took the vinyl out of the sleeve, but much to my horror, it was mislabeled. Both stickers in the middle were for side two! I couldn't start with side two. It had to be side one! How would I know? Well, I decided to just take my chances and follow along with the lyrics and I would write a little "1" on whatever side it ended up being.
It didn't matter.....
The minute I dropped the needle onto "Behind The Lines" (Side 1!)...that was it! Even on my little crappy stereo, it was HUGE! What was this? This wasn't Howard Roberts, Jimmy Smith or Tower Of Power (some of Dads' faves) this was something completely different!!!! Big keyboard sounds, guitar chords, deep bass (as deep as it could get on this unit) and......the drums!!!! I had already been playing for 5 of my 11 years and I had not heard anything like this. So I listened to all of the amazing twists and turns and then...just after 2 minutes.....BAM...it settles into the track and a vocal comes in and it was like a different song. And there I sat...with my jaw on the ground, trying to make sense of what had just happened to me. When the track faded out and the Roland 808 drum machine faded in, I was AGAIN, hearing something very different. And "Duchess" was just beautiful. My 11 year old self actually felt bad for the character by the end of the tune! I knew that this music was going to take me on a different journey. I hadn't even gotten to my beloved "Misunderstanding" yet.
This record changed my perception of music. I still own the mislabeled copy I got in the mail. I was an instant Genesis and Phil Collins fan and continue to be. I've been fortunate enough to be professional musician for my entire adult life. There are, of course, many influential points along that map. But..."Duke" was a big one.
Ed Toth
Doobie Brothers
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"Guide Vocal" the track that follows completes "Dutchess" for me. Aside from "Dutchess," my go to track on this album is "Please Don't Ask." One of my favorite songs of all time. To me, this is the track where you can feel Phil Collins take it to the next level.
God I love this record!
Marty Winsch
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Thanks for celebrating these albums, Bob. The era from Trick of The Tail through Three Sides Live, to my mind, represents the finest continuous string of albums of any popular group. The level of musicianship, creativity and production clarity is unsurpassed. Seconds Out would be my top choice if I could only have one desert island disc.
I have a pristine live bootleg of the band from a two night stand at the Theatre Royal in London on the Duke tour that they recorded when they were putting down tracks for Three Sides Live. It's the best live performance I've ever heard from them. It also illustrates what a fantastic front man Phil Collins was as he holds the audience in the palm of his hand. Let me know if you'd like the link to the Dropbox
Cheers
Andy Dayes
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Thank you Bob. Thank you thank you. And yes, I'm a "Gabriel"-ite, but have always found the post-Gabriel stuff to be vastly overlooked from any perspective you want. But enough about that, they were a great band, all extremely talented, and really found something with the trio of Phil Collins, Tony Banks, and Mike Rutherford.
How much of a Gabriel-ite? When I was a freshman at Tulane, we drove from New Orleans to Memphis to catch Genesis (w Gabriel) on the Selling England By The Pound tour. Magic - pure magic. When they toured "The Lamb" the record wasn't even out yet and I drove from D.C. to Baltimore (by myself) on a cold rainy night to see them play. I've seen them maybe 3 times with the post-Gabriel band, and have enjoyed seeing them become "the best live band in the world" etc etc....
Thanks for the memories, and the taste as always...
John P
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Seconds Out is what the live record was called. Best track, Cinema Show. Double drum solo. Bill Bruford of Yes fame and Phil Collins. Rest of the record is Chester Thompson of Zappa fame. But Bill was the drummer on the Trick of the Tail tour. Chester took over after that. Saw Genesis in 74. Massey Hall, Toronto. The Selling England by the Pound tour, some say best ever. No encores, as Peter said "the play's the thing". Quoting Hamlet. Although some might argue that the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour was better. I can't decide.
https://youtu.be/NghJHyoEV7A the whole show from '74. Montreal, Centre Sportif
Jake Gold
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Great riff on Genesis.
Trick of the Tail is one of my faves also—though I was castigated then by my prog buddies for liking anything Post-Gabriel.
I also liked Drama by Yes. Blasphemy!
Those were the days. And Genesis was so good live when both Chester Thompson and Phil played drums.
There's actually some good prog bands coming up out of the South.
My son took me to see a band called CBDB from Alabama. There were about 40 people at the Exit Inn in Nashville. And they were great!
Prog is not dead. It's just been hibernating. There is a great crop of talented youngbloods with crazy chops coming up. We will see and hear it again.
But you are so right about the joys of racing home with the gatefold vinyl—dropping the needle and sitting there with the double album folded out in your lap. When a great stereo was akin to having a nice car. In fact, it was always better to me. Not sure the boat anchor sized receivers will ever come back but it sure was fun and sounded so good!
David Bach
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Thanks Bob. Been listening to Three Sides Live since it came out. There was a live concert video of "Turn it on Again" that used to be on MTV way back when that got me hooked on the album. Duchess has always been my favorite track on the record. So glad you've brought it to life again. Cheers.
Jed Weitzman
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This is great Bob, I lost interest after Trick Of The Tail, Ripples was and still is my guilty pleasure. I always correlated Lennon and McCartney to Gabriel and Collins…Lennon and Gabriel had more edge, more artsy, their work seemed to encompass a huge, complex and pained imagination. Collins and McCartney were just painfully talented and needed to make music, thus more commercial (that can be debated), Whether Collins sold out or not, it does not tarnish his talent as a vocalist, writer and of course his drumming. Every drummer I've discussed Phill Collins with is hats off…..And as far as Yes goes, ck out Yes Live at Duke University 1972 (thank you Spotify), nothing short of super human. Thanks for bringing us back Bob.
Brad Cole
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Funny you should bring up Genesis right after the stereo system series. The albums "Duke'" "Abacab" and "Three Sides Live" were on steady late-night rotation on my stacked double Advent system in the early 80s. Yes, I had 4 Large Advent loudspeakers, turning a pair upside down and putting it on top of the first pair. This way the tweeters were closer together for a more pinpoint top end. These were bi-amped with a pair of modified Dynaco Stereo 70 tube amps. Other great late night tracks included: "Dodo/Lurker," "Me & Sarah Jane" and "Home by the Sea" with the tubes pounding voltage into the Advents operating at full throat. Heady days...
Did I mention Phil Collins is a drummer's drummer with a top 40 singing career? Even Ringo can't top that!
Peter Duray-Bito
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This is the "in defense of Genesis" piece I've been waiting for you to write, I knew it would happen some day! Beautifully stated on-the-nose description of what the band did so well and how it made us feel. I still listen to "Squonk" at top volume and the feeling is the same. And "Duchess" - what a song! I'm going to listen to it right now.
Thanks,
Kelly Gross
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So you listened to it at Freddy and Demi's. My band Bullet Boys (not the 80s metal band) played with Freddy's band The Nu Kats in the late 70s. Demi was there. She was 16 at the time.
Steven Casper
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My all time favorite Genesis song!!!! I haven't even read this email yet, but I had to respond as soon as I saw the subject matter (and read a bit to confirm that it was indeed about MY "Duchess"). I can't believe you're writing about this! Alright, enough exclamations. Time to read the post...which I will do while listening to "Duke".
Marc Reiter
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Bob - if you love Duchess, you must give a shout out to "Behind the Lines" - one of my favourite (Canadian spelling) songs which leads into "Duchess" on Three Sides Live.. I believe you have to take the album in as a whole 30 plus min composition....
Thanks,
John Hayes
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Bob, good post. I was a big Genesis fan in college and got deep into their catalogue. I still pull out their albums once every couple of months. I have to say that "Selling England by the Pound" was by far and away, their best album in my opinion.
Please give it a listen.
Tom Scharf
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Great stuff, Bob.
I played the shit out of Three Sides Live - In The Cage Medley - Afterglow (two drummers!) is fantastic. I was 11 when it came out! And in college I made a friend who loved this album and version of In The Cage as much as me. And we cranked it. Fun times.
Paper Late on the studio side is also a great tune. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AhBJwARAes
"There's no need to be nice on the way up, 'cause you're not coming down."
That line hits me in a completely different way today. Phil Collins is a guy who knows about the way up and the way down. I loved Genesis and Phil's solo stuff and he was a massive star!!! "Against All Odds" was huge.I honestly don't know what happened but it seemed like one day it became de rigueur to hate Phil Collins…and he just kind of disappeared. Then he had the vocal issues but he scored a broadway hit a la Elton John. He has produced tons of music, played sold out stadium tours…he deserves a bit more respect, I think. Why does Rod Stewart get treated differently? He came out rocking hard…and fell off that wagon quick and fast, spiraling into sappy, cheesy, commercial crap. That's worse than anything Phil ever did, is it not?
/end unexpected rant about Phil Collins not getting proper respect
Eric Seifert
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Thanks so much for recognizing Duchess. Been a fav of mine since the record first arrived. The street noise was that Duke was an album Collins lyricized while going thru a horrible divorce ( word is, he's still the clubhouse leader in divorce proceedings settlement monies). As a working musician of many years with the most fleeting of minor successes, the lyrics and presentation are the details aw here, as i'm certain is the case for so many musician/grinders who move on to the more traditional life rolls as we age. As you've so eloquently said a million times, one of life's trickiest challenges is when one finally calls it quits as a working musician, and you quickly realize there's nothing else in life that even comes close to the road, the dressing room and the stage.
To; paraphrase Bear Hands, every day I am loving your work more.
Thanks,
NickB in Vegas
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A nice reminder of a fond time for me also. I know it's unfashionable but I grew up with Genesis and they are one of only a handful of bands that have stood the test of (my) time. Can't listen to Duchess without listening to Behind the Lines, the song that comes before it both on Duke and Three Sides Live. They are a tandem, a mini-suite, inseparable as far as I'm concerned. And on that note, guess what I'm about to play...
Mark Foster
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what a fantastic and exact review of one of my favourite bands of all time.. took me right back and through the decades.. thanks
Andrew Johns
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Spot on, Bob. The album "Duke" is one of my favorite aural experiences ever, front to back, with "Misunderstanding" as a sort of mental intermission in an otherwise majestic and tragic and thrilling song cycle. I remember the first couple of listens didn't really register, but on the third listen the Anticipation you mentioned kicked in and suddenly I was enthralled with the whole thing. That's the mark of great composition, when you know what's coming, you can't wait to get there, and then Boom, there it is!
I'm sorry for the bluetooth generation that's missing out. Missing out on enveloping sound and missing out on the monumental compositional efforts of previous generations of non-distracted musicians. I encourage everyone to experience "Duke"… at least three times.
-Mark Hiskey
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Love Genesis but was horrified that you went from Foxtrot to....Wind and Wuthering?
Nothing about their two greatest Gabriel-fronted epics — Selling England by the Pound or their masterpiece Lamb Lies Down on Broadway? Seriously? Go back and listen to "In the Cage" off Lamb.
Post-Gabriel Genesis was OK but hardly had the special drama and unpredictability of Gabriel. Slicker maybe but they were missing their dark heart.
I saw them on the Trick of the Tail tour in Chicago and the sound and spectacle were great. But in hindsight it was just flash and pomp. Collins tried to do the Gabriel act at times but he just came off as a lightweight. Tony Banks turned out to be a pop-worshiping doodler. Did you ever watch the Genesis documentary? It was fun to see Gabriel practically smirking every time Banks yammered on about all their later pop hits.
Genesis may have sold millions after Gabriel but now no one cares. "Suppers Ready", however, still electrifies.
Dave Curtis
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I saw The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway tour (just prior to Gabriel's departure) One of the top 50 of the 10,000 or so live acts I have seen. I was young & very fortunate! I also caught all 4 of the solo album tours up through So. He is something else!!
Still touched by you your review of the Jeff Beck package concert Bob!! (I should have been there.)
Lavon Pagan
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Finally! Have always held Three Sides Live (and Seconds out for that matter) as one of the great live albums of all time.
And you could not be more on point than Duchess on TSL.
Thanks Bob.
/ David Mortimer-Hawkins
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Thank you Bob. I'm a Sixties baby, my introduction to music came with my uncle taping sections that he thought my sister and I might like… as you did in those days, you wanted to be sure you filled the tape so I had ELO's A New World Record followed by Turn It On Again. When it came to Christmas, I asked for Duke, my first ever bought cassette, the first piece of original music that I owned and could play in my bedroom. Suffice to say it was played to death; strangely, I then picked up Foxtrot in a bargain bucket, so I started Genesis from both ends. I still don't know if it was a curse or a privilege to have missed the Seventies heyday of so many bands, as to me each was a clean sheet… those berating "inset band here" for the change of a singer, or a new style, left me flummoxed and still do. When we start treating people as possessions, things generally go a bit wrong.
Listening to Duke now. Thank you for the prompt.
Jon Collins
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Yess! Duchess is a fantastic song, really quite bitter. The album is strong, with the exception of Duke's Travels which tries and fails to match the wonderful Los Endos from Trick of the Tail.
Steve Hackett is still touring a wonderful set with Nad Sylvan doing a great PG (he has some good recent prog albums in his own right which you can find on Spotify.)
I'm seeing Steve again this fall (in England) as he's touring again with an orchestra. Check out his work with Icelandic band Todmobile on YouTube - Steve playing with the Icelandic Orchestra and a lead singer that could be Thor - trust me it works! https://youtu.be/AR948ak4VjM
All the Best
Jamie Riddell
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Wow Bob. Love when you pull up these gems from the past. This one really resonates with me.
I looked on Spotify and saw that this one came out in 1980. That is the year I graduated from high school. I remember putting on this album and just floating with the music. The cut right after ,Guide Vocal,especially spoke to me. " I am the one who guided you this far. All you know and all you feel. Nobody must know my name. For nobody would understand. And you kill what you fear. "
Thanks again for bringing me back.
Chris Kottke
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Love In the cage off of 3 sides with Chester Thompson and Phil going at it!
Dano
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There's good stuff from every album but you didn't mention their best - The Lamb.
Despite its being opaque, the music, singing, production and yes, lyrics are amazing.
Adam Bernstein
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Hey Bob. If you listen to what Tony Banks says about the Duke Album, it's a epic concept album side if you remove the singles. They wanted to write another epic like Suppers Ready but also wanted to make some money. The Result is Duke. I would also argue that Seconds Out is the better live Album, I think that was the peak of the Prog Rock version of the Band. Steve Hacket is still touring the earlier music brilliantly. Agree you would need a forty pound Alexa to do this music justice. The big Stereo rigs and Prog went hand in hand. Cheers Pete Quigley from Toronto.
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Man I have thought about those songs in years. I had ALL of those albums.
Sincerely yours,
David Levy
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I loved this essay on Duchess - probably my favorite Genesis song ever - and up until this moment I thought I was the only one that knew it - or at least appreciated it. Perfection. Thank you, Bob.
Carl Park
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At some point, most young drummers that want to be more studio and set out understand the bible of 'groove,' usually sponge up Steve Gadd, Jeff Porcaro or more currently, Vinnie Colaiuta. For me, it was Chester Thompson's drumming on Genesis' Seconds Out and Three Sides Live. Chester has a great combination of time, pocket and dynamic reaction. At the time, I needed something a bit more compelling than what was happening on Steely Dan records (I have since come to love the Aja record).
Not to mention, the 'In The Cage' medley on TSLive which still slays me. Besides the band being on top of their game, the double drumming is outstanding.
Duke is the last noteworthy prog record from that period, IMO.
Rich Pagano
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Great column.
I always enjoy your reminiscences of discovering bands and the progression from first encounter to full engagement.
My path to discovering Genesis wasn't the same, but some aspects were similar to yours.
Certainly the first album I loved was "Trick of the Tail". Great songs like "Squonk" and "Dance on a Volcano" that were a bit more accessible than some of the earlier pieces. I also think it was the best-sounding album they'd produced up to that point.
Good stuff.
Cheers
Rob Hargadon
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There are just not enough people making recommendations these days. I appreciate you always sharing the content you find amazing. I have read books, listened to songs, watched streaming programs that you have posted about. And now after the past week talking about audio gear, I have purchased your exact turntable from the 70's (Technics SL-1300) - found for local pick up here for $200, original owner, in mint condition, sounds great. And then today randomly found Genesis Three Sides Live and WInd & Wuthering at an antique store. Thanks again and keep the sharing up.
Mark Dubec
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Have to agree completely with you on Seconds Out and Three Sides Live.
I grew up listening to those Records and found very few that could challenge the Sonics and the Songwriting.
Even today I will dip back into those tracks and marvel at the musicianship and camaraderie on stage.
It's hard for me to listen to the original records because I feel the live versions eclipse the studio recordings.
Thanks for the reminder!
Ed Rode
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Great stuff about "Duchess", such a great song and Duke is such a cool album. I too came to Genesis post Gabriel. I got to see them at Winterland on the "Seconds Out" tour and loved it but it's the "Three Sides live" tour and album that really got me. That one was in L.A., might have been the Sports Arena, We sat right behind the drums. Seeing and hearing Phil Collins and Chester Thomson was mindblowing. Double drumming mastery. Of course there is a drum fill leading into "Afterglow" that Chester also played on a Zappa song (More Trouble Every Day/Roxy and Elsewhere) What a dynamic lead in to the song, it builds and builds and then BAM, perfectly placed drum fill that perfectly flows and enhances the arrangement. The Wind and Wuthering version is nice too but that live version is still my fave.
Loved your Happy Together tour write up too. We saw the show here in Atlanta a few years ago and I agree about that version of Peaches, They also did a great version of one of my favorite songs from 200 Motels. "Magic Fingers"
I love reading your column, so many great memories of the music we love. I'm digging the podcast too,
Best regards from Atlanta,
Jez Graham
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Thanks for this. I love Duchess the Duke LP (sorry to the purists as well) or as my friend Scott always tells me I don't collect Earth, Wind & Collins... I saw all the Duke tour LA shows including the Roxy show were Phil was selling the tickets inside the box office. Memorable! Loved your Freddie Moore nugget. Saw the Nu Kats (and Demi hangin' out) many times...
