"Sound City"....the movie.

Lt. Bob said:
she got into drugs because in the 70's basically all pro musicians were into drugs.
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In the early hours of this morning, I was watching a documentary on David Bowie and one of the guitarists he played with, Earl Slick, said this. He said "everyone in the biz was out there". And he added that none of the people he knew were so "out there" that they couldn't make great music.
Even when I started playing music and was anything but a pro musician, everyone I knew that played music was into drugs in some shape or form. By the 80s, it came with the territory. You learned to play an instrument and roll a spliff or had a McDonalds straw for coke......no pun intended !
Then it got to the point where most young people I knew that were into drugs had nothing to do with playing music at all !
 
fat_fleet said:
Sound City was alright, but I wish it was more Mick Fleetwood blowing lines and Stevie Nicks flossing her teeth instead of all that boring gear craps.
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Just buy Mick's autobiography. Then you can have Mick blowing lines to your heart's content and at your leisure. :D
 
grimtraveller said:
in truth. How many times have you been in a group conversation and had it stick to the topic right from the start to the end ? Conversation topics will always be a springboard to other topics. You know, most conversations, like tree branches, go off in directions that weren't obvious at the start.
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^^^^^^^^ this ^^^^^^
 
Drugs and alcohol are still every bit as prominent in music as they always were. I just quit a band because of the cocaine and poor playing from the other guys. It's lame when you're the only sober guy in a band full of potheads and junkies.
 
Saw this back in February when it first came out.

1.) Awesome documentary.
2.) Never been a Fleetwood Mac fan. That said, I didn't mind that they played a prominent role in this film - they did in the studio's story. Whatever.

That said... While I too would ave loved a bit more of a "techie" look at what was going on in the studio, this is a propaganda piece. It was IMO a two-pointed assault on the part of Dave Grohl, first arguing, and this is so simple that it's pretty obvious to all of us but less so to non-musicians, but that music is important, and that the process of creating music is an absolutely awesome, macigal, and inspiring thing that a whole bunch of people have dedicated tremendous amounts of their lives to, and secondly, that computers and the "Pro Tools era" are kind of eating into that, by making music something that anyone can do (Neil Young's comment on a young band he talked to, "oh, we don't have to practice, we can just use a computer to get it right"). As far as I'm concerned Trent was the exception that proves the rule, for Dave - he's a legitimately creative guy doing interesting stuff with computers, and by including him then it gives him the illusion of impartiality. Other than Reznor, it's a story about a studio with an awesome mixing board and a drum room that for some reason just worked that was put out of business by studios using computers, and then about a bunch of people rocking out in a room together, making music "like they used to," and making a live-in-the-studio record, warts and all.

It's an awesome documentary, but one that gets a little dogmatic for maybe the middle third. I kind of see it both ways - I'm a musician because I love playing and I love the feeling of rocking out with a bunch of other musicians, but as a guy writing and recording instrumental rock, if it wasn't for the home recording revolution I also know I'd never be able to record an album, because the stuff I write just has too small a fanbase to send me to a place like Sound City. I see it both ways, I guess. I recommend everyone I know who's into music to go watch it, but I also make a point of warning them that it's definitely a movie with an agenda.
 
People still to blow? Not being a smart ass (for once) but I haven't seen that crap in 15 years. Booze is huge. Part of the reason I gave up the band thing. As far as weed goes, people my age get stupid after a bap or three.
 
I've long suspected that the drug thing wouldn't have gotten so huge if people like Pete Townshend, Donovan and Brian Jones had just done their thing and kept their mouths shut and not been on some crusade to change society in Britain. By going public with their drug taking and by extension pushing it on the impressionable young who were looking at them and their lives as something groovy, they helped set into motion something very damaging, the fruits of which have now taken firm hold here. It's not as though musicians, artists and actors hadn't been taking drugs for decades. The general public tended to be very surprised when pop stars in the late 60s started getting busted because it wasn't common knowledge that they took them. Society had been none the wiser for the most part. Then Pete, Brian and Don opened their mouths.......

Ha ha, that was just to take the thread in another non topic direction !
 
grimtraveller said:
I've long suspected that the drug thing wouldn't have gotten so huge if people like Pete Townshend, Donovan and Brian Jones had just done their thing and kept their mouths shut and not been on some crusade to change society in Britain. By going public with their drug taking and by extension pushing it on the impressionable young who were looking at them and their lives as something groovy, they helped set into motion something very damaging, the fruits of which have now taken firm hold here. It's not as though musicians, artists and actors hadn't been taking drugs for decades. The general public tended to be very surprised when pop stars in the late 60s started getting busted because it wasn't common knowledge that they took them. Society had been none the wiser for the most part. Then Pete, Brian and Don opened their mouths.......

