Re: Old People Pop

1

I have a related question about the song about Jesus that uses a sample from The Munsters theme song as a hook. Is that just in my head?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 6:44 AM
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Also, I can't stand Ed Sheeran. At least not if I have to listen to him sing. I'm not sure why.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 6:49 AM
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1: Not just you. It's not quite the tune but close enough.

Sort of related pseudoscience: recognition of pop music game that researchers hope to use to elicit memories from dementia patients. Huh?

Also, I keep interpreting "Pop" as a verb in the post title.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 6:56 AM
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4

3.last: Or for Midwesterners: Soylent Cola is people!


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 7:00 AM
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5

It's almost a tautology, isn't it? I mean, if there's one thing that unifies pop as a genre or as a classification it's that it's designed to appeal to lots of young people.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 7:00 AM
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3.1: That's good to know.

Anyway, old people and young people both suck.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 7:00 AM
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4: Soylent soda is seniors!


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 7:03 AM
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8

Nouvelle Vague is Bossa Nova covers of eighties songs made just as the kids who liked "Too drunk to fuck" or "Human Fly," both songs treated succesfully, turned 45.

There are distribution channels aimed at adults also.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 7:12 AM
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9

"To the sickos at Modern Bride magazine..."


Posted by: grandpa simpson | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 7:14 AM
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10

I suspect those people do a great deal of damage to young people. Probably more than pop music, even pop music involving Bob Dylan.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 7:17 AM
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11

The kid I'd most like to get off my lawn radio is Rob Schneider's daughter, because Numbers 14:18.


Posted by: R. rubrum | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 7:17 AM
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12

I had no idea Rob Schneider had a daughter. I still hate those copier guy sketches.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 7:19 AM
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13

I do love Florida Georgia Line's "Cruise," though I liked it even better when Nelly got involved.

I don't like to fling this accusation, but this is either transparent trolling or an acute case of impacted honky self-consciousness (i.e., the reversal of "I like all music, except country and rap").


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 7:32 AM
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14

I still hate those copier guy sketches.

The one with Steven Seagal was pretty funny. "Nico! Toughest cop on the force! Makin' copies!"


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 7:33 AM
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15

Does Paul McCartney still sing "When I'm 64" at his live concerts? Does he add an extra verse about a time machine?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 7:49 AM
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16

13 seems like it's written by someone who has forgotten that most people are regular.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 7:49 AM
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16: Basic.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 7:49 AM
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18

People come in regular, constipated, and cholera-ridden.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 7:52 AM
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19

No one remembers scrofula.


Posted by: OPINIONATED SCROFULA VICTIM | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 8:15 AM
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20

No-one's had scrofula since they were all touched by Elvis.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 8:21 AM
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21

Florida-Georgia Line is stunningly bad, even by the standards of pop country. Also, unlike most even very bad/poppy country artists, they can't play.


Posted by: Roberto Tigre | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 8:32 AM
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22

I like Luke Bryan's Country Girl (Shake It For Me)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HX4SfnVlP4

I need to find a playlist of douchebag country classics


Posted by: lemmy caution | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 8:37 AM
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23

All pop music is the same, and all pop music is horrible. The combination of having a beat, being strange to your parents, and your thirteen-year-old hormones imprints this music on your brain and you forever helplessly react to the echoes of a time when the world seemed big and buzzed with sexual possibility.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 9:14 AM
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24

23 seems right except for my 13-year old self I would change it to "buzzed with sexual impossibility".


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 9:21 AM
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25

23: Then when did pop music begin? The 1950s?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 9:22 AM
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26

It goes back at least to the 20s.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 9:25 AM
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27

Whatever.


Posted by: OPINIONATED LISZT | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 9:28 AM
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28

At least I'd think you'd have to count Joplin and the like.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 9:28 AM
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29

Now ya done it;last night's playlist, same ol same ol

Waylon Jennings;The Church;Pink Floyd;Clem Snide;The Sundays;Caravan;Count Basie;Be Good Tanya;Samadhi;Fleetwood Mac;Coltrane;John Kay;Fairport Convention;Nickel Creek;Gatemouth Brown;Green Day - Homecoming;Brighter;Ted Nugent;Lee Michaels;Horace Silver;Kinks;Ramsey Lewis;Claire Lynch;Janis Ian;Sleepy John Estes;Red Garland;Lowell Fulson;Ana Popovic;Tim Buckley;Dexter Gordon


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 9:30 AM
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30

If Hillary Clinton drags out another Fleetwood Mac song for her campaign, I'm voting for Trump.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 9:34 AM
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31

Lots of great pop music stands up decades after it was written. There's nothing about pop music that means it has to be shit. Much of it always has been, of course, but nostalgia and natural selection filters that out.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 9:35 AM
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32

27: How there be pop music without mass media?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 9:36 AM
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33

