#the roches

[recliningbacchante]

#hammond song #the roches

[heidismagblog]

#creem #creem magazine #the roches #terre roche #maggie roche #suzzy roche

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

The Roches - Metropol, Berlin, Germany, November 3, 1982

Sometimes, nothing but The Roches sounds good. Here, we've got an excellent Rockpalast performance from around the time of the Keep On Doing LP. Maggie, Terre and Suzzy kick things off in fine fashion with that album's "Losing True," sending laser beams of pure harmony out into the crowd of rowdy Berliners. Somehow, that crowd remains a little rowdy throughout the Roches set — how??? Well, it turns out they were waiting for the Go-Go's, who were riding high on a few new wave hits at the time. Can we check out the Go-Go's, too? Oh yeah, we can.

But before you do that, dig the one-two punch that The Roches close with — Dylan's "Clothesline Saga" and "Hammond Song." That Dylan cover is an especially inspired choice, allowing the sisters to inhabit a number of characters and voices, uttering gnomic riddles and otherwise unspeakable truths beneath everyday exchanges. That's kinda the same thing that happens on "Hammond Song," too. Has Bob ever listened to "Hammond Song"? I bet he has.

#the roches #the go go's #bob dylan

[dollarbin]

Nickel Bin #2:

The Roches' Hammond Song

Some songs have no peers.

There's nothing comparable to Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone: while his efforts to write another anthem are many, and they vary from the successful (Knocking on Heaven's Door) to the underappreciated (Changing of the Guard) to the overrated (Gotta Serve Somebody) to the annoying unless you are in a very weird mood (Brownsville Girl), he, and everybody else, has never come close to a comparable synergy of warmth, anger and energy.

I think The Roches' Hammond Song is equally unique. Suzzy, Terre and Maggie Roche never climbed a musical mountain like it again in their fitful, joyful and far too short career together, and I don't know any other song or group that presents such bizarre and daring vocals (they range from startlingly androgynous to winningly effete and back again); where else can you hear three such utterly distinct voices sharing a space with such elegance? Add to that mix the unique layers afforded by the song's length and its guitar solos, plus its confusing but vital story, and you've got yourself a masterpiece.

Let's listen.

First of all they're not singing about Heaven. They're singing about Hammond, Louisiana and Maggie and Terre's decision, years earlier, to ditch their budding music career altogether. It seems there was a Kung Fu school (seriously!) in Hammond that a friend was running and that seemed like a better place to be than in New York City, wearing clothes assigned to them by their record company.

The song is a natural cousin to Cat Stevens' Father and Son: In Hammond Song The Roches present a musical debate between the patriarchs in their life and themselves; they sing both sides of the argument and they let you choose the winner.

The song opens with a long, suspenseful opening that gives way to warm strumming and then the refrain's three part harmony. But then it swerves for the first wild time into Maggie Roche alone, and she's telling the band they're "on the wrong track". What other voice is like hers? I'm afraid my sexist biases hear her unique contralto and summon up a woman on a motorcycle with arms the size of my thighs who smokes six packs a day and would happily kick my ass while having yet another. But here she is:

Maggie died 6 or 7 years ago. My famous brother's friend Ryan, who recently bought me a very delicious beer at a Yo La Tengo show, sobbed when he heard the news. The more time I spend listening to Maggie's music, the more I understand where he was coming from. Just take a listen to Quitting Time from the same record:

At the end of each section of Hammond Song The Roches hit and hold a high, odd and transfixing note. You can hear it for the first time on the Ooooo after the first section, soon after Maggie's introduces her voice. That same note, or one close to it anyway, comes back again before the first guitar solo on "you're LYYYYYYing to me", then again on "don't be a FOOOOL."

When CS&N reach for a note like that I wonder just what the hell I'm doing with my life. When Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris finally threw off the concerns of their record companies in the mid-80's and came together as a bluegrass version of The Roches they hit some angelic notes, yes, but they never sounded weird. Such weirdness is a big part of Hammond Song's, and the band's, genius.

And capturing that weirdness, and that note, is still a goal for a new bands. Check out Meg Baird search for and then find it - and then keep it for an impossible, audacious length, at 3:15 mark of Heron Oblivion's seismic Your Hollows:

Next time I get an hour with Baird in a bar I'll ask her about Hammond Song as a basis for Your Hollows instead of quizzing her on Mike Heron. Poor Meg. I suppose she's been warned.

