R and S

This should take care of both R and S.



Here's the DVD that this is from. Might buy it sometime.

QMS

It was hard finding a seventies rock band beginning with Q which I felt like posting. This list isn't about the ballet, you know.

Here's what you need to know about this video before investing 20 minutes to watch it. The first part is a hard-rocking version of Bo Diddley's classic Who Do You Love. So if your short on time, you might want to end around the 6 minute mark. If you aren't in the mood for for any exploratory psychedelic stuff, then I wouldn't watch beyond that. And if you hate the Grateful Dead or the whole jam band/freak-out "experience", I wouldn't watch beyond 8 minutes. There is a complete freak-out at the end where everyone goes nuts, including the guy working the zoom lens behind one of the drummers. To me it's hilarious and worth watching just for the laugh.



It's impossible not to compare Quicksilver Messenger Service to the Grateful Dead. Both bands formed in San Francisco in 1965. And... two drummers and a percussionist? Well, all three were probably doing a drum circle out on the sidewalk when the band first formed. The chick in the long white dress doing the acid hand dance probably ended up following the dead and some point. Her clones have become psychedelic jam band staples. In my opinion, after watching this video, all of the guitarists in QMS are better than Jerry Garcia. When they aren't doing the free form thing, they're tight.

I want to go back and get more of that funky stuff

The obvious seventies rock band beginning with P is Pink Floyd. But frankly I'm sick of 'em. So we gonna do some other stuff to-day, kids.

Castles of stone, soul and glory

Incredible performance.

This is just what the doctor ordered

Nuge!

"She moved better on wine"

You do know what I mean, don't you?

[cheeseball...]

Let me take you there

I considered Lonesome Loser by Little River Band just to go all Sesame Street on the letter L, but I settled on good ol' Led Zeppelin.



Robert Plant referred to Kashmir as the "definitive Led Zeppelin song" and all the members of the band similarly raved about it as their peak achievement. (Source)

Keep Calm and Carry On My Wayward Son

This is probably my kids' favorite seventies rock song. I'm not sure they know what "wayward" means, fortunately.



Wow — that's a Stradivarius Tambourine that Robby Steinhardt is playing! Nothing sounds quite like one of those.

Here's another version which has great optics. I think it's the studio track with concert footage. Basically a rock video.

Double J

Journey. Introduced by Wolfman Jack.



Incredible vocals and harmonies. Steve Perry makes singing like an opera star look effortless.

The best drummer I ever knew disliked seventies rock intensely. Yet he told me that Steve Smith was probably the one drummer he respected and imitated the most. (Well, next to Copeland, of course.)

I is for Iommi

...or Iron Man, I suppose. The only seventies bands I could think of beginning with "I" are Iron Butterfly, which to me is a sixties band, and Iron Maiden which, in my mind, will always be an eighties metal band.

This tune is all Iommi, IMHO.

I know what's ailing me

Just like Dylan's All Along the Watchtower was practically written for Jimi Hendrix to cover...



...Ray Charles might as well have written I Don't Need No Doctor for these white Brits.

Coming to your town

In my short career in rock music performance we never even stayed at a hotel with a "detective".

We did meet some Connie wanna-bes, tho'....

"Open up; Everything's waiting for you"

The live versions were of such low quality, so here's the studio version. Kicks.

I was going to post Stay With Me by Faces for F but I'd already posted that at least once. Then I thought about a Peter Frampton tune, but that was a little bit poppy for my mood. So it had to be Fleetwood Mac; I think that's where the initials "FM" come from. Or it should have.

"We will never be here again."

Just your foolish pride

Like this song a lot, as many of you know. Linked to an updated live version in the past.

Move over Janis and Big Brother

...let Lydia take over!



By request from a reader. This band kicks, and they are still playing!

Come on, come on, come on...

Live version was out of sync. Anyway, it looks like I'm doing the alphabet in seventies rock here. I have no idea why, other than it's fun.

Run down and lied to

This is just kicking right now, man.

"We'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun"

Right now.

"And it was all right"

Wow, what a great mashup. Someone took a video of a tune I'd never heard before called "I see you, you see me" by The Magic Numbers and put it behind VU's Rock and Roll. It totally works in my arrogant opinion.



At first I thought it was one of Warhol's films, which actually it may be. It has that feel. It's hard to figure out when it was shot.