Throwback Tracks -- April 6, 2017
David R. Smith
A new month, means a new round of songs I get to pick, which will inevitably result in a hodgepodge of songs to listen to in a new playlist!
We've got a lot of classic rock in this week's TBT. I've been pushing a lot of new stuff (and by new stuff, I mean 90s…) of late so I felt like I would push back and get some stuff that's in some cases, nearly 50 years old...
The Guys From do not hold the rights to any of these songs, it is more our hope to expose our readers to new (*cough*) and different retro music, or re-expose them to things they may have forgotten about.
At the top of each section, will be the song name, followed by the artists' name linked to their website (if possible...which is totally hit and miss with oldies), so you can fall down the rabbit hole, finding and supporting what you dig.
Big Love - Lindsey Buckingham
Have you ever heard the Fleetwood Mac version of this song? It's bad.
I designed a Fleetwood Mac musical revue a couple years ago and they used this song and I loved it. I didn't realize the version they used was the Buckingham version. I thought it was Fleetwood Mac's so you can imagine my surprise when I looked it up and heard that weird synth version of it.
I then discovered Lindsey Buckingham's version and it all made sense. The finger picking, the raw intensity… it's just so much better than the Fleetwood Mac version. It was made even better when Cameron Crowe got him to play on Roadies this past year. Made me love the version even better.
Though I must say that the version we did at Stage West might be my favourite. I just lit the ever loving crap out of that song. It was awesome.
War Pigs - Black Sabbath
Oh man. This song is so good. I don't typically care for a lot of Ozzy's stuff. A few of his solo songs aren't bad and the rest of Sabbath I'm rather indifferent to, but there's something so good about this song.
I don't know when I first heard this one. It's one of those songs that probably didn't have much of an impact on me when I first heard it growing up. Why would it? My folks didn't listen to heavy metal and I'm not sure I remember it getting much radio play on the classic rock station.
I do remember that it was on one of the Guitar Hero games. I don't care which one. I just remember playing it a lot. And got to know the song pretty well. So when Pearl Jam played Alive in New York in 2010 and Mike McCready tagged it in his solo* (not the only time he's done it, it was just the first time I recognized it) I thought that was something very cool.
Last year when I saw Temple of the Dog play in San Francisco, I saw them cover it. It was cool because earlier in 2016 I saw Black Sabbath do it at the Saddledome and that was cool. But seeing some of my favourite musicians of all-time play it was even cooler. I think it made sense for TOTD to play it instead of Pearl Jam, because Chris Cornell has a better voice to cover Ozzy than Eddie Vedder does. Anyway. here's THAT video too.
*4:55 in the video if you don't want to watch the entire 5:00 of awesome.
Summer in the City - Lovin' Spoonful
One might best know this song for its use at the beginning of Die Hard With A Vengeance. Or, I suppose if one was born prior to say, 1960, one might remember this song from when it first came out, as it was released in 1966.
I definitely had heard the song before I saw Die Hard With A Vengeance. I suppose classic 60s rock was significantly more accessible to me as a child than was a movie with plenty of profanity and violence.
When I did finally get a chance to watch the movie, I was pretty happy to have that song open the movie. It seems very fitting. And really, nothing makes a person want to blow up a building more than hippie rock, am I right???
In The City - Joe Walsh
Ahhhh The Warriors. Nothing like a weird cult classic to introduce you to new songs, am I right? I guess technically I had heard this song prior to seeing the movie, but had no idea it was made for this movie until I saw it.
I don't know what it is about this movie. Every piece of logic in my body tells me it's bad and I shouldn't like it. Yet I own it on DVD and watch it every time it's on TV. And right at the end, when (spoiler alert for a 38 year-old movie) The Warriors get away and it turns out it was the Rogues who shot Cyrus (can you dig it?) this song gets dedicated to the Warriors by the DJ. (Thank you very much, Carmen Sandiego's Lynne Thigpen.)
It's such a weird song to end the movie with, considering the rest of the score is very Philip Glass-esque syth music. But it's Joe Walsh and it's a great song. So it's worth it.
Incidentally, if you want a play-by-play of the movie, the Wikipedia article on the Warriors is very thorough!
Dear Mr. Fantasy - Big Sugar
Okay, I couldn't do ALL classic rock. Though this version of the song came out in 1993 so it's still pretty old. And also, this is a cover of a song that was originally released in 1967 so it's like a bridge between the old world and the new world.
I love the intro. Partially because it really, really reminds me of Change by Blind Melon, but also because it's got that nice light acoustic feel to it and then, BAM: that heavy distortion that Big Sugar is so notorious for.
Big Sugar is a group that decided to call it quits in the early 2000s and it broke my heart. I love their stuff so much and wanted to see them live so badly. When they broke up, I didn't think I'd ever get a chance to see them. Now; they have since rekindled and I believe they're still touring so maybe one day it'll happen! Until then, at least I have this and so many other songs to keep me company.
Lots of supplementary information in today's Throwback Tracks! New links for you to click and much time to be wasted, if one were so inclined. So go nuts and enjoy today.
As I said at the top, it's a new month, which means that the March Throwback Tracks playlist is now ready for your listening pleasure! And if that's not enough for you, here are the rest of them for you to peruse.
Throwback Playlist for Dec 16/Jan 17
October 2016 Throwback Playlist,
September 2016 Throwback Playlist
-D (@davidronn)