Hey. Wanna Come Over and Listen to Music aka The Bay Area Record Club Thread

[greghead]

Soundtrack theme meeting? Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday? State preference in group.

[greghead]

Soundtrack record club was good. Good to see Young Dave again.

Soundtracks:
Any Which Way You Can
Top Gun
The Breakfast Club
Pretty In Pink
The Muppet Movie (1979)
The Harder They Come

Non-Soundtrack
Uh. I don't really remember. Anyone remember what Dave played? I only recall one being a 7".

[bmack86]

Who had Any Which Way You Can? I've got the Every Which Way But Loose soundtrack and it's killer.

[chiapet]

Anyone remember what Dave played? I only recall one being a 7".

James Blake though I don't remember the details.

[greghead]

Who had Any Which Way You Can? I've got the Every Which Way But Loose soundtrack and it's killer.

That one's mine. It has a song by Fats Domino called "Whiskey Heaven" that alone is worth the price of admission.

[greghead]

Let's brainstorm on some potential themes. As mentioned, Motown/R&B/Soul Record Club (Heidi) and Cocaine & Whiskey aka Outlaw Country Record Club (Cara) are both already on the docket.

Acoustic?
Geographic (ie all British/French/Nigerian/Australian/whatever music)?
Live recordings?
Decade-specific?

Let's explore some options, you guys always get creative with the themes and bring really cool stuff. What about a "Crown Jewels" theme, where we bring our best/favorite/rarest records we own? That could get awesome.

[chiapet]

I like all of those ideas. For the decade/year specific, I was really into the idea of picking just one year or a progression of years (but the latter would probably require more coordination than we're up to).

Someone (Dave?) suggested a dollar bin theme, with the caveat that it's a recent purchase. Would encourage some crate digging.

I want to do seasonal themes when it's appropriate (like favorite summer record/song, etc). We need to make up for last year's Bastille Day cancellation, if only because I want crepes.

A theme tribute to a specific, seminal band? Either records from that band, or from an act we feel were influenced by them?

Now that we've done Soundtrack record club (and related to our discussion about New Order), what about looking at music from movies/tv in a different way -- a song that you hear in a movie or TV show that drove you to explore an artist. Not to bring the soundtrack, but to bring that artist. Like... instead of me bringing the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, I could have brought New Order or Psychedelic Furs or something? I guess I enjoy hearing the backstory on how people come to like the music they like.

I kind of liked the idea of having themes that let people be more creative or more flexible with their selections... like (this is a terrible example, but bear with me), "blue", people could bring things that literally have blue in the title of the artist, record, or even label, or a blue sleeve, or blue vinyl, or music that IS blue. But, you know, something better than my example.

Edit: We've played 5-10-15-20-25 whatever on the board. Why not play it in person? (One age at a time). We have enough of a spread in ages that this would be quite different than focusing on a decade.

[greghead]

Those are all excellent ideas. I really like 10-15-20-25, that's easy to pull off and will be really, really fun to see what people show up with.

[shakermaker113]

I'd like to see any of the following happen.
- live concert video. (yes, I said video, not vinyl.)
- movie scores. (quite different from soundtracks)
- ambient/downtempo.
- international/world music.
- spoken word.

[greghead]

Those are all great ideas, I think film scores and spoken word could be really compelling.

[shakermaker113]

some variations on those themes, which may be a little more accessible / more interesting:
- foreign language vocals
- instrumentals

[bmack86]

How about six degrees of __________? My first thought would be Brian Eno as you could go so many places with that, but there are tons of choices.

[shakermaker113]

hm. how would that work, exactly?

[bmack86]

First degree would be Eno, Roxy Music, anything else he directly played on. I think it'd be one level of disconnect to go with post-Eno Roxy, Phil Collins and I'd also include any production work he did, since he worked on the album but isn't one of the players (Talking Heads would fall into a grey, 1.5 area.) Then you can stretch outward from there. I'd love to hear what connections people would come up with: Nine Inch Nails ->Adrain Belew->King Crimson->Robert Fripp->Fripp/Eno collaborations, for example.

[shakermaker113]

but logistically... one person plays a record of their choice and someone else makes an attempt to do the six degress and get back to Brian Eno?

while that sounds like fun, it would require a pretty extensive record collection. we could stream songs off the internet I guess.

