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Post by Slam_Bradley on Oct 21, 2020 19:27:47 GMT -5
I think you can tell the real worth of a band/artist by their B-sides. At best, they can be the place where musicians can stretch out and indulge some of their weirder and more interesting tendencies or where they can hide absolute musical gold. And when you get a B-side that is dynamite it's an absolute joy! As Prince Hal noted above, the Beatles B-sides were almost always brilliant, but actually, a lot of my favourite bands/artists produced killer b-sides. Just to correct one of Slam_Bradley's examples of brilliant and historic B-sides above, I believe that Elvis's "Hound Dog" was actually the A-side; it was Don't Be Cruel that was the B-side...but yeah, same thing, killer song (arguably better than Hound Dog). Hound Dog was originally released as the “B”. After both got huge airplay the record was re-released with Hound Dog as the A-side and Don’t Be Cruel as the B-side.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
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Post by Confessor on Oct 22, 2020 2:06:31 GMT -5
I think you can tell the real worth of a band/artist by their B-sides. At best, they can be the place where musicians can stretch out and indulge some of their weirder and more interesting tendencies or where they can hide absolute musical gold. And when you get a B-side that is dynamite it's an absolute joy! As Prince Hal noted above, the Beatles B-sides were almost always brilliant, but actually, a lot of my favourite bands/artists produced killer b-sides. Just to correct one of Slam_Bradley's examples of brilliant and historic B-sides above, I believe that Elvis's "Hound Dog" was actually the A-side; it was Don't Be Cruel that was the B-side...but yeah, same thing, killer song (arguably better than Hound Dog). Hound Dog was originally released as the “B”. After both got huge airplay the record was re-released with Hound Dog as the A-side and Don’t Be Cruel as the B-side. Really? Good trivia. I bow to your superior knowledge of King's discography. The reason I knew that Don't Be Cruel was a B-side is that I always mention it before I play the song live. Had no idea that it started off as the A-side though. If you ask me, RCA got it right the first time.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Oct 22, 2020 4:14:59 GMT -5
James Randi, a stage magician better known as a skeptic and debunker of paranormal claims, has died at the age of 92. He founded or co-founded several organizations to investigate claims of paranormal or supernatural phenomena and generally educate the public, most notably the James Randi Educational Foundation. He probably became noticed by the wider public when he was invited by Johnny Carson to appear on the Tonight Show with that fraud Uri Geller (the guy who claimed he could bend things like spoons with his mind) and made a complete fool out of him. Clips of that whole segment can be easily found on YouTube.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Oct 22, 2020 8:04:04 GMT -5
James Randi, a stage magician better known as a skeptic and debunker of paranormal claims, has died at the age of 92. He founded or co-founded several organizations to investigate claims of paranormal or supernatural phenomena and generally educate the public, most notably the James Randi Educational Foundation. He probably became noticed by the wider public when he was invited by Johnny Carson to appear on the Tonight Show with that fraud Uri Geller (the guy who claimed he could bend things like spoons with his mind) and made a complete fool out of him. Clips of that whole segment can be easily found on YouTube. I was a big fan of Randi’s work. A great proponent for rational thought. His is a voice that will truly be missed.
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Roquefort Raider
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 22, 2020 9:50:29 GMT -5
James Randi, a stage magician better known as a skeptic and debunker of paranormal claims, has died at the age of 92. He founded or co-founded several organizations to investigate claims of paranormal or supernatural phenomena and generally educate the public, most notably the James Randi Educational Foundation. He probably became noticed by the wider public when he was invited by Johnny Carson to appear on the Tonight Show with that fraud Uri Geller (the guy who claimed he could bend things like spoons with his mind) and made a complete fool out of him. Clips of that whole segment can be easily found on YouTube. Very sad. The man did a tremendous lot of good, particularly with his paranormal challenge. He also had a very colourful personality, and his being such a good stage magician meant no fraud could pull the wool over his eyes.
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Post by junkmonkey on Oct 22, 2020 10:01:15 GMT -5
I did say 'usually'.
I'm not by any means a Status Quo fan but their track "Gerdundula" is just dead pure brilliant and was released originally as the B-side of "In My Chair".
I don't know about the US* but in the UK the royalties were split evenly between the writers/performers of both sides. Whoever was getting the money for the B side got exactly the same as whoever did the heavy lifting of getting the 'Top Ten Hit'. I can imagine it was used it as a way of keeping less prominent members of the band happy and less than scrupulous companies/producers would bung something that they had written/performed on the B side to boost their own incomes over that of the headlining A side.
*other countries are available.
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Post by junkmonkey on Oct 22, 2020 10:06:08 GMT -5
James Randi was a real hero of mine. My heart goes out to his husband.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Oct 22, 2020 10:23:42 GMT -5
Scott Edelman has reported on Twitter that Richard Lupoff has passed away.
Lupoff was one of the great comic book and SF fans, editing Xero which won the 1963 Hugo for best fanzine. He then turned to writing fiction, but it may have been his non-fiction that was more important. All In Color For a Dime, co-edited with Don Thompson, is one of the foundational books of comic book scholarship. And Master of Adventure: The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs, is still the definitive work on Burroughs.
The photo of Lupoff and his wife as Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel at the 1960 Pittsburgh Worldcon is one of the classic fandom photos.
And now confirmed by Maggie Thompson.
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Post by beccabear67 on Oct 22, 2020 13:35:52 GMT -5
r.i.p. Randi, Lupoff, Davis, and thanks for adding to our lives!
