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Post by nonrabbit on May 30, 2009 8:22:59 GMT
This is the thread where we can share the reasons why we like Tull - the music-the lyrics - the memories and why we are fans....Like most people I couldn't give all the reasons in one post so I hope that this thread can be jumped in at any time with additions as they come to mind Picking up on the why do I like Tull question - When I listened to Aqualung - first album I thought it sounded and looked totally different from anything else I had heard before. It goes without saying I had never heard the flute played like that or in a band before ! In my head all these years later I am trying hard to remember what it was that hooked me and made that huge crucial step in looking for more! I liked the story that the album told about the tramp/ Mother Goose and most importantly the religious aspect which was huge to me then. Here was someone questioning what I was questioning too! It was a big thing then to write songs critising God and religion. I loved the art work on the album. I haven't mentioned anything about the music cause I'm saving that for my thesis on Benefit !!!!!!! Sufficent to say the style of music on the album fitted in to what I liked then but with a more melodic/acoustic slant than I had been listening too from rock bands. I loved Locomotive and thought it was so clever in the arrangement - electric guitar and flute and the build up and the chugging of the train.
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Post by tullistray on May 30, 2009 13:02:32 GMT
Firstly thanks to the Non Rabbit for constantly coming up with new notions. I was pretty disapointed in 68 at 12 when the Cream decided to disband after 2 years. FM underground radio was a new and very different type of thing to the often excellent and funny AM top 40 I had grown up on. The announcers in either format were often very funny but very different, on this new underground format sometimes there would be 30 second gaps where the announcer wasn't on the air at all which I still think is pretty cool. Anyway hearing A New Day Yesterday, and really the sound out of MB I thought this may be a suitable replacement, but it really wasn't cemented until my second TAAB show. Thought the first one in 5/72 was brilliant but was puzzled why my friend Al could place deeper affection towards Tull than what I considered the unassailable Beatles and Jimi. Sorry to continue to mention psychedelics folks but it really did have everything to do with why nearly the same show in 11/72 threw me for such a loop. It may have had something to do with group gestalt (that many mostly very young people tripping together AND paying close attention, I recall when I arrived my friend Randy coming to my seat in trippers silence and wordlessly placing about 5 joints in my hand and going back to his seat) as well the idea of having that many people at that level of excitement (although the band maintained that level of popularity for 2 or 3 more years but not throughout the seventies I believe Tull interest was never higher than at this moment ) tripping created the perfect atmosphere for IA specifically to burn a permanent imprint on our minds and hearts. I recall at least 10 of us had to meet the following day to discuss what had occured to us, it was as if we had been allowed to go into a different reality that only IA knew the way out of. Though I had seen that building shake to the very rafters for the 60's era Chicago Blackhawks, Bobby Hull the Golden Jets time, the response to a couple aspects of the Tull show was something I have never seen before or since. (Though, oddly there was something a little bit similar at a Hawkwind show in3/74, where, at the end the crowd truly did not understand that this was not part of the show, very potent doses that night, and its been released on CD, but finally I don't like Hawkwind much) I have never seen a band where the stage preparation was almost part of the show, very efficient and businesslike but when it finally came around to bringing out Ian's what looked to be well polished flutes, (as were Barrie's cymbals but we were tripping) there was a standing ovation that, had I been a member of the band, may have frightened me. Would love to hear a boot of that specific show because at the end of Brick there was a stunned silence, almost like we were waiting for permission to applaud in that grand old building that had hosted so many monumental events like the nomination of Franklin Roosevelt, and the response was a standing ovation of 20000 mostly hippies at a point of excitation that I don't think many of us have ever revisited, succeeding waves of pure adulation. I think IA said something like, and now for our second number. Prior to the show he had said that they would like to play a rather lengthy piece which had been the subject of a recent gramaphone recording.
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Post by steelmonkey on May 30, 2009 20:55:06 GMT
The music and lyrics of Jethro Tull, from the first day I heard them, till today and presumably till I expire, is the only proof I have that I was sent to the right planet, at the right time, by whomever decides those kinds of things.
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Post by fatman on May 31, 2009 5:59:27 GMT
This is the thread where we can share the reasons why we like Tull - the music-the lyrics - the memories and why we are fans....Like most people I couldn't give all the reasons in one post so I hope that this thread can be jumped in at any time with additions as they come to mind Picking up on the why do I like Tull question - When I listened to Aqualung - first album I thought it sounded and looked totally different from anything else I had heard before. It goes without saying I had never heard the flute played like that or in a band before ! In my head all these years later I am trying hard to remember what it was that hooked me and made that huge crucial step in looking for more! I liked the story that the album told about the tramp/ Mother Goose and most importantly the religious aspect which was huge to me then. Here was someone questioning what I was questioning too! It was a big thing then to write songs critising God and religion. I loved the art work on the album. I haven't mentioned anything about the music cause I'm saving that for my thesis on Benefit !!!!!!! Sufficent to say the style of music on the album fitted in to what I liked then but with a more melodic/acoustic slant than I had been listening too from rock bands. I loved Locomotive and thought it was so clever in the arrangement - electric guitar and flute and the build up and the chugging of the train. I think that part of the appeal, also, was that as teenagers we were tired of the BS that we constantly were being fed by our teachers, parents, government officials and clergymen. We were confused, grappling for knowledge and seeking honesty and truthful answers to our questions, which we found not only in Ian's lyrics, but also in the purity of his flute-playing and the beauty of his acoustic songs. Jeff
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Post by harrowman on May 31, 2009 8:09:00 GMT
First heard Tull on an Island sampler Nice Enough To Eat track was We Used To Know immediately realised this band was something different. Then came the first appearance on Top Of The Pops almost a Eureka moment! Went out and bought Benefit and that was that. The beginning of a life-long love affair which continues to this day.
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Post by nonrabbit on Jun 9, 2009 8:57:48 GMT
Shall we extend this thread now to include the albums/songs?BENEFIT i43.images obliterated by tinypic/2vteaz6.jpg[/IMG] This is my favourite and the most influential album ever to me. The album is brilliantly constructed both musically and lyrically - swirling around like mad! When I heard it for the first time I didn't know what was going to come next. The songs don't sound dated and are just as totally unique and sublime as they were for me in 1972 when I first heard them. The cover sleeve was uninspiring or so I thought then however now I see it as fitting the album and the mood of most of the songs. The song which has had the biggest effect on my life - no holding back now is on this album - To Cry... I listened to the album daily with the curtains drawn with all the anxiety of the teenage years - not quite hitting my head off the wall but certainly rocking back and forth The words "driving through London town crying a song.." went round and round my head like a mantra. London was the music/party mecca so after dosing myself on the songs I upped sticks and hitched a lift down to London. I won't say I had a ball more along the lines of a lucky escape but it was part of growing up. Benefit is part of my life and thank you Tull for producing that masterpiece and Ian for sharing some of his angst. Ps I know what it meant to me but does anyone else have any other ideas what he mean't by the word "crying" a song?
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Post by maddogfagin on Jun 9, 2009 9:34:07 GMT
Why not.
As Mrs Maddog pointed out some while back, we're all in our own way keