David Spade reviews...

[Softball Bat]

a Doobie Brothers concert.









2:55 - Everyone there is roughly 60 to 110 years old, and that's fine.
And he's got the white hair that's got, like no moisture...






Sounds very much like a typical Tune Town "crowd." :)


:wink:




Anyway, very nice job, David.

[Donnie Baker's Ghost]

Spade isn't wrong. I haven't heard the Doobies new stuff but you gotta work that new flavor in slowly. You can't go all NEW COKE and stop delivering Classic Coke.

For an example of doing it right, I saw Chicago this summer on their anniversary tour. They played the hits with nice, tasteful live music flare like longer solos and one old guy riffing with a trombone like he was born to play that thing. I don't remember his name but he was one of the originals. They peppered in the new stuff and I gotta say they nailed their new album. Sounds like old Chicago met new Chicago and became best friends.

[smackaholic]

Spade isn't wrong. I haven't heard the Doobies new stuff but you gotta work that new flavor in slowly. You can't go all NEW COKE and stop delivering Classic Coke.

For an example of doing it right, I saw Chicago this summer on their anniversary tour. They played the hits with nice, tasteful live music flare like longer solos and one old guy riffing with a trombone like he was born to play that thing. I don't remember his name but he was one of the originals. They peppered in the new stuff and I gotta say they nailed their new album. Sounds like old Chicago met new Chicago and became best friends.

When you say ol Chicago and new Chicago, how do you define "new Chicago"?

To me, and many other Chicago fans, they became new Chicago when Terry Kath blew his brains out while playing with his 45.

Old Chicago absolutely rocked. New Chicago did mushy love ballads and made bazillions because chicks buy albums too.

I'm not saying that had Terry been better at gun play, they wouldn't have went down the love ballad faggotry wormhole, because plenty of other rock bands did the same (Journey, REO, Styx, etc....) but I do think they would have continued to crank out actual rock and roll as well.

So, I think when speaking of Chicago, you need to break it up into 3 distinct eras, old, new and really new.

BTW, trombone dude is James Pankow.

[Donnie Baker's Ghost]

Spade isn't wrong. I haven't heard the Doobies new stuff but you gotta work that new flavor in slowly. You can't go all NEW COKE and stop delivering Classic Coke.

For an example of doing it right, I saw Chicago this summer on their anniversary tour. They played the hits with nice, tasteful live music flare like longer solos and one old guy riffing with a trombone like he was born to play that thing. I don't remember his name but he was one of the originals. They peppered in the new stuff and I gotta say they nailed their new album. Sounds like old Chicago met new Chicago and became best friends.

When you say ol Chicago and new Chicago, how do you define "new Chicago"?

To me, and many other Chicago fans, they became new Chicago when Terry Kath blew his brains out while playing with his 45.

Old Chicago absolutely rocked. New Chicago did mushy love ballads and made bazillions because chicks buy albums too.

I'm not saying that had Terry been better at gun play, they wouldn't have went down the love ballad faggotry wormhole, because plenty of other rock bands did the same (Journey, REO, Styx, etc....) but I do think they would have continued to crank out actual rock and roll as well.

So, I think when speaking of Chicago, you need to break it up into 3 distinct eras, old, new and really new.

BTW, trombone dude is James Pankow.

When I say New Chicago I mean Really New Chicago. I've never formally differentiated between pre-Terry and post-Terry eras with a demarcation line but I concede your point. There was a definite shift away from brassy rock-funk and toward Air Supply after the inopportune high-speed lead poisoning. I chalked the changes up to the evolution of the band conforming to listener preferences. Like Metallica's St. Anger being whiny and angsty because that's what they thought kids wanted to hear. For better or worse it's what bands do.

At the concert they played quite a bit of the OG sound and not just the Cetera hits which was nice. The new album doesn't hit the hard brass of pre-Terry from start to finish but I think they blend funky brass with ballads better than Cetera did. A good comparison is Cetera's Hard to Say I'm Sorry where the rock transition is clunky. The new album gets the blend right with the song Someone Needed Me The Most. Take a listen and see if you agree.

Big misfires on the new album include For The Love which is straight fukken Anne Murray and If This isn't Love which makes me sleepy. House on A Hill sounds like Jimmy Buffet. Not down. That's not a Chicago sound. They didn't play these songs at the concert which was a smart decision. If you're a hardcore pre-Terry fan you probably won't like any of the new album because the lyrics are generally sappy Cetera stuff but in quite a few songs they get the drums and horns spot on.

[Mikey]

I was a big fan of Chicago, back in the day. I caught on when I heard 25 or 6 to 4 on the FM stereo (I was 15 at the time) and was hooked enough to immediately go out and buy CTA as well. Those double albums were great not only to listen to but to roll joints on. Saw them play live in 71 or 72 and they put on a great show. Those first five albums got a lot of play on my turntable for many years, but they sort of jumped the shark IMO after Chicago V and I mostly lost interest, though I still liked to listen to their old stuff.

At the time, the horns were something new and different, and sounded really cool. The only major rock band doing anything like that at the time was BS&T, who also jumped the shark pretty quickly after a great couple of recordings, though the first two albums were very different bands.

But being a Bay Area kid, there soon were other options if you wanted to hear horns. I was also branching out into a lot of other stuff, mostly jazz, like the Crusaders, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Weather Report, etc., etc.

But if you wanted to hear horns in a rock band there was one that put all others to shame. Plus David Garibaldi, the greatest funk/rock drummer ever. And Rocco on bass. So crisp. So tight. Nothing out of place.





One of the best live bands I have ever seen. This is from a TV show in 1973 and doesn't quite capture the vibe of their local performances, but it gets the point across.




Lenny Pickett (tall kid on tenor sax, great solo in the second song) was 19 years old when this was filmed. He later joined the SNL band in 1985 and has been the music director for SNL since 1995.

This stuff still sounds fresh today.