Cheers, Mark
Southland CD
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Bob - Another great piece of writing about a different time in music evolution.
I can't count the number of songs and artists that I have "rediscovered" listening to Deep Tracks. I especially appreciate the deejays like Earl Bailey, Dusty Street and Jim Ladd who KNOW the music, the backstories, the connections and the musical history. They were there!
Keep on rockin' Bob!
Burke Long
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I always regarded Genesis as having three periods; Gabriel; Collins/Hackett and Collins/MTV.
I always regarded the two Collins/Hackett entries, A Trick of the Tail and Wind & Wuthering, as good as the best Gabriel period stuff, but I still discount the Collins/MTV era Genesis as a pop band that abandoned their prog roots.
Charles McGarry
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"And you kill what you fear, and you fear what you don't understand."
Thank you Bob for acknowledging a less known gem in Duchess. The Genesis "Clan" is a passionate yet understated one. When I was 13 my local FM Rocker 92 KQRS introduced me to Abacab, it marked the origin of my musical obsession. During that time my new passion quickly included the likes of The Police Ghost in the Machine and Rush Moving Pictures among others. My tastes, identity, and collection were rapidly expanding. Yes, that was a time when we aligned our personal brands with the music we were connected to! It was Abacab in all its glory that drove me to see them live...my second concert...the first being The Police. After that, owning 3 Sides Live was not an option! Thank you for giving them the the credit they deserve as a premiere live experience. The only omission I could find in your story was not highlighting how essential Phil Collins technical yet powerful percussion was to their very soul. Watching Phil and Chester Thompson (Weather Report) create magic together live is something that will live with me until the end of time.
Respectfully yours,
Paul Jackson
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Such a perfect ode to the awesomeness of Genesis and the feeling of turning it up so loud and laying on the floor staring at the ceiling absorbing it all
Also, for the drama queens, please dont forget the tracks "Alone Tonight" a "Please Dont Ask", a bit literal and not as powerful as Dutchess, but enjoyable nonetheless.
Keep on keepin' on
Jill Goldhand
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I've been reading and enjoying your newsletter for about 6 months now, but your piece on Genesis's "Duchess" really rang true.
I was also late to Genesis, became a fan in 1982, in the Phil Collins superstar era. Of course, I listen to way more early period Genesis now, but Duke was an early fave, particularly the transition from the opener, "Behind The Lines" into "Duchess".
About a month ago, I was hanging with an old friend, a much bigger fan, particularly of the Phil era. We were listening to "Duchess" and it hit me. It's Phil Collins autobiography, written 35 in the past! Starom, falling from grace, reminiscing about fame. Phil's had such a huge chip on his shoulder about his reputation and legacy.
I'm even more impressed with the song now!
Dave Arbiter
Queens, NY
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I first fell for Genesis with Invisible Touch in 1986. I would have been 14 years old at the time and I'd bought it on cassette. After I made it through that album, I wanted more, and walked over to A&M Records near my grandparents' house in Scarborough, Ontario. I told the clerk that I wanted to hear more Genesis and wanted his advice on where to start. He told me to buy Trespass. Keep in mind that I didn't know yet that Peter Gabriel was a part of Genesis. And so, when I took it home and played it - I was obviously shocked to hear that there was someone else on vocals. I took it back to the store! Told him that this wasn't Genesis and I wanted a refund or to exchange it. He refused - told me to put it in my dresser drawer and come back to it in a couple of years, when I was ready. Brilliant advice. I still have that cassette because it's that memory that makes it special. I could say that that's the kind of thing that we're missing without record stores, but streaming service algorithm's are pretty close to your average record store clerk.
Daryl Faulkner
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Knowing more than a bit about Genesis, I will firmly stand by the fact that
Peter Gabriel leaving Genesis did not dramatically turn the proggy Genesis
sound to instant pop.
"Trick Of The Tail" and "Wind and Wuthering" are still Genesis records. What
really began the change in the bands sound was the departure of guitarist
Steve Hackett, who just sort of went missing during the mixing of the live
four sided "Seconds Out."
Phil did such a good job filling in for PG after auditioning 100's, even
manager Tony Stratton Smith remarked "he sounds more like Peter than Peter!"
that Genesis managed to still produce two records that left the fans feeling
a sense of relief. But after Steve Hackett left the band and they turned out
"And Then There Were Three . . ." there was trouble in the air and a new era
was in the making.
People just need to think about it when they insist that Peter Gabriel
leaving was the demise of the Genesis of "Foxtrot" and Selling England By
The Pound." It was the departure of Steve Hackett that the hit bound Genesis
started to morph.
Perry/Chicago
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?Bob, so glad you brought attention to Duchess. I've been a huge Genesis fan for 40+ years and I think Duke is the pinnacle of the post-Gabriel era, and Duchess is the crown jewel of that album. As I've gotten older I relate to the lyrics more and more. I feel the emotion of Phil's vocals. On this album I think the two weakest cuts were the biggest hits; Misunderstanding and Turn It On Again. Songs like Alone Tonight, Guide Vocal and Heathaze always resonated with me more and you can really hear the type of music that ended up Phil Collins solo albums. Anyway, thanks for bringing some attention back to the album/band. BTW - I agree Squonk is the shits.
Bob Burnett
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I was gob smacked that you wrote about what is possibly my favorite Genesis song. I pull this album out once every six months or so to let it wash over me - in particular Duchess - and then I put it away again so I "cry for more". It is the song with the beginning that sounds like the end, with lyrics that take you to the edge and leave you there pondering your own choices, making promises to yourself to live in the moment, and why what anyone thought ever really mattered.
Thanks for writing about a great old song.
Vicki Silver
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZnP6eq9kcM
Scroll to 42:56 for "Duchess", but the entire gig is a killer.
Michael
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Yes...Yes....Yes!!!!!!
When I was 11 years old I had my own little stereo. It was pretty crappy (a record player with two speakers that were wired directly into it, volume knob on the front). It was nothing like my Dads' Denon turntable, Sony reel to reel, and Klipsch speakers that were taller than I was. But...it was MINE!
I basically listened to hand me down records from his collection, CSN, Four Tops, and the Doobie Brothers.
Around this time I started hearing some music that resonated with me that wasn't in my Dads' record collection. It started with a couple of my cousins' Styx records and the first Van Halen record. But what REALLY turned my head one day, was hearing the song "Misunderstanding" on the radio at summer day camp. The camp counselor (who was named Reagan) told me that this was a band called Genesis. I heard the song about three or four more times that week and just absolutely loved it. It was time to talk my parents into letting me tape a penny to a postcard and join a record club. I could order some music that wouldn't be my Dads' records. They would be MINE!
The day the albums showed up was a great day. I had ordered no less than three Styx records (thanks to my cousins) Van Halen's "Fair Warning" and Genesis "Duke". I skipped through the others and went right to "Duke"
Those were truly the days. The first thing that got me was the cover. "Was that Duke? What was he looking at out of the window?" I took the vinyl out of the sleeve, but much to my horror, it was mislabeled. Both stickers in the middle were for side two! I couldn't start with side two. It had to be side one! How would I know? Well, I decided to just take my chances and follow along with the lyrics and I would write a little "1" on whatever side it ended up being.
It didn't matter.....
The minute I dropped the needle onto "Behind The Lines" (Side 1!)...that was it! Even on my little crappy stereo, it was HUGE! What was this? This wasn't Howard Roberts, Jimmy Smith or Tower Of Power (some of Dads' faves) this was something completely different!!!! Big keyboard sounds, guitar chords, deep bass (as deep as it could get on this unit) and......the drums!!!! I had already been playing for 5 of my 11 years and I had not heard anything like this. So I listened to all of the amazing twists and turns and then...just after 2 minutes.....BAM...it settles into the track and a vocal comes in and it was like a different song. And there I sat...with my jaw on the ground, trying to make sense of what had just happened to me. When the track faded out and the Roland 808 drum machine faded in, I was AGAIN, hearing something very different. And "Duchess" was just beautiful. My 11 year old self actually felt bad for the character by the end of the tune! I knew that this music was going to take me on a different journey. I hadn't even gotten to my beloved "Misunderstanding" yet.
This record changed my perception of music. I still own the mislabeled copy I got in the mail. I was an instant Genesis and Phil Collins fan and continue to be. I've been fortunate enough to be professional musician for my entire adult life. There are, of course, many influential points along that map. But..."Duke" was a big one.
Ed Toth
Doobie Brothers
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"Guide Vocal" the track that follows completes "Dutchess" for me. Aside from "Dutchess," my go to track on this album is "Please Don't Ask." One of my favorite songs of all time. To me, this is the track where you can feel Phil Collins take it to the next level.
God I love this record!
