16 thoughts on “Enough Is Enough – The Best I Could Do In Five Minutes

  1. Good song. Good fun. Technically a 2012 release, but it can count.

    As I’ve said before, I think the site is enriched if everyone posts stuff they like or are interested in. I personally would greatly miss the sounds Moyer likes if I couldn’t hear them, but if that was all I listened to I would rather drive a truck.

    Your drivel loving friend, oh and Happy holidays!
    Peter

  2. Happy Holidays to you too, Peter. There are many kinds of rock and, although I don’t like some kinds, I respect most of them (yes, even Joni Mitchell). But Beyonce and Ellie Goulding are shite for which I have neither use nor respect. It’s that dance-oriented crapola that has absolutely ruined what little was left of pop radio. I’d rather have you drive a truck over me than have to listen to that. Side story – while I was under non-compete and in dire straits I worked third shift doing robotic tax work from February through May. Even though everyone used headphones, they’d play a pop radio station fairly loudly at all times. Through all those months there wasn’t ONE song I liked on that godawful pop radio station – even a little. Maybe it’s time for me to go.

  3. No no no. The opposite. Post more.

    Top 40 music radio does suck. You won’t find that song Burn there, or Black Skinhead. Beyonce, probably. But you’re totally welcome to hate those tunes too, but dance oriented crapola has always been the theme of pop radio. Except when Paul Mauriat ruled for eight excruciating weeks.

    Raise your hand if you’ve heard this one. After I graduated high school my friend’s dad got me a job in the storm window factory as a glazier ($1.90 an hour). My supervisor had a family and made $2.10. WABC, the dominant pop radio station played constantly. The songs I remember are the Night Chicago Died by Paper Lace, and Billy Don’t Be a Hero, by I forget. Horrible horrible songs now nostalgically bad.

    That was also the summer of Kool and Gang’s fantastic Wild and Peaceful album and Jim Stafford’s Spiders and Snakes and classic’s like Living for the City and Grand Funk’s cover of Do the Locomotion, so it wasn’t all Having My Baby and She’s Sixteen.

    My point is obvious, so I’ll stop here. I think my tastes and autobiography are really interesting, but they become more so in the context of your stories and tastes and autobiography.

  4. I have a feeling your point wasn’t obvious enough for me (my fault, not yours, I’m sure). The point my little brain formulated from your story is that pop radio used to be a mix of good and bad. Now it’s all bad.

    • The other way to look at it is that pop radio used to be a mix of good and bad, and it was popular. It is still popular, and pop radio programmers are excited by how diverse pop radio is in the styles (from Mumford and Sons to Imagine Dragons to Bruno Marrs to Miley Cyrus), saying it’s like the glory days. I don’t know about that, but I think it’s possible to say the mix of good and bad might be the same. Or similar.

      Hang on while I take a look at that.

  5. i remember in the late 60’s, probably around 1966, driving to Lake Tahoe with our parents, and of course there were a million billboards for Harrah’s Reno and the Cal-Neva Lodge (Sinatra owned a share then), and the billboards always advertised “Robert Goulet, Appearing at John Asquaga’s Nugget from March 1-15,” or “See Sammy Davis, Jr., May-1-15”.

    my brother and i barfed at the thought of this.

    30 years later, when driving to the lake, the billboards said, “Now Appearing, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band through April whatever,” and even “Carlos Santa at Harrah’s South Shore.”

    i think for the most part, that must hit kids now like Robert Goulet hit me.

    and, i don’t say this to validate music that is not thoughtful. or, that is, well thought out and understood as art representative of its time.

    but, i do say it because like language, art–and that includes music–is dynamic, and what is popular now usually makes old people (meaning over 30) shiver.

    so, though i cannot endorse katy perry, neither can i dismiss her. i don’t listen to her, really (at least i know who she is). but, well, most serious art challenges when it is new, and is rejected by the masses before it gains acceptance.

    i think, like it or not, the crap that is pop music now is just that.

    i do like cage the elephant and deerhunter, though.

    and arcade fire. still.

  6. That’s exactly my point, Lawr. Our lenses have shifted, and we get to have our tastes, and they are not suspect as our tastes, but they are compromised by the march not of progress but of our desuetude.

    I’ve told this story somewhere before, but a few years ago I was at the dentist listening to the dentist station and there were ads for a big show of REO Speedwagon (I think) and some other band, like but probably not, Montrose, on a big double bill at Madison Square Garden. And I chuckled.