Ha ha, that was just to take the thread in another non topic direction !
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Lol. You can include your darling fab-4 boy band in there too, huh?
 
Greg_L said:
Lol. You can include your darling fab-4 boy band in there too, huh?
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Yeah, but the damage was already done before it became public knowledge of their involvement with drugs. They'd been taking amphetamines as far back as 1960 in Hamburg, Benzedrine from cold inhalers in '61, weed via Dylan in '64, acid after being spiked in '65, cocaine by early '67......but it wasn't until they signed the legalize marijuana advert in the Times and McCartney admitted to taking LSD midway through'67 that the public became aware. Because in those days, there was a real stigma attached to drurrrrgzzzz. And believe it or not, even the Rolling Stones didn't want their parents embarrassed by drug revelations.
And that's my point, as long as these things were kept private and out of public view, the new emerging pop aristocracy weren't being bothered, not even the Stones. But once certain young popsters like Donovan, Pete Townshend and in particular Brian Jones started shooting off their mouths to the press about drugs, the 'establishment' said "Woah !" and in fairly rapid succession, Donovan, Ian McLagan, Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, Keith Richards, John Lennon, George Harrison, Pete Brown and others found themselves busted. And then the genie was out of the bottle......
 
The naughty boys spoke up because they wanted "mind & consciousness expansion" to be universal - plus it gave them all sorts of kudos with their friends and buying public.
Leonard Cohen did the tour that ended at the Isle of Wright/Riots blasted on LSD. He also spent months on speed but gave up booze at it was affecting his touring, (and the LSD didn't? no wonder he was so calm & mellow - though his wicked humour was on show - asking every one to hold up lighted matches while the fences burnt),though I don't think he visited that studio to record though.
(bring the topic back, albeit temporarily, to the original idea).
 
rayc said:
I hated & still hate the post Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac (& the way they opened to doors to that entire LA shlock horror era), any era Eagles,
in that decade I hated & still dislike Soft Rock, Country Rock, Adult Oriented Rock, New Romantic, Disco, Jackson Browne style singer/songwriter, anything vaguely related to McCartney, most top 40 etc. all with some minor exceptions like Leonard Cohen & Pavlov's Dog.
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I don't really hate too much AFA music styles go.
I really like the Peter Green days of Fleetwood Mac....but I also liked the Buckingham/Nicks period. I'm not talking about being obsessed with FM during the "Rumours" period like some people were (mostly girls).....but there were some good songs there, and I can appreciate a good Pop song as easily as a good Blues tune or a Punk Rock song....and the same way, I can dislike songs in any of those and other styles of music, and fromn the same artists.
I don't just worship an artist/band....as though everything they do is gold.....and I also don't hate them even if I onlyu like 1-2 of their songs. I may say I don't like them all that much overall....but "hate" is too strong.

I was never obsessed with "genres"...the way some people only listen to Blues or Country or whatever. It's always been about the individual songs. I've gone through all kinds of "genre" phases.....from Beatles in my youth, to Blues/Classic Rock to New Wave and Punk, to Ethnic/World music. I can find something enjoyable;e in just about any style/genre.
Maybe the hardest styles for me are more extreme Rap/Hip-Hop or real folksy Bluesgrass....but even in those styles there can be songs that I enjoy.

So AFA the "Sound City" clients in the movie....I'm not that bothered by any of them, not even Rick Springfield. :)
 
rayc said:
The naughty boys spoke up because they wanted "mind & consciousness expansion" to be universal
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I agree. But some of them had other agendas that weren't quite so peacefully mellow. Brian Jones who had gotten two girls pregnant by the time he was 16 and hated the middle class restrictions that he felt were imposed on him in Cheltenham and spent the last 4 years of his young life grand wazoo'd out of his head was after more than universal mind expansion.
Speaking of irony, here's one. The Stones released an album in England in 1965 called "Out of our heads" at a time.......when they weren't, really.
Also {not ironic} they recorded their first LP in a studio that had egg cartons on the walls ! Seriously !
 
Rick Springfield had a fantastic early concept album called Comic Book Heroes. It's fantastic pop with some rock. He was part of the latter version of ZOOT in Australia before going solo. They achieved local fame and some international notice for their freakbeat version of Eleanor Rigby
The Zoot - Eleanor Rigby (1971) - YouTube
Same guitar different direction (def. wanted to be a POP star) but live on GTK
Rick Springfield - Speak To The Sky (GTK) - YouTube
and the album
Rick Springfield Comic Book Heroes (1) - YouTube
Have to push the unheard side of maligned Aussies.
 
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