Rare footage

There's a bit in 'Psychotic Reactions' where Bangs talks about watching the Stooges on TV circa 1970, a festival appearance with Grand Funk Railroad and Mountain. I'm sure that's somewhere about, considering all the other Stooges ephemera released on Bomp and suchlike.

I missed NY Dolls, but had the misfortune to catch Little Feat and John Lennon - both perfect reminders of just how grim things had got by 1975, and how desparately punk was needed.

Lennon - slack-cheeked and hollow-eyed, reduced to hack cover-work in the absence of anything at all to say.

Little Feat - greasy, repulsive, coke-lethargic slop.

It just seemed like a lost world, to me, Dr C: no longer remotely threatening, just strange. Buckley and Beefheart were distinctly more ho-hum boring than Feat (I actually really like "Rock'n'Roll Doctor", tho that was a v.sluggish version: plus Lowell George a better singer than either CONTROVERSY ALERT). NYDolls also quite feeble in that out-take I think: I love em but I'm kinda with Harris in his infamous dismissive judgment, on that showing. Of course it's the audience-free, let's-jam-here ambience that makes everything so arid. Average White Band = gratest band of all time discuss.

Whsipering Bob *DOES* talk abt rock the way jazz buffs talk abt jazz: more proof if needed that PUNK = the ANTI-JAZZ.

Agreed that it wasn't the Feat's finest hour on the OGWT, and there are LF songs I love a lot more - 'Easy to Slip', 'Willin'' or 'Roll Um Easy' spring to mind - but Dr. C's punk purism still makes me slightly uneasy. Isn't it possible to love both one chord punk wonders AND laidback LA session musos? This year I want to get into the Eagles and Eater!

"Question is: Is there any TV footage of The Sttoges playing live? I've never seen any and don't think there is one."

i know there was SOME in the otherwise atrocious "history of rock n roll" doc which was making the rounds on pbs a few years back. that thing was a goldmine for old footage and little more.

I'm hardly a punk purist these days - it's just that there was something about the LF clip which brought about a painful nostalgic longing for a gurning Rotten to appear onstage, kick Lowell George in the balls and hurl the drummer off his stool.

In fairness, all the New York Dolls were was a slightly scuzzier version of the Stones circa Goat's Head Soup/It's Only Rock n'Roll. The Stones with platform boots. Thunders was pure cartoon rocker and Johanson was just Jagger really. Would have been great to see them live however in a sleazy NY or LA club. The cover of Too Much Too Soon is fab also - about as rock n'roll looking as you get.

I bought my copy of "Too Much Too Soon" as a used original pressing, and someone had put a sticker on the front that says "Hard rock is my candy". I wouldn't dream of peeling it off... it makes the cover even better.

I've only seen one clip of the stooges (on the pbs series) where Iggy is smearing himself w/ peanut butter and jumping into the crowd. Unfortunately, it has a very bemused sportscaster-type making "what'll these wacky kids do next" comments over it all so you can't really hear the band. It's quite funny, but it would be nice to actually hear the band.

I love the Black Sabbath "Paranoid" clip. Ozzy in a blazer and nice collared shirt, in front of a bizarre rotating psychedelic thingamajig. And Alice Cooper doing "School's Out" while brandishing a sword is cool too.

There's also a great T Rex clip for "Get It On' with all kinds of wonky blue-screen effects.

I like those old clips where the musicians' names and what instrument they play pops up under him - like "Jimi Hendrix: Guitar" ohhhh, so that's what he's playing!

Pfff...king ov rare footage = german TV show "Live at the Rockpalast" - a bunch of live sets from various bands, including:

Wire

XTC

David Bowie (Station to Station tour)

The Who

Roxy Music

Grobschnitt etc etc

Also, there ws a german TV special called "Gotterdammerung 2000"(sp?) which featured Birthday Party, Cabaret Voltaire, loads of Factory bands & so on.

