I haven't heard Monster in years but I do recall it as being the one Steppenwolf album I really liked.
I haven't heard Monster in years but I do recall it as being the one Steppenwolf album I really liked.
Not sure how much exposure this band gets outside of Canada, but The Sheepdogs are a band that sounds A LOT like The Guess Who. Here's the official video from a single on their debut (and far superior release imo):
"Corn Flakes pissed in. You ranted. Mission accomplished. Thread closed."
-Cozy 3:16-
speaking of 70s hard Rock bands without a great Keyboard player...
no one mentioned Thin Lizzy!
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
Thin Lizzy is interesting. They sure could play and had some great songs but Phil Lynot had a real heavy Springsteen influence (or at least it sounded like it) and I don't like that at all.
Darren Wharton my not have been Rick Wakeman, but he was a decent enough keyboard player for the style band they were IMO.Originally Posted by MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER
Naaaah, never saw the interest in that band... %MMaybe oneof the most over-rated bands in hard-rock circles.
Yeah, Lynott was a good bassist, but didn't care for his songwriting and vocals
I couldn't fill a CD-r compilation of their stuff if they had recorded 50 studio albums. I recently borrowed their 6-album boxset + thefirst three. Heard (I mean: listened) them all once, didn't want to hear them again. It wouldn't miss me if I never heard a single song ot theirs again for the rest of my life
(ditto for UFO, btw)
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
at this point I must question whether you even like hard rock at all
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
plenty of great hard rock I love, but TBH, my tastes are maybe evolving a little more than others' would
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
Thank heavens I'm not the only one who never understood the appeal of Thin Lizzy. There are plenty of bands that did genuine "hard rock" that I much prefer to Thin Lizzy - Led Zeppelin, to name just one.
Thin Lizzy were far more interesting than most of the 'meat and potatoes' bands being mentioned in this thread IMHO.
Agreed, to my ears Lizzy was one of the more under rated bands of that era. Especially in the U.S. where they never really got above opening act status.
I always thought their name Thin Lizzy was interesting (a play on Tin Lizzy, a nickname for the Model T Ford), but to me the band itself were just okay. I never felt inspired to buy any of their records back in the day, and after re-investigating to see if I'd inadvertently missed anything, that sentiment still stands. Like others have mentioned, it's really the vocal style that gets to me the most. It's too close to that Springsteenesque way of overly wordy delivery that turns me away (though I think Phil Lynott is a much better singer than BRUCE). I do admire their dual-guitar sound, but again, there's not enough there to pull me in. YMMV.
How do you think I feel? My brother had The Best Of BTO (So Far) when I was a kid, so I knew who BTO were, but I somehow didn't know You Ain't See Nothing Yet (which is on the best of record) was BTO. When I remember hearing it on classic rock radio in the late 80's, I thought it was a Tom Petty song! How the frell did I manage to do that!
Except Phil Lynott (note correct spelling of his name) was writing songs that "sounded like Springsteen" before Springsteen even had a record deal. More likely it was a common heritage from the likes of Bobs Segar and Zimmerman. Remember, Thin Lizzy covered a Bob Segar song, Rosalie (and seriously improved it too).
But he didn't join the band until 81. Before that, they were a quartet with two guitarists. There's keyboards on some of the studio tracks here and there, but only occasionally. I think they expanded to a quintet so they could prove they were "modern" by adding more synths on Renegade.
As far as I'm concerned, Thin Lizzy is one of the best bands ever. Between Phil Lynott's singing, and the great guitar work (has there ever been a band who's had so many underrated guitarists go through it's ranks?), they just sort of wrote the book (or one of the bands who wrote the book), in my book. For no small reason is there a statute of Phil Lynott in downtown Dublin.
Last edited by GuitarGeek; 07-09-2015 at 11:25 PM.
Them words could get you shot here in Michigan.......
Those of you who are hearing Bruce in Phil Lynott aren't tracing the influences right. Both of those two were heavily influenced by Van Morrison.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Good point. Lizzy went through a lot of lineup changes during their career, and you are correct that they did not add full time keyboards until 81. I was thinking he joined up earlier than that, but I was not remembering my Lizzy history correctly.
One more thought about The Guess Who: I remember when I first really heard of them was when they did this big reunion concert circa 84-85-ish, which was shown on CBC, I think it was. Being that they were one of the first important Canadian rock groups, the reunion of the classic lineup was a very big deal in the Great White North.
So anyway, I'm watching this concert, and the thing that kinda sticks in my mind about it now, is that the preponderance of "new" technology amongst their stage rig. Bachman's playing a Roland G-505 guitar (typically only used by guitarists using a Roland guitar synth), the drummer has a few Simmons drum pads in his drum kit, and for a few songs, Cummings plays piano. With a Prophet-5 sitting on top of it. I'd like to see that concert again, just to see how they put all that synth oriented technology to use. Just seemed kinda weird for such a project, to me. (shrug)
BTW, anyone ever hear the late 70's Guess Who records? I think there were only one or two, but by that time, only the rhythm section were left from the classic band. I remember seeing one of them in a used record store back in the early 90's, the big photo of the band on the back cover looked like they were playing a school dance or something like that, and then each band member had his own, smaller photo, with either the guitarist or the bassist in a photo that looked like he was buying a guitar (the same one he's playing in the bigger photo) at a guitar store. It's almost like "We're getting the band back together, I need a new axe, since I sold all of my old ones when we broke up" or something. I dunno, just seemed like a weird photo to me.
Oops, yeah I typoed Phil's name. I didn't think about the fact he went back that far... Van Morrison as an influence makes a lot of sense, especially since he was Irish. I never would have thought of Springsteen as a combination of Van and Bob Seger, but... it does make sense!
Heard the 1995 album (can't remember the name off the top of my head) with just Kale and Peterson from the original band. It was not very good. I also saw them on that tour. I can't remember the guy they had doing lead vocals, but he did not sound anything like Burton Cummings. The show was ok, but it was kind of like seeing a tribute band or something similar.
I think, for me, (and I know I'm completely alone in this) TL and GFR rank higher than LZ. But LZ rank higher than BTO. Aerosmith beats all the 70s hard Rock with limited Keyboards in my book.
I need to explore Steppenwolf
never checked out any UFO either... where should I start?
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
For UFO their live album "Strangers In The Night" is considered by most fans to be their classic. For studio albums "Lights Out" is probably my favorite.
(coughs)
Bob Seger (note correct spelling of his name).
Pots and kettles department.
Petty Cougar Segersteen... never cared for any of that Americana schlock
Last edited by MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER; 07-10-2015 at 01:13 AM.
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
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