Marty Winsch
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Thanks for celebrating these albums, Bob. The era from Trick of The Tail through Three Sides Live, to my mind, represents the finest continuous string of albums of any popular group. The level of musicianship, creativity and production clarity is unsurpassed. Seconds Out would be my top choice if I could only have one desert island disc.
I have a pristine live bootleg of the band from a two night stand at the Theatre Royal in London on the Duke tour that they recorded when they were putting down tracks for Three Sides Live. It's the best live performance I've ever heard from them. It also illustrates what a fantastic front man Phil Collins was as he holds the audience in the palm of his hand. Let me know if you'd like the link to the Dropbox
Cheers
Andy Dayes
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Thank you Bob. Thank you thank you. And yes, I'm a "Gabriel"-ite, but have always found the post-Gabriel stuff to be vastly overlooked from any perspective you want. But enough about that, they were a great band, all extremely talented, and really found something with the trio of Phil Collins, Tony Banks, and Mike Rutherford.
How much of a Gabriel-ite? When I was a freshman at Tulane, we drove from New Orleans to Memphis to catch Genesis (w Gabriel) on the Selling England By The Pound tour. Magic - pure magic. When they toured "The Lamb" the record wasn't even out yet and I drove from D.C. to Baltimore (by myself) on a cold rainy night to see them play. I've seen them maybe 3 times with the post-Gabriel band, and have enjoyed seeing them become "the best live band in the world" etc etc....
Thanks for the memories, and the taste as always...
John P
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Seconds Out is what the live record was called. Best track, Cinema Show. Double drum solo. Bill Bruford of Yes fame and Phil Collins. Rest of the record is Chester Thompson of Zappa fame. But Bill was the drummer on the Trick of the Tail tour. Chester took over after that. Saw Genesis in 74. Massey Hall, Toronto. The Selling England by the Pound tour, some say best ever. No encores, as Peter said "the play's the thing". Quoting Hamlet. Although some might argue that the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour was better. I can't decide.
https://youtu.be/NghJHyoEV7A the whole show from '74. Montreal, Centre Sportif
Jake Gold
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Great riff on Genesis.
Trick of the Tail is one of my faves also—though I was castigated then by my prog buddies for liking anything Post-Gabriel.
I also liked Drama by Yes. Blasphemy!
Those were the days. And Genesis was so good live when both Chester Thompson and Phil played drums.
There's actually some good prog bands coming up out of the South.
My son took me to see a band called CBDB from Alabama. There were about 40 people at the Exit Inn in Nashville. And they were great!
Prog is not dead. It's just been hibernating. There is a great crop of talented youngbloods with crazy chops coming up. We will see and hear it again.
But you are so right about the joys of racing home with the gatefold vinyl—dropping the needle and sitting there with the double album folded out in your lap. When a great stereo was akin to having a nice car. In fact, it was always better to me. Not sure the boat anchor sized receivers will ever come back but it sure was fun and sounded so good!
David Bach
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Thanks Bob. Been listening to Three Sides Live since it came out. There was a live concert video of "Turn it on Again" that used to be on MTV way back when that got me hooked on the album. Duchess has always been my favorite track on the record. So glad you've brought it to life again. Cheers.
Jed Weitzman
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This is great Bob, I lost interest after Trick Of The Tail, Ripples was and still is my guilty pleasure. I always correlated Lennon and McCartney to Gabriel and Collins…Lennon and Gabriel had more edge, more artsy, their work seemed to encompass a huge, complex and pained imagination. Collins and McCartney were just painfully talented and needed to make music, thus more commercial (that can be debated), Whether Collins sold out or not, it does not tarnish his talent as a vocalist, writer and of course his drumming. Every drummer I've discussed Phill Collins with is hats off…..And as far as Yes goes, ck out Yes Live at Duke University 1972 (thank you Spotify), nothing short of super human. Thanks for bringing us back Bob.
Brad Cole
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Funny you should bring up Genesis right after the stereo system series. The albums "Duke'" "Abacab" and "Three Sides Live" were on steady late-night rotation on my stacked double Advent system in the early 80s. Yes, I had 4 Large Advent loudspeakers, turning a pair upside down and putting it on top of the first pair. This way the tweeters were closer together for a more pinpoint top end. These were bi-amped with a pair of modified Dynaco Stereo 70 tube amps. Other great late night tracks included: "Dodo/Lurker," "Me & Sarah Jane" and "Home by the Sea" with the tubes pounding voltage into the Advents operating at full throat. Heady days...
Did I mention Phil Collins is a drummer's drummer with a top 40 singing career? Even Ringo can't top that!
Peter Duray-Bito
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This is the "in defense of Genesis" piece I've been waiting for you to write, I knew it would happen some day! Beautifully stated on-the-nose description of what the band did so well and how it made us feel. I still listen to "Squonk" at top volume and the feeling is the same. And "Duchess" - what a song! I'm going to listen to it right now.
Thanks,
Kelly Gross
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So you listened to it at Freddy and Demi's. My band Bullet Boys (not the 80s metal band) played with Freddy's band The Nu Kats in the late 70s. Demi was there. She was 16 at the time.
Steven Casper
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My all time favorite Genesis song!!!! I haven't even read this email yet, but I had to respond as soon as I saw the subject matter (and read a bit to confirm that it was indeed about MY "Duchess"). I can't believe you're writing about this! Alright, enough exclamations. Time to read the post...which I will do while listening to "Duke".
Marc Reiter
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Bob - if you love Duchess, you must give a shout out to "Behind the Lines" - one of my favourite (Canadian spelling) songs which leads into "Duchess" on Three Sides Live.. I believe you have to take the album in as a whole 30 plus min composition....
Thanks,
John Hayes
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Bob, good post. I was a big Genesis fan in college and got deep into their catalogue. I still pull out their albums once every couple of months. I have to say that "Selling England by the Pound" was by far and away, their best album in my opinion.
Please give it a listen.
Tom Scharf
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Great stuff, Bob.
I played the shit out of Three Sides Live - In The Cage Medley - Afterglow (two drummers!) is fantastic. I was 11 when it came out! And in college I made a friend who loved this album and version of In The Cage as much as me. And we cranked it. Fun times.
Paper Late on the studio side is also a great tune. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AhBJwARAes
"There's no need to be nice on the way up, 'cause you're not coming down."
That line hits me in a completely different way today. Phil Collins is a guy who knows about the way up and the way down. I loved Genesis and Phil's solo stuff and he was a massive star!!! "Against All Odds" was huge.I honestly don't know what happened but it seemed like one day it became de rigueur to hate Phil Collins…and he just kind of disappeared. Then he had the vocal issues but he scored a broadway hit a la Elton John. He has produced tons of music, played sold out stadium tours…he deserves a bit more respect, I think. Why does Rod Stewart get treated differently? He came out rocking hard…and fell off that wagon quick and fast, spiraling into sappy, cheesy, commercial crap. That's worse than anything Phil ever did, is it not?
/end unexpected rant about Phil Collins not getting proper respect
Eric Seifert
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Thanks so much for recognizing Duchess. Been a fav of mine since the record first arrived. The street noise was that Duke was an album Collins lyricized while going thru a horrible divorce ( word is, he's still the clubhouse leader in divorce proceedings settlement monies). As a working musician of many years with the most fleeting of minor successes, the lyrics and presentation are the details aw here, as i'm certain is the case for so many musician/grinders who move on to the more traditional life rolls as we age. As you've so eloquently said a million times, one of life's trickiest challenges is when one finally calls it quits as a working musician, and you quickly realize there's nothing else in life that even comes close to the road, the dressing room and the stage.
To; paraphrase Bear Hands, every day I am loving your work more.
Thanks,
NickB in Vegas
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A nice reminder of a fond time for me also. I know it's unfashionable but I grew up with Genesis and they are one of only a handful of bands that have stood the test of (my) time. Can't listen to Duchess without listening to Behind the Lines, the song that comes before it both on Duke and Three Sides Live. They are a tandem, a mini-suite, inseparable as far as I'm concerned. And on that note, guess what I'm about to play...
Mark Foster
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what a fantastic and exact review of one of my favourite bands of all time.. took me right back and through the decades.. thanks
Andrew Johns
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Spot on, Bob. The album "Duke" is one of my favorite aural experiences ever, front to back, with "Misunderstanding" as a sort of mental intermission in an otherwise majestic and tragic and thrilling song cycle. I remember the first couple of listens didn't really register, but on the third listen the Anticipation you mentioned kicked in and suddenly I was enthralled with the whole thing. That's the mark of great composition, when you know what's coming, you can't wait to get there, and then Boom, there it is!
I'm sorry for the bluetooth generation that's missing out. Missing out on enveloping sound and missing out on the monumental compositional efforts of previous generations of non-distracted musicians. I encourage everyone to experience "Duke"… at least three times.
-Mark Hiskey
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Love Genesis but was horrified that you went from Foxtrot to....Wind and Wuthering?
Nothing about their two greatest Gabriel-fronted epics — Selling England by the Pound or their masterpiece Lamb Lies Down on Broadway? Seriously? Go back and listen to "In the Cage" off Lamb.
