SNL once, back in the old days, had to go to commercial in the middle of a Zappa appearance, they just cut him right off. Same with Sun Ra. Did SNL really think they were somehow going to fit "Space is the Place" into a 5-minute slot? Bwahahahahaha!
SNL once, back in the old days, had to go to commercial in the middle of a Zappa appearance, they just cut him right off. Same with Sun Ra. Did SNL really think they were somehow going to fit "Space is the Place" into a 5-minute slot? Bwahahahahaha!
High Vibration Go On - R.I.P. Chris Squire
It wasn't a DVD, it was a CD "longbox" of the "Bring Em Back Alive" live set they were promoting. Remeber those longbox things that the enviromentalists cried about so much? They were a waste of cardboard, I have to agree.Originally Posted by Dave (in MA)
They were made to fit in LP record racks at the time.
They made for a good wall border in your dorm room, too.
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
The rationale made sense. And they did eventually figure out how to display CD's without them.
Yeah, the retailers did not want to spend the money to buy new fixtures, so they forced the consumer to pay for something they did not need, was immediately disposed of, and generated trash.
Then, they got the intermediate solution of the re-usable plastic holder, which should have been there from the beginning. (And, they had been through a small format before with cassettes.)
What I don't understand is they already had LP covers and "flats". Why not just slap on a clear plastic pocket CD holder (like the kind that comes with books)?
They'd fit right in the store browsers. The consumers wouldn't need new shelves and they'd still have the large format to stare at instead of the unreadable CDs.
Meanwhile, 30 years later and jewel cases are still crap. I like to throttle the person(s) who designed the hinges and the spider.
They didn't charge us anything extra for those longboxes. And why would they want to spend extra money if they didn't have to? Can you blame them for wanting to avoid that? Its just good business. Eventually someone came up with better ideas for displaying cd's and the industry changed.
Yeah, you're right, those angelic record companies wouldn't charge for packaging, they'd gladly absorb the cost and cut into their profits.
I remember discussions in the music press at that time. IIRC, the figure was at least $2.
You're right again! It's OUR duty as consumers to pay extra for something that we don't need or want.
No one had to re-invent the wheel and was purely a matter of building the displays in a different size. It was just not wanting to pay for it.
And, to re-iterate, there would have been no need for new fixtures if they had kept the CD package the same size as LPs, by adapting LP covers for CDs instead of creating the wasteful and easily breakable jewel case.
Last edited by A. Scherze; 03-27-2013 at 02:49 AM.
Thank you! PLUS, we could have KEPT ALBUM ARTWORK!!!!!
Joe Jackson, during an SNL performance (and in clear protest of the 5-minute limit) came to a dead stop and said, “That’s it, they won’t let us play anymore.”
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MIKE (a.k.a. "Progbear")
"You can take the war out of the soldier, but you can't raise that soldier from the dead."
--Shona Laing
N.P.:“Algos”-Finisterre/In limine
Nobody forced you to buy anything, you could have stuck with vinyl and cassettes. You seen to confuse retailers and record companies, but no matter. They were not doing anything wrong selling cd's that way. It was indeed wasteful with the garbage it produced, and eventually they moved away from that. But you want to set them both up as the enemy of the consumer, evil corporate entities out to deprive us of our money. If it was going to cost either of them more money to change the packaging or the display of cd's, you seem to have no problem with them paying up, no matter the cost. Why on earth would they want to do that voluntarily? Why would they want to cut into their profits, what company ever wants to do that?Yeah, you're right, those angelic record companies wouldn't charge for packaging, they'd gladly absorb the cost and cut into their profits.
I remember discussions in the music press at that time. IIRC, the figure was at least $2.
I remember that Dixie Dregs thing on The Tonight Show. At the time, Leno was really trying to re-invent the Tonight Show image by having people like Blue Man Group (back before anyone on) and even Motorhead. I remember at the time, Steve Morse was writing a column for one of the guitar magazines, and he did a piece about this particular appearance for one month's installment, I guess as a textbook on what it's like to do TV appearances. Anyway, he said they were actually scheduled to do two songs. I've never quite understood the "We've run out of time" scenario that seems to happen with talk shows (as in, "We were so busy farting around with the first guest, we don't have time for everything we have scheduled"), but this what happened here, so they had to drop one of the songs.
BTW, I still think the best talk show was when The Allman Brothers Band appeared on Johnny back in 1990, to promote the Seven Turns album. They did two songs on this instance, both of them curtailed slightly for broadcast reasons. But the cool thing was, the second tune they did was True Gravity, and Doc Severinsen and The Tonight Show Brass sat in:
That's actually how I first heard True Gravity, because I didn't have the album yet, and I always wished they had used the brass onstage when doing that one onstage.
What I didn't know until the advent of Youtube, was that about a year later, the Allmans came back, and they repeated the Tonight Show Brass thing, this time with an instrumental called Kind Of Bird:
When I found the Kind Of Bird clip on Youtube, I couldn't figure out how I managed to miss it when it first aired, until I realized it was around September or October of 91 that it happened. At that time, due to a particular stupid decision on my part, I was in an environment where I had a no access to a TV or VCR, and for whatever reason, I just never knew it had happened until more than a decade later.
I also remember the Allmans appear on Letterman multiple times in the mid 90's. I think there was about a three or four year run, where they'd do his show around the time of the annual Beacon run.
OH and talk about Night Music, I watched it a few times, but apparently missed quite a few memorable episodes (including one that had both Conway Twitty and The Residents, though unfortunately, when they did the big jam at the end The Residents, wearing their Cube-E costumes, merely danced while Conway and the other guests performed the final song).
