Re: (TV) Re: lunkhead, etc.

[Jesse Hochstadt <jesseh58@yahoo.com>]

Some TV fans seem to dig RT a lot, while other lunkheads - I mean, list members 
 =8^)=  - don't much care for him.

I think a lot of the difference has to do with the "angle" you approach RT from. 
RT is similar to TV in an avoidance of blues-based music - "modal" is the word I 
hear a lot; a concern with attack, a similar approach to tone (a rather dry 
sound, few effects, etc. - the musos and gearheads here will have better 
descriptions), and an avoidance of guitar heroics for heroics' sake, though when 
the song calls for it RT will blow the roof off - in that way he's a little more 
like Richard. (Richard once told me that he only heard RT after he'd already 
formed his own sound, but that once he did he heard a resemblance.)

But in terms of songwriting, they're very different. Tom's a romantic in a broad 
sense of the word, kind of abstract and somedays psychedelic or surreal. 
Richard, especially in more recent music, writes more concretely and 
specifically, and often about very dark sides of human nature. That last part 
often drives people away. But hear songs like "The Calvary Cross" for an 
exception. RT often draws strongly from folk traditions.

And RT's a dazzling acoustic player, while Tom - not so much. (The one bit of 
Richard's acoustic playing I saw was awful, but maybe it was a bad day.)

I think someone here should found a band called Lunk, as we already have a term 
for its followers.

- Jesse

----- Original Message ----
> From: Rex Broome <rexbroome@gmail.com>
> To: tv@obbard.com
> Sent: Mon, May 2, 2011 1:58:04 PM
> Subject: Re: (TV) Re: lunkhead, etc.
> 
> On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 10:19 AM, postitnote <postitnote@sbcglobal.net>wrote:
> 
> >  Hey all,
> >
> > Naw, I wasn't offended anyway, I didn't take it very  seriously.
> >
> > I see hear that Richard Thompson is very popular  here.  I'm not very
> > familiar
> > w/ him, I've only looked at a  couple of YouTubes of him so far.
> 
> 
> Thompson has a dense back catalog  and it's daunting, but a lot of us here
> who obsess (just a bit) about Tom's  guitar playing consider RT to be one of
> the closest soloists to Tom in terms  of style, melodic choices, etc... his
> playing just has a similar "vibe", in  addition to which it's just totally
> great.  He's also a great  songwriter.
> 
> I'm pretty sure Tom has at one time or another acted like  he's not that
> familiar with RT, and I'm pretty sure most of us classify that  as Tom being
> Tom (i.e. not entirely honest at all times).
> 
> Mekons,  X-Ray Spex, and a lot of what's often called "post-punk" music (here
> we go  with genre labels again, but I'm thinking of Gang of Four, PIL,
> Magazine,  Slits, etc.) have some pretty ardent devotees around here.  I
> think the  last spurt of list activity before this one was set off by the
> death of Ari  Upp.
> 
> -Rex
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