Post-Gabriel Genesis was OK but hardly had the special drama and unpredictability of Gabriel. Slicker maybe but they were missing their dark heart.
I saw them on the Trick of the Tail tour in Chicago and the sound and spectacle were great. But in hindsight it was just flash and pomp. Collins tried to do the Gabriel act at times but he just came off as a lightweight. Tony Banks turned out to be a pop-worshiping doodler. Did you ever watch the Genesis documentary? It was fun to see Gabriel practically smirking every time Banks yammered on about all their later pop hits.
Genesis may have sold millions after Gabriel but now no one cares. "Suppers Ready", however, still electrifies.
Dave Curtis
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I saw The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway tour (just prior to Gabriel's departure) One of the top 50 of the 10,000 or so live acts I have seen. I was young & very fortunate! I also caught all 4 of the solo album tours up through So. He is something else!!
Still touched by you your review of the Jeff Beck package concert Bob!! (I should have been there.)
Lavon Pagan
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Finally! Have always held Three Sides Live (and Seconds out for that matter) as one of the great live albums of all time.
And you could not be more on point than Duchess on TSL.
Thanks Bob.
/ David Mortimer-Hawkins
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Thank you Bob. I'm a Sixties baby, my introduction to music came with my uncle taping sections that he thought my sister and I might like… as you did in those days, you wanted to be sure you filled the tape so I had ELO's A New World Record followed by Turn It On Again. When it came to Christmas, I asked for Duke, my first ever bought cassette, the first piece of original music that I owned and could play in my bedroom. Suffice to say it was played to death; strangely, I then picked up Foxtrot in a bargain bucket, so I started Genesis from both ends. I still don't know if it was a curse or a privilege to have missed the Seventies heyday of so many bands, as to me each was a clean sheet… those berating "inset band here" for the change of a singer, or a new style, left me flummoxed and still do. When we start treating people as possessions, things generally go a bit wrong.
Listening to Duke now. Thank you for the prompt.
Jon Collins
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Yess! Duchess is a fantastic song, really quite bitter. The album is strong, with the exception of Duke's Travels which tries and fails to match the wonderful Los Endos from Trick of the Tail.
Steve Hackett is still touring a wonderful set with Nad Sylvan doing a great PG (he has some good recent prog albums in his own right which you can find on Spotify.)
I'm seeing Steve again this fall (in England) as he's touring again with an orchestra. Check out his work with Icelandic band Todmobile on YouTube - Steve playing with the Icelandic Orchestra and a lead singer that could be Thor - trust me it works! https://youtu.be/AR948ak4VjM
All the Best
Jamie Riddell
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Wow Bob. Love when you pull up these gems from the past. This one really resonates with me.
I looked on Spotify and saw that this one came out in 1980. That is the year I graduated from high school. I remember putting on this album and just floating with the music. The cut right after ,Guide Vocal,especially spoke to me. " I am the one who guided you this far. All you know and all you feel. Nobody must know my name. For nobody would understand. And you kill what you fear. "
Thanks again for bringing me back.
Chris Kottke
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Love In the cage off of 3 sides with Chester Thompson and Phil going at it!
Dano
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There's good stuff from every album but you didn't mention their best - The Lamb.
Despite its being opaque, the music, singing, production and yes, lyrics are amazing.
Adam Bernstein
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Hey Bob. If you listen to what Tony Banks says about the Duke Album, it's a epic concept album side if you remove the singles. They wanted to write another epic like Suppers Ready but also wanted to make some money. The Result is Duke. I would also argue that Seconds Out is the better live Album, I think that was the peak of the Prog Rock version of the Band. Steve Hacket is still touring the earlier music brilliantly. Agree you would need a forty pound Alexa to do this music justice. The big Stereo rigs and Prog went hand in hand. Cheers Pete Quigley from Toronto.
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Man I have thought about those songs in years. I had ALL of those albums.
Sincerely yours,
David Levy
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I loved this essay on Duchess - probably my favorite Genesis song ever - and up until this moment I thought I was the only one that knew it - or at least appreciated it. Perfection. Thank you, Bob.
Carl Park
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At some point, most young drummers that want to be more studio and set out understand the bible of 'groove,' usually sponge up Steve Gadd, Jeff Porcaro or more currently, Vinnie Colaiuta. For me, it was Chester Thompson's drumming on Genesis' Seconds Out and Three Sides Live. Chester has a great combination of time, pocket and dynamic reaction. At the time, I needed something a bit more compelling than what was happening on Steely Dan records (I have since come to love the Aja record).
Not to mention, the 'In The Cage' medley on TSLive which still slays me. Besides the band being on top of their game, the double drumming is outstanding.
Duke is the last noteworthy prog record from that period, IMO.
Rich Pagano
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Great column.
I always enjoy your reminiscences of discovering bands and the progression from first encounter to full engagement.
My path to discovering Genesis wasn't the same, but some aspects were similar to yours.
Certainly the first album I loved was "Trick of the Tail". Great songs like "Squonk" and "Dance on a Volcano" that were a bit more accessible than some of the earlier pieces. I also think it was the best-sounding album they'd produced up to that point.
Good stuff.
Cheers
Rob Hargadon
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There are just not enough people making recommendations these days. I appreciate you always sharing the content you find amazing. I have read books, listened to songs, watched streaming programs that you have posted about. And now after the past week talking about audio gear, I have purchased your exact turntable from the 70's (Technics SL-1300) - found for local pick up here for $200, original owner, in mint condition, sounds great. And then today randomly found Genesis Three Sides Live and WInd & Wuthering at an antique store. Thanks again and keep the sharing up.
Mark Dubec
_________________________________
Have to agree completely with you on Seconds Out and Three Sides Live.
I grew up listening to those Records and found very few that could challenge the Sonics and the Songwriting.
Even today I will dip back into those tracks and marvel at the musicianship and camaraderie on stage.
It's hard for me to listen to the original records because I feel the live versions eclipse the studio recordings.
Thanks for the reminder!
Ed Rode
_________________________________
Great stuff about "Duchess", such a great song and Duke is such a cool album. I too came to Genesis post Gabriel. I got to see them at Winterland on the "Seconds Out" tour and loved it but it's the "Three Sides live" tour and album that really got me. That one was in L.A., might have been the Sports Arena, We sat right behind the drums. Seeing and hearing Phil Collins and Chester Thomson was mindblowing. Double drumming mastery. Of course there is a drum fill leading into "Afterglow" that Chester also played on a Zappa song (More Trouble Every Day/Roxy and Elsewhere) What a dynamic lead in to the song, it builds and builds and then BAM, perfectly placed drum fill that perfectly flows and enhances the arrangement. The Wind and Wuthering version is nice too but that live version is still my fave.
Loved your Happy Together tour write up too. We saw the show here in Atlanta a few years ago and I agree about that version of Peaches, They also did a great version of one of my favorite songs from 200 Motels. "Magic Fingers"
I love reading your column, so many great memories of the music we love. I'm digging the podcast too,
Best regards from Atlanta,
Jez Graham
_________________________________
Thanks for this. I love Duchess the Duke LP (sorry to the purists as well) or as my friend Scott always tells me I don't collect Earth, Wind & Collins... I saw all the Duke tour LA shows including the Roxy show were Phil was selling the tickets inside the box office. Memorable! Loved your Freddie Moore nugget. Saw the Nu Kats (and Demi hangin' out) many times...
Cheers, Mark
Southland CD
_________________________________
Bob - Another great piece of writing about a different time in music evolution.
I can't count the number of songs and artists that I have "rediscovered" listening to Deep Tracks. I especially appreciate the deejays like Earl Bailey, Dusty Street and Jim Ladd who KNOW the music, the backstories, the connections and the musical history. They were there!
Keep on rockin' Bob!
Burke Long
_________________________________
I always regarded Genesis as having three periods; Gabriel; Collins/Hackett and Collins/MTV.
I always regarded the two Collins/Hackett entries, A Trick of the Tail and Wind & Wuthering, as good as the best Gabriel period stuff, but I still discount the Collins/MTV era Genesis as a pop band that abandoned their prog roots.
Charles McGarry
_________________________________
"And you kill what you fear, and you fear what you don't understand."
Thank you Bob for acknowledging a less known gem in Duchess. The Genesis "Clan" is a passionate yet understated one. When I was 13 my local FM Rocker 92 KQRS introduced me to Abacab, it marked the origin of my musical obsession. During that time my new passion quickly included the likes of The Police Ghost in the Machine and Rush Moving Pictures among others. My tastes, identity, and collection were rapidly expanding. Yes, that was a time when we aligned our personal brands with the music we were connected to! It was Abacab in all its glory that drove me to see them live...my second concert...the first being The Police. After that, owning 3 Sides Live was not an option! Thank you for giving them the the credit they deserve as a premiere live experience. The only omission I could find in your story was not highlighting how essential Phil Collins technical yet powerful percussion was to their very soul. Watching Phil and Chester Thompson (Weather Report) create magic together live is something that will live with me until the end of time.