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Post by codystarbuck on Oct 22, 2020 21:04:33 GMT -5
Lupoff and Thompson followed up All In Color for a Dime with The comic Book Book, collecting further essays/histories. I used both those books, plus newer histories by Ron Goulart and Will Jacobs & Gerard Jones to write a history paper, in college, on the history of comics and how they reflected society in different decades. Great reads and it helped my get an A on my paper.
First saw the Amazing Randi on a special about stage magic, with various performers doing illusions and tricks and escapology stuff. Randi was supposed to do Houdini's milk can escape, but was injured and another magician performed it, while he set up the illusion from a hospital gurney (I think William Shatner was the host). Of course, he might have been fine and just playing the audience for suckers. Loved his work debunking con artists, including all the charlatans whose books we sold at Barnes & Noble. I always tried to suggest his books to those people, but, some people juts have to learn the hard way. Saw a Nova special with him, in the early 90s, where he addressed a college group and handed out personality descriptions, based on zodialogical signs, then asked how many were accurate. Everyone raises their hands. He then has them pass the sheet to their neighbor and they all find out they all had the exact same description, which was a basic, generic description that fit nearly everyone and they then read themselves into the description. He then illustrated things like cold reading, discussed deja vu and other alleged psychic phenomena, including precognition. They talk his history for a bit, then accompany him to Russia, where he applies scientific controls to alleged healing rituals at a clinic that made paranormal claims and none of them could reproduce a single claim. He was a rational voice in an increasingly irrational world.
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Post by junkmonkey on Oct 23, 2020 10:32:48 GMT -5
Lupoff and Thompson followed up All In Color for a Dime with The comic Book Book, collecting further essays/histories. I used both those books, plus newer histories by Ron Goulart and Will Jacobs & Gerard Jones to write a history paper, in college, on the history of comics and how they reflected society in different decades. Great reads and it helped my get an A on my paper. First saw the Amazing Randi on a special about stage magic, with various performers doing illusions and tricks and escapology stuff. Randi was supposed to do Houdini's milk can escape, but was injured and another magician performed it, while he set up the illusion from a hospital gurney (I think William Shatner was the host). Of course, he might have been fine and just playing the audience for suckers. Loved his work debunking con artists, including all the charlatans whose books we sold at Barnes & Noble. I always tried to suggest his books to those people, but, some people juts have to learn the hard way. Saw a Nova special with him, in the early 90s, where he addressed a college group and handed out personality descriptions, based on zodialogical signs, then asked how many were accurate. Everyone raises their hands. He then has them pass the sheet to their neighbor and they all find out they all had the exact same description, which was a basic, generic description that fit nearly everyone and they then read themselves into the description. He then illustrated things like cold reading, discussed deja vu and other alleged psychic phenomena, including precognition. They talk his history for a bit, then accompany him to Russia, where he applies scientific controls to alleged healing rituals at a clinic that made paranormal claims and none of them could reproduce a single claim. He was a rational voice in an increasingly irrational world.
I can thoroughly recommend the documentary An Honest Liar en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Honest_Liar - A biographical documentary that was shooting (with Randi's collaboration) when the authorities discovered his long time partner was an illegal alien living under an assumed name. The last part of the film switches from a plain historical biography to a fly on the wall coverage as Randi faces loosing the love of his life and has to face up to the fact that he has been living a lie. I was in tears the first time I saw it.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Oct 24, 2020 10:31:21 GMT -5
R. I. P. Jerry Jeff Walker. If all he'd ever done had been to write Mr. Bojangles he'd still be a music legend. But he used that song as a jumping off point to write and perform the music he loved and, more importantly, to help his friends make their music. It's no overstatement to say that Walker was the architect of the Austin music scene. His help and encouragement was instrumental in the careers of Guy Clark, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Robert Earl Keen, Todd Snyder, and countless more. Personally, when times get hard I think, WWJJWD (what would Jerry Jeff Walker do)? Usually the answer is piss in the wind and drink some sangria wine. It works out pretty well.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Oct 28, 2020 10:46:50 GMT -5
R. I. P. Billy Joe Shaver. Shaver may well have been the most outlaw of them all. One of the greatest songwriters of the last half of the 20th Century. He truly will Live Forever.
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Post by Prince Hal on Oct 28, 2020 11:09:06 GMT -5
Slam_Bradley, ashamed to say I'd never heard of Billy Joe Shaver, but just read up on him after I heard the "Live Forever" video. Love at first listen. Beautiful song. Tough life. Asking for an ignorant friend: do you know who's singing with him here? And if that version available on one of his albums?
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Oct 28, 2020 12:11:20 GMT -5
Slam_Bradley , ashamed to say I'd never heard of Billy Joe Shaver, but just read up on him after I heard the "Live Forever" video. Love at first listen. Beautiful song. Tough life. Asking for an ignorant friend: do you know who's singing with him here? And if that version available on one of his albums? The guys appearing in that video are a country duo known as Big & Rich. I'm not really a fan of them, but even they can't screw up Billy Joe. That version is off his 2005 album "The Real Big Deal." I've not really listened to it so I can't say whether the album itself is that great (though Allmusic seems to approve). My favorite version of that song is probably Joe Ely's off of "Satisfied at Last." The original version by Billy Joe and Eddy (his late son) was on 1993s "Tramp on Your Street" which is a fabulous album. If you want pure unexpurgated Billy Joe Shaver his 1973 debut album "Old Five and Dimers" is a stone-cold Texas Country classic. I'd also recommend Waylon Jennings' "Honky Tonk Heroes" which is the album that really brought Shaver to prominence, as all but one song on that album was written by Shaver.
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