Steve Miller - C/D?

Steve Miller Band - Classic or Dud

No! It's crap!

As it turned out, I was expecting it to be the song "Space Cowboy" by the Jonzon Crew that I heard on the R&B station earlier that week.

(am i dating myself or what?)

But he did Savoy Brown better. This year's been a
watershed for stealth Savoy Brown references.

Not only is there that new Atlanta Pop thing, but there is also that Stonybrook 2cd from a couple months back on their own mail-order label, which has an 11 minute "Blue Sky"! drool. I still need to get them both, but they're on the list. It's a motherlode of archival Allmans!

And Living in the USA - I still think is a great song.

Too bad it's not really Steve Miller.

CLassic beyond belief ... doesn't get more classic

silly stoner who "got it" w/r/t/ blues music. good for him. most did not. His first eight albums are right there for the pot smokers. Then everybody else got on board.......

love him so much

'Rock Love' is the all time LP

ok, the 'sailor' album is rather ace.

a perfect example of late 60s west coast psych excess.

love it.

i take it that this release was a one off for steve miller, or, should i dig in further for more ...

i'd check out 'children of the future' and 'brave new world' as well.

I'll have to give the catalog another close listen, but I would assume some dance aficionados partake of Steve Miller.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/steve-miller-this-whole-industry-is-f--kin-gangsters-and-crooks-20160411

Do you think about recording any new albums?
No. I don't think about it at all. There is no record business. I record a lot of things. There is no record business. There's no reason for me to spend any money producing stuff that a record company... All the people that were sitting in the front row tonight, like the guy that came from my record company, I wanted to pull him by his necktie and kick him in the nuts.

Really?
Yeah. He's made a billion dollars off my work over the last 50 years and the motherfucker just came over and introduced himself tonight. That cheery little thing. You know he won't do any contract work, he won't clean anything up, he won't get anything done.

This whole industry fucking sucks and this little get-together you guys have here is like a private boys' club and it's a bunch of jackasses and jerks and fucking gangsters and crooks who've fucking stolen everything from a fucking artist. Telling the artist to come out here and tap dance.

I came out here for my fans. I came out for the people who take it seriously. And if the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame wants to be taken seriously, they need to put their books out in the public. They need to fucking become transparent. They need to stop lying. They need to stop all the bullshit and they need to clean it up and they need to expand it. They need to include a lot more people. And the most important thing is the fucking board of this organization really needs to enlarge their gene pool. I think you understand.

Expect something similar when Ian MacKaye gets inducted.

Right on, Steve Miller!

eh fuck this guy

You don't agree with what he said?

damn, no new steve miller albums ...

i did actually love this write-up of "macho city" from a few months back: http://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2015/09/steve-miller-band-macho-city-key-tracks

tbh I've kinda grown into appreciating his omnipresent hits recently

Made Black Keys uncomfortable

RS: Was there anything he said to us or backstage that rang true?
Listen, I just want people to know that he's allowed to say whatever he wants, of course. But he does not speak for me. He does not speak for Pat. And some of the things he said is just [pauses, sighs] I don't know. I really don't know. It's weird. He called the whole thing "a boys' club." The Steve Miller band has had 35 members and no women. It was just very disappointing. And I'm not looking for anything, really. I just wanted people to just know how Pat and I felt. That's all

"35 Members and no women" is like 99% of the groups that are inducted, dude.

... and with that, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame closed its doors ... forever.

They should have arrived to the ceremony late so Steve would have to go on first, and then when the Black Keys got there, they could've smoked the motherfucking place and have everybody dig it, including Bill Graham.

long story short, the black keys believe in the positive power of music and the idea of a rock canon that should be officially canonized, and they're real shook after a dude stood up, looked around, and was all "ugh fuck this noise"

The Black Keys are the new Mike Myers

not really sure why steve miller bothered to show up though

Was afraid people would consider him a "No-showing up motherfucker" in addition to a "No-playing" one, iirc.

haha

Seriously, has anyone asked him about the Miles autobio? It seems odd that no interviewer has tried to get his perspective on that. (but I dunno how you'd bring it up..."Steve, none other than Miles Davis called you a 'non-playing motherfucker'...your thoughts?")

it's funny, i remember reading that the steve miller band almost signed with Impulse originally.

black keys perpetually having low-stakes beef w/ other musicians i give even less of a shit about than i give about the black keys

lol

He bought me a crate of papaya once

calstars otm

also Paul Pena's picking without a pick technique in the Conan clip above is so, so good. it's like an electric fingerstyle. awesome to watch

funky kicks

Don’t get suspicious

I saw him at a festival in the late 90s and he brought a rapper out for a verse in fly like an eagle

"I need a man meal sandwich, yes I need Manwich"

could we hear more about this crate of papaya

You know he knows just what the facts is

“Wild mountain honey” is a lullaby

My woman is a friend of mine

Billy Joe
Bobbie Sue
Billy Mack

Now don’t be suspicious
Babe you know you are a friend of mine

texas
facts is
justice
taxes

detective

https://i.postimg.cc/0Qf6Kw9C/IMG-2845.jpg

that’s a good friday night

Apropos of nothing, there's an upload on Youtube of a New York radio show from mid-1986 that, despite being on cassette, sounds really good. It has "West End Girls", "Mad About You", "Glamorous Life" and so on, and they sound really punchy.