And now that you have Heron Oblivion in your ears, let's talk about Hammond Song's guitar solos. That's Robert Fripp, of King Crimson/Eno/Bowie/Talking Heads fame, making himself known. He walks a careful and skillful line in his production of the song and the record around it: you never forget he's there but he never gets in the way. This is the sisters' record and the sisters' song. But wow, what a guitar sound he achieves: it's nearly as weird as the vocals, part theremin, part Hendrix, all magic.

Finally, Hammond Song avoids easy cliche in its storytelling as well. Okay, their male authorities wanted them to put on sexy dresses and stop being weird, but the girls said no and became their awesome selves instead:

Lesser artists would have wrapped the story up with victory. But Maggie and her sisters know it's not that simple. When they released Hammond Song their story was far from over: the record could have tanked; it could have proved the record company right.

And so The Roches bring us into the debate; they let us decide whether their defiance in life and in the song are justified. "Tell me," they appeal to us in the song's conclusion, "I'm okay."

Dear Suzzy, Terre and Maggie,

You are not okay. You are the best.

Sincerely,

The Nickel Bin

#Youtube #the roches #bob dylan #like a rolling stone #the hammond song #stephen stills still sucks

[soundgrammar]

The Roches (left to right: Suzzy, Maggie, Terre)

#The Roches

[dreamgirledward]

current mental state: DO YOUR EYES HAVE AN ANSWER TO THIS SONG OF MINE ???

#literally nothing hits the way this does😭😭😭😭 #truly an otherworldly song #hammond song #the roches #Spotify

[spilladabalia]

The Roches featuring Robert Fripp ''Hammond Song''

#hammond song #terre roche #maggie roche #suzzy roche #robert fripp #larry fast #tony levin #jim maelen #art pop #progressive folk #the roches #1979 #Youtube

[jt1674]

#the roches #runs in the family #maggie #terre #suzzy

[transgender-lyrics]

Do your eyes have an answer To this song of mine They say we meet again On down the line Where is on down the line? How far away? Tell me I'm okay

-The Roches, "Hammond Song" off The Roches

#artist: The Roches #song: Hammond Song #album: The Roches #the roches #1970s music #70s music #folk pop #contemporary folk #folk music #music #music blog #quotes blog #lyrics #lyric posting #lyric quotes

[secretlifeofarabia]

Bowie and Robert Fripp watch The Roches perform at The Venue, London. The New Jersey group was promoting their debut album which Fripp had produced and played on Photo by Justin Thomas

from https://www.bowiegoldenyears.com/

#David Bowie #robert fripp #the roches

[mellowchouchou]

#Philip Glass #Liquid Days #In Liquid Days #Liquid Days Part 1 #The Roches #1980s #pop music #baroque pop #artpop #music #baroque pop music #artpop music

[mezmer]

I hate that every single article about the meaning of this song is WRONG posturing that it’s about maturing, from the point of view of a disappointed family, or something like that. This song is about losing a great friend to addiction…. Very utterly clearly to me. There is so much more loss and emotion in the line: “they say we meet again, on down the line. Where is on down the line? How far away? Tell me I’m okay” than just a family disappointed in their daughter for having a shitty boyfriend like these articles say. This girl is an addict and they aren’t enabling her. They’re losing her. Jsut my two sense. I feel it in my very soul and think of people I know while listening to this. Going down to hammond probably is a neighborhood where the subject of the song goes and cops. Idk every line of this song tells me that story I could analyze the whole thing if somebody would bother reading. I mean yes I know lots of songs are meant to be up for interpretation for the listener but this is one of those songs meant to tell a story

#the roches

[albeckett]

I never understood you slur your words—why? You walk that mean and tough guy walk Of all the other guys who hang around The kind of animal that goes in herds—why? But at your mother's house last Sunday dinnertime With your defenses down I fell in love

#the harmonies on the chorus... that's what falling in love sounds like #the roches #ennis music

[franziskas-record-store]

The Roches is such a funny album in concept. It’s a debut for this folk trio of sisters, nothing special there. Oh yeah, and it’s produced by who is, arguably, the face of progressive rock. Robert-motherfucking-Fripp. And he plays Frippertronics on the album. You know, something that only really appears on his albums and on King Crimson albums. Oh, and Tony Levin is there, too. But no, it’s still folk. Like what.

