Hey Folks, Yeah You, You F*****s!

[usedtobebabson]

Hey RR (again):

Back to the Moodys, I think the negativity to them at the time was largely 'from the streets'. Their 'symphonic' style was largely seen as too highbrow by half. After all, if you took an album to a party you wanted to dance, drink beer and hope to get laid, (well steal a kiss at least!), sitting around 'appreciating' music was definitely for the "hippies in the corner" who largely sat around looking miserable!! )
Of course now, I am very grateful that I bought all the 'Magnificent Seven' on vinyl at the time. Apparently the master tapes have been lost and the remastered CDs now available have been remixed. Very good they are, but not the originals. I've always loved that the very last track on the last album is "I'm just a singer in a rock and roll band". Says it all when we start taking all this stuff too seriously.

I agree nicktecky. The Moody Blues were good to chill with a few friends or by yourself. Definitely not party material. My Navy buddy and I used to smoke hash and listen to the Moody Blues until we passed out on the living room floor. For a party though, Grand Funk Railroad, Marshall Tucker Band, or some form of foot-stomping music. I think most of JA could be real good for a party, back then, anyways. Doors also. Kinda depends on the party and the crowd. I have been to mostly the sit around, socialize parties back then, which I preferred over the dancing ones.
I recall seeing Janis with Big Brother in '68. Costs a $1 to get in. Afterwards we went to a party at a motel room. We had some weed that these college folks had never seen the likes of (was at umass). So we are all sitting in this room, listening to music, so very very stoned we could barely move. In comes 2 or 3 drunks. Immediately in the door then start pound the shit out of each other in the room, blood all over the place. All we could do was sit there and watch in disbelief. kinda reminds you of the woodenships verses
Horror grips us as we watch you die
All we can do is echo your anguished cry and
Stare as all you human feelings die


Only Woodenships hadn't been release yet...

[redrabid]

Yes, coverband.
I do have a Moody Blues record in my collection, I have to admit. A single that I like a lot. "Go Now" with Denny Laine, the original leadsinger. Great singer, great song, from 1964 I believe. Those guys performing as the Moody Blues must be turning seventy soon. Grace Slick is right: Old people don't belong on a rock and roll stage. Wheelchaired onto the stage, oxygen available backstage: "Hope I day before I get old". Aww.
Too lazy to connect my recordplayer, I googled "Go Now" and then I watched "She's Not There"-Zombies, "Gimme Some Lovin'"-Spencer Davis Group (Why are there no more voices like those of Steve Winwood, Marty Balin?), "It's My Life"-The Animals (I played that song so often at schoolparties, just to offend the teachers) and many more from the days when albums were not important, just the next single (a new one every 3-4 months!). Maybe we should outlaw albums, burn down every studio with a more than 4-track recorder, just to bring back that glorious celebration of life. Or maybe we should all convert to Lady Gaga.
Watching all those promo clips, it is obvious (now not then) how many closet queens there were in the english music scene of the 60s. Have you ever seen David Garrick? Great fun.

[nicktecky]

rr:
You're still a tough cookie calling them a cover band, "Go Now" was the only big hit before the new line up after only 18 months or so. It's over 40 years now, so I think the guys deserve a break! Perhaps all bands should have to put a number after their name every time the line up changes. Where that would leave Fleetwood Mac, who knows?
I hear you on the singles thing, it was a real thrill to take that 7" vinyl home and play it over and over to get the words down, and then trade insults with the 'supporters' of other bands as to who was best. Hey, did you guys get that whole Stones v Beatles thing? It wasn't gang warfare or anything like, but you definitely had to support one or the other, like football teams. It was a bit of a shocker to find out much later that all the bands were great mates and organised when to release records so they didn't compete in the charts. Saying that I remember hearing Revolver for the first time at a friends house and we nearly wore Taxman out, we couldn't believe what we were hearing. Of course it never occurred to us that they were only bitching about paying too much tax on all the money they were making!
No, I wasn't a great Uriah Heep fan, they seem to have passed me by.
Just a thought, did you guys have the Dansette? An autochanger deck with amp and speaker, mono of course, you could stack about 8 singles on top of one another and they would play one at a time, the last one would always wow and slip! Ah the joys the young'uns are missing out on!

[redrabid]

Dansette, was it called like that? Yes I had one. It secured my position at schoolparties as no one else possessed one. There was something like a Beatles vs. Stones fight going on, just like you wrote. What did we know about marketing and being manipulated to make those guys and the record companies rich. I don't mind though. It was money well-spent.

[nicktecky]

Yup...
All You Need Is Love?
Providing you've already got enough money in the bank of course!

[Susan Butcher]

I loved the Beatles. The Stones were the kind of thing older brothers liked. I thought they were noisy and boring. The Monkees were controversial even at the primary school level; the girls adored them, and the boys hated them because they weren't English. (Apart from Davy Jones, but they thought he was a soppy twerp anyway.)

In those days pop records were recorded to sound good on tiny record players and transistor radios. So now I've got an small HMV portable to play my 45s on. At the time it would have taken me a month to save enough to buy a single, so I used to tape songs from the radio on an old reel-to-reel my uncle gave us.

The latter-day Moodies were sedate. I don't think it matters how old you are with that kind of music.