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Shelter

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Posts posted by Shelter

  2. Posted · Report reply

    Hard to beat that last Fillmore '97 show - just for length, if nothing else.  But some of the '99 shows on the "Echo" tour would be a contender for me.  Either of the Irving Plaza shows, for instance.  '93 in Gainesville was pretty damn good too.

     

    Sounds about right. As for 99, Minneapolis would be my choice. As for additional suggestions, some of the Vic shows (it was 2003, btw) would sufice, as would Santa Monica, New Years '78, the Bridge School Benefit of 88 (recently discussed, although.. it's too short) and - even if that would be cheating, by my own complete shows only standard in cases like this - some kinda "best of" comilation from the Beacon/Fonda gigs. As such the HCC live bundle is at least close to perfect, as is the "Kiss My Amps" collection from the Mojo tour. But it's just impossible to say. Last Night at the Fillmore, yes. (although a dream scenario would be that show with today's sound). On the other hand.. I could also go with the Utrecht, Holland gig of 1982. Love that one.

    Or any of the Mudcrutch 2008 (for personal reasons if nothing else, since out of all TP shows I attended myself, these are my favorites), but that would be thinking a little too much outside the box, I take it. Ho ho.. This quest is a m#%er...  

    Babydoll reacted to this

  6. Posted · Report reply

     

    Yes, I realize it's oddball, at best, to suggest the merits of an imaginary resequencing of DTT involving touching the holy Refugee. Thing is, as it stands, obviously Refugee is a fantastic opener and I have no complaints, just that I visualize quite another album from these sessions, equally good, if not indeed a tad better, but most of all different in tone. I like this idea - and have a burnt CD version that runs accordingly - but I don't suggest the actual album, the way it turned out, would have anything to gain from moving Refugee from pole position.

     

    I don't like Surrender and am surprised by how much passion it evokes in listeners for being a limp noodle of a song

    Hey now.. :D  You need to listen again. And then again. And so on.

    Perhaps you have done so already, but study it real close, both the studio versions, then the existing live versions and so on, and you will notice there's nothing limp about this noodle. It's quite intricate in its arrengements - listen for many things - it has a nice "oldie" type groove, a cool vibe that kinda both steals the show and generously allows for it to continue bravely in its wake - and imo it has got really great vocals, some of the best ever, if I may be so bold. Again, I admit it would tilt the over all album vibe a tad, had it been included, but imo that wouldn't be a hurtful tilt. (As a side note: The 2000 version of this song (made for the Anthology disc and hence beside the point here - while slightly less great than the 70s versions in most ways it still highlights the merits of the song nicely) was supposedly Howie's last studio recording as a Heartbreaker. Bless his broken heart.)  

  7. Posted · Report reply

     

    What to add to all these "normal noises in here"?

    So, it's a true classic an album full of atmosphere, sound and songs. So it is.

    Still it's astonishing - although it does say alot of the limitations of the mind, of us humans in general and of critics in particular - how DTT generally is considered THE album in the TP cataloge, the one that holds up, get praised or even recoginzed outside the TP world as being this untouchable classic that it kinda is. Not that there is anything wrong with saying it's a classic (and some fairly good people have done as much just recently). It's just that it all comes with way too much butter. I guess I just think that more TP albums are as good or better and more of them deserves to be held up against other classic rock albums the way DTT always are. I mean the album has at least two fillers more than some of the very best.

    Speaking of which, how about me asserting that What Are You Doing In My Life is bad even due to musical considerations, not primarily lyrical ones. Certainly filler, for me too.

    All that is just me. I know. But keep in mind that even with this load of mild sceptisism, one of TP's better albums will always be one of the better albums of all time. So it goes. I don't trash this album, never.

    But as far as mild sceptisism goes, though, neither Don't Do Me Like That and Louisiana Rain (both old left overs and both some of my favorites) are quite as magnificent as in the original shapes. Moreover, I agree that leaving Casa Dega off was a major wrong call. It would have fitted. As would Nowhere, as it were. Even worse - leaving Surrender off, which would have been one of the best and most fitting openers of all time. I think a next to perfect album would have gone over the top had it run something like this:

    Side one: 1. Surrender  2. Here Comes My Girl  3. Even The Losers   4. Casa Dega 5. Shadow of a Doubt  6. Nowhere

    Side two: 1. Don't Do Me Like That  2. You Tell Me  3. Century City  5. Refugee  6. Louisiana Rain

     

    Just a thought.

