Classic Rock Song of the Day (Deep Cuts now being featured!!)

[hefdaddy42]

Never heard it.

[KevShmev]

Also, Kev, it's very fitting you've posted it today, 16th of July, the very day Jon Lord passed away two years ago.

I wish I could say I was clever enough to where I did it on purpose, but I had no idea.

[Kwyjibo]

Lazy is kinda cool but Purple has/had better songs out there imo.

[jingle.boy]

Lazy is kinda cool but Purple has/had better songs out there imo.

Seconded.

As for the Boston 'big 3', up here, RnR Band is the third.

This Deep Tracks theme ought to get interesting. Time to separate the real fans, from the radio-hit fans - of which I'm guilty on several fronts.

[Jaq]

Lazy for me...much like Child In Time...is the version off Made In Japan. Haven't heard the studio version in years. Great tune, like most Purple from that era.

[Podaar]

Lazy for me...much like Child In Time...is the version off Made In Japan. Haven't heard the studio version in years. Great tune, like most Purple from that era.

I actually thought this is what we were talking about!    I don't believe I've ever heard the studio version.

[Jaq]

To be honest, I am pretty sure I have heard it, but it's been so long since I did, I might just be telling myself that. 

[KevShmev]

Foreigner - Starrider

I actually heard this song on the radio once, way back in the mid 90s, and I was shocked when I figured out that it was by Foreigner.  It sounds so unlike everything else I knew by them, and that is not even factoring in that Lou Gramm is not the lead vocalist in this tune.  To this day, I like it a lot, and it remains one of the few Foreigner songs I will revisit when scrolling past them in my iTunes.

[Orbert]

Foreigner's first album is amazing, and this song is one of the reasons.  Ian McDonald.  I saw Foreigner when they were touring Head Games, and this song was one of the features.  Ian took an amazing flute solo, accompanied by some awesome (for the time) video effects, then they came back round into another guitar solo, another chorus, and finished the song.  A definite highpoint, and I already liked the song.

[Podaar]

Holy hell! I haven't heard this in so long that I was about to post that I wasn't familiar with it. But then I searched it out and found that I could sing along with the whole song. I don't think I owned this album but my buddy (coincidently named Kevin) had it and played the crap out of it.

Anyway, great song. I really like the vibe!

[hefdaddy42]

Holy hell! I haven't heard this in so long that I was about to post that I wasn't familiar with it.

Same here.  I will check it out when I get home.

[Lowdz]

I played some Foreigner today _ Agent Provocateur and Inside Information albums. Not heard much of their older stuff, Cold As Ice and Jukebox Hero aside.

[Jaq]

Foreigner's first album is amazing, and this song is one of the reasons.  Ian McDonald.  I saw Foreigner when they were touring Head Games, and this song was one of the features.  Ian took an amazing flute solo, accompanied by some awesome (for the time) video effects, then they came back round into another guitar solo, another chorus, and finished the song.  A definite highpoint, and I already liked the song.

I was going to mention how awesome this song was live with the flute solo and whatnot, having heard it on some bootlegs, but of course Orbert beat me to it 

Great song. Foreigner's debut goes in a lot of directions that they didn't really get into after that, and Starrider is one of those directions I wish they'd played up more often.

[Orbert]

The year was 1979, we were Juniors in high school.  My friend Chris called me at around 5:30 and said he'd won tickets to see Foreigner tonight but he had no way to get there.  If I could drive, the other ticket was mine.  Pine Knob Music Theater (R.I.P.) was an indoor-outdoor venue, with pavillion and lawn seating, and it was two hours away.  Fifteen minutes later, with a full tank of gas, we were on the highway.

The local radio station had three pairs of tickets, and he'd won the last pair.  When he got to the radio station to pick them up, however, he was the first one, so they gave him his choice.  They were under the pavillion all together and maybe halfway back, but right in the middle.  He picked the two in the middle.  That was at 2:00 in the afternoon, and he'd been calling people all day trying to find a ride.  I'd come home at 5:30 for dinner, but obviously this took priority.  My sister didn't need the car, my mom said it was okay.  Yeah, baby!