Best of all for this 'ere saddo = "Rock of the '70's" LIVE in the studio sets from Genesis (circa "Nursery Cryme" = r0x0r), Yes (who mimed - boooo), Van Der Graaf Generator ("Theme One" & "Plague of Lighthouse Keeepers" = k-r0x0r), Family (intercut w/surrealist monologues in BELGIAN), Black Sabbath, Curved Air and ELP (this one = sux0r)

Those "Top Ten" progs on Ch4 recently were EXTREMELY frustrating - clips of stuff YOU'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE, intercut w/k-unfunny comedian JUST GIVE US

Pfff...king ov rare footage = german TV show "Live at the Rockpalast" - a bunch of live sets from various bands, including:

Wire

XTC

David Bowie (Station to Station tour)

The Who

Roxy Music

Grobschnitt etc etc

Also, there ws a german TV special called "Gotterdammerung 2000"(sp?) which featured Birthday Party, Cabaret Voltaire, loads of Factory bands & so on.

Best of all for this 'ere saddo = "Rock of the '70's" LIVE in the studio sets from Genesis (circa "Nursery Cryme" = r0x0r), Yes (who mimed - boooo), Van Der Graaf Generator ("Theme One" & "Plague of Lighthouse Keeepers" = k-r0x0r), Family (intercut w/surrealist monologues in BELGIAN), Black Sabbath, Curved Air and ELP (this one = sux0r)

Those "Top Ten" progs on Ch4 recently were EXTREMELY frustrating - clips of stuff YOU'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE, intercut w/k-unfunny comedian JUST GIVE US THE RAW FOOTAGE, AND SHUT THE FUX0R UP, PHIL JUPITUSS.

XOXO

er - oops, dunno what happened there - if mr moderator wants to delete the first of those 2 posts, please do.

xoxo

New Wave Theatre with Peter Ives, your ghost host... Caught some of LA' circa 80 greats (X, Dead Kennedy's, Fear). Apparently you can still order tapes as well.

The Germans also produced 'Beat Club' in the late sixties/early seventies. Eclectic mix of German folk, American rockers (the MC5!), Krautrock (the legendary Kraftwerk/Neu line-up), visiting jazzers like Ramsey Lewis, etc. ITV used to screen late night highlight shows from it abt ten years ago.

MC for Top Ten Prog = Bill Bailey = bigger prog fan than YOU Norman Fay

One-minute clip of ELP = scary and interesting
Uncut 26-minute "clip" of ELP = as you were

Readers Digest condensed Prog - 'Tarkus' in ten minutes - I'd buy!

Did anybody that last band on wednesdays edition OGWT. I was switching back and forth to Secret life of Us on C4 and it was still on. How fucking boring? No wonder the accomplished guitar solo has been banned forever. You'd think it's an effect of punk rock but no! You're wrong! In fact i love good guitar solos as long as they com from the likes of Haino, Rudolph Gery, Jaworzyn, Bailey, etc.

Mark- must disagree on Buckley performance. His beautiful voice carried him through. Beefheart's poor showing had more to do with the quality of material.

Stooges- seen peanut butter clip on a promotional show for death in vegas on C4 a couple of years now. They stated how they combined the electricity of rock with techno beats with the 'warhol factory' look to create an exciting hybrid- their music is shit though. Saw other clips of mary chain, valentines, can, neu!- so it wasn't all lost.

Skynrd rool man! The guitarist in white = most stoned person I've seen on TV in a looong time.

It was Lynrd Skynrd, Julio, and it was wretched. Even more excruciating than the guitar solo finale was the awful slide playing in the earlier slow bit.

At a tangent - does anyone remember the Urgh - A Music War! video from the early-mid 80's? It included a fantastic clip of Gary Numan at the height of his fame doing "Cars" (possibly at Wembley) seated in a revolving "car-chair" which looked like a Bond Bug with the roof sliced off. Gaz was controlling the car with a joystick which clearly jams during an instrumental section in the middle of the song, thus causing the "car-chair" to spin madly. The rest of the band were several miles in the air on a huge riser - the keyboard players were inside sort of plexiglass phone-boxes IIRC. A synth-pop Spinal Tap.

Also on "Urgh..." were Magazine, XTC and the truly frightening Skafish.

Buckley song = about how to achieve world peace ie be like the dolphins = "beautiful" voice zero brane = not that beautiful (where are Aqua when I need em)

agreed on Beefheart material, he was unable to redeeem it and it made him look like John Otway or Spizz or worse, but also his band = a kosher Magic Band, but playing no bettah (or actually exactly the same) as buckley's = tastefully country-bluesy yuXoR (Little Feat = sleazy and distasteful, like they had smeared their bodies with hogfat 20 minutes before)

"accomplished guitar solo" = "tasty licks" = endless lame-ass attempts at being laid-back and black? (second-best thing abt punXoR = it squished THAT shit sharpish heh heh)

Incidentally, I firmly believe this laid-back soft country rock was a feeble grown-up attempt to drag rock AWAY from prog goofiness towards "proper" Peter Guralnick-type music. Which is why it got to everyone (inc.former "proggers" Beefheart & Buckley). ?PunXoR: grown-up = fucked-up hurrah?

