We didn’t have access to a lot of contemporary popular music in the home I grew up in . It’s not that my parents discouraged it, but they discouraged it; I’m pretty sure my Mom wanted me to be a classical musician.
That started to change, a bit, in sixth or seventh grade. I got a cast-off sixties-vintage Emerson transistor AM radio, and turned into WDAY in Fargo and, eventually, KFYR in Bismarck. Through junior high, I taught myself guitar by learning to play by ear along with the “Torrid Twenty” on Tuesday nights. If you tell me the top couple hundred songs from about 1977 to about 1980, I pretty much know them all. Try me.
But I was a reader. So I took a little time off from reading history at the high school library (which I went to when I couldn’t get away to go to the city library), and read whatever I could find.
There wasn’t much.
I remember one book from the early seventies – I couldn’t begin to remember the name of the author or the book but it was some pop critic and cultural academic who bemoaned the vapid excesses of glam rock – he didn’t much care for Elton John, as I recall…
…and in the last chapter, made his case for the future of popular music.
And that future was…
Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield.
Truth be told, I got put off the song so hard by that particular book, I have somehow managed to go, lo, these past four or so decades without hearing it so much as once.
But it popped up on Youtube last weekend. And curiosity overcame me.
On the one hand, now I can see where “punk” came from.
On the other hand, that’s (checks video)…
…twenty five freaking minutes I won’t be getting back.
Philistine.
I’ll have you know the voice on “Tubular Bells” was Vivian Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, who also narrated “The Intro and the Outro.”
How could anyone not love that?
I really enjoy listening to the United States of Americana® on the Current @89.3 Sunday mornings. Yes I know — MPR — but IMO it’s well worth the listen.
http://www.thecurrent.org/programs/united-states-of-americana
Would make a nice 5 minute instrumental.
Come to think of it there was a radio cut of that song. Very popular at the time, but not 25 minutes.
EI.
I agree. Don’t listen to the Current often, but came across that program a few years ago. The Current sort of reminds me of the early style and format of KQRS in the early 70s and Cities 97 in the late 90s into about 2007.
DOH! “A few months ago”. Damned fat fingers!
Well, “Tubular Bells” is a decent bit of music, but it’s no “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”
Max, that brings back some memories. Wasn’t that Iron Butterfly?
And of course the story is that it was supposed to be “In the Garden of Eden”, but he was so drunk it came out “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida — probably the most imitated drum solo. That was a staple song of more than a few ‘garage bands’ (and kids in basements with drum kits).
The story used to be that “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” got a lot of air play because 17 minutes was long enough for the DJ to step out of the booth and smoke a doobie.
The story used to be that “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” got a lot of air play because 17 minutes was long enough for the DJ to step out of the booth and smoke a doobie.
Back in my college radio days, it was good to identify a few go-to songs for a smoke or a bio break. “Stairway to Heaven,” “Roundabout,” “Terrapin Station,” and most everything on Dire Straits’s “Making Movies” album would do nicely.
In commercial radio in the ’80s and ’90s, the term for records longer than 5 minutes was “Dumpers”. For obvious enough reasons.
Dumpers we could (occasionally) get away with on my various stations:
One got to be pretty good at it.
The worst situation of all? DJing at an “Oldies” bar, playing all ’50s=60s music, mostly between 2:10 and 3:00 minutes long. Live. All night.
I’m listening to WDGY at the moment.
The worst situation of all? DJing at an “Oldies” bar, playing all ’50s=60s music, mostly between 2:10 and 3:00 minutes long. Live. All night.
Yeah — start spinning the ol’ Motown (with the notable exception of Norman Whitfield-era Temptations) and it gets to be 25 songs an hour, easy.
I really wanted to hear the British guy announce “More Cowbell.” That should have been in there.
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Nobody mentioned yet that Tubular Bells was on the soundtrack for the movie The Exorcist. One reason I hated this ‘music’.
I’m in love with the girl who works at the store but I’m nothing but a customer.
Tubular Bells have nothing on King Krimson and more specifically Robert Fripp at his one note Frippatronics best.
I like King Crimson and have since their first album. I also like Tubular Bells now and again – though I don’t care for the live album version video above. I also like New Wave and (some) punk (I cannot for the life of me understand the adulation for those effing commies, the Clash). One need not hate prog rock to like punk and vice versa.
One need not hate prog rock to like punk and vice versa.
Agree. Both are prone to self-indulgence, but both have moments of brilliance. I can easily fit Rick Wakeman and Steve Nieve into my playlist.