Respectfully yours,
Paul Jackson
_________________________________
Such a perfect ode to the awesomeness of Genesis and the feeling of turning it up so loud and laying on the floor staring at the ceiling absorbing it all
Also, for the drama queens, please dont forget the tracks "Alone Tonight" a "Please Dont Ask", a bit literal and not as powerful as Dutchess, but enjoyable nonetheless.
Keep on keepin' on
Jill Goldhand
_________________________________
I've been reading and enjoying your newsletter for about 6 months now, but your piece on Genesis's "Duchess" really rang true.
I was also late to Genesis, became a fan in 1982, in the Phil Collins superstar era. Of course, I listen to way more early period Genesis now, but Duke was an early fave, particularly the transition from the opener, "Behind The Lines" into "Duchess".
About a month ago, I was hanging with an old friend, a much bigger fan, particularly of the Phil era. We were listening to "Duchess" and it hit me. It's Phil Collins autobiography, written 35 in the past! Starom, falling from grace, reminiscing about fame. Phil's had such a huge chip on his shoulder about his reputation and legacy.
I'm even more impressed with the song now!
Dave Arbiter
Queens, NY
_________________________________
I first fell for Genesis with Invisible Touch in 1986. I would have been 14 years old at the time and I'd bought it on cassette. After I made it through that album, I wanted more, and walked over to A&M Records near my grandparents' house in Scarborough, Ontario. I told the clerk that I wanted to hear more Genesis and wanted his advice on where to start. He told me to buy Trespass. Keep in mind that I didn't know yet that Peter Gabriel was a part of Genesis. And so, when I took it home and played it - I was obviously shocked to hear that there was someone else on vocals. I took it back to the store! Told him that this wasn't Genesis and I wanted a refund or to exchange it. He refused - told me to put it in my dresser drawer and come back to it in a couple of years, when I was ready. Brilliant advice. I still have that cassette because it's that memory that makes it special. I could say that that's the kind of thing that we're missing without record stores, but streaming service algorithm's are pretty close to your average record store clerk.
Daryl Faulkner
_________________________________
Knowing more than a bit about Genesis, I will firmly stand by the fact that
Peter Gabriel leaving Genesis did not dramatically turn the proggy Genesis
sound to instant pop.
"Trick Of The Tail" and "Wind and Wuthering" are still Genesis records. What
really began the change in the bands sound was the departure of guitarist
Steve Hackett, who just sort of went missing during the mixing of the live
four sided "Seconds Out."
Phil did such a good job filling in for PG after auditioning 100's, even
manager Tony Stratton Smith remarked "he sounds more like Peter than Peter!"
that Genesis managed to still produce two records that left the fans feeling
a sense of relief. But after Steve Hackett left the band and they turned out
"And Then There Were Three . . ." there was trouble in the air and a new era
was in the making.
People just need to think about it when they insist that Peter Gabriel
leaving was the demise of the Genesis of "Foxtrot" and Selling England By
The Pound." It was the departure of Steve Hackett that the hit bound Genesis
started to morph.
Perry/Chicago
_________________________________
?Bob, so glad you brought attention to Duchess. I've been a huge Genesis fan for 40+ years and I think Duke is the pinnacle of the post-Gabriel era, and Duchess is the crown jewel of that album. As I've gotten older I relate to the lyrics more and more. I feel the emotion of Phil's vocals. On this album I think the two weakest cuts were the biggest hits; Misunderstanding and Turn It On Again. Songs like Alone Tonight, Guide Vocal and Heathaze always resonated with me more and you can really hear the type of music that ended up Phil Collins solo albums. Anyway, thanks for bringing some attention back to the album/band. BTW - I agree Squonk is the shits.
Bob Burnett
_________________________________
I was gob smacked that you wrote about what is possibly my favorite Genesis song. I pull this album out once every six months or so to let it wash over me - in particular Duchess - and then I put it away again so I "cry for more". It is the song with the beginning that sounds like the end, with lyrics that take you to the edge and leave you there pondering your own choices, making promises to yourself to live in the moment, and why what anyone thought ever really mattered.
Thanks for writing about a great old song.
Vicki Silver
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Tuesday, 24 July 2018
Goin(g) Down
https://spoti.fi/2uKzSj4
"Up all night with Freddie King
I got to tell you, poker's his thing"
Grand Funk Railroad was a joke. Hyped by radio advertising regarding their supposed success at the Atlanta Pop Festival they were the original heartland rock act, loved in the flyover states, when those still existed, abhorred on the coasts.
Until the third album, not even a year after the first, featured one of those derivative tracks, imitating the FM extended format, that somehow fit right in the pocket, proving you should always question your preconceptions, people will surprise you, the truth is over the years I've come to like "I'm Your Captain/Closer To Home" even more, I never switch stations on Sirius when it comes on, as for terrestrial, the track at 9:59 is just too long, then again, I haven't listened to commercial radio in fifteen years, only the cheapest non-fans do, funny how we base the whole hit business upon the format.
But then Grand Funk went straight back into the dumper, only to emerge in the fall of '73 with an album of gold vinyl produced by...Todd Rundgren? You'd think the wizard, the true star, would avoid this meat and potatoes act like the plague, then again, it's hard to turn down a check, and the result was...
"We're An American Band."
Now back in '73, all I had was an AM radio in my '63 Chevy convertible, so I heard this on a regular basis, when I could get reception in the hinterlands of Vermont.
And this is a three and a half minute nugget, made for radio.
And featuring insider rock references that made you wonder...were Grand Funk HIP?
That's right, Sweet Connie, the groupie from Little Rock.
But also, that reference to...
Freddie King.
Someone who never flew on our radar while we were listening to FM radio. The musicians, especially the English, may have been inspired by the bluesmen, but except for Bonnie Raitt, few featured them, we knew the names, but rarely, if ever, heard them.
But somehow we knew "Going Down."
How did we?
It was a barroom staple, back when they had bands in bars, kinda like "Louie Louie" or "In The Midnight Hour," everybody knew it. One figured it had a writer, somebody back in the fifties or even thirties, who probably was getting screwed on their royalties.
But research told me it was written by Don Nix.
Hmm... I used to see his name on Leon Russell and Shelter albums. Delaney & Bonnie. "Bangladesh." Back when credits were our education and there was no internet to go any deeper.
And although Jeff Beck does a rollicking version of "Going Down," the original was cut by a band called Moloch, on their 1969 album. I don't think you've ever heard it, at least as evidenced by Spotify statistics, where the track has got all of 4,716 streams, and there are not many more on YouTube.
I was stunned the song was so new.
But not as much as I was stunned by Freddie King's 1971 version, produced by Don Nix and Leon Russell.
Yes, the Master of Space & Time begins the number with a rollicking piano, as if he's in a bar in Tulsa and no one from the coast is aware of what is happening.
And then come Freddie's accents, his wailing, his reputation, not overplaying, not showing off, just getting right.
"I'm going down
I'm going down, down, down, down, down"
And he's not oversinging either, just straight from the heart, straight from the juke joint, just for those in the room, not those at home. But then...
"Yes, I'm going down, yes
I'm going down, down, down, down, down"
Now he's warming up.
"Yes, I've got my big feet in the window
Got my head on the ground"
Now his throat is involved, all his passion, this is his story, and he doesn't care what you think of it, he's just got to tell it.
And the solo is so soulful, you feel as if you're playing, stepping from one foot to another as you're whipping off the notes.
He's going back to Chattanooga, a city those north of the Mason-Dixon Line can't even spell, never mind been there. Via boxcar, to sleep on sister Irene's door.
This is the blues.
This is rock.
This is the foundation.
And you'd better not listen unless you want to be infected, want to go down the rabbit hole, find out you've missed something and need to know more.
Now I know why Freddie King is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
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"Up all night with Freddie King
I got to tell you, poker's his thing"
Grand Funk Railroad was a joke. Hyped by radio advertising regarding their supposed success at the Atlanta Pop Festival they were the original heartland rock act, loved in the flyover states, when those still existed, abhorred on the coasts.
Until the third album, not even a year after the first, featured one of those derivative tracks, imitating the FM extended format, that somehow fit right in the pocket, proving you should always question your preconceptions, people will surprise you, the truth is over the years I've come to like "I'm Your Captain/Closer To Home" even more, I never switch stations on Sirius when it comes on, as for terrestrial, the track at 9:59 is just too long, then again, I haven't listened to commercial radio in fifteen years, only the cheapest non-fans do, funny how we base the whole hit business upon the format.
But then Grand Funk went straight back into the dumper, only to emerge in the fall of '73 with an album of gold vinyl produced by...Todd Rundgren? You'd think the wizard, the true star, would avoid this meat and potatoes act like the plague, then again, it's hard to turn down a check, and the result was...
"We're An American Band."
Now back in '73, all I had was an AM radio in my '63 Chevy convertible, so I heard this on a regular basis, when I could get reception in the hinterlands of Vermont.
