MLT Club Member David Herrick
MLT Club MemberForum Replies Created
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You’re spot-on about the “Birds” song, Jung. That video is what led me to explore MLT’s original music, beyond just their Beatles covers. The moment where they walk through the grass singing “Here I go; I’m on my way” touched me deeply the first time I saw it. It was an instantly iconic tableau of joy, peace, innocence, beauty, etc. Then those lines were immediately followed with “I am searching for a song that makes me smile,” and I thought, “Yeah, I remember when I was in that phase of my life… five seconds ago.”
That’s a very lovely looking area where you live! I had my own memorable goose moment while walking through my neighborhood the other day. I was about a block from a pond where geese frequently congregate, and I spotted a goose perched on the roof of a house, looking kind of like one of those rooster weather vanes. It struck me that I had never seen a goose standing on anything other than the ground, but just as I was starting to process the uniqueness of this occurrence, I saw another goose atop the next house. So I imagined that as the flock was flying in toward the pond there was a conversation of “Hey, I’ll bet you can’t land on a house.” “Oh yeah? Well, I’ll bet YOU can’t.” Then I happened to walk by during the “Okay, now what?” phase.
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There are certainly plenty of genres I haven’t sampled simply due to my “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude with regard to musical tastes. Occasionally one of my favorite performers branches out into a new genre and I try to follow him/her. Sometimes I end up grateful for the doors having been opened on a new world, but usually I just think, “Well, that was weird.” I really tried to get into classical music after Paul McCartney came out with his Liverpool Oratorio, but I just wasn’t feeling it.
As far as genres that I actively dislike, that would be pretty much anything where the music just sounds angry. There are enough angering things in the world already, and immersing yourself in anger only makes matters worse. Most angry music can be avoided, but as Howard pointed out you just can’t get away from rap. Many a happy walk has been ruined for me by a car driving by playing rap at full volume. (I have long fantasized about doing the same thing with music from Mr. Rogers.)
A few years ago one of my students, with my permission, played a rap song in class and asked what I thought about it. I answered both honestly and diplomatically, saying, “It sounds exactly like every other rap song I’ve ever heard.” To my surprise, several students laughed and applauded. So maybe there is hope in the new generation.
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I too never explored all those types of music that were floating around in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I actually didn’t listen to much music at all then. Very few songs on the radio appealed to me, and I wasn’t asking friends for suggestions, and there was no other way to sample anything for free. If you had pressed me, I probably would have said that I liked doo-wop and Barry Manilow.
With regard to punk, I just observed those spiky Mohawks that Jung alluded to and said to myself, “If the type of mind that thinks that’s a good look also thinks that punk is good music, then I guess there’s not much point in checking it out.” The videos that Howard posted have been my first exposure to it, and I have to say that it’s not at all the vile concoction that I had imagined.
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Thank you, Lisa! That’s precisely the sort of information I was interested in learning.
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I’m guessing you meant to attach this video, Howard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTzejEpFp9E
I’ve always assumed, with no real basis, that the reason they threw that in there was to contrast the profound type of love they were singing about in 1967 with the simple type from 1963.
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I get you, Jacki. It’s those special two- and three-part episodes that stick with you. Instead of all the loose ends being happily tied up in 30 minutes, you have to stew for a whole week over an unresolved crisis.
Oh no, the Malachi brothers put Pinky in the hospital! Oh no, Joanie’s gonna run off and join Leather and the Suedes! Oh no, Fonzie’s gonna jump his bike over 14 garbage cans, and/or water ski jump over a shark!
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This guy is incredible, Jung!
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I think that the inclusion of Dave Dee in the credit is just an error on the part of the YouTube poster, Howard. I’ve seen a picture of the record jacket for the single, and the group is just called DBM&T.
I can’t locate it now, but originally I found this video on YouTube preceded by an introduction by the host of a contemporary music TV show. The regular host was off that week, and the guest host was… Dave Dee! I guess that kind of bookends the Eddie Cochran coincidence.
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I’ve mentioned this before, but my favorite song of theirs was recorded after Dave Dee left the group, and it didn’t chart at all, but it skillfully blends three different melodies into a vocal smorgasbord:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHuyU1iKnTU
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I share your sense of wonder about the internet, John. I remember hearing once upon a time about some museum of broadcasting that supposedly contained tapes of everything that had ever been shown on TV, and I thought what I’d give to spend a few years there. Now I’ve got that museum in my home with YouTube. I’ve lost count of how many long-ago favorite TV shows and commercials I’ve found that I was sure I’d never see again, plus all the great music and other entertainment of the past that I absolutely never would have encountered otherwise.
Not to mention how with search engines you can look up the answer to almost any question you might have about anything, no matter how inane. Time was when there was no point in wondering about something unless there was a chance that someone had written a book about it. Now I literally learn something new every day that used to be unattainable.
And yes, they always say that futurists never saw the internet coming, but Ford Prefect was effectively a Google employee.
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Hi, John.
One great British beat group from the 60’s that we Americans are pretty much completely ignorant of is Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. I discovered them through very indirect means a few years ago. Check them out on YouTube.
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It has always amazed me that something as complex as human emotions can be triggered by a simple combination of three sound frequencies, and that the emotion can be completely flipped with just a slight change in one of the frequencies. I wonder if cognitive scientists have any theories on why this is the case. Are the associations of happiness with major chords, and sadness with minor chords, shared by all cultures? If so, does this phenomenon extend to other primates as well?
Since I started playing the ukulele a year ago I have been introduced to the world of seventh chords, if that’s the correct general term for A7, Am7, etc. Is there any particular emotion typically associated with them? To me they are like commas, leaving me waiting for the upcoming major chord to complete the musical thought.
Another aspect of music and language that intrigues me is the process of composing songs in so-called tonal languages, where a word is identified not just by a particular combination of phonetic sounds but also by whether the tone is rising, falling, high, low, etc. I wonder if there are situations where a composer thinks, “I really want to use this word here, but it’s a high-tone word and a low note, so I have to come up with something else.”
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Thanks, Jung and Jacki, for your remarks about my parody.
I’m really enjoying all your drawings, especially given my complete inability in that department. I can’t even draw comic strip characters recognizably.
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Yeah, kinda hard to tell what key he’s singing in, isn’t it?
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A seminal moment in rock-and-roll history to be sure, Jung.
When the girls screamed after Elvis’ first mention of Heartbreak Hotel in this video, it transported me back to my childhood, when I audio taped (and essentially memorized) an episode of Happy Days where the same thing happened at the same point in the same song when the Fonz performed it.
