excited-Yes

[SLAYER]

tonite at the HOB. Getting ready as I type Howe, Squire and White with Wakefield's son handling keyboards. Benoit David has been doing vocals for the past few years since Anderson took sick and can no longer tour. Should be a good show for that venue.

[SLAYER]

Have fun!

 

I've seen YES and AWBH and damn, just awesome.

 

If you like them, try to catch King Crimson if they ever roll into town.

 

Haven't seen Yes since 78-79 should be interesting and yes I've seen a few different versions of KC as long as Fripp is there it's KC.

[Big John]

I think you might be older than me!

"Yes" he is

[Kid Cid]

Have fun! I saw them a couple years back with Anderson and Wakeman. I'll be interested to hear how they sound.

[SLAYER]

Have fun! I saw them a couple years back with Anderson and Wakeman. I'll be interested to hear how they sound.

Sounded very good, musically excellent. Forgot what a whiz Howe is on guitar. Squire did a lot more singing than I remember. Wakeman's kid did a good job. Sometimes the sound got a bit overwhelming and mudddled, but apparently they were having trouble with the HOB PA system. As a matter of fact right before the last encore Howe made the statement that they needed a new system. Overall if you like Yes it was a good way to enjoy a Thursday nite and very glad I went.

[Ramhock]

Saw them in MSG . . . 1981.

[driveby]

tonite at the HOB. Getting ready as I type Howe, Squire and White with Wakefield's son handling keyboards. Benoit David has been doing vocals for the past few years since Anderson took sick and can no longer tour. Should be a good show for that venue.

Wanted to see them when they played the Houston HOB but didn't get tickets in time.

[Square]

Ok, I'm a newb. What band are we talking about? One named excited or one named Yes?

[Big John]

Ok, I'm a newb. What band are we talking about? One named excited or one named Yes?

The one named Yes.

[driveby]

Ok, I'm a newb. What band are we talking about? One named excited or one named Yes?

[Big John]

Who?

Who = Britich rock band,

? = Head of Question Mark and the Mysterians who sang 96 Tears.

[Square]

I did some googling and found a few of their songs. For the record though, I was 4 when "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was released so I don't know if it's a huge surprise that I don't know them off the top of my head.

Edited February 26, 2010 by Square

[driveby]

I did some googling and found a few of their songs. For the record though, I was 4 when "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was released so I don't know if it's a huge surprise that I don't know them off the top of my head.

My son was born in '88. He knows who Yes is, and most other 70's and 80's bands. Course he's heard this stuff since he was a toddler.

[Ursa Majoris]

My son was born in '88. He knows who Yes is, and most other 70's and 80's bands. Course he's heard this stuff since he was a toddler.

Thou art a good parent, even if you're a political nutcase.

 

My kid can play some Black Sabbath and other 70s / 80s stuff on his guitar.

[driveby]

Thou art a good parent, even if you're a political nutcase.

back at ya

[Square]

My son was born in '88. He knows who Yes is, and most other 70's and 80's bands. Course he's heard this stuff since he was a toddler.

Well, I was born in 79 and I don't like chitty music. I'm better of with 70s music as I consider the 80s to be a deep abyss of crap as far as music goes (although I know I'm in the minority on that because most of my roommates in college played that stuff constantly). I grew up listening to (the old) Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tom Petty, and The Cars.

Edited February 26, 2010 by Square

[driveby]

Well, I was born in 79 and I don't like chitty music. I'm better of with 70s music as I consider the 80s to be a deep abyss of crap as far as music goes (although I know I'm in the minority on that because most of my roommates in college played that stuff constantly). I grew up listening to (the old) Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tom Petty, and The Cars.

On that note I thought this was a pretty interesting article.

 

How the Knack Conquered Disco

 

By Daniel J. Flynn on 2.18.10 @ 6:07AM

 

The Knack's Doug Fieger died of lung cancer earlier this week. Though he may be best known among politicos as the younger brother of Michigan's 1998 Democratic gubernatorial nominee and Jack Kevorkian lawyer Geoffrey Fieger, Doug Fieger saved rock ‘n' roll more than thirty years ago.