[bmack86]

I didn't really picture needing to fill in all the connections necessarily, but definitely telling people what they are. I think it'd be pretty intersting to see what people come up with.

[chiapet]

Nevermind, I see what you're saying.

So first degree is anything he performed on.
Second degree is anything he produced.
.. what are the degrees from there?

Maybe this can tie in with the 'tribute' idea I had, so maybe like... playing something directly linked to the person (their solo recordings, bands they were a major component of), collaborations, then things they produced, releases where they have a songwriting credit but no other involvement, covers of their songs, and finally bands/releases that show an influence by that act/band?

I feel like we all have eclectic tastes but maybe not extensive record collections, so ideally we could keep these ideas broad in their own way so that everyone can think of something that fits in, to play.

[bmack86]

It's just like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon idea.

Another example: James Brown-Sex Machine->Bootsie and Catfish Collins->Parliament/Funkadelic->Bernie Worrell->Talking Heads->Brian Eno

So you just have to be able to get back to Eno within six steps of your release.

[chiapet]

Ah, got it. Yea, I think that would be too difficult to implement at record club, without knowing what other people are bringing and planning it in advance. Cool exercise to try at home though

[greghead]

Bryan, that's a bad-ass idea! Love it. Leon Russell & Duane Allman immediately come to mind as well. Cool idea. And I don't think it's too hard to implement at all so long as we all know in advance which artist is our Kevin Bacon. I don't have any Eno but I have lots of records from folks he played with at one time or another. Not only does it force me to think about my collection in a different way, but would also make me do a little research into Eno, in this case. Imagine 6-degrees Damon Albarn, you wind up at the Pougues in three moves and onto Dropkick Murphys on the fourth. Shit, you could start with Albarn and end up in the early 90s East Bay Hardcore scene, and that's following only a single Albarn collab. Wow.

Let's not give up on this idea just yet, guys ...

[bmack86]

I think people are just getting confused in thinking that you'd need the whole chain, rather than just having to explain the steps that get you to your Kevin Bacon artist.

C'mon, Eno gets you into the No Wave scene, which could get you to Sonic Youth, to Beck, to the Carpenters.

[shakermaker113]

The six degrees game goes the other way. You pick someone that is not Kevin Bacon, then the challenge is to find a path from that person to Kevin Bacon.

[bmack86]

Well then maybe that could be the competition there. People bring records and the rest of the folks there have to try and figure out the path back to the chosen artist. But rules are made to be broken.

[chiapet]

Yea, I'm confused because what you're explaining is not 6 degrees. 6 degrees would be fun. So what we are saying is that if Brian Eno is our Kevin Bacon, then we just need to bring a release that we can link to Brian within 6 moves of association. Not that we need the intermediate steps. I'm game. My selections might be so obvious though.

[bmack86]

I was just trying to provide examples of what I was talking about. Showing, rather than just telling. I don't know why it was so hard to understand, but maybe I wasn't clear enough? I didn't even think it needed explaining to be honest...

[shakermaker113]

Yea, I'm confused because what you're explaining is not 6 degrees. 6 degrees would be fun. So what we are saying is that if Brian Eno is our Kevin Bacon, then we just need to bring a release that we can link to Brian within 6 moves of association. Not that we need the intermediate steps. I'm game. My selections might be so obvious though.

...the whole point of a 6 degrees game is the theory that EVERYONE can be connected to your chosen person within 6 degrees. so translating that to music, "a release we can link to Brian within 6 moves" is "any record ever".

I think your examples were clear Bryan. it's a fun idea, but in the context of record club it was a bit hard to grasp, because we are in the mindset of listening to records, and the game becomes a little more tricky when limited to the records at hand.

[greghead]

I was just trying to provide examples of what I was talking about. Showing, rather than just telling. I don't know why it was so hard to understand, but maybe I wasn't clear enough? I didn't even think it needed explaining to be honest...

I'm picking up what you're putting down. You and I have to play this game the next time we hang out.

[greghead]

I'm off this coming Wednesday & Friday. Want to come over?

[greghead]

And is anyone else in the mood for fried chicken? Because I am.

[bballarl]

You should come to my show at Hemlock on Friday. It'll be fun and we can drink tall cans. And find/eat fried chicken.