MusicChat

<p>Alright all you Realtowners. I know many of you out there go listen to live music occasionally. What's your most memorable concert, or&nbsp;music festival, or symphony, or live band in a dive bar experience. No fair naming your own band if you play(ed) in one, and no fair claiming you had too much &quot;cold medicine&quot; that night and can't really remember for sure.</p>

<p>Use this thread to share with us some bands, singers, musicians you like that most people may have never heard of.</p> <p>Here's a few that come to mind for me.....</p> <p>For a good &quot;singer/songwriter&quot;, I really like Beth Orton. She has a unique voice and I like her writing style. Try her '99 album Central Reservation.</p> <p>Huffamoose released a very good album(We've Been Had Again) back in '97. Unfortunately, they only released, I believe, one more album before they broke up for good.</p> <p>For my favorite genre, the blues, I really like Bob Margolin. He was best known in the blues world for playing in Muddy Waters' band during Muddy's later years. He's since released several solo albums with mostly original material - good writer, and great slide guitar player. I saw him at Blind Melon's in Pacific Beach several years ago - great show.</p> <p>Lastly, someone considered very mainstream to most blues fans, but probably not known to most people is Keb' Mo'. If you want a good intro to the blues, he's probably a good musician to start with, as he has some real accessible, well crafted, kinda crossover songs. But at the same time, he's very loyal to his Delta Blues influences.</p> <p>Anybody else have some recommendations?</p>

<p>A song that is consistantly held up as one of the greatest of all time, but sucks (in your opinion).</p> <p>I have two.</p> <p>Stairway to Heaven and Free Bird</p> <p>How about you?</p>

<p> Most of the time the original versions are the best... but, there are some GREAT covers out there. Here&#39;s a few of my faves: </p> <p> Jeff Buckley&#39;s version of Hallelujah (originally Leonard Cohen) </p> <p> Gary Jules version of Mad World (originally Tears For Fears) </p> <p> The Sundays version of Wild Horses (originally Rolling Stones) </p> <p> The Foo Fighters version of Darling Nikki (originally Prince) </p>

<p> A duel... a sing-off....a musical smack-down... who&#39;d you most like to see challenge each other?<br /> <br /> Vocally... how about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thom_Yorke">Thom Yorke</a> vs. <a href="http://www.musewiki.org/Matthew_Bellamy">Matthew Bellamy</a> (ok, Thom wins, but I&#39;d still like to see it) </p> <p> How about on guitar? Drums? Cowbell? </p>

<p> Even though there&#39;s plenty of great all-instrumental songs out there, there&#39;s something to be said for well-written lyrics. Some of my favorite songwriters over the years have been Bob Dylan(of course), Neil Young, John Hiatt, Lennon/McCartney, Pete Townshend, Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, and plenty more if I cared to keep going. </p> <p> Whether it&#39;s a great love song, a bitter relationship song, a protest song, etc, use this discussion to post some of your favorite lyrics - a single line, a brief excerpt, or the whole song. If you&#39;d like, throw in a brief explanation as to what the lyrics mean(or at least what you think they mean). I&#39;ll throw some out there in my next post. </p>

<p> One of my favorite songs to play is Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones--on Rockband). I still haven&#39;t unlocked Epic (Faith No More), but I&#39;m sure that will be one of my new favorites once I get there :-) Hey, I&#39;ve only played Rockband like 3 times, gimme a break.<br /> <br /> What are some of your faves? </p>

<p>I've always known &quot;desert island discs&quot; to be a column in the old Tower Records monthly&nbsp;Pulse Magazine, where readers were asked to submit the top ten(or so)&nbsp;albums that they would absolutely have to have if they were stranded alone on a desert island. I always looked forward to reading the new lists, which ranged from predictable, to eclectic, to downright lame. But occasionally I would be able to glean a good recommendation for my next purchase.</p> <p>I later discovered that &quot;Desert Island Discs&quot; actually started as a BBC radio program in 1942 and is listed in Guinness as the longest running music program in the history of radio. You can read more about it&nbsp;here: &nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Island_Discs">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Island_Discs</a></p> <p>Anyway, what are your Top 10(or 5, or whatever)? I'll have to get back to you on mine, as I haven't&nbsp;compiled a list&nbsp;in quite some time.</p>

<p>What is the disc you love to listen to but don't want your friends to know??&nbsp; For me this is easy...Kilroy Was Here by STYX-&nbsp; Domo Arrigato, Mr Roboto</p>

<p>Not long ago, some in the IC&nbsp;tech dept(well, mostly Tim Fears)&nbsp;had a lively discussion about which decade so far has put out the best modern&nbsp;music. The consensus for best decade seemed to be the 60's(I strongly agree), but there was much debate as to which decade comes in 2nd.</p> <p>Tim F argued for the 90's,&nbsp;but I didn't particularly care for his reasoning(one example he had was the Chili Peppers put out their best music in the 90's(instead of 80's or 00's), therefore the 90's <i>must</i> be the best decade. Not buying that argument, though I'm not sure yet if I disagree with the overall choice. I definitely don't think it's the 80's even though that's when my heyday was. What do you think was the best/second best/third best&nbsp;decade for music and why? Don't forget to consider the 40's, 50's or earlier of you're so inclined.</p>