Paul Simon (and Garfunkel)

sus

Moderator


Arethas version of Bridge significantly better I think

Less cloying, more expressive range and subtlety
 

0bleak

Well-known member
I can never remember which is Nights In White Satin and which is Whiter Shade of Pale - and I doubt you can either.

my problem is that i can't remember which one is mamas and papas or peter paul and mary until i look them up
i just remember that one of 'em, in one of the groups, one of the fathers in one of the groups raped and had an incestous affair with a daughter, and that one of the daughters was in early 90s girl vocal harmony group that I also forget the name of until I look them up which is odd since the other 2/3 of that group is brian wilson's daughters, which i also forget about!
 

william_kent

Well-known member
my problem is that i can't remember which one is mamas and papas or peter paul and mary until i look them up
i just remember that one of 'em, in one of the groups, one of the fathers in one of the groups raped and had an incestous affair with a daughter, and that one of the daughters was in early 90s girl vocal harmony group that I also forget the name of until I look them up which is odd since the other 2/3 of that group is brian wilson's daughters, which i also forget about!

you're thinking of Wilson Philips

I've got the autobiography of John Philips, "Papa John" of Mamas and Papas fame

it's full of passages like this:

"What does this mean, darling?" she asked, clasping her hands around mine.

"It means Demerols, Tuinals, and street heroin," I said.

In the next three or four days, we ran through the Demerols — another morphine substitute — and the barbiturate Tuinal. Neither of us realized that barbiturate withdrawal is more hazardous and painful than opiate withdrawal. One morning at six-thirty, I heard crashing and thrashing in the bedroom from the bathroom. I ran in and Gen was purple and stiff, propped up against the headboard. Her jaws were clenched and she was heaving and hissing fiercely. Her eyes glared wildly and her face was turning purple. It looked like a scene out of some scary movie about demon possession. I realized she was having a seizure. She had no idea where she was and her eyes were glazed over.

"Jesus Christ, no, no, she's dying," I said under my breath.


A couple off pages on and Gen is stealing Jerry Hall's clothes when Mick Jagger visits the Phillips household.
 

0bleak

Well-known member
you're thinking of Wilson Philips

aye, and after looking stuff up and remembering, it was mackenzie phillips, the actor, not a part of the music group wilson-phillips like her sister, it was mackenzie that was raped the night before her wedding :( and then she said it was consensual after that...
 

Murphy

cat malogen
Graceland was like a scar across the 1980’s. Thinking Live Aid and Graceland as fixed beacons between shit indigenous pop and acid house. Mexico 86, year of the Hand of God goal dumping England out of another football tournament. Every car I seemed to get a lift in during this period had it as a tape, cd’s for home. It reminds of a couple of family holidays, one with a mate’s clan, the other my own. “I’m going to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis Tennessee, I’m going to Graceland noodley noodley chord changes”

It flows as a song, you have to grit your teeth and admit it. Of a time, a product of its time where famine had diverted the western gaze to the global south, at least for a short instance. I’m not a fan of the voice, it’s pleading abstractions around quite a locked polyrhythmic groove, although more you just heard it so god damn much passively, absolutely ubiquitous in shops, pubs, Walkmans summer and autumn 86 into early 87

S&G are my Mum’s record collection staples, whereas Bad Timing was a rare video rental that delivered. Wasn’t keen on 60’s throwbacks hogging the limelight yet again as 86 was my first Slayer gig and they had infinitely greater command of hormonal imbalances. As an adult, it’s flawless but do I need to listen again? Fuck no but crack on lads, enjoy yourselves
 

DLaurent

Well-known member
first time i was sent to the loony bin, i met someone in there that would always play this (still friends with her to this day)



I like Paul Simon, but this post reminded me of when I was 'sectioned'. We had little music workshops with people playing different instruments, mostly just drumming along with bongos to this.

 

the ig

Well-known member
i don’t think the guy ever really has anything to write about. there’s a certain facility with music, pretty tune-smithery married to solid craft, but nothing urgent or arresting to animate it. no hurt no weirdness no burning beauty...’the pitter-pattering sounds of Simon and Garf’, as a mate used to say. it’s the 60s thing for all the softy onlookers too square to really partake, yet always nursing that slight pang that they should.

you get the sense he always has a nice shapely tune or ten lying about, but then has to root around in the drawer for a weighty or affecting theme to graft on to have a song (eg the mannered likes of ‘america’ ‘old friends’ ’the boxer’ ‘the sound of silence’). there’s insincerely adopted contemporary themes, floaty bits of watercolored protest folk, or else he remains in pure whimsy. and he’s got no one to throw it to to give it extra layers or fire, Garf’s just a musical mouthpiece. in the end he made whole albums in that manner eg the staggeringly fatuous Graceland.

already so much fussily ’well made’ pastiche on those classic early solo records, find it excruciating - tempered gospel or latin pop carrying his glib vignettes of singleton life in whatever part of just-gentrified manhattan he was a denizen of in the early 70s. urgh!
 

0bleak

Well-known member
I like Paul Simon, but this post reminded me of when I was 'sectioned'. We had little music workshops with people playing different instruments, mostly just drumming along with bongos to this.