28: That was the 60s, dude.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 9:38 AM
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34

30: What if she keeps the same old one?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 9:40 AM
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35

32: I think player-piano rolls and cheap, wide-spread sheet music count.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 9:42 AM
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36

34: I'll vote for Rick Perry.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 9:43 AM
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37

Cheap widespread sheet music goes back a long way. People may have made their own entertainment when they were your age, but they relied on printers and salesmen to do it.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 10:05 AM
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38

35, 37: Yes, this is true, but singing along to Stephen Foster songs played on the piano doesn't seem like it was much like what ogged is talking about in 23.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 10:21 AM
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39

That's why I guessed the 20s. Because flappers and cars and petting and booze.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 10:27 AM
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40

39: Maybe. Also record players.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 10:29 AM
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41

singing along to Stephen Foster songs

I wanted to work "Old Folks at Home" somehow into the post but it didn't jump out at me.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 10:30 AM
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42

There's a Stephen Foster Memorial across the street from the bar of the last meet up. I think he's buried here, but in the regular cemetery, not the memorial (which is more of a performing arts center than a tomb).


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 10:34 AM
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43

Sacrilege. He should be in Florida, where he never actually stepped foot.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 10:40 AM
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44

Fine. I'll get my grave-robbing shovel.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 10:41 AM
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45

We'd just like a foot, please.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 10:42 AM
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46

My neighbor is always boring grave-robbing tools, but never returns them. I guess that explains all the old suits he has.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 10:43 AM
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47

Is my 86-year-old client going to identify with "And darling, I will be loving you until we're 70"?

Upon reflection....maybe. You don't necessarily want to be reminded of exactly how old you are in a love song. You may even enjoy pretending that you're young again.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 10:55 AM
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48

I do love Florida Georgia Line's "Cruise,"

Eye. Roll.

Pop country is absolutely not marketing to the seniors' "niche." It's club music for places where you may also line dance. Florida Georgia Line has otherwise nothing to offer people who already have Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Charley Pride, Hank Williams et al..


Posted by: Lord Castock | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 11:22 AM
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Hey ttaM, is this of interest?

https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=oldczechlegends


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 11:29 AM
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Re: 49

Oh, that looks cool, ta. Probably won't be able to go, but Mrs ttaM may be interested.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 11:42 AM
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51

By the 1920s you've already got pop music that sounds recognisably like the stuff we think of as canonical pop music.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 11:44 AM
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52

That means I'm right.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 11:47 AM
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53

Lots of music is marketed to the seniors' demographic. It's the music they grew up with. Springsteen, The Stones, The Dead, Barbra Streisand, etc. Marketers are aware that this age group is more interested (and more able to pay for) live shows, and not especially inclined to buy new releases.

Ed Sheerin is actually the rare young one who's cashing in.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/see-rolling-stones-perform-beast-of-burden-with-ed-sheeran-20150628


Hypothesis: The Stones are more successful on tour now than they were 20 years ago, because 20 years ago their fans had to hassle with babysitters and such to get to a show. Now that the kids are grown up, back to live concerts!


Posted by: unimaginative | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 11:57 AM
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54

If Hillary Clinton drags out another Fleetwood Mac song for her campaign

"Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies...."


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 12:01 PM
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55

Only marginally relevant, but this playlist from The Toast is one of the best mixes I've ever seen.


Posted by: J, Robot | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 12:40 PM
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56

Also, the only good thing about the Florida/Georgia line is that gas is cheaper once you get to Georgia.


Posted by: J, Robot | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 12:41 PM
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57

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTmDt4j0F6g

MS sings SF.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:00 PM
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58

||

I know I'm not exactly a model of efficient prose, but does the phrase "in a very real sense" ever contribute anything? For instance in this sentence from a recent The-Toast piece: "I had to recognize that, even as I'd made so much room for these books inside myself, in a very real sense they had no room for me." Couldn't one just strike those five words?

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Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:22 PM
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59

This piece.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:22 PM
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60

No. It means "I'm about to say something barfworthy and I hope you don't notice."


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:25 PM
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61

The mix in 55 seems fun, but there's no Spotify playlist, so it's dead to me.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:26 PM
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62

does the phrase "in a very real sense" ever contribute anything?

Maybe it's useful for communicating with people who go off when someone uses "literally" wrong.


Posted by: R. rubrum | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:27 PM
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58: Honestly, can't you be morally serious for the actual sake of America's hard-working middle class seniors and our plangent men and women in problematic uniform?


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:36 PM
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64

In a very real sense, people use "in a very real sense" to mean "in a very metaphorical sense."


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:36 PM
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65

I read it as "what follows is a metaphor, but it's not offhanded, I think it's really worth thinking actively about because it really illuminates the issue." That might be a stupid thing to say, most of the time -- it probably is -- but it's not meaningless.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:37 PM
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66

I use it to say "Slow down in your quick skimming, I'm about to make my point."


