Showing posts with label classic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classic. Show all posts
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side’: 40 Years Later
40 Mind-Blowing Facts About The Mad Classic ~ A Yahoo Music article by Chris Willman | Stop The Presses!
Sure, like everybody else, you’ve listened to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon so many times that you can recite not just every line but every heartbeat, clock tick, and cash register ring by heart. But how much do you really know about the landmark prog classic, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month?
Image Source
To celebrate the 40 years we’ve been listening to what is arguably the preeminent rock album of the 1970s, here are 40 things you ought to know about Dark Side. Because lunacy breeds albums about lunacy, and albums about lunacy breed lunatic obsessions with album trivia. Let’s start with that iconic cover art, shall we?
The band members spent three minutes deciding on the front cover. Designer Storm Thorgerson brought seven designs into the Abbey Road studio where they were still recording. “The band trooped in, swept their gaze across the designs, looked at each other, nodded, and said ‘That one,’ pointing at the prism. Took all of three minutes,” Thorgerson recalled in liner notes for the 2011 deluxe box. In an 2003 interview, the designer elaborated, “No amount of cajoling would get them to consider any other contender, nor endure further explanation of the prism, or how exactly it might look. ‘That’s it,’ they said in unison, ‘we’ve got to get back to real work,’ and returned forthwith to the studio upstairs.”
One of the rejected designs involved a then-popular Marvel comic book superhero. Imagine how differently we’d think of the album if the Floyd members had expressed any interest in one of Thorgersen’s alternative ideas, to have the cover feature… the Silver Surfer!
The band had always hated having their photos in the artwork. “When Storm showed us all the ideas, with that one, there was no doubt,” guitarist David Gilmour told Rolling Stone in 2003. “It was, ‘That is it.’ It's a brilliant cover. One can look at it after that first moment of brilliance and think, ‘Well, it's a very commercial idea: It's very stark and simple; it'll look great in shop windows.’ It wasn't a vague picture of four lads bouncing in the countryside. That fact wasn't lost on us.”
It was keyboardist Rick Wright who was insistent that the cover not feature any photography at all, even conceptual photos. The Hipgnosis design team was famous for elaborately staged and photographed covers, like Wish You Were Here, which came out two years later. But in this instance, as Thorgerson remembers it, Wright “said, ‘Storm, let’s have a cool graphic, not one of your tatty [figurative] pictures…’ I protested. ‘Rick,’ I said, ‘I do images, I don’t do cool graphics.’… Whereupon Rick said, ‘Why don’t you try to see it as a challenge.’”
The prism design was partly inspired by Floyd’s extravagant live light shows. “The refracting glass prism referred to Floyd light shows–consummate use of light in the concert setting,” Thorgerson said in an interview for the album’s 30th anniversary. “Its outline is triangular and triangles are symbols of ambition, and are redolent of pyramids, both cosmic and mad in equal measure, all these ideas touching on themes in the lyrics. The joining of the spectrum extending round the back cover and across the gatefold inside was seamless like the segueing tracks on the album, whilst the opening heartbeat was represented by a repeating blip in one of the colors.”
Click here to continue to the rest of the list!
Via
More info on the great album here, at its Wikipedia page..
Sure, like everybody else, you’ve listened to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon so many times that you can recite not just every line but every heartbeat, clock tick, and cash register ring by heart. But how much do you really know about the landmark prog classic, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month?Image Source
To celebrate the 40 years we’ve been listening to what is arguably the preeminent rock album of the 1970s, here are 40 things you ought to know about Dark Side. Because lunacy breeds albums about lunacy, and albums about lunacy breed lunatic obsessions with album trivia. Let’s start with that iconic cover art, shall we?
The band members spent three minutes deciding on the front cover. Designer Storm Thorgerson brought seven designs into the Abbey Road studio where they were still recording. “The band trooped in, swept their gaze across the designs, looked at each other, nodded, and said ‘That one,’ pointing at the prism. Took all of three minutes,” Thorgerson recalled in liner notes for the 2011 deluxe box. In an 2003 interview, the designer elaborated, “No amount of cajoling would get them to consider any other contender, nor endure further explanation of the prism, or how exactly it might look. ‘That’s it,’ they said in unison, ‘we’ve got to get back to real work,’ and returned forthwith to the studio upstairs.”
One of the rejected designs involved a then-popular Marvel comic book superhero. Imagine how differently we’d think of the album if the Floyd members had expressed any interest in one of Thorgersen’s alternative ideas, to have the cover feature… the Silver Surfer!
The band had always hated having their photos in the artwork. “When Storm showed us all the ideas, with that one, there was no doubt,” guitarist David Gilmour told Rolling Stone in 2003. “It was, ‘That is it.’ It's a brilliant cover. One can look at it after that first moment of brilliance and think, ‘Well, it's a very commercial idea: It's very stark and simple; it'll look great in shop windows.’ It wasn't a vague picture of four lads bouncing in the countryside. That fact wasn't lost on us.”
It was keyboardist Rick Wright who was insistent that the cover not feature any photography at all, even conceptual photos. The Hipgnosis design team was famous for elaborately staged and photographed covers, like Wish You Were Here, which came out two years later. But in this instance, as Thorgerson remembers it, Wright “said, ‘Storm, let’s have a cool graphic, not one of your tatty [figurative] pictures…’ I protested. ‘Rick,’ I said, ‘I do images, I don’t do cool graphics.’… Whereupon Rick said, ‘Why don’t you try to see it as a challenge.’”