     

    Century City (What do I care what this place is like where the lawyers lived in 1979?)

     

    Well.. perhaps you should.. :)

  8. Posted · Report reply

    If it's not announced by the end of the week, I doubt we will see it before the end of the year....Stranger things have happened, but I'm pretty skeptical at this point. I'm told it is still forthcoming. It hasn't been scrapped. 

    Perhaps you know something I don't. But, yes, I certainly feel like we are likely to get screwed on this one. Anyway it's pathetic how it's been handled. A real low water mark.

    As if a sign, with this post I just bump the thread about this disc from being 22nd on the list of recently discussed here... The excitement is slowly dying even among the die hards. Way to go.

  14. Posted · Report reply

    "Waiting For Tonight" is not the Heartbreakers. 

     

    Ok, fair enough. I stand corrected. Maybe. :) Obviously, I know the existing studio recording is not the full Heartbreakers experience. I just always thought that the song itself predated the FMF sessions and that it (with or without Bangles) was intended for the cancelled Heartbreakers album, the sessions of which admittedly barely got under way, but dates back before FMF. But you might be right.. I forgot the details of those sorces you mention.. and the song may indeed have been intended for - or at least been recorded mid sessions of - FMF. It still don't fit though and it's recorded in a largely different style. Which is the main point. (And I still think it feels a lot more like a song for a Heartbreakers album in the traditional sense, than a Jeff Lynne soaked TP solo album.)

    And again.. you say you don't understand, but if WFT ever was a serious contender,if they actually considered putting it on, even if it meant breaking the spell or mood on FMF, could it then be the good-night themed similarities with Alright for Now that made TP feel it too much to include both. I think it's fairly obvious why those two can't be on the same album, both in terms of style, sound and lyrics.

     

  15. Posted · Edited by Shelter · Report reply

    What is wrong with $10 a month for all the free music in the world?

    You mean, cept for that sentence being a contradiction? ;) 

    Jokes aside, I think Nurk is well beyond right here. That is, he is ultra right. The "beginning" of the end may even be an understatement. Seeing how that "corporate greed" of our society have twisted the distribution of most things rhyming with wealth and health into the percentile society of actual rights and outrageous riches. The gated and ultra exclusive community of the priviledged few, that while controlling most everything spills over just enough to keep people "happy" and "content", a brain washed buying power to feed the strong flow against slowing down or turning around, seducing us all into becoming robotic consumers for the sake of their bliss and our own right-less comfort. Sort of. Drastically put. Nevertheless, the point is very valid - we are the people, we are the ones that letting it happen. We are comfortable enough to let the bastards hi-jack the planet. But are we really that blind? Are we really that lazy? Good point. This is not about limousines, champagne or the good life. This is about democracy. To view the world though an ad-filter is to view a bought world, right? What companies want to pay for what I want to see? What companies will pay for the truth, ultimately...!? Sorry to be anti-naive.. but it's time that people stop sucking up before we are all sucked up.

    And I mean this in the most unpolitical sense, of course. :) 

  16. Posted · Edited by Shelter · Report reply

    I sure would not (put it on FMF).

    1. -

    2. Simply because it doesn't belong there, as I hear it. It's not really from the same sessions. And more importantly, I think of it as band song. Then again, the 1988 band record was scrapped and I suppose material not used - finished or not finished - could theoretically been used for FMF, or ending up on later records. For all I know, some 1988 tunes or ideas may have been used later. But as for Waiting For Tonight, it would take a re-recording. And even then I don't personally see how it would fit.

    3. Could it be the "Good night, my love" and "Sleep tight, my love", you think?

     

    Regardless...Waiting for Tonight is a great song! One of the best TPATH ever recorded and the Bangles did a phenomenal job on it.

     

    Yes! And that.

    Bangles & Heartbreakers might be a surprise match-up in some people's eyes and most of the time I would prefer if they stayed very much separated. But as things were in the troublesome Heartbreaker year of 1988, an album worth of collaboration, taking the lead from Waiting For Tonight, could potentially have been quite grand imo. 

     

  17. Posted · Report reply

    Could you elaborate on this? I think You Don't Know How It Feels is one of my least favorite songs of theirs, and definitely the nadir of the album for me. However, as I said, I think Don't Fade On Me is just one of his best, if not his single best sad song he's ever written.

    What is it about these three that make them weak points for you?

    cheers

    I could. But I'm not sure it would mean much. These things are so hard to make sense of, inside other people's brains.