And this is a three and a half minute nugget, made for radio.
And featuring insider rock references that made you wonder...were Grand Funk HIP?
That's right, Sweet Connie, the groupie from Little Rock.
But also, that reference to...
Freddie King.
Someone who never flew on our radar while we were listening to FM radio. The musicians, especially the English, may have been inspired by the bluesmen, but except for Bonnie Raitt, few featured them, we knew the names, but rarely, if ever, heard them.
But somehow we knew "Going Down."
How did we?
It was a barroom staple, back when they had bands in bars, kinda like "Louie Louie" or "In The Midnight Hour," everybody knew it. One figured it had a writer, somebody back in the fifties or even thirties, who probably was getting screwed on their royalties.
But research told me it was written by Don Nix.
Hmm... I used to see his name on Leon Russell and Shelter albums. Delaney & Bonnie. "Bangladesh." Back when credits were our education and there was no internet to go any deeper.
And although Jeff Beck does a rollicking version of "Going Down," the original was cut by a band called Moloch, on their 1969 album. I don't think you've ever heard it, at least as evidenced by Spotify statistics, where the track has got all of 4,716 streams, and there are not many more on YouTube.
I was stunned the song was so new.
But not as much as I was stunned by Freddie King's 1971 version, produced by Don Nix and Leon Russell.
Yes, the Master of Space & Time begins the number with a rollicking piano, as if he's in a bar in Tulsa and no one from the coast is aware of what is happening.
And then come Freddie's accents, his wailing, his reputation, not overplaying, not showing off, just getting right.
"I'm going down
I'm going down, down, down, down, down"
And he's not oversinging either, just straight from the heart, straight from the juke joint, just for those in the room, not those at home. But then...
"Yes, I'm going down, yes
I'm going down, down, down, down, down"
Now he's warming up.
"Yes, I've got my big feet in the window
Got my head on the ground"
Now his throat is involved, all his passion, this is his story, and he doesn't care what you think of it, he's just got to tell it.
And the solo is so soulful, you feel as if you're playing, stepping from one foot to another as you're whipping off the notes.
He's going back to Chattanooga, a city those north of the Mason-Dixon Line can't even spell, never mind been there. Via boxcar, to sleep on sister Irene's door.
This is the blues.
This is rock.
This is the foundation.
And you'd better not listen unless you want to be infected, want to go down the rabbit hole, find out you've missed something and need to know more.
Now I know why Freddie King is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
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Waddy Wachtel-This Week's Podcast
What does it take to make it?
This podcast is a spoken word counterpart to the legendary AC/DC track "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)."
That's right, it's harder than it looks, if your dad sells shoes, if you can't afford the Les Paul you covet, if your link to the industry is the father of the Cowsills, a boorish drunk who's now your manager.
His buddy Leslie West makes it, gets a record deal, after Waddy taught him licks, but Waddy's struggling at the Blue Tooth in Warren, Vermont.
After Herbie Cohen tells him how to get out of the draft, successfully.
And while recording with Keith Olsen he's told he's the only real musician in the band, the only one who's going to make it, so he fires the rest of the cats and becomes a sideman.
And that's where you know him from, the long-haired curly guy who wails backing up the likes of Linda Ronstadt, Stevie Nicks and Warren Zevon. That's one of the best stories, how Waddy helps write "Werewolves Of London," after eating at Lee Ho Fook.
You see these people on stage and you've got no idea who they really are, only an image. And then you meet them and they have stories!!!
I couldn't shut Waddy down, I couldn't have him jump ahead to save time, as a matter of fact this is the longest podcast I've ever done, but it could have gone LONGER!
I think you'll love it.
Listen to Waddy Wachtel on...
TuneIn: https://listen.tunein.com/waddywachtelletter
Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/waddy-wachtel/id1316200737?i=1000416518717&mt=2
Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Dxckq2sy7cg7jdob7kg277rebku?t=Waddy_Wachtel-The_Bob_Lefsetz_Podcast
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/bob-lefsetz/waddywachtel-33
Overcast: https://overcast.fm/+LBr8EIaas
Castbox: https://castbox.fm/episode/Waddy-Wachtel-id1099656-id85983683?country=us
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This podcast is a spoken word counterpart to the legendary AC/DC track "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)."
That's right, it's harder than it looks, if your dad sells shoes, if you can't afford the Les Paul you covet, if your link to the industry is the father of the Cowsills, a boorish drunk who's now your manager.
His buddy Leslie West makes it, gets a record deal, after Waddy taught him licks, but Waddy's struggling at the Blue Tooth in Warren, Vermont.
After Herbie Cohen tells him how to get out of the draft, successfully.
And while recording with Keith Olsen he's told he's the only real musician in the band, the only one who's going to make it, so he fires the rest of the cats and becomes a sideman.
And that's where you know him from, the long-haired curly guy who wails backing up the likes of Linda Ronstadt, Stevie Nicks and Warren Zevon. That's one of the best stories, how Waddy helps write "Werewolves Of London," after eating at Lee Ho Fook.
You see these people on stage and you've got no idea who they really are, only an image. And then you meet them and they have stories!!!
I couldn't shut Waddy down, I couldn't have him jump ahead to save time, as a matter of fact this is the longest podcast I've ever done, but it could have gone LONGER!
I think you'll love it.
Listen to Waddy Wachtel on...
TuneIn: https://listen.tunein.com/waddywachtelletter
Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/waddy-wachtel/id1316200737?i=1000416518717&mt=2
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Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/bob-lefsetz/waddywachtel-33
Overcast: https://overcast.fm/+LBr8EIaas
Castbox: https://castbox.fm/episode/Waddy-Wachtel-id1099656-id85983683?country=us
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Monday, 23 July 2018
Duchess
https://spoti.fi/2NCfiIs
Speaking of stereos...
I heard "Duchess" on Deep Tracks the other day. If I hadn't been in my car, I would have written about it right then.
"And she dreamed that every time she performed
Everyone would cry for more"
I'm not sure I even knew these lyrics back when, even though I had the vinyl, this was pre-internet.
I missed Genesis the first time around, I didn't come on board until Gabriel left the group, although I did go back and buy the LPs with him on them, I love "Foxtrot," but the truth is I was shopping in Licorice Pizza and they were playing "Wind & Wuthering" over the stereo and I bought it, this is the only time I ever did this.
I was an early Yes fan. Bought the first two Emerson, Lake and Palmer LPs, but funds were limited, I could not afford to get into Genesis or Gentle Giant, although I remember seeing the lines for Gabriel and group outside the Roxy, I'm pissed I missed that, although I did see Gabriel play a flower on "In Concert" or some other TV show, but you know TV sound, it did not register.
And I liked "Wind & Wuthering," so when I saw "A Trick of the Tail" in the promo bin I purchased that, and it could still be my favorite Genesis album, which I know will offend purists, but come on, SQUONK?!
And then Steve Hackett left and there were three, I went to see the band at the Forum, bought my ticket before "Follow You Follow Me" got traction on the airwaves, became the band's first hit in the U.S.
And "Seconds Live," masterful!
But I could not remember what LP "Duchess" was on, I went to Wikipedia. For some reason, I thought "Duke" came before "...And Then There Were Three," since it was more akin to what came before, but then I looked at the track listing...
"Duke" has "Misunderstanding," which seemed a bit wimpy, like "Follow You Follow Me" but worse. But it also contained "Turn It On Again," a harbinger of what was to come, when Genesis dominated MTV, albeit with clever videos.
Yes, the follow-up to "Duke," "Abacab," was the true commercial breakthrough, with a slimmed-down sound with synths dominant. But the definitive version is on 1982's "Three Sides Live," although there were four in the rest of the world.
But the take on "Three Sides Live"...
You've probably never heard it.
But I did, at Freddy and Demi's apartment. Freddy Moore bought cassettes, I was still into vinyl, I'd go to their apartment and insert it into the deck, I had to hear "Abacab."
Now "Abacab" is pretty powerful on the original LP, but the live iteration is MUSCULAR! You cranked it and the whole house shook. You were enveloped in the sound, it felt so GOOD!
And on "Three Sides Live" the opening cut is a version of "Duke"'s "Turn It On Again."
In the rewriting of history, subsequent to the ubiquity of Phil Collins, the post-Gabriel Genesis is seen as ersatz, a dash for cash, lightweight, BUT THIS IS UNTRUE! And "Three Sides Live" is one of the best live LPs ever cut, but you'll never hear about it in any discussion of concert triumphs.
Now I became such a Genesis fan, I purchased Collins' "Face Value" the day of release, I had no idea "In The Air Tonight" would become so legendary, on both black and white radio, my favorite cut in the wake of the breakup with my live-in girlfriend was "You Know What I Mean," which segued into the exuberant "Thunder and Lightning," and after the jaunty "I'm Not Moving" the LP became positively depressing, with "If Leaving Me Is Easy" and a droning, futuristic rendition of John Lennon's head trip, "Tomorrow Never Knows."
So I was all in, along for the ride when the rest of society showed up, and beware of your dream coming true, because it will end, people will turn on you, they will move on.
