Re: Not NYC-punk / jock / RE: Quite a Statement / RE: (TV) OT: Luna & Dean Wareham

[Russ <russvr@gmail.com>]

I'm just loving this! Rant on my friends rant on! Er uh I mean debate
with dignity and decorum....

On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 7:56 PM, Rex Broome <rexbroome@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 5:04 PM, Leo Casey <LeoCasey@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> >the Stairway to Heaven of 70s NYC punk. Great, yes. But
>> > played out.
>>
>> I could say a lot more, but for now I'll l just go with that the song
>> 'Marquee Moon ' is
>> *not* NYC-punk, it's about as far away as you can get from that genre.
>>
>
> Well, I think that the absurdity of the idea that NYC-punk could even *have*
> a "Stairway to Heaven" is the source of the humor, the fact that "MM"
> wouldn't be it if there was one is just gravy.
>
> Maybe the first person who said that "Stairway" thing, like the first person
> who called Television "the Grateful Dead of punk", was serious, but almost
> everyone who's said it since was surely joking.
>
> It's kind of a thing now to claim each new genre has a "Stairway", usually
> when someone notices that a song is kind of long.  For example, Catherine
> Wheel's "Black Metallic" was called the "Stairway" of dream pop (later
> renamed "shoegaze") because it was... long.  Never mind that half of all
> other shoegaze songs were also rather long, and that the guitar solos in
> "Black Metallic" were basically two guitars playing the rhythm part really
> loud for a few minutes...
>
> As a guitar player--either
>
> technique-wise
>
> or/and ability to connote emotional feeling--Dean Wareham couldn't carry
> T.V.'s jock strap
>
> (to paraphrase Rod Carew commenting on Reggie Jackson).  :> )
>
>  Or, like as not, literally.
>
>
>> Not sure what you mean by the phrase 'played out' can you say more (do you
>> mean played too
>> often)?
>>
>
> It's possible that MM had been "overplayed" by the people on this list,
> personally, but among no other section of the population is that true!  I've
> never even had the opportunity to change the station when that song came on
> the radio for the fifteenth time in a week, because I've never heard it on
> the radio.  Not even once.  I heard it on a jukebox one time, and not
> because I paid for it; on another occasion I did select it on a jukebox, but
> I didn't get to hear it because much to my dismay a crappy Velvets ripoff
> live band started playing and they turned the jukebox off.  However, I do
> owe those guys a debt because they made me form a band because I realized
> that my crappy Velvets ripoff band would be a much better crappy Velvets
> ripoff band, and I was right.  Still, look what "Marquee Moon" deprivation
> can do to a man!
>
>
>>
>> Also, quantity will never supersede quality.
>>
>> So, what's Luna's equivalent to the album MM's song writing, lyrics,
>> poetry, melodies, and
>> ideas.
>>
>> My only problem with Luna is their stuff/sound has a 'sameness' to it and a
>> lack of range.
>> Verlaine can write play/write something as ferocious as 'See No Evil' and
>> as
>> beautiful and languid as 'Without A Word'.
>>
>> However, nothing I can say or write is gonna convince you or anyone in your
>> camp.
>> So I'll just go with the old sophomoric school yard stuff:  As a guitar
>> player--either
>> technique-wise
>> or/and ability to connote emotional feeling--Dean Wareham couldn't carry
>> T.V.'s jock strap
>> (to paraphrase Rod Carew commenting on Reggie Jackson).  :> )
>>
>>
>>
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: tv-owner@obbard.com [mailto:tv-owner@obbard.com] On
>> > Behalf Of Andrew
>> > Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2011 4:55 PM
>> > To: tv@obbard.com
>> > Subject: Re: Quite a Statement / RE: (TV) OT: Luna & Dean Wareham
>> >
>> >  Well Leo, with list activity being at pretty much a ten-year
>> > high I just
>> > thought I'd throw a cat in amongst the pigeons with that
>> > statement and see if
>> > we can crash the server... :-)
>> >
>> >  I'll go further and say that I think that taken as a whole
>> > Luna's recorded
>> > output is superior to Television AND the Velvet Underground,
>> > by virtue of
>> > there being so much more of it, most of at least an arguably
>> > good standard.
>> > There are few bigger fans of Verlaine/Lloyd than I (and I'm
>> > wagering they're
>> > all on this list) but for all the heights they reached it's a
>> > crying pity that
>> > there's so damn little of it.  Whenever I have old friends
>> > over for drinks on
>> > a rainy night they all groan "not again" whenever I put on
>> > Marquee Moon.  It's
>> > the Stairway to Heaven of 70s NYC punk. Great, yes. But
>> > played out. But my
>> > friends will all grin and nod like idiots when a Luna album
>> > cut like Sideshow
>> > by the Seashore comes on. I truly believe that Wareham and
>> > Sean Eden are
>> > criminally underappreciated as guitar players.
>> > Dean seems to be a polarizing figure with many and the haters
>> > will all point
>> > to his obvious influences and say he ripped them off
>> > (Television, the Velvets,
>> > the Feelies) or used them to lend some sort of legitimacy of
>> > illusion of some
>> > sort of NY legacy to his band by having the likes of T.V. and Sterling
>> > Morrison play on Luna records.  They may have a point. But I
>> > do know that I
>> > have only wept in near ecstasy at one band's concerts and it wasn't
>> > Television.
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