 

In the late 1970s, there was no escaping disco. To put disco's dominance into perspective, members of the Gibb family occupied the top spot on the Billboard Top 100 chart for 28 of the 52 weeks between July 30, 1977 and July 29, 1978. In the year prior to The Knack's takeover of the top spot on Billboard's Hot 100, the only #1 songs that could be categorized as embracing a rock style were Nick Gilder's "Hot Child in the City" and The Doobie Brothers's "What a Fool Believes" -- which Billboard magazine accused, perhaps unfairly, of "jumping on [the] disco bandwagon."

 

To the frustration of their hardcore fans, established rock acts adopted an if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em approach to prevailing trends. Rod Stewart found number one again with "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?," the most maligned rock crossover, rivaled only by Kiss's shameless 1979 hit "I Was Made for Loving You." Musical chameleons The Rolling Stones, who had earlier aped Gram Parsons on "Honky Tonk Woman" and T. Rex on "It's Only Rock ‘n' Roll," enjoyed their final stay at the top of the singles chart with 1978's disco-infused "Miss You." Incorporating a rollicking high-hat and tight, chicken-scratch chords ensured that Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" enjoyed four weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1980. Blondie, coming out of New York's punk scene, ironically lost little in street credibility when they hit #1 with the 1979 disco song "Heart of Glass."

 

Partly on the strength of the disco-drenched "(I Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman," The Kinks scored the highest charting studio album of their career with "Low Budget." ELO for all intents and purposes became a full-fledged disco act for several years. The disco-ball mesmerized Queen, David Bowie, and Roxy Music into embracing the latest musical fad.

 

When not permeating rock radio, disco permeated pop culture. Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" provided the Pittsburgh Pirates a ubiquitous theme song for their 1979 championship run. It invaded the silver screen through 1977's Saturday Night Fever. Disco wasn't just music. It was a lifestyle that guided fashion tastes (leisure suits, roller skates, polyester pants), where to go on weekend nights, and what chemicals to ingest, imbibe, and inhale: in -- cocaine, poppers, Quaaludes; out -- pot, acid, beer.

 

So, in the summer of 1979, an oversaturated public was rife for a rebellion against the gods of pop culture. Aggressive shirts, boasting such slogans as "Disco Sucks" and "Death to Disco," began appearing on young inebriated mustachioed ruffians. On June 12, 1979, the pandemonium at Disco Demolition Night at standing-room-only Comiskey Park became so uncontrollable that the Chicago White Sox forfeited the second game of a double-header against the Detroit Tigers.

 

Riding this cultural tsunami, The Knack's "My Sharona" hit number one on August 25, 1979. It stayed there through September, making it Billboard's top song of 1979.

 

Outside of the context of the late 1970s, there is little remarkable about the song Doug Fieger sang and co-wrote. It offers an infectious bass line, a slightly less catchy guitar riff, and universally accessible lyrics about the pursuit of a pretty girl that together occasionally erupt in a saccharine power-pop crescendo ("My, My, My...Wooo!"). You could dance to it, just not in a leisure suit beneath a mirror ball amidst a cloud of amyl nitrate.

 

But in the context of the late 1970s, a lust song backed by simple guitar, bass, and drums stood out. The Knack eschewed not only the pretentiousness that led pop musicians to compose "rock operas" about King Arthur, but the amateurism that resulted in a "punk" movement of nasty untalented dilettantes more interested in insulting the mainstream than in producing listenable music. "My Sharona" was as much a rebellion against stale rock as it was against vapid disco. The Knack aimed for the mainstream that disco had captured and rock had abandoned. Capitol Records, which had marketed them as the next Beatles, was only too happy to aid The Knack in their commercial crusade to conquer the music world.

 

Preceding its six-week reign atop the charts, number ones included Anita Ward's "Ring My Bell," Donna Summer's "Bad Girls," and Chic's "Good Times." By week five of its reign, "My Sharona" had purged the entire top ten of disco. The Knack's "My Sharona" made Billboard's #1 spot safe for Steve Miller, The J. Geils Band, Men at Work, Joan Jett, and other rock acts that would top the charts in its wake.

 

Disco certainly persisted, boasting chart toppers as late as 1981. But it never regained its late seventies stature atop the music world. It survived by influencing other genres (club, pop, rap), but as a distinct genre it largely disappeared by the early 1980s.