    But later that day I learned that the Dolls were playing Bowery Ballroom, and then it turned out Gene was going to be at that show with his lovely bride and Pelham friends, and when I got there I bumped into a bunch of other friends, and it was like the Mercer Arts Center all over again. Just like the Garden was heaven for Speedwagon fans.

    Those feelings endure, they come along with us, and they don’t give up.

  7. ps. i have discovered Frisell, Hazel Dickens, Slack Guitar, Drive By Truckers, and a bunch more bands both old and new since i turned 55. there might be a lot of crap out there, but there is a lot of interesting things, too.

    i think there always was. i think there always will be.

    but, that is why each of us presenting what we think is true to the spirit is not just good and fun, but important.

  8. oh, i get you point, peter. i think we, as my friend leo says, “ride the same bike” on a lot of this.

    but, i do think being dismissive if it seems stupid is akin to “you kids get out of my yard,” you know?

    and, i know you are right about REO and the Dolls (sigh, wish i was there).

    this all reminds me of a night gallery with john astin as a hippie music producers. but that is a story for another day…

  9. It’s not the same, guys. Your buddy Jake Bugg, bless his little heart, picked the new Black Sabbath album as his favorite of the year. That ain’t Robert Goulet. If it has to be that way, then Beyonce and Ellie Goulding and Kanye can get and stay the fuck out of my yard. Forever. Rock ‘n’ Roll!!!

  10. i have never heard any Kanye, or Ellie Goulding, or Miley Cyrus for that matter. at least not consciously,.

    but, that is a ringing endorsement, peter. what album should i listen to?

    whether jake bugg and his little heart like black sabbath or not, does not mean like it or not there is an air of respectability to the sabbath, like it or not (i get ozzie is not in them, but the guy has a fucking tv show). i think a lot of it is survival. sort of how raquel welch became a respectable actress.

    but, again, rock’n’roll, to me anyway, is about attitude. the music is just the vehicle. and while i prefer a wall of guitars, the second movement of beethoven’s seventh also cranks major. so does all the fifth and the ninth.

    but, i think the issue is if the attitude is still there? and to me that means pushing the envelope. which is why dylan and the beatles and the stones and fucking joni mitchell and to me U2 (though i know you hate them steve) and neil young are true rockers. they change. they challenge. they are willing to reinvent themselves and go out on a limb.

    black sabbath did that once, in the beginning, essentially. that does not mean they have not had hits or songs. but, they are all basically the same.

    which is fine: it just does not make their art particularly vital to me, anyway.

    prince, on the other hand, is willing to change his name and symbol and everything as part of his search for the perfect chord.

  11. Get with the program, Lawr. Ozzy IS on the latest Sabbath album, although, to me, the best thing about it is it has the air of the best old Black Sabbath albums. But if Jake Bugg’s learning something with the new one, good for him (it’s not like I didn’t learn a lot of rock ‘n’ roll in reverse order). Better than buddying up with some dope like Pitbull.

    The Kanye/Beatles thing seemed like heresy and probably still is, but it forced me to go back and watch the “Black Skinhead” video, which actually isn’t bad (sure whales the tar out of Beyonce and Ellie). But it does reek of Marilyn Manson’s “Beautiful People.” That’s probably heresy to Kanye fans.

    Sad to see this thread slip off the front page. It was just like the old days of ROCKRemnants.

  12. i wasn’t interested in the old sabbath, so not likely i would be interested in the new sabbath. and, i was never an ozzie fan, either. gimme alice cooper, instead.

    the way to keep this stuff on the front page is to keep writing and commenting.

    i have found doing the “night music” category is great. i don’t have to conjure some majestic comparison and george eliot language in my head.

    as peter has noted to me, part anecdote, part history, part the moment. and let it fly. or, as a pretty dedicated chef these days, “serve and enjoy.”

  13. Hey, we agree on something Lawr. I’ll take Alice over Ozzy any day too. Bad things about Ozzy:

    1) I hate when the singer lazily sings along with the guitar riff rather than creating a new melody, i.e. why “Children Of The Grave” is better than “Iron Man.”

    2) His post-Black Sabbath stuff is a hair metal joke. “Crazy Train” is the most overrated metal song ever. Starts out good with the riff, then quickly decends into a very girly hair-metal verse part, which consumes quite a bit of the song.

    Take notes, little Jake Bugg.

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