The prism design was partly inspired by Floyd’s extravagant live light shows. “The refracting glass prism referred to Floyd light shows–consummate use of light in the concert setting,” Thorgerson said in an interview for the album’s 30th anniversary. “Its outline is triangular and triangles are symbols of ambition, and are redolent of pyramids, both cosmic and mad in equal measure, all these ideas touching on themes in the lyrics. The joining of the spectrum extending round the back cover and across the gatefold inside was seamless like the segueing tracks on the album, whilst the opening heartbeat was represented by a repeating blip in one of the colors.”
Click here to continue to the rest of the list!
Via
More info on the great album here, at its Wikipedia page..
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Friday, February 8, 2013
Boston - Smokin
Source
Tom Scholz is a genius.. simple as that. One of the few musical artists who wrote and recorded almost every instrument for his band. He had it all in his mind, and he made it happen, with a little help.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Friday, October 12, 2012
Toto - Hold the Line (LIVE)
in Amsterdam, recorded in 2003
Source
Hard to believe this song is now 34 years old! Yikes.. Pretty amazing that no major rock band has covered this after all this time. If you find one, let me know!
Source
Hard to believe this song is now 34 years old! Yikes.. Pretty amazing that no major rock band has covered this after all this time. If you find one, let me know!
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Suicidal Tendencies - Nobody Hears
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Godsmack - "Come Together"
2012 Beatles Cover..
Via / Source
Beatles Original, 1969 (Source) / Aerosmith Cover, 1978 (Source)
It's one of the most-covered rock songs of all-time. Here's the list from Wikipedia.
Via / Source
Beatles Original, 1969 (Source) / Aerosmith Cover, 1978 (Source)
It's one of the most-covered rock songs of all-time. Here's the list from Wikipedia.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Rush - The Trees
Source
Heard this on the radio a bit ago, and MAN did it blow me away like it always does.
Probably a re-post, but hey.. it's OK when it's good music!
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Zach Johnson's Amazing Golf Shot
...in case you haven't seen it yet.
This is one of the most difficult shots in the game of golf - the fairway bunker shot.
Here's the reason it's so tough: Over time, most golfers become fairly capable of getting out of a green-side sand trap, in which you hit behind the ball with the face open, and slide under the ball, allowing the sand to "blast" the ball out. You never touch the ball. But the fairway bunker shot requires you to hit the ball as if it were a regular fairway shot, but you must make perfectly clean contact, taking no divot. You have to "pick it clean".
I always tell people to put the ball a little back in their stance, use one club longer than you might think, close the face a tiny bit, aim about 10 yards right of where you normally would, and swing at a steeper angle, so that you pick it clean, and then get out - without risking any type of divot. Hit this type of shot a little fat, and it's gonna go about 30 yards. Hit it a little thin, and if it doesn't re-bury itself, it might go 10 feet.
So this is already one of the toughest shots there is. Magnify it by the fact that this is during a tournament.. a PGA Tour event.. on Sunday.. in a sudden death playoff for the title:
Via / Source
The shot won him the tournament. Well done, Zach!
This is one of the most difficult shots in the game of golf - the fairway bunker shot.
Here's the reason it's so tough: Over time, most golfers become fairly capable of getting out of a green-side sand trap, in which you hit behind the ball with the face open, and slide under the ball, allowing the sand to "blast" the ball out. You never touch the ball. But the fairway bunker shot requires you to hit the ball as if it were a regular fairway shot, but you must make perfectly clean contact, taking no divot. You have to "pick it clean".
I always tell people to put the ball a little back in their stance, use one club longer than you might think, close the face a tiny bit, aim about 10 yards right of where you normally would, and swing at a steeper angle, so that you pick it clean, and then get out - without risking any type of divot. Hit this type of shot a little fat, and it's gonna go about 30 yards. Hit it a little thin, and if it doesn't re-bury itself, it might go 10 feet.
So this is already one of the toughest shots there is. Magnify it by the fact that this is during a tournament.. a PGA Tour event.. on Sunday.. in a sudden death playoff for the title:
Via / Source
The shot won him the tournament. Well done, Zach!
Friday, July 13, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Metallica - Fight Fire with Fire (LIVE)
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Van Halen - Hot For Teacher (LIVE)
..in San Antonio, TX 6/22/2012
Courtesy Jason Jude, (Jasonjayeah Productions)
This is the best one of the show, IMHO. This guy Jason uploaded videos of the entire show, and so yeah, I watched most of them. For the most part, David Lee Roth .. well he stunk it up. The way he "changed" Hot For Teacher actually turned out pretty good, but in most of the famous, classic, legendary tunes, he either: (1) decided he'd rather change things up a ton, or (2) he just refused to sing them the way we know them, or (3) he ~couldn't~ sing them the way we know them.
You can judge for yourselves by following the link to the rest of the videos from the concert.
Courtesy Jason Jude, (Jasonjayeah Productions)
This is the best one of the show, IMHO. This guy Jason uploaded videos of the entire show, and so yeah, I watched most of them. For the most part, David Lee Roth .. well he stunk it up. The way he "changed" Hot For Teacher actually turned out pretty good, but in most of the famous, classic, legendary tunes, he either: (1) decided he'd rather change things up a ton, or (2) he just refused to sing them the way we know them, or (3) he ~couldn't~ sing them the way we know them.
You can judge for yourselves by following the link to the rest of the videos from the concert.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
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