 

Pre-"My Sharona," rock acts appropriated signature scratchy guitars, rolling hi-hats, dance-groove bass lines, and even the symphonic strings and happy horns that characterized Club 54's playlist. Post-"My Sharona," disco acts denied their genre. Like hair bands Poison and Cinderella post-grunge, KC and the Sunshine Band, the Village People, and Chic struggled for an audience after "My Sharona" had left its mark.

 

The post-punk attitude that condemned rock musicians who found a popular audience as "sell outs" condemned the overhyped Knack to obscurity. Ironically, the same purists who cringed at The Kinks or The Stones adding a disco song to their oeuvre, and thus laid the groundwork for the success of a back-to-basics rock song such as "My Sharona," looked askance at any band, such as The Knack, that had achieved mainstream success. The Knack released two other top forty hits -- including, notably, "Good Girls Don't" -- and faded into rock lore.

 

More than thirty years after "My Sharona" hit number one, the Billboard singles chart is more of a cultural wasteland than the one that Doug Fieger and company confronted in the summer of 1979. The absence of a "My Sharona"-style song to break through the pop juggernaut today makes one appreciate what The Knack accomplished over three decades ago.

[Kid Cid]

Well, I was born in 79 and I don't like chitty music. I'm better of with 70s music as I consider the 80s to be a deep abyss of crap as far as music goes (although I know I'm in the minority on that because most of my roommates in college played that stuff constantly). I grew up listening to (the old) Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tom Petty, and The Cars.

You do realize that Yes released their first (self-titled) album back in 1969 and are primarily a 70's band?

[Square]

You do realize that Yes released their first (self-titled) album back in 1969 and are primarily a 70's band?

Um, their most famous song was released in 83. So I guess I don't know how we are characterizing "primarily". But obviously I'm no expert on a decade worth of music I wasn't around to listen to.

Edited February 26, 2010 by Square

[skylive5]

Um, their most famous song was released in 83. So I guess I don't know how we are characterizing "primarily". But obviously I'm no expert on a decade worth of music I wasn't around to listen to.

 

Interesting. To me their best stuff was with the '71 and '72 albums. Paying attention to a group based on their "most famous song" is not the way to go my friend. Try sampling more.

[nuke'em ttg]

Um, their most famous song was released in 83. So I guess I don't know how we are characterizing "primarily". But obviously I'm no expert on a decade worth of music I wasn't around to listen to.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzlaCqSIyzg

[Square]

Interesting. To me their best stuff was with the '71 and '72 albums. Paying attention to a group based on their "most famous song" is not the way to go my friend. Try sampling more.

I don't do that with bands I know about. I'm just at work with no speakers on my computer. And honestly, I probably know more of their songs. I just googled and owner of a lonely heart was the only thing that stuck out that I knew right away. I'll leave it alone. Maybe I'll download some of their songs when I get home later. Anyway, no need for me to be hijacking this thread.

[BeeR]

Glad it was good, but Yes w/o Anderson, I'll pass. Surprised they didn't give ol Trevor Horn a call.

 

I saw em on the "No White" tour years back - the rest were there ie was the "classic" Yes - which was great, but I was PO'd they didn't do any 90125.

[driveby]

Thou art a good parent, even if you're a political nutcase.

Maybe not.

 

My son has to take a Poly Sci course this semester to knock out a humanities requirement. On the first test the professor threw about 7 current event questions in. One asking which former president was recently hospitalized with chest pains, one asking who Debra Medina was, stuff like that.

 

He got all but 1 wrong and admitted he guessed on that one.

 

Looks I'll be giving him a crash course on current events and politics.

[Ursa Majoris]

Maybe not.

 

My son has to take a Poly Sci course this semester to knock out a humanities requirement. On the first test the professor threw about 7 current event questions in. One asking which former president was recently hospitalized with chest pains, one asking who Debra Medina was, stuff like that.

 

He got all but 1 wrong and admitted he guessed on that one.

 

Looks I'll be giving him a crash course on current events and politics.

OK, off the top of my head that's Clinton (chest pains) and isn't Medina the strange Texas Tea Party lady who thinks 9/11 was an inside job?