Does anyone know where I can get hold of some free, easy-to-use graphics software? I want to create a graph for classic-era Seventies rock acts in which the bottom axis will be "Contempt Levelled By Punks", and the left-hand axis will be "Actual Brilliance".
Peter Frampton will be in the very top right-hand corner.
17 comments:
"GIMP" is basically a free version of photoshop, with only slightly less features. More than enough for this job.
Ah, thanks. I might actually go ahead and do this. It could be a good conversation/argumentation piece for the blog.
Well, I loved the reaction against the improv, but I loved the improv, too. Maybe Duane Allman would edge him out on my graph. Not that I could work the software. Or the guitars.
Well, I'm hoping this will be a bit of an arena of contention. Where will we put Ginger Baker's Air Force?
I don't think punk hated Ginger like they did Frampton or Allman. So, as far up as you want on the left axis, but I doubt much past halfway on the bottom. It's a funny thing about Frampton, though. I can remember a time when the ultimate example of something worthless was a Peter Frampton poster. He was never to my taste, exactly, but the guy could play anything he wanted to and I understood the popularity.
the talk box section is so good you can almost forgive the surpassing inanity of everything else
i did quite enjoy the bit where he jumps back and forth between phony-American singing and phony-Lunndunn accent speaking
but the faces he makes while soloing are unforgivable
probably the punx were reacting as much against the placid reverential torpor of his audience as the actual music
"Do you Feel" itself is a bit like Frampy's attempt to do a "We're An American Band", all that "the hotel detective/was outtasight", life on the road stuff
frampton's whole thing was rather like grand funk, we serve the people delivering rockin' entertainment to arenas nationwide
We need a post on the awesome headfuck movie 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' - Frampton's moment of triumph - and downfall!
Seems like what punx did and didn't hate is a topic that was once simmered down into a pat cliche, but has for many years been undergoing an extensive revisionist sifting.
It was much easier being a punk back in the day that the simple (mis)understanding was that your role as a punk was to just hate everything. But I guess the point of maturing is realizing that things are far more complex and subtly shaded that any can't-tell-me-shit "punk" could ever comprehend.
And Wayne, couldn't "Sgt Pepper's" be easily written off (as sub-"mindfuckery") as little more than a grroup of misguided investors trying to milk a few $$$ out of the afterglow of Ken Russell's "Tommy"? I'm thinking that source of primary research for such a piece might amount to little more than an article from Pizzazz magazine.
A piece on the career of Robert Stigwood would probably be more fitting. Or you guys could finally ante up with what I've been waiting for, which is the long-overdue "LEIF GARRETT SERVED IMPERIALISM" post.
little more than a grroup of misguided investors trying to milk a few $$$ out of the afterglow of Ken Russell's "Tommy"?
I thought it was a tax-dodge to fence the huge profits of Saturday Night Fever? I couldn't look at George Burns the same way again.
Tommy was what helped me 'get' the punk ethos, I was covering my hair in glue by the time 'Hear Me, Feel Me, Seem Me' kicked in. For some reason it was a Xmas TV staple, so it probably gave me issues with that too. Godspell didn't quite have the same impact.
And Lief Garret was a 70s idea of the Audacity of Hope. If Lief was thriving, then all was well with Carter's policy on East Timor. Skateboarding was the only acceptable way to get over Watergate and the Tet offensive.
Little did we know how Ayatollah Khomeni would shatter that illusion...
Well, I think Frampton had a lovely warm tone to his playing, and the chorus to this is great. Funnily enough, I'm pretty indifferent to the vocoder section.
Anyway, I'm wondering if we can make the chart interactive. I imagine a box bounded like this:
Abba Frampton
New Seekers Wakeman
Ah, you have to imagine Frampton and Wakeman over on the right.
Bleedin' Blogger formatting.
Wayne, I think you might be confusing Lief Garrett with Alan Alda.
Hey, I know my Liefage like the back of my hand!
I just remembered what 'Pizazz' was though - LOL. I think I bought that as an impressionable kid expecting more 'adult' adventures of Conan or the Hulk - and all I got was lousy articles on Olivia Newton John and Captain and Tenille.
I think I let my mum use to kill a bluebottle - would be a collector's item now!
I would have been far more interested in Olivia Newton John than Conan or The Hulk.
Which reminds me, I must see if Xanadu has been posted up on Youtube.
This blog has been surprisingly sympathetic to rock opera. Even disco opera - been meaning to do one on the 'Whiz' and the strange crossroads (geddit?) it was for all involved. That was the real start of Jacko's downfall. If he was a rock singer, I think it would be seen that way. But he avoided the shame that followed Sidney Lumet.
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