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:40 PM
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67

To do that, I always make a quick and not particularly apt comparison of something to Hitler.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:41 PM
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68

You're way is probably better, especially the next time I'm meeting the kid's teacher at school.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:43 PM
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69

27 -- This movie tells you, with painstaking attention to detail and historical accuracy, everything you need to know about the history of pop music in the nineteenth century.

Wagner is squished beneath his own castle. During his funeral, he rises from his swastika-embossed tomb. Wagner is now actually dressed as Hitler. His electric guitar turns into a machine gun and he rampages around the city, killing Jews. It's played for laughs. It doesn't get any. Liszt - who is also now dead - climbs into a heavenly spaceship, flies back to earth and laser-explodes Zombie Vampire Hitler Wagner.

Posted by: Roberto Tigre | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:44 PM
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Re: 69

I've only seen bits of it. They make it sound amazing.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:55 PM
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65: "there was no room for me" is, if not absolutely dead as a metaphor, then at least on death's door. It's like "in a very real sense" attempts simultaneously to acknowledge the tenuousness of the claim about to be made (it's only in a sense true), but also to bolster its strength (the sense is very real!!!), and it just ends up a wishy-washy mess. Strike it!

I wish I could find Standpipe's comment on lead "well,".


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:55 PM
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72

The American Experience on PBS showed an excellent film on Stephen Foster about 10 years ago. I don't know if those are archived somewhere.


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 1:59 PM
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73

In a very real sense, probably somewhere.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 2:11 PM
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74

In a very real sense, I'm sitting in a chair.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 2:15 PM
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75

In a very real sense, this true-to-life scene from the documentary about Franz Liszt is not safe for work.


Posted by: Roberto Tigre | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 2:17 PM
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76

I wish I could find Standpipe's comment on lead "well,".

Here you go, kiddo.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 2:27 PM
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77

The mix in 55 seems fun, but there's no Spotify playlist, so it's dead to me.

Search comments: one of the readers created one (missing ~10% of the tracks, alas).


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 2:32 PM
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78

Cool. Thanks. Playlist link.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 2:44 PM
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79

76: thanks, old man.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 2:46 PM
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80

That playlist is mostly terrible and you all are fools.


Posted by: Roberto Tigre | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 2:47 PM
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81

Roberto speaks truth.*

* although there about half a dozen great songs within it.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 3:57 PM
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82

Nothing makes me feel more masculine than reading The Toast. It's not exactly a great feeling (for me).

||
Portland grows more and more like the Bay Area with each passing day, and yet I miss it now that I'm back here. I've been despairingly buying bottles of Oregon white wine rather than the local stuff. So my sense of similarity and difference may be off in general.
|>


Posted by: lurid keyaki | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 4:08 PM
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83

80 & 81: You are dead to me.


Posted by: J, Robot | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 4:40 PM
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84

I thought old people deflated.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 4:58 PM
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85

which is more of a performing arts center than a tomb).

Oh? How could you tell?


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 5:14 PM
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86

The seating.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 5:21 PM
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87

Lisztomania was playing on the bar's TV at the last Bay Area meetup JM and I attended.


Posted by: Mr. Blandings | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 5:28 PM
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88

Because it's there.


Posted by: Old People Poop | Link to this comment | 09- 1-15 6:54 PM
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30:If Hillary Clinton drags out another Fleetwood Mac song for her campaign, I'm voting for Trump.

That particular Fleetwood Mac song in 29 was Peter Green doing "Black Magic Woman." Shit I'd donate $5 if HRC made it her campaign song. Maybe even better if Santana, and $25 if Gabor Szabo.

I have no expectations about what kids (under 40) know of the history of music, or if they recognize the names on my playlists. I do know some young'uns research or fall over old stuff, and the names are searchable. I have been building my taste and collection for fifty years now. Just means what I like.

Usually under 20k songs loaded, and very slow rotation, as in Townes van Zandt was in play for a year, and now is gone. Need some Cure and Gene Clark again, I think.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 2-15 5:55 PM
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Aw hell

Roddy Frame;Bobby Bland;Fleetwood Mac - Oh Well;Darden Smith;Alison Krause;Lester Butler;Bela Fleck plays Beethoven bluegrass;Stravinsky;Doobie Bros;Lyle Lovett;Mott the Hoople;East River Pipe;Faraway Folk;Dwight Yoakum;Roches;Louis Armstrong;Sandy Denny;Jesus Sixto Rodriguez;Butterfield Blues;Tara Nevins;Little Walter;Toad the Wet Sprocket;A Certain Ratio;Left Banke;Ronnie Earl;David Bowie;Dexter Gordon

Don't like country? Silly. I won't deny I'm mostly mellow, not a lot of dancing music

And don't need anything new.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09- 2-15 6:05 PM
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