(Numan = more talented and more musically important than anyone so far shown on OGWT reruns)

But this "laid-back soft country rock" yr talking about was from the USA, and all the REAL prog from UK/Europe. Nothing much happened here because both existed in parallel, neither camp able or even trying to trans-Atlantically supplant the other?

The UK equivalent might be an influx of folk-rock influences into rock. Apart from Led Zep bringing in folk elements on III/IV I dunno enough about the genre to comment.

Some of the biggest enthusiasts of US country-rock ended up as new- wavers (via pub-rock) - Costello, Lowe, Parker. Don't know what this means though.

I somehow managed to sit through the whole of Freebird last night. Its sheer dreadfulness locked me into some sort of trance like state where I was unable to turn away from the most predictable guitar solo ever. I fear it may have damaged me for life. Mind you, everything bar Talking Heads has been absolutely fucking awful so far. Even Beefheart was rubbish, though as pointed out above his material was very poor.

I'm hoping they show the Sensational Alex Harvey Band doing "Delilah". It somehow totally sums up 70's OGWT for me. I can't decide whether it's magnificent or terrible, but either way there's no doubt that Alex Harvey is terrifying.

they already showed SAHB, playing some amazingly terrible bit of diluted prog. I don;t even know if Zal Cleminson is still alive,. but if he is, can whoever's nearest kick his crutch away?

Mark- And here I was thinking that Numan was just Bowie (in Stardust disguise) with a synthesizer but no, actually he was more talented than beefheart!

I accept he made some excellent pop singles and he is an influence on british pop but can you expand on the musical innovator bit.

I definetely accept that he was more exciting that boring ol' talking heads, Patti (though i wouldn't know abt Buckley but the Peel session from 69 was broadcast recently and I really liked it) et al but beefheart.

Tim Buckley didn't write 'Dolphins', Fred Neil did, although of course Buckley "made the song his own".

I firmly believe this laid-back soft country rock was a feeble grown-up attempt to drag rock AWAY from prog goofiness towards "proper" Peter Guralnick-type music. Which is why it got to everyone (inc.former "proggers" Beefheart & Buckley).

Well Beefheart basically lifted his entire vocal style from Howling Wolf, who certainly = ultimate Guralnick-type act, and the first couple of Beefheart albs are essentially refried electric Chess-style blues. And didn't pretty much every American act in the late sixties/early seventies want some of that Eagles/Bad Company/Skynrd hot chart action (ie "there's always been a country rock element to our music")?

Was it the Rockplast show that had Roxy Music circa first album all dressed up in glitter gear? That clip made me so excited I almost wet myself.

Also, mark s, re your comment on Numan: you're a real kidder, that was a good one!

MaRK SiNK3R S3Z:

MC for Top Ten Prog = Bill Bailey = bigger prog fan than YOU Norman Fay

GGGGrrrrrrrrr.......

B!ll Ba!ley = /<-unfunny comedian. Allegedly used to play in prog group.

nfaY = miserable geordie bicycle repair man BUT currently plays in TWO prog bands

Mark SO-CALLED Sinker = GRATE big rotten stirrer w/face like squished tomato chiz chiz.

aLZo:

One-minute clip of ELP = scary and interesting Uncut 26-minute "clip" of ELP = as you were

1/3 AT LEAST ov ELP "Rock of the '70's" performance = DRUM SOLO!!!!! - drum solo started - I wnt to bog for big ole dumpx0r - finished, only to find drum solo STILL GOING. MAy still be going on now for all I kno....

Also shown on Bill Bailey's CH4 prog - tiny clip ov King Crimson @ Hyde Park festival, 20sec clip ov Genesis playing "Supper's Ready" WHERE IS THE REST?

xoxo

My little brother loves his CD player cuz when you press a certain button on the remote the display reads "prog".

(Numan = more talented and more musically important than anyone so far shown on OGWT reruns)

Unlike some of the scoffers above, I stand by this statement of Mark's. Even if he turns out to be fibbing, I stand by it, so HA!