Now we’re talking… Rory Gallagher’s Irish Tour 74 album has much more cymbally-ness than Santana III. I love the music and playing along with Rory’s amazing Strat +Vox AC30 overdriven sound. It’s just a real shame that the keyboards are some god awful RMI Electra Piano that sounds truly horrible. Why Lou Martin used this when he could have used a Rhodes or Wurlitzer I don’t know.
1 Like
Classic album. I saw Genesis in 1977 at The Edinburgh Playhouse, some 45 (almost 50!) years ago. Supper’s Ready was the highlight.
However, we saw a Genesis tribute band (Mama) last Friday Backstage at The Green Hotel in Kinross. Sadly they mainly covered the post Gabriel back catalogue but a great gig nevertheless.
Nice venue, I’ve seen a few bands there.
1 Like
Focus are playing there next week, Tuesday and Wednesday. Thijs van Leer and Pierre van der Linden are originals.
1 Like
I’m late to the party but that’s normal for me, being an accountant I always seem to be looking at what happened a year or two ago.
One of my favorite songs that goes through my head when I am hiking for SOTA, especially if a lake is visible in the distance, is “Roundabout” by Yes. It was on the Fragile album which was released in 1971 (and has previously been mentioned in this thread). Although I was only a single-digit youngster at the time, I had 3 older brothers and the record player was constantly running and of course I wanted to be just like my big brothers so I learned to appreciate most of the amazing rock being produced in that era.
Roundabout pops into my head on SOTA hikes as it includes the lines.
“In and around the lake,
Mountains come out of the sky, they stand there.
One mile over we’ll be there…”.
It’s one of those timeless classics that includes great and understandable lyrics, and beautiful instrumentals, and goes for as long as the band thought it should go instead of being crammed into a less-than-three minute radio play framework. They played Roundabout at most concerts including the only time I saw them live when I was in college.
73,
Keith KR7RK
3 Likes
Rock sandwiched between classical guitar opening, interlude, and close. Don’t think I ever heard of that being done before, in my 70 years playing acoustical guitar.
Elliott, K6EL
The guitarist, Steve Howe, is known for normally playing a Gibson ES-175 semi acoustic guitar. This is quite a thick guitar being hollow bodied. To get the acoustic sound when performing live, he uses a Parker Fly held on a stand ready to play. The Fly is a very thin guitar and has both normal pickups and piezo pickups. Using the piezo pickups, the guitar sounds like an acoustic and because it is so thin, he plays it by reaching over his ES-175 which is still on his chest/stomach. Best explained in this video.
2 Likes
It can also be noted that the key board player is Oliver Wakeman, the son of Rick Wakeman, the original player of the band.
Geoff vk3sq
Also interesting to note that Rick Wakeman seems to have moved into music combined with comedy gigs. According to my parents (I’m far too young 
) some of his live playing was comedic too. So back to his roots then. I have seen Yes a few times and he was ok, so I guess it was the drugs back then 
Ian
1 Like
Or by being lucky at a gig to be on a raised platform level with the stage about 5 feet away and Steve being about 10 feet away. He came across at the end to ask if we enjoyed it and I’m not usually starstruck but I think I just about managed to make a croaking sound. (One of the few benefits of being with someone in a wheelchair, there arn’t many so you take them when you can)
I seem to remember he did the same with a ukelele on the opening of “I’ve seen all good people” too.
A practical way to change instruments without messing around with digitally changing the sounds through a pedal.
Other than the final twiddly bit after the initial intro going into the main song, Roundabout is one of the easier songs to play on guitar. Can’t say about the bass, but maybe others know more of how difficult Chris Squire’s playing might be.
Ian
G7ADF
1 Like
I intended to post this on March 1st but got tied up in a project and forgot (darn it!)
March 1st was the 50th anniversary of the release of Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd. This record had a tremendous impact worldwide, it remained in the charts for fifteen years and went 14X platinum. It had a tremendous impact on me, too, I’d just added a sax to my instruments and remember spending hours quietly improvising (yes, the sax CAN be quiet!) while listening to DSOTM.
If you have it in your collection pull it out and have a celebratory listen. If you haven’t then try PINK FLOYD Darkside of the moon(complete album no commercials) - YouTube
Headphones are recommended, a LOT goes on in the background and the stereo effects are out of this world.
1 Like
Despite this being very well known as an all-time classic album, and despite my dad having it on cassette (with the striking sleeve artwork), and despite me being a professional musician since I was 16 - this album somehow passed me by! OK, obviously I’d heard part of Money as it was a BBC TV theme, but otherwise I was “uneducated”. It was actually my son Liam that said to me “Dad, I’ve found this song and I wanted to sing it with a live band”. That was Brain Damage-Eclipse, the two tunes that close the album. And so I was introduced to what I readily accepted was indeed one of the greatest albums ever made. (My all-time favourite is “Joe’s Garage” - Frank Zappa FWIW). Anyway, for your interest, here’s our recording of Brain Damage-Eclipse:
(RIP Alan Wormald - the guitarist on this video, who sadly passed away last week, just a couple of days after returning from a short tour of Germany and Netherlands with Shakatak).
4 Likes
That was great! Sorry about Alan, he had a lovely tone.
DSOTM was followed by “Wish You Were Here” and the track (split on the album) “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is probably my all time favourite. Both albums reflect the impact that the loss of founder member Sid Barrett had on them. SOYCD and Wish You Were Here and the two tracks posted above were explicitly about Sid. The transition to Eclipse still sends shivers up my back and the cover works as well as the original, so kudos!
3 Likes
Whenever I walk through the snow on the Summits I am struck by the line "watch out where the huskies go… " comes to mind - and I can’t help singing it 
73 Armin
4 Likes
Thanks Brian. Yeah, I was taken with that transition too - 4/4 to 12/8, maintaining the quavers with no tempo change. Strangely unique!
1 Like
Hmm… I don’t know if this is a rock or pop or what song. But it was March 1973 when The Doobie Brothers released their album The Captain and Me which featured one of their most well known songs: “Long Train Runnin’”. I know little of The Doobies other than “Long Train Runnin’” and “Listen to The Music” are their most well known songs to non-fans. Classic FM-AOR staples should we actually have such radio stations in the UK.
Anyway, Long Train Runnin’ is a rather good song in my opinion and I don’t know where I found this version done live in 2004 but it’s well recorded and the picture is sharp. There’s a fairly amazing sax solo that remains tuneful all the way through that Brian may like. Or not.
1 Like
Wow, that was fun! I notice that the sax player was able to keep the false register (the high notes) in tune, which is not easy!
DSOTM engineered by the great Alan Parsons. ps Brian, are you familiar with Mel Collins?
Good songs, I agree. I’m no musician but I preferred Steely Dan to The Doobie Brothers from that genre. No Doobie CD’s in my collection, but plenty of Steely Dan ones. Albeit, they were more of a studio band than live.
73 Phil G4OBK
PS Was it Joe Walsh that was a licenced ham? (Maybe I got mixed up with some other rock star). Feargal Sharkey too and a guy I cannot recall the name of out of Pulp.
1 Like
Looks like he is still active Phil. WB6ACU license was just renewed in 2021.
Tim - K5DEZ
1 Like