You probably won’t be surprised when I tell you that this has been the hardest post for me to write since Popdose started. I mean, it’s been a damn month: what’s the holdup? Well, the truth is I discovered it is a lot easier to write about straight-up criminals like the members of Mötley Crüe, or hardcore divas like Diana Ross, than smug, pretentious assholes like today’s subject, Roger Waters. Simply put, it’s rather entertaining to write about individuals in the former categories. To write about Waters, however, is as trying a task as actually listening to his solo work in an attempt to find if any of them are worth talking about in this column. But I was able to find a good one, or a “good” one, depending on one’s ability to stomach conceptual prog joints. First though, a refresher on Herr Waters’ crimes of pomposity.

-Waters became the default main writer in Pink Floyd after Syd Barrett’s descent into mental illness, apparently exacerbated by a horrible LSD experience. And while Waters often spoke about how he wished to find and kill the man who gave Syd bad acid, this level of care did not apply to the addictions of other members of the band. Waters made the unilateral decision to fire founding Floyd member and keyboardist Richard Wright during sessions for The Wall, when he deemed Wright’s addictions too much of a distraction. Then, as an added slap in the face, he hired Wright back as a session musician to complete the album and go on the abbreviated Wall tour. In other words, Wright was not messed up enough that his talents couldn’t be used, but was messed up just enough that Waters wished to symbolically disassociate himself from him. Charming.

-More than just the main lyricist, Waters made himself de facto leader of the Floyd, taking complete creative control of the direction of the group. This culminated in refusing to put any Gilmour’s songs in 1983’s The Final Cut, then leaving the group after its release and declaring them over, with that album as their final, definitive statement, as if the rest of Pink Floyd really wanted to have their last album be a de facto Waters solo album: The record jacket even said “The Final Cut by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd.” Waters then sued the other members of Pink Floyd to stop them from carrying on under that name after he left the group. His defense was that Pink Floyd should not be allowed to continue because he was the creative leader of the band, and additionally there remained only one original member (Nick Mason) who wanted to carry on. In other words, though Gilmour had been the musical centerpiece of the group for two decades, he was still nothing more to Waters than a hired hand to replace Syd Barrett, so f-all what he wanted. (more…)

Scott: Could Gilmour sound more bored? No wonder he called Floyd quits. Although Momentary Lapse of Reason had its moments, neither of the post-Waters Floyd albums hold a candle to Gilmour’s second solo record, About Face. In fact, you can hear echoes of that ‘84 album in the Gilmour-led Floyd records. And the live performances were so bloated. How many people did they have onstage?

Jon: Zzzzzzzzz … oh, sorry, I fell asleep as soon as I saw that number “7:32″ on the volume bar. Could somebody give me a rag? I need to wipe this drool off my chin.

Isn’t this song the reason punk was invented … 20 years earlier? Couldn’t Gilmour have caught a clue by 1994? I actually was never a big Floyd fan, but after Waters left I tuned them out completely — except for “Learning to Fly,” which at least has a discernible melody and something of a hook. Please don’t make me listen to this again.

David: I own The Division Bell, but I do not remember a single lick of the album, except for “I never thought you’d lose that light in your eyes.” That’s one of the Nick Laird-Clowes songs, yes?

(more…)

Some people are just flat-out smart-asses.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing to be at times, mind you, but a good smart-ass pulls it off with a modicum of grace and might give you a chuckle for it. In the music world, there are relatively few of the latter. Instead of a wink and a nod, they just about knock you unconscious and then ask if “you saw that.” You can tell one from the other by their choices in the realm of cover songs.

A word of note to anyone who is not a music nerd accidentally finding themselves at this site: a cover song is when an artist records another artist’s song, hence covering it. The term ‘remake’ fits as well. The term ’smart-ass’, at least relative to this article, refers to those who decide to go all hipster and record something that bears no relevance, charm or wit toward their own sensibility. I’m thinking of Madonna’s cover of “American Pie” or that godawful A Perfect Circle CD where the songs weren’t just reworked, they were worked over, until all that was left was roadkill disguised as tribute. Then there’s the Bluegrass Tribute to Pink Floyd’s The Wall. More notoriously, I’m thinking of the late-’50s pop songs from black artists covered by teen idol white artists because, you know, if it comes from a white guy in a sweater, the subtext can’t be about sex. Right? Pat Boone? Tutti Frutti?

(more…)

My grandfather loved his guitars. He listened to old Hank Williams Sr. records, a bit of Les Paul and Mary Ford, and a smattering of Hawaiian music, all to hear what was happening on the fretboards. Williams stuck to strummed chords, Paul overdubbed, sped up and slowed down his jazz licks to possessed proportions and the Hawaiians always knew their way around the pedal steel. As far afield as these tastes ran, there was a definite common denominator, so the fact that Pop loved “Oh Babe, What Would You Say?” by Hurricane Smith was even more confusing.

For starters, this hit single sounds nothing like the rest of Smith’s output, the sort of music you would expect from the early 1970s. It is a throwback to Big Band Hit Parade panache, with a swinging string section worthy of Nelson Riddle and an up-front sax that complements, not kills, the tune. Secondly, Smith’s voice is treated with an echo-back bounce more in line with David Bowie and John Lennon than Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong. None of this seemed to make sense in Pop’s collection. What gives? (more…)

My mom, God rest her soul, hit the nail on the head. She always used to ask me, “Why must you do everything ass-backwards?” She had a point. Shoes went on before pants, finalizing efforts always preceded initializing efforts, and have you ever seen me get out of the backseat of a car? It’s like some horrid recreation of a breach birth.

So in this modern age, you can put a shiny, silver disc into the face of your car’s dashboard and hear wonderful sound. You can put a machine the size of a candy bar into your pants pocket and a headset the size of dental floss with tiny tumors into your ears and hear wonderful sound. Me? I like records.

(more…)