[David Herrick]

I agree, Jung.  I’m completely unfamiliar with David Bowie’s music, so I can’t compare it to the original.  But as a stand-alone video this is (pardon the pun) stellar.  I was especially gratified to read in the backstory that they have an intellectual curiosity about the universe:  the very antithesis of the self-absorbed starlets (another pun, sorry) that prance across the top of the music charts.

 

[David Herrick]

This topic actually reminded me of a short promo commercial for an upcoming episode of Saturday Night Live in the early 90’s.  The host says, “Hi, I’m Alec Baldwin, and boy did I pick the wrong week to host SNL.  Last week the musical guest was Mick Jagger.  How are they gonna top that?”  Then Paul McCartney pokes his head into the shot and says “Hello.”

 

[David Herrick]

You’re right, Howard:  you could start a real war here.  There’s a danger of conflating the objective (like the things you listed here) with the subjective (the reasons you prefer listening to one group or the other).

Sticking to the objective, let me just state that I don’t know enough about the Rolling Stones to say how good they are.  That pretty much tips you off to my subjective opinion as well.

 

[David Herrick]

This is fascinating, Jung!  I can’t believe I haven’t seen this before, unless it’s very recent.  I’ve long thought that the Beatles / Beach Boys rivalry is the most compelling musical story of the 1960’s, because it’s responsible for so many wonderfully rich songs.

It should be noted that Paul got Brian’s birthday wrong:  it’s the 20th, not the 16th.  So Paul is actually the older “twin”.

 

[David Herrick]

Howard, do you know whether Neil Sedaka ever complained about Led Zeppelin choosing “Stairway to Heaven” as the name for their song?  I know that’s not enough of a basis to constitute plagiarism, but it is a rather distinctive phrase, and Sedaka was the first to use it as a song title.  If I wrote and released a song under the title of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, I imagine I’d get into trouble with somebody.

 

[David Herrick]

Well, Howard, you have acquired an enviable degree of expertise about the history of music and the people involved, so your mind is anything but dull.

I think it’s great that we’re all learning about each other and what we can each contribute to create a resource of information and entertainment to supplement the joy we get from the music of MLT.

 

[David Herrick]

I’m very flattered, Jacki!  It’s so impressive that you can seemingly effortlessly write all these poems.

I think of writing a parody as being similar to changing the color scheme on a paint-by-the-numbers activity:  more analytic than creative.  But if you give me a blank canvas, my mind will be equally blank.

Between your poems and your artwork, you always display a great ability to generate something fascinating from scratch.

 

[David Herrick]

Thanks, Jacki.  I’m really looking forward to their next album, partly because it’s getting hard to come up with rhyming titles to use as seeds of inspiration.  A few weeks ago I tried to write “I Want A Tissue”, but it got really gross, so I wiped my nose with it, wadded it up, and threw it out.

 

[David Herrick]

Thanks, Howard.  You’re an invaluable fountain of information!

It’s a shame, in the Internet age, that DDDBM&T’s treatment by U.S. record companies fifty years ago still defines their legacy, or lack thereof.  When I first found them on YouTube I thought I had tapped into a parallel universe.  I couldn’t (and still can’t) believe a group with so many groovy songs could be so completely unknown nowadays.

I think their most fascinating production was “Tonight, Today”, which they recorded after Dave Dee left the group.  It’s essentially got three different songs going at the same time, which is the musical equivalent of juggling balls while standing on your head.

 

[David Herrick]

You’re right, Howard.  “Mississippi” really sounds like a “lost” Bee Gees song!

You probably know this story, but I thought I’d share it with everyone.  Years after the release of “Massachusetts”, Robin Gibb met Judith Durham and told her that they had written the song for The Seekers, but their manager turned it down without running it by them.  Then after Maurice died The Seekers recorded and released it in tribute.

One thing that puzzles me is why the list of major British groups from the 60’s always seems to omit the accurately but inefficiently named Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich.  I discovered them on YouTube a few years ago, and to me they seem to be comparable to The Dave Clark Five.  Could it be that they were just a year or two behind the times in an era of rapid change in the musical landscape?

 

[David Herrick]

Mike,

Very impressive research on those stats, but I think on #1 you meant 600 million LP’s rather than 600 billion!

 

[David Herrick]

Thanks, Howard.  I knew you’d be the one to answer this.  Much appreciated.  So based on that timeline, the Stones clearly weren’t trying to emulate the Bee Gees, which is what I had always wondered about.

 

[David Herrick]

Speaking of Rolling Stones ballads, I have a question about “Ruby Tuesday” for anyone who was around when it came out.  From the first time I heard it, it reminded me of an early Bee Gees song.  Does it pre-date the rise of the Bee Gees?

 

[David Herrick]

I think I understand what you’re saying, Jacki.  I admit that my technique is adapted from how I learned to pick out chords on an electric keyboard when I was a kid, so I already had that skill set in place.

They do make little color-coded stickers that you can attach to the fretboard to indicate where to press down for different chords, so that might be helpful.  To get my hands to “think” about two different types of motion at the same time, I just view strumming as repetitively tapping horizontally to provide a beat, and I focus completely on my left hand.

 

[David Herrick]

Okay, I found this picture.  It’s a guitar rather than a ukulele, but it’s the same idea.