So I wasn't sure which "Duchess" version I'd heard, the studio or live iteration.
So I just went to Spotify and pulled up the take off "Duke" and I'd forgotten what a long, spacy, dreamy intro the track had, it was the chorus that was implanted in my brain.
So maybe it was the live take I was remembering, with rougher edges.
But when I pulled up the live take it didn't quite resonate either.
AND THAT'S WHEN I REALIZED IT WAS THE STEREO!
I used to come home, break the shrinkwrap, drop the needle and...
TURN IT UP!
My music was my sanctuary, a way to excise and drown out the world I was not accepted in, the world I'm still unaccepted in.
Sure, we were all addicted to the radio, but we had to OWN THIS STUFF, so we could go DEEPER, so it would be indelibly enmeshed in our DNA.
Full spectrum music does not sound good utilizing today's playback systems. You need a multi-speaker system, with tons of power, to avoid clipping, watts are not about loudness, but avoiding distortion.
And I was disappointed until I put on headphones.
Then the sound, the experience, came back.
"Times were good
She never thought about the future, she just did what she would
Oh, but she really cared
About her music, it all seemed so important then"
Boy did it.
"But now every time that she performed
Oh, everybody cried for more
Soon all she had to do was step into the light
For everyone to start to roar
And all the people cried, you're the one we've waited for"
That's right, we were addicted, we were waiting for your new opus, and when we got it, we spun it, learned it, and then went to the show, we had to go to the show, when tickets were ten or twelve bucks, certainly under twenty.
And when Genesis would go into "Duchess," another of their anthemic numbers, we'd stand and sway and sing along at the top of our lungs, this was a religious experience, far exceeding what we'd been exposed to in church or synagogue, we were now truly home.
That's right, anthems.
Our listening wasn't casual. There were no playlists, no Pandora in the background, we chose what we listened to, what we bought, our collections were expressions of our identities.
And I'm driving in my car and when the band reaches the chorus...
This was art rock, this was prog rock, "Duchess" is more than six minutes long, it was not made for Top Forty, this was before MTV, when you made music to make a statement, at the length it required, if there needed to be a multi-minute instrumental intro, SO BE IT!
And the sense of ANTICIPATION!
We knew it was coming!
And, like I said, Genesis has been forgotten, put down, the band is uncool, especially the post-Gabriel era. But some people remember. And then you put the headphones on and hear the melody...
"And then there was the time that she performed
When nobody called for more"
Nobody's calling for this music.
But back then fans did, before the band had any hits. There was this weird melding of experimentation and melody, that's what makes "Duchess" so great, along with the changes and the instrumentation, the notes, engendering the desire to sing along.
And you may not.
But if you listen to "Duchess" you'll find it impossible to sit still, you'll start slapping your thighs, nodding your head.
From an era when music was truly royalty.
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Speaking of stereos...
I heard "Duchess" on Deep Tracks the other day. If I hadn't been in my car, I would have written about it right then.
"And she dreamed that every time she performed
Everyone would cry for more"
I'm not sure I even knew these lyrics back when, even though I had the vinyl, this was pre-internet.
I missed Genesis the first time around, I didn't come on board until Gabriel left the group, although I did go back and buy the LPs with him on them, I love "Foxtrot," but the truth is I was shopping in Licorice Pizza and they were playing "Wind & Wuthering" over the stereo and I bought it, this is the only time I ever did this.
I was an early Yes fan. Bought the first two Emerson, Lake and Palmer LPs, but funds were limited, I could not afford to get into Genesis or Gentle Giant, although I remember seeing the lines for Gabriel and group outside the Roxy, I'm pissed I missed that, although I did see Gabriel play a flower on "In Concert" or some other TV show, but you know TV sound, it did not register.
And I liked "Wind & Wuthering," so when I saw "A Trick of the Tail" in the promo bin I purchased that, and it could still be my favorite Genesis album, which I know will offend purists, but come on, SQUONK?!
And then Steve Hackett left and there were three, I went to see the band at the Forum, bought my ticket before "Follow You Follow Me" got traction on the airwaves, became the band's first hit in the U.S.
And "Seconds Live," masterful!
But I could not remember what LP "Duchess" was on, I went to Wikipedia. For some reason, I thought "Duke" came before "...And Then There Were Three," since it was more akin to what came before, but then I looked at the track listing...
"Duke" has "Misunderstanding," which seemed a bit wimpy, like "Follow You Follow Me" but worse. But it also contained "Turn It On Again," a harbinger of what was to come, when Genesis dominated MTV, albeit with clever videos.
Yes, the follow-up to "Duke," "Abacab," was the true commercial breakthrough, with a slimmed-down sound with synths dominant. But the definitive version is on 1982's "Three Sides Live," although there were four in the rest of the world.
But the take on "Three Sides Live"...
You've probably never heard it.
But I did, at Freddy and Demi's apartment. Freddy Moore bought cassettes, I was still into vinyl, I'd go to their apartment and insert it into the deck, I had to hear "Abacab."
Now "Abacab" is pretty powerful on the original LP, but the live iteration is MUSCULAR! You cranked it and the whole house shook. You were enveloped in the sound, it felt so GOOD!
And on "Three Sides Live" the opening cut is a version of "Duke"'s "Turn It On Again."
In the rewriting of history, subsequent to the ubiquity of Phil Collins, the post-Gabriel Genesis is seen as ersatz, a dash for cash, lightweight, BUT THIS IS UNTRUE! And "Three Sides Live" is one of the best live LPs ever cut, but you'll never hear about it in any discussion of concert triumphs.
Now I became such a Genesis fan, I purchased Collins' "Face Value" the day of release, I had no idea "In The Air Tonight" would become so legendary, on both black and white radio, my favorite cut in the wake of the breakup with my live-in girlfriend was "You Know What I Mean," which segued into the exuberant "Thunder and Lightning," and after the jaunty "I'm Not Moving" the LP became positively depressing, with "If Leaving Me Is Easy" and a droning, futuristic rendition of John Lennon's head trip, "Tomorrow Never Knows."
So I was all in, along for the ride when the rest of society showed up, and beware of your dream coming true, because it will end, people will turn on you, they will move on.
So I wasn't sure which "Duchess" version I'd heard, the studio or live iteration.
So I just went to Spotify and pulled up the take off "Duke" and I'd forgotten what a long, spacy, dreamy intro the track had, it was the chorus that was implanted in my brain.
So maybe it was the live take I was remembering, with rougher edges.
But when I pulled up the live take it didn't quite resonate either.
AND THAT'S WHEN I REALIZED IT WAS THE STEREO!
I used to come home, break the shrinkwrap, drop the needle and...
TURN IT UP!
My music was my sanctuary, a way to excise and drown out the world I was not accepted in, the world I'm still unaccepted in.
Sure, we were all addicted to the radio, but we had to OWN THIS STUFF, so we could go DEEPER, so it would be indelibly enmeshed in our DNA.
Full spectrum music does not sound good utilizing today's playback systems. You need a multi-speaker system, with tons of power, to avoid clipping, watts are not about loudness, but avoiding distortion.
And I was disappointed until I put on headphones.
Then the sound, the experience, came back.
"Times were good
She never thought about the future, she just did what she would
Oh, but she really cared
About her music, it all seemed so important then"
Boy did it.
"But now every time that she performed
Oh, everybody cried for more
Soon all she had to do was step into the light
For everyone to start to roar
And all the people cried, you're the one we've waited for"
That's right, we were addicted, we were waiting for your new opus, and when we got it, we spun it, learned it, and then went to the show, we had to go to the show, when tickets were ten or twelve bucks, certainly under twenty.
And when Genesis would go into "Duchess," another of their anthemic numbers, we'd stand and sway and sing along at the top of our lungs, this was a religious experience, far exceeding what we'd been exposed to in church or synagogue, we were now truly home.
That's right, anthems.
Our listening wasn't casual. There were no playlists, no Pandora in the background, we chose what we listened to, what we bought, our collections were expressions of our identities.
And I'm driving in my car and when the band reaches the chorus...
This was art rock, this was prog rock, "Duchess" is more than six minutes long, it was not made for Top Forty, this was before MTV, when you made music to make a statement, at the length it required, if there needed to be a multi-minute instrumental intro, SO BE IT!
And the sense of ANTICIPATION!
We knew it was coming!
And, like I said, Genesis has been forgotten, put down, the band is uncool, especially the post-Gabriel era. But some people remember. And then you put the headphones on and hear the melody...
"And then there was the time that she performed
When nobody called for more"
Nobody's calling for this music.
But back then fans did, before the band had any hits. There was this weird melding of experimentation and melody, that's what makes "Duchess" so great, along with the changes and the instrumentation, the notes, engendering the desire to sing along.
And you may not.
But if you listen to "Duchess" you'll find it impossible to sit still, you'll start slapping your thighs, nodding your head.
From an era when music was truly royalty.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-TuneIn: http://tunein.com/lefsetz
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
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If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
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