    Anyway.. Here goes nothing: Don't Fade On Me is an ok song. It has good, effective lyrics. But there is something about the composition that sits a bit.. shall we say.. undone with me. The verse is great, but the "chorus" or "punch" or whatever.. doesn't work as well and it feels like the flow is punctuated in a mildly disturbing way. (That far, that could also be said, to a minor extent, for Hard on Me too, come to think of it.) This disturbed flow may also have a little to do with TP's vocal delivery. I'm not sure. (Although that is deliberate and part of the script here, so to speak, it's more about phrasing, much as part of Honey Bee that is also a little off-putting to me, whereas there are other moments of problematic vocals on this album, of a more "strained" or "off-key" quality which still seem to fly just fine in the context of phenomenal songwriting. And none of this is nothing that breaks the album, just saying. It's in the fine prints, but since you asked...) 

    House in The Woods would end up in the same ball park in terms of composition analysis. Only worse, since not even the verse is that great in this case and the chorus is almost annoying in shape and form. Got a bit of that dummy feel that worked a little better for You Don't Know How It Feels. Trying to think.. eh.. the backbone of this song is just not as good, I guess. Makes me think of the saying about polishing up a turd. A lot of work has been put into making this sound like a lot better song than it really is. One of the least efforts here, not to say in all of the cataloge. Just not necessary on album that would have been even better without it. (And that would also narrow your closer problem down to a double - one of the best doubles ever to close a record, as it happens.)

    You Don't Know How It Feels. Not a total waste. But there is something about the boom-smack and the new era it entails.. A bit like you say, I suppose. There just seems to be something missing here I guess.. and it's not the cymbals. An ok song, let's not be disobliging. 

  18. Posted · Report reply

    Ok.. so, I didn't know this. Thanks for the warning! :) Yet, I didn't take the wise route on this one. So, here I am.. staring at your post, dazed and lost for words, after what seems like a long listless time. Just 36 minutes, it turns out. Because that is how long Bryan and Jeff kept at it. 

    Sure enough, there are certain sounds, not to say notes, or even hooks, stolen straight from the Wilburys and The Beatles here. Typical deep fried Lynne smothered in Jeff. A trick or two may have been used to better effect on Highway Companion, I think I can spot them. 

    Theoretically, this may be a charming promise to the nostalgically inclined. But how utterly horrific the songwriting - these songs really hurts your brain, that's how unecessary it was to write them. And how painfully cheap and down right stupid the singing - treating a voice like this to this production kinda defines the saying of adding insult to injury. I just hope they are ashamed of themselves.

    I was gonna try to be positive.. but.. now, how's that for a diss?

    TwoGunslingers reacted to this

  20. Posted · Report reply

      I'm going to take a guess, that with It's Good To Be King, the long extended versions aren't to your liking, or, just wore on you with time (you expressed this part on here, I think in the King thread) and can't capture the unique, lush and dreamy melody of the album track. Am I close?

      With You Wreck Me...hmm. There is something different about the album track, almost refreshing. It could just be since I've heard the live version so frequently, the record version now sounds fresh and new. Is that similar to how you feel? In addition to the quality of the recording, the sounds of the guitars and drums and such?

    Well.. for the sake of brevity, let's just say.. Yes and Yes.

     

    As for the material, over the years I have come to find that some of my early days doubts about certain songs, in terms of compostition and one or two minor details in arrangements (Don't Fade On Me, House in The Wood and You Don't Know How It Feels) it's over all a fantastic sounding album.

    Oops. Something went missing there. Let me try it again.

    As for the material, over the years I have come to find that some of my early days doubts about certain songs, in terms of composition, and one or two minor details in arrangements (Don't Fade On Me, House in The Wood and You Don't Know How It Feels), still are the weak points in my book, but over all, most of the songs hold strong and most of all this is a fantastic sounding album.

    Other than that - yes, TG really puts it beautifully in the above post. Kudos! I might not agree on the strength on every single compositions (accordingly) but nevertheless I feel pretty close to the over all sentiments voiced. The emotional weight carried by this album is substantial.

  21. Posted · Report reply

    ^ It may not ever have gotten "better" after it got "worse" as far as Stan goes.

    But certainly, regarding the perspective - like I meant to imply, it's exactly in that kind of light (or shall we say half-light) that this band performance comes off as so fascinating, intense and special to me. It's a weird moment in time in many ways. And a weird result.

    And I'm glad I finally got to see the visuals of it.