Anyway, one that stood out in my mind when was a show that featured R&B songstress Nona Hendryx, Adrian Belew, Elliott Sharp (performing a piece that used samples of Pat Robertson shooting his mouth off), Pops Staples and a Bulgarian big band. At the end, the house band, Nona, Ade, E#, and Pops did a song together. It's insane, they're doing this song with Ade and E# doing these insane "outside" guitar solos, with Pops Staples singing back up vocals! Then they do a version of Take Me To The River, which added the Bulgarian guys to the mix! And what do you know, here's the entire episode on Youtube:
Oh, and here's Sonic Youth making their "network television debut" on Letterman:
Letterman had them on a couple other times, after he went over to CBS, but those weren't as good, as they did a couple of their more "normal" songs on those occasions.
Oh, and another of my favorites, Pete Townshend on Letterman. I love how Pete comes out, launches into the intro of Pinball Wizard, then when he gets to the last chord, before the actual song kicks in, and announces "I don't know why I'm not playing a song from my new album", and then well, the ending is also pretty awesome:
The funny thing about the longbox was that record companies insisted they were the only opportunity for album cover artwork, or whatever, in the CD age. The thing was, as I recall, virtually all long boxes were just plain with no artwork, or at best the record label's logo or an advertisement for other titles they'd released or whatever. And then there was those plastic deals they also, which you couldn't get open with the assistance of good quality scissors.
I seem to recall that the reason digi-packs were originally introduced was that they could take the place of the longbox in the store, and then when you opened the package, it could be folded up to take the place of the plastic jewel box. The Grateful Dead put out a few titles that way in the early 90's, and I know there were other artists who did that. I also remember someone pointing that this was intended to help stop pollution, but the little piece of paper with the instructions on how to fold up the digi-pack was obviously printed on non-recycled paper.
There was a point in the early 90's, where some stores had a display copy, and then when you wanted to buy something, you'd go up to the counter, and they'd draw the actual copy they sold to you from there. Basically the same deal you get with merchandise tables at shows. I remember that being the case when I bought my copy of Weasels Ripped My Flesh.
Technically, that wasn't the Dead, that was just Garcia and Weir, doing When I Paint My Masterpiece (typical Grateful Dead fashion, you're promoting your new album, which in any case was already a runaway hit, but instead of playing one of the "singles", you do a frelling Bob Dylan cover!).
But I do remember the conversation. Dave asks them about playing in Egypt, and I think it's Jerry who says "Oh, we were terrible", before repeating the myth that the Dead always folded up on "special occasions", before discussing nearly getting electrocuted at Woodstock (never mind the collapsing stage, police radio interference on the amps, or the rain).
This was/is my favorite episode also! I think the E# tune is called "Free Society". And don't forget the guitarist of the house band, Hiram Bullock (RIP) who also contributed to the great "outside guitar solos" at the end! (This was an excellent house band indeed, with Omar Hakim on the drums.) My other favorite episode of Night Music was with John Cale (doing Heartbreak Hotel). Can't remember the other musical guests for that one, but i remember it being a good show.)
Last edited by syncopatico; 03-27-2013 at 10:24 PM.
"Wouldn't it be odd, if there really was a God, and he looked down on Earth and saw what we've done to her?" -- Adrian Belew ('Men In Helicopters')
Yeah, you're right, I forgot to mention Hiram (who also the original guitarist in The World's Most Dangerous Band on the Letterman show back in the early 80's). His main axe at the time was, I think, a beat up pre-CBS Strat which someone (I think a previous owner) had fitted with humbuckers. So it was cool to see him playing that guitar on weekly basis.
Another episode of that show I must have missed, but someone told me about a few years later, was one that had both Conway Twitty and The Residents. I thought, "The show ending jam with that combination must have been something". Again, during the Youtube era I finally got to see the show, and was disappointed to find out that during the last number, The Residents (dressed in their Cube-E outfits) merely danced while Conway sang with, I think, the house band:
And here's synthesist (or is that synthetriss? Or perhaps synthetrix?) Suzanne Ciani on Letterman's short lived morning show (which is actually where I first saw him):
And just to prove that educational television isn't what it used to be, here's Suzanne on the late 70's/early 80's PBS show 3-2-1 Contact:
Last edited by GuitarGeek; 03-27-2013 at 11:19 PM.
Wow, Warren looks like a baby in that clip.
Course then there is Rush on the Colbert Report (Sorry for the weird video, but apparently it was pulled from Colbert's site and this is the way it stays on Youtube.)
Then there is Rush backstage on the Colbert Report, playing Rock Band.
I remember when cds first hit the market and we had about 8-10 of them in longboxes sitting in a record bin for months before we sold any. One reason for the longbox was the fear of theft. The other being not knowing how to physically display them. Cassettes had been around for years and were either in glass fronted cases accessible only by employees or in the plastic holders you had to remove with those horrible plastic "keys" that never seemed to work. 8 tracks also had always been behind the counter and required an employee's assistance to buy. Eventually the electronic strip and the plastic "locked" holders were used once sales increased enough to warrant using them, thus the beginning of the electronic gate days and those annoying warning messages when someone either tried to leave without paying or an employee would forget to deactivate the strip. This was also the beginnings of the use of bar codes and those stupid scanners were pretty much useless for the first few years. I still remember the plastic "longboxes" and how much room they took up. We had to dump the bin at the registers several times a day. I left the biz before the introduction of the digi-paks. There's also a really cool scene in Albert Brooks' film Defending Your Life involving cd longobxes and a bus.
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