My Middle Name Is Earl - The Official ILM Track-By-Track TOM PETTY Listening Thread

in a way that Bruce/Mellencamp/Seger didn’t

i would push back a bit and say these three are very different songwriters imo

I feel that Petty maybe had more in common with Seger than those other guys, but at times all of them overlapped stylistically at least a little, imo.

If Petty was cooler, it's because he (and Mellencamp) cared about good videos.

Was just looking up birthdates for comparison, thinking of Petty as more late-70s than Seger and Springsteen, and yet...

Seger - born 1945
Springsteen - born 1949
Petty - born 1950
Ric Ocasek...born 1944

yeah, late 70s rockers who were born pre-50s is an interesting group of weirdos and strivers - ric neilsen, lux interior, martin rev, andy summers, lowe and edmunds...

I like my rock stars to be cool and TP is not in my book. More like an uncle who lives in the suburbs and his band of fellow weekend warrior rock fans

Might depend on which era Petty you first encounter. Definitely from the Don’t Come Around Here video onward, he cultivated stoner uncle vibes.

In '76, he's not yer uncle...yet.

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/8a/0b/8b/8a0b8b5cf0896e8190dbb7471e57d380.jpg

"Hey lil' dude, is your auntie home?"

Bar is playing “yer so bad” so ok

In '76, he's not yer uncle...yet.

🖼

"Hey lil' dude, is your auntie home?"

I have a couple of aunts who are only about 10 years older than me and one of them definitely dated some dudes who looked like that photo.

…right?

NOT cool? I’m sorry what???

GTFO

Tom was the coolest

https://i0.wp.com/www.elle.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/10/1507089974767_GettyImages-73998983master-scaled.jpg?w=1029&ssl=1

If you say so

Fun fact: I am actually in a band with someone from Gainesville, Florida. Petty songs are in his blood, but we try to be judicious about including them.

See?

wtf calstars

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/7e/d3/40/7ed34085513b6bf629a47fc0803fe782.jpg

he was
an American giiiirrl

scott, we doing one today? I can post if you can't.

just a reminder that we aren't doing weekends. for some reason. i guess because that's how Eagles thread was. feels like tradition.

i’m happy with weekends off!

Weekends are when we can relax and just enjoy Tom Petty of any vintage, at our leisure. For me this could include wearing my "Oh My My Oh Hell Yes" T-shirt to the gym.

hell yeah

wtf calstars

🖼

For the weekend, here's Tom Petty and Garry Shandling.

YESS

Shandling: This is the most fun I've had in a couple years.
Petty: The sad thing is it takes three cameras for us to feel good.

Thanks Eazy

“With the advent of the digital thing, a lot of the tone quality has gone out of recording”

Do you think Tom has ever smoked weed

I was looking on YouTube to see if there was the interview/calls with Petty on Rockline, which I heard on a classic-rock radio station as a kid (from searching, looks like it was 1981). He sounded so ridiculously high and out of it, I remember finding it so funny at the time.

And searching for that Rockline interview led me to the complete concert archives. Interesting to see who they started out opening for (Al Kooper, Blondie, The Runaways, Seger, etc.).

To tide everyone over, here's an hour of Mike Campbell talking about his guitars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHVf4C2x_3g

with cornrows

mike’s hair journey is a whole side thread
he looks like a cross between a farmer & an out of work magician now

also i hate mike’s band name but i kinda enjoy this song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2TSX5bnIQY

I loved his surf band.

we saw Mike in Sacramento last year & man they did some great Heartbreakers covers (incl a lovely slowed down version of Refugee) and Fault Lines! (this version not from my show but same vibe)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFxbXBcx_7c

Interesting to see who they started out opening for (Al Kooper, Blondie, The Runaways, Seger, etc.).

that *is* interesting, thanks

I cannot and will not defend every decision Mike Campbell has made, especially hair-wise.

But he should have gotten writing credit on more of Petty's music. Certainly "Breakdown" and "Refugee," because his riffs absolutely make those songs work.

Wait

After a quick check, it looks like he is co-credited on "Refugee," so never mind. But I do think he should have been given co-writer status on "Breakdown."

it’s really funny/weird how close Campbell’s singing voice is to Petty’s

Speaking voice too! East Florida runs deep, I guess.

Central-West Florida?

middle earth Florida
both have serious Gandslf vibes

*Gandalf

Gandalf, Florida Man

I think he has said in interviews that Tom discouraged him from doing any solo stuff because their voices were so similar.

I think his first album is really good, his second album is pretty good, then there’s only two songs from his subsequent career that I’d rank higher than “adequate, with a hook”. I was trying to think why I draw this line, and at first I wondered if his later stuff was too glib; but those first albums are not founts of wisdom either. As Lee626 said above, “Rockin' Around (With You)” is nearly a tossoff as a composition. Even “Breakdown”, which I’d call a perfect arrangement/recording, is maybe not a great song per se.
I think my preference comes down to the youthful energy of the band, the concision of the songs and the unfussy but atmospheric production. It's the brevity of the songs that connects this first record to the Ramones', even if they have different influences. I find the "arena-size" sonic sheen of Damn the Torpedoes and later puffs up the material to pretend to be more than it is.
Also, not being American probably leads me to regard Petty as less of a mythic figure than some of you of my age. He was definitely heard up here, but a lot of the radio and video real estate he could have occupied went to similar (Canadian-content) “uncomplicated quasi-roots guitar-rockers” like Tom Cochrane, Blue Rodeo and, God help us, Bryan Adams. I definitely thought of him as the junior Wilbury in 1988 (not just based on his age), and, though he’s not to blame, the same year he sang on Joni Mitchell’s worst song ever. So I have different associations with him than many. I’m planning to check out the Best of Everything compilation to see if I’ve missed some notable “mature” stuff post-1993.

That piano melody is exactly the kind of thing she was writing in the late '70s and early ‘80s.

“Breakdown” and “Dreams” use the same three chords - all white keys.

i remember years ago i thought of pitching the idea of doing todd rundgren and one look at his discography and i was like yeah maybe not…

What’s so scary about Todd…if you stop in 1985 with the demise of Bearsville…and maybe skip Utopia…and ignore the live album…and...

claps

xxpost I appreciate the explanation but still this absolutely wild to me

then there’s only two songs from his subsequent career that I’d rank higher than “adequate, with a hook”.

i hope this listening thread expands yr appreciation!

seriously, there is so much good stuff in there, some bizarre takes itt but I am enjoying this immensely

ranking the S/T ahead of Damn The Torpedoes is some all time ILM level challops

i like all eras. i have to say that i was not some superfan my whole life. he was everywhere of course most of my life. but i really began to appreciate him more at the dawn of the 21st century. i enjoy all his albums now. a big epiphany for me was hearing the soundtrack to She's The One in a record store around 2002 and not even knowing it existed and pretty much loving it. that's when i realized that i should seek out the stuff i hadn't heard. and to me its all pretty strong. not that its all the same but there is just a level that is consistent in the songwriting and music that is admirable to me. most people have a real stinker and i don't think he does. for comparison: any 21st century springsteen i've heard bores me to tears and is just no fun at all. not even as a history lesson or whatever. i could say the same about most 70s superstars. but tom and mike really loved guitars and so do i. that is probably half of it.