Guest Book

[here's the edited part, i'm not arguing with anyone, i'm just writing for fun. this probably reads better aloud, actually, for obvious reasons. enjoy or skip over!] I guess it depends on whether you're talking about what you'd like as opposed to what you think they should do. Two different topics, I suppose. In my brevity, I was unclear, and I apologize for that. Specifically, what I mean is this: A big part of the live performance - record sales symbiosis is the regular and repetitive performance of a tune that has an easily memorable vocal and melodic hook, preferably using an everyday phrase or name (in a punnish way if possible, to hook the listener with an unfamiliar spin of a familiar phrase, just like ad jingles often do), and that evokes a memorable emotional response in the listener (in the case of Rocking Horse, an unusually hard-rocking good-time really LOUD rave-up). They were doing it at the turn of the century when the composer of a song might attend performances of the review the song would be featured in, seizing upon a positive reaction from the crowd to stand and lead the crowd in singing a reprise of the song sometimes 7 or 8 times, until the crowd left the theatre knowing the title and the melody, ready to go buy the sheet music...where paid pluggers would perform the song again and again to introduce and reinforce the tune to the mass audience of sheet music buyers. (Isn't this uncannily like today? At one time, only potential blockbuster songs were worth the enormous protional costs needed to get the sales to pay for the production costs!) I'm sure you musical historians out there can take this back to the dawn of recorded history. So the ABB have all this new stuff they need to sell to an audience of potential record buyers (while putting on a kickass show for all) and you can't just play the best, most subtle songs 4 times each and some oldies to flesh it out, HOW ya gonna follow the time-honored pricipals to touch every base and satisfy (most) all? ANYway, the point is that when that new record comes out, and Cooter "Chauncey" Creel III, 42, of Independence, MO, and LuAnn Poovey, 24, of San Jose, CA, each of whom attended their second ever ABB show this past summer are browsing through the record store next February, and they see that new ABB record, and look at the titles, ain't gon' be nothin' on it named "Dreams," "Mountain Jam," "Rambling Man," "Whipping Post," or "IMOER," nosirree, it's a buncha stuff that MAY be that stuff they heard and dug 9 months ago after a few drinks and maybe a puff or two (Chauncey's first since right outta HS, I might add, livin' in Olathe with Lorna and the kids means not a lot of that old time fun stuff anymore). My amateur market research (i.e., cogitatin' over it and talking to people after the shows and reading some books 'n' stuff and makin' the rest of it up 'cause it seems to make sense to me) leads me to the conclusion that time-honored principals of mass-marketing music dictate that they play "Rocking Horse" every last single night, and that the show be paced in such a way that wherever that song is, that's the point where the rest of the show is completely over-the-top, so that not only do Chauncey and LuAnn but, hopefully, tens of thousands of other buyers who saw 'em on tour last summer see that memorable name, have a positive emotional response to it -- hey, that song's associated with the point where everyone got up and ROCKED the rest of the night -- and transfer those good feelings into that moment into an impulse buy (or the seed that germinates into purchase later, those new songs WERE good weren't they, I got to thinking about it when I saw it at the store the other day and...) of the first ABB record they've bought in years / ever bought. I mean, if you're talking what you'd like, give ME a big ol' slab of instrumentals and drum solos for 4 hours, but there's only gonna be 525 of us there (and I'm hereby grovelling for the tape of that show NOW), if you're talking about applying yourself to succeed artistically AND in your business endeavor then my point was that I think that's a smart thing to do. That was my point, that's all. So, anyway, that was my point and I think I misread the actual topic, so sorry. Incidentally, I've previously recommended Laurence Bergreen's bio of Louis Armstrong (more razor fights and p--ping than a truckload of gangsta rap), I'd also recommend - for very different reasons - his fascinating and historically informative bio of Irving Berlin.(where I read about some of the stuff above -- fascinating stuff)