We kind of had the same.
My first time committed, I was 17 so I was still considered a minor so I was put in with the rest of the teens (running tings - no, not at all, really).
although one of the counselors did suggest I should be a role model for the others - hah!
Also, it wasn't one run by the state, but a regular hospital, so you paid some amount as a parent, I guess, in addition to whatever insurance you had on your on your kid (me).
warning: prolly long story ahead
things I remember: one counselor said my name was childish so I thought about it over the next year or two and dropped part of the same
another counselor tried to get me into weightlifting - wasn't really into it, but kind of went along with it, whatever
another counselor had a really uncomfortable sit down with me about my "nocturnal activities" - see, i make really weird, sometimes quasi-sexual noises when I sleep (so i've been told by a great many people) and it was two of us to a room (always the same sex, although it was a co-ed "dorm") so either the guy in the other bed said something about it, or "they" were listening in from the "control room" or maybe both? I dunno...
I was like, really? like, you really think i was really going to go at it, much less be vocal about it, with some other dude a couple of feet away?!
funny aside: I had also brought a tape with me by the post-industrial/experimental group Nocturnal Emissions as one of my listening selections which i'm sure he enjoyed, and/or when i would go out in the "main room" and subject everyone to what I wanted to hear (either no one else brought much of anything to hear or I don't know - maybe I really was running things?!)
they experimented on me with some drug that made me totally painfully spaz out - couldn't stop moving or _very_ forcefully twitching everywhere - one of the worst experiences ever
I was really worried when I had to start playing the couple of sports they had us play sometimes because I generally have complete shit motor skills (both fine motor skills and gross motor skills - typing this on a laptop hunt-and-peck style as we speak), and last thing I wanted was entire groups of people laughing at me again not understanding that I equally didn't understand what had been wrong my whole life... but touch (in lieu of tackle) football (american version) went ok, but surely they were all going to start laughing when I had to play volleyball - little did I know I would be running things in that gymnasium and people on the other side would start to part ways when it was my time to serve the ball into their heads on the other side (didn't matter to me that it was co-ed, I was gonna try my best! 😄 - I guess being tall helped, too)
there a psychiatrist that i had to meet with at least once a day and he started getting really angry with me about all of my rote, stock answers to everything, basically telling me that I needed to diversify my portfolio (thinking back on it though, I'm like, maybe you should have figured out something from that? YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE PRO... anyway...)
trying to wrap things up: I either talk little or a lot... sorry
so, besides our regular school work, there was a kind of regular "music therapy" where we would mostly just kind of play different things we liked to each other along with the hippy-dippy counselor in the "music therapy" room she had, and sometimes we would play things like little drums or little xylophones (being a drummer, I ran things there, definitely - weird how i can do some things but completely fail at others, with not much in-between) and one of the people i became friends with to this day, it seems she played that procol harum a lot while i was just always trying to bust out the freshest electronic sounds 😄
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
i don’t think the guy ever really has anything to write about. there’s a certain facility with music, pretty tune-smithery married to solid craft, but nothing urgent or arresting to animate it. no hurt no weirdness no burning beauty...’the pitter-pattering sounds of Simon and Garf’, as a mate used to say. it’s the 60s thing for all the softy onlookers too square to really partake, yet always nursing that slight pang that they should.

you get the sense he always has a nice shapely tune or ten lying about, but then has to root around in the drawer for a weighty or affecting theme to graft on to have a song (eg the mannered likes of ‘america’ ‘old friends’ ’the boxer’ ‘the sound of silence’). there’s insincerely adopted contemporary themes, floaty bits of watercolored protest folk, or else he remains in pure whimsy. and he’s got no one to throw it to to give it extra layers or fire, Garf’s just a musical mouthpiece. in the end he made whole albums in that manner eg the staggeringly fatuous Graceland.

already so much fussily ’well made’ pastiche on those classic early solo records, find it excruciating - tempered gospel or latin pop carrying his glib vignettes of singleton life in whatever part of just-gentrified manhattan he was a denizen of in the early 70s. urgh!
I keep marveling at how well written this is

And I ADORE Paul, as i call him
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Just thinking

Paul (simon/mccartney) - Tuneful but a bit corny and bland
John (lennon/lydon) - Harsh, grating, woman beating/did a butter advert

Am I onto something?
 

the ig

Well-known member
well, certainly, Beatle Paul without harsh grating John as foil is just Paul S (okay I quite like bits of early solo beatle Paul)
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I love Paul McCartney ftr, much prefer him to Lennon really

I think this is a cultural shifting of tectonic plates, though, I feel like Lennon's self righteous morals aren't as respected in this era and Macca was (to my knowledge) much more open to experimenting with music

Even his crap stuff has the virtue of being hilarious
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
my problem is that i can't remember which one is mamas and papas or peter paul and mary until i look them up
i just remember that one of 'em, in one of the groups, one of the fathers in one of the groups raped and had an incestous affair with a daughter, and that one of the daughters was in early 90s girl vocal harmony group that I also forget the name of until I look them up which is odd since the other 2/3 of that group is brian wilson's daughters, which i also forget about!
Mamas and Papas were total mentallists
 
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