Someone in the comments mentioned that radio stations back then used something called an Orban Optimod, which was a compressor designed to make music sound really loud on car speakers. They cost a fortune on the used market. That led me to this, which makes the song sound as if it's being played on the radio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRevP3A5QnY

“They headed down /
To ooh old El Paso”

So glad Billy Joe and Bobby Sue killed that guy while robbing his house. Serves him right for hassling them. His widow and young children were probably ecstatic to be rid of his sorry ass. And fuck that public servant, using MY HARD-EARNED TAX DOLLARS to track them down. Leech.

true dat

tbf Bobbie Sue didn’t have anything to do with the shooting

Someone in the comments mentioned that radio stations back then used something called an Orban Optimod, which was a compressor designed to make music sound really loud on car speakers.

I have noticed this sound so often before, and always assumed that, welp, I was listening to an aircheck recorded in 1985 on magnetic tape, being played through an analog player, possibly at a slightly higher speed.

It's not a bad sound! Reminds me of pool parties.

"So glad Billy Joe and Bobby Sue killed that guy while robbing his house."

This is why I've always been unwilling to publicly criticise Steve Miller. He's seen things. He knows things. The abyss blinked first. There's a stereotype that he's a cheerful blues-rock guitarist who wrote some decent songs and was willing to at least try to change his image.

But, to paraphrase the film, the greatest trick the devil pulled was persuading people that he didn't exist. They didn't call him "the butcher of Metcalfe Park" short pause. The following are actual true facts about Steve Miller:

- According to Wikipedia he's "the founder and only remaining original member of the Steve Miller Band" - but he has never been arrested for either of these things.
- He was a known associate of Chuck Berry (on Live at Fillmore Auditorium).
- Sean Coombes is currently on trial for racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation across state lines. Steve Miller? A free man.
- He developed an entire arcane language that included and admittedly consisted entirely of the word "pompatus".

On a more serious level it's amusing how the coves of his 1960s and 1970s albums all follow contemporary trends, a bit like Spinal Tap. The band starts off as retro cowboy rock, then they're War-style psychedelic elevated consciousness, then they're a serious concert band, then they're epic prog, then glam, then what can only be described as yacht rock, then New Wave. The sales drop-off from Abracadabra to Italian X Rays is something. And then bizarrely his most recent album, from 2011, is absolutely vintage 1970s Hipgnosis. It has visual puns! And it's slightly naff.

Philly
ATL
LAx

No finer 15 seconds in all of music than the beginning of “take the money”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGZGi80wzss

funky

What is it about “rock n me” that makes it so meditative

claps claps claps claps claps

The near-rhyme of Arizona and Tacoma is criminally underrated.

Clearly this is the go-to guy when you need a rhyme relating to Western American geography. I mean, he easily dealt with "El Paso," sure. A master at the top of his game. I remember thinking that could not be topped, and yet he casually throws in a line ending in "Texas." How will he get himself out of this, I wonder? With some justice. Miller-style.

There is a little snippet going around of a live version of "The Joker" with the supertitle "bro never played the same way twice."

It is an excerpt from about 1:15 to 1:40 of the show linked below and I think the memer has a point. If you are only familiar with the vocal melody of the radio cut, you will be surprised by the subtle way he mixes things up and there are some really nice little vocal riffs in this version. Elegant yet relaxed. Recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kgjfw4_5Ug

He has really nice tone and pitch.

Texas taxes

Facts is

heh yeah

That greatest hits tape/cd was still a popular drinking soundtrack in the late 80s when I lived in the dorms. Lots of those region and NJ frat dead people loved the Gangster of Love in kegger situations.

I like in that clip that both times he does the "woo-woo" guitar sound, he mouths along with the sound

I'm more curious why he's playing a LH strat upside-down...?

If you have to ask…

If I remember the lore correct, I believe that might have been an actual left handed strat that was ordered by Jimi Hendrix at Manny's in NYC but never picked up (because he died).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFu-vAqr--4

what even is this? AI nonsense that they're claiming is a new band album made by a bunch of dead ppl? blurb says "a work of uncommon pedigree" ok so what is the date of the recording, who produced it, what's the name of the record company, etc etc

pretty sure it's legit? i think the producer started working on this in 2009

FWIW, he may have canceled his tour, but he's still putting on shows: just announced another one for Jazz at Lincoln Center.

btw not only is that reggae version legit, but Steve Miller actually laid down the guitar for it.

prove it

It's in the liner notes!

https://i.imgur.com/txqUGoX.jpeg

Written by David Katz

What's next? tapdancing?