Still a great album, though.

#robert fripp #the roches #folk music #king crimson #prog rock #progressive rock #music blog #my music #music

[soundgrammar]

The Roches - "The Troubles"

#The Roches #Youtube

[thedarknesssings]

Prompt 16: A Long Time Ago

Prompt 16: Deiform - FFXIV Write 2022 Characters:  The Unspoken Ones.  (This is based on player-created alternate Gelmorran history accepted by the group I RP with regularly.)   Content Warning: Body horror, blood, punishment.  

“Come here,” The Sleeper commanded.

And he obeyed, crawling on hands and knees across the cold, grey stone.  Bare skin held no protection against the scrape of the rocks or the seeping dark.  Blood smeared the ground in his wake like an offering.  His lips trembled when they met the hand lowered for him to lick.  The water droplets still adorning his skin had a crisp taste to them.

“Present.”  The Sleeper’s voice is unhurried, liquid and smooth even when resonating through the cavern chamber.  An viper’s head rose from its pile of coils near the Sleeper’s feet, sapphire eyes far too bright and attentive in the darkness.  The viper’s hiss burned into the elf’s ears, pricked at his mind, his heart, whispered of truth but never of mercy.

“My Lord,” The Justicar stepped forward, hand to his heart, head bowing in deference.  These Gelmorrans were vicious, the ones that served the Sleeper and his kin.  The Unspoken Ones, the devout called them.  “This beast attacked one of the High Priestess’s maidens.  She has suffered greatly at his hands, and the people call for his sacrifice to atone for his slight against you.”

The beast lifted his head and dared to stare up at the Sleeper.  These entities they unearthed without intention.  Gelmorra lies sprawled between the Shroud ruled by the elements and the depths haunted by the Unspoken Ones.  Those that dwelled in the lowest reaches of the City came to revere these old entities they’re digging had awoken. Some were more zealous than others, pandering for position and power, coming to rule this sector and reaching beyond to claim more.  All in the name of the Unspoken, all according to the song sung in the Dark.

The white and black wings of an enormous moth fluttered in the leafless branches of the Ebontree the Sleeper’s throne was fashioned from.  In the early days when he was newly arisen, the Sleeper had commanded the roots and trunk to twist themselves into a seat for him to rule from.  The black wood was unlike any other tree the beast had seen, that any of them had seen, growing out of the charcoal rock and soil surrounding the lake of water so dark it stained any hand placed within it. Some spoke of souls lost to its depths, sucked clear out of them with mere contact.

“She offered herself to me.  I wish to bind my life to hers for all of my days.”  The beast clutched to the hand his lips peppered kisses on.  The cold, ashen fingers withdrew like water he couldn’t hold on to.  “No, no!  Please, my Lord!  I beg forgiveness.”

The skittering of the Spider echoed through the cavern, emerging alongside the throne to cast her multitude of eyes on the pitiful beast.  They had all come to watch, to see the commotion, but none spoke to save him.  This man had proven himself a beast.  The cavern filled with their whispers, their contorted language maddening to those non-devout.  The beast wept and collapsed on the ground, hands outstretched, his back hunched.  Begging, praying.

“A beast you have been marked as.”  The words came down as judgement.  A black tentacle seeped outward from the base of the throne, the flesh smooth and slick snaked around the beast’s throat, suckers imprinting themselves into the man’s flesh.  The constriction was absolute.  Eyes widened and lips spread on soundless pleas.  No more breath for useless prayers.  The Sleeper wanted to hear no more.

“You will serve the rest of your days as you have shown yourself to be.  A dog.”  The man’s figure bent in half, limbs snapping and shifting.  He couldn’t scream past the tentacle holding him.  Bones cracked and refused, flesh crawled and reformed, fur burst outward, coating the beast entirely.  By the time he was tossed to the ground, his tongue couldn’t bend around words, merely snuffles and growls, whimpers and soft woofs.  Penitent.  Belly to the stone.  

“Call the Hunter to collect his new hound.”

“Yes, my Lord.”  The Justicar clasped his hand to his heart once more, head bowing as he backed away from the Unspoken.  

#FFxivWrite2022 #Prompt 16 #ffxiv writers #writers on tumblr #The Unspoken Ones #The Darkness Sings #The Secariots #The Roches #Those whose names we do not speak