  22. Posted · Report reply

     

    Oh man.. exciting might begin to cover it.. yeah! This is perhaps both the greatest and most frustrating release ever to hit the market. It's such an overload of condenced rock history that I don't even know how to conduct myself when thinking about it.. Despite already cherishing parts of this material among the most prized in my Collection, there is just no way I can grasp the totality of these combined full sessions, as presented in the 18 disc version box. I bid good luck to all who will try - it might be the ultimate jagg to end all jaggs - but I all I know is that if I ever come close to this unabridged treasure, my mind and body will surely explode, and my disposable assets of spendable time, much as my already strained wallet, implode into a black hole. It's all very cosmic. And here we are, having such an incredibly hard time getting one puny little disc of rarities to drop from the hands of TP. This, my friends, is the stuff that legends are made of. The sun to all light bulbs. The naked truth wrapped in a box.

  23. Posted · Report reply

    Interesting, thanks for sharing.

    I too revisited Wildflowers after what seemed like a long hiatus. That was a little over a year ago, when expecting an archival release (later known as 'All The Rest' and still to this day unreleased) from the sessions to be imminent. While I think the change in mode, or rather mood, musically, that you seem to refering to, what you call the "midtempo groove" and "emphasis on the acoustic", really happened in the close approx of personas and methods of older rock icons during the work with Traveling Wilburys and Full Moon Fever, a a TP coming of age as it were, I think you are certainly right to point out the mellower, darker and richer sound and the impact of Rubin as a watershed in its own right, an even more mature way to channel the midtempo and the acoustic, if you will. Wildflowers, to me, stands out as an opus that way.

    As for the material, over the years I have come to find that some of my early days doubts about certain songs, in terms of compostition and one or two minor details in arrangements (Don't Fade On Me, House in The Wood and You Don't Know How It Feels) it's over all a fantastic sounding album. Some tracks even grown on me over the years and I come to like them a lot with age, despite former doubts (You Wreck Me, It's Good To Be King - both are to me quite preferable in their studio versions, imagine that! - Honey Bee, I used to dislike, but at least live it have had it's moments.) Plenty of good songs on this album and some of my all time favorites of their's are on here - Crawling Back To You and Wake Up Time. Midtempo magic! 

    Another aspect: Wildflowers also being a watershed in terms of TP utilizing the CD play length for the first time, loading it excessively and highly untraditionally with 15 songs, when 12 or 13 would have been more than enough. (Yes, I said the same thing about Echo and Mojo, but unlike those Wildflowers holds up fairly tight, in terms of mood and sequence, making it great album nevertheless). Just saying. Wildflowers was pioneering this idea of leaving the traditional 30-45 minute condensed and focused experience for a more dragged out ditto. A world in which, at least at times, the art of "kill your darlings" seems to have gone dead and buried. Just saying. Still great album!

    When was "All the Rest" gonna be released again!?

  25. Posted · Report reply

    Yeah, how's that for a great post?! Actually, for some reason, I'd never seen this film before, although I long since have the recording on file. Hands down, Bridge School Benefit Concert of 1988 (the second one in the series, was it?) - is one of my all time favorite TPTH live recordings (and now also videos). So much fun, so different, so much of those things you mention above too -- Seems like such a transitional period, yes.. and this is some of what they come up with, what they did about it. Genius. "A lot to like", no sh*t! And a live take of Blue Moon of Kentucky to top it off. Priceless.

    All in all - this always makes me want to hear even more of and about that aborted 1988 album of theirs, imagining what could have become of it (although, like has been said elsewhere, this being 'rough' times for the band perhaps helped paving way for Full Moon Fever, which if so is a great great thing.. so.. chicken or egg and all that jazz..) 

    Since it's such an odd thing with the arrengement, set up and all, I just wish the video producer/camera men would have picked up on that a bit more and shot a few seconds less of TP face (sorry to say it) and a few more of Stan and Howie and the others. Some of the harmony works here are even more awesome than usual, perhaps it's just it being framed by this rather raw and lo-fi arrangements. And -- drum roll --  I must say, this is the one time I ever hear Don't Come Around Here No More and actually and truly love it - the ultimate version of that song. This is how it's done. Obviously. 

    Ok, Refugee here might not be the best exeperiment I've ever heard, the time signature rips the groove to shreds I'm afraid, but all else about this.. This somewhat odd performance shows greatness on so many levels. As far as attitude and approach goes, all I can say is.. musicianship, perfection, way to go! 

    Thank you for posting this! Really awesome, made my day!

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