Traffic was insane as we got off the exit and neared the venue.  7:30 came and went as we sat in an endless line of cars.  8:00, we were inside the big gates, but parking was nuts.   The marquee outside had said "FOREIGNER WITH SPECIAL GUESTS HERMAN BROOD AND HIS WILD ROMANEC" (sic).  I'd actually heard of them, heard they sucked.  They were just leaving the stage as we walked in.  Perfect timing.

We found our seats while a lot of people were either still arriving or taking a break as Herman Brood and His Wild Romance had just finished.  Chris was on my left, two other dudes about our age, maybe a little older, were on my right.  They looked like stoners, and I briefly wondered whether they'd share.  Pavillion seating, 70's, oh yeah.  I introduced myself and we chatted a little bit.

I heard Chris saying "Hi! How's it going?" to the people on the other side of him as they were sitting down.  A couple, late 20's maybe, the girl was kinda cute though, and... Holy Shit! The "girl" was our junior high band director (who was kinda cute).

Tthe lights went down, Foreigner came out, and you could see lighters flickering all over the place, including immediately to my right.  Something smelled good.  They passed it over (cool!)  I gestured, silently asking whether I could pass it over to Chris, and the one guy nodded, but Chris waved me off emphatically, since he was sitting next to our old band director.  Right, like she cared.  I sure as hell didn't.  So fine, I passed it back, and eventually the three of us got pretty baked.

When "Starrider" started, you could practically hear half the audience going "Oh yeah, this song!".  When the flute solo came and on the big screen behind them we were flying off into the stars, I was flying too.

Great concert, Foreigner totally rocked.  Man, I miss the 70's.

[KevShmev]

Stories like that are why I love this thread.

[King Postwhore]

A few years ago (I think, I'm too damn old ) I got all the remasters of Foreigner and this was the first CD I got and the first song and it blew me away.  I forgot how good their early album cuts were.

[Kwyjibo]

I have no stories to tell like Orbert but I really like the first Foreigner record. Starrider is great and it sounds not like the typical Foreigner. Although I really like some of the later records, I wish they would do something like this song more often.

Starrider to me always feels like a 70s prog song, though it isn't really prog, but somehow the vibe is there.

[Orbert]

Yeah, Foreigner wasn't prog, but I wouldn't really call them pop either.  Just really good rock and roll, at least in the beginning, sometimes stretching out into some really cool stuff, like "Starrider".  I mean, come on, Ian McDonald was a founding member of King Crimson.  You know he brought some of that with him to Foreigner, and they were never the same after he left.  Then they really did become just a pop band.

[Kwyjibo]

I always think of Foreigner as 80s rock.
When I came to know Foreigner (through the radio at the beginning of the 80s) I didn't know who Ian McDonald and King Crimson were. Heck, back then I didn't even know who was in the band. That came later, and ever since then I wonder what McDonald was doing in Foreigner. From serious prog to pop/rock? But then I think of Steve Howe and Asia 

[Orbert]

I think a lot of really talented musicians have wide ranges in the types of music they like to play, simple as that.  Sure, Steve Howe is probably best known for his work in Yes, but listen to any of his solo albums, and it's clear that he's also into classical, jazz, country, and all kinds of cross-blends between them.  He left Asia again last year because between Yes and his own jazz trio, he didn't have time, but he's always spoken very positively of his time(s) in Asia.  I remember specifically him being asked about "Heat of the Moment" way back when, and he said it was cool opening a song with power chords; he could never do that in Yes.

If you check out Ian McDonald's resumι, it's similar, though not as extensive and wide-ranging as Howe's.  He started as a session musician.  You know the T-Rex song "Get It On (Bang a Gong)"?  He's on there; I'm guessing that's him on the sax solo.  So yeah, after helping form the original King Crimson, he left, helped start Foreigner a decade later, and has basically seemed to do whatever he wants.  He's been a pivotal member of the 21st Century Schizoid Band (something like a King Crimson tribute band, made of former Crimson members), and has played on Robert Fripp's solo albums.  And has also played with... Asia.  So it comes full circle.

[Kwyjibo]

Orbert, I really like your answers full of knowledge and side notes, even when the question wasn't really meant serious 

I myself like different styles of music and if I would still play in bands, I'd like the music we play to be varied. So when McDonald wants to play pop/rock or Steve Howe wants to play powerchords I'm all for it. But nonetheless I'm always surprised if a musician known for a certain kind of music suddenly does something different.

And I find it fascinating that there was (and still is) a lot of crossing over between bands and their members. Sometimes I think that in certain genres everyone has played with everyone.

[Orbert]

Yeah, I figured your remark was tongue-in-cheek, but I'm a teacher; I can't resist an opportunity to enlighten (that is, show off my knowledge of trivia).

I love that rock musicians of every genre and subgenre seem to play with each other without prejudice, almost the way jazz musicians do.  I made a mix tape years ago, just for fun, with the only requirement being that each song had to have at least one person singing or playing on it who was also on the previous song.  Not surprisingly, King Crimson came around three times in 90 minutes, as there are so many guys who've played in Crimson who have also played with lots of other bands and artists.

[Kwyjibo]

Teach all you want, my remark that I like your answers was meant in earnest. One can't know enough trivia about their favorite artists.

[KevShmev]

I gotta be honest: I was not expecting this much discussion as a result of featuring a Foreigner deep cut.

[hefdaddy42]

That's why this place is so awesome.

[KevShmev]

Queen - Liar

A friend swears this got played on the radio back in the 70s, but I never heard it on the radio back in my radio-listening days of the 90s.  When I finally dug into Queen's albums, after knowing nothing but their many hits for years, this was one that stood out right away; it was rocking, and melodic, and dirty, and majestic, all at the same time.  It's still one of my two or three favorites from their underrated debut album.

[Zydar]

One of the highlights from the debut album, great song!

[Podaar]

Not my favorite from the debut album (that would be reserved for "Great King Rat") but it's a great rocking tune that always makes drive a little too fast when it comes on in the truck! I'll  have to agree with your underrated characterization. I've met very few fans who rate the debut very highly but personally I'd rank it in the top four for Queen albums. A terrific performance by Freddie, but that's no surprise, is it?

[KevShmev]

I'm a huge fan of Great King Rat, too, and that tune could have just as easily been featured here, but I thought Liar was the better choice for this thread.

[Podaar]

To be honest, I've never heard either on the radio, but I would assume Liar is much more likely to be a radio deep cut.

[Orbert]

I've heard "Liar" on the radio a few times.  I like it.  It kinda reminds of the Three Dog Night song with the same name, though, especially with the angry refrain "Liar!" shouted in harmony like that.  In the Three Dog Night song, though, the first person is singing to someone else, accusing them of being a liar.  As far as I can tell, Freddy is talking about himself, and how no one ever believes him.

[hefdaddy42]

Never heard Liar on the radio, but it's definitely a great song.

[KevShmev]

Camel - Who We Are

Oddly, this is the only Camel song I've ever heard played on the radio, since it is considered a KSHE Klassic - https://www.kshe95.com/music/klassics-atoz - which are mainly songs that got played on the radio at some point, but are only played on rare occasions now.  This threw me at the time, since I was like, "What song is this?!"  It wasn't one of the three songs from I Can See Your House from Here that was on the double CD compilation that got me into the band, so it seemed odd to me, at the time.  That all aside, it's a really good song.  It has the usual great Camel instrumentation and some very nice vocal melodies.  It's now easy to see why this is the only song by them I ever heard on the radio (although it's not the only song of theirs on that KSHE Klassics list).

[Orbert]

Wow, I've never heard Camel on the radio.  I've heard of Camel, and downloaded a bunch of their albums, but I've never really taken the time to dig into them.  What I've heard sounds good; I just don't have the time to check out new bands like I used to.

Ha ha, "new" bands.  You know what I mean.

[KevShmev]

I do, and that is a bummer, cause, given your tastes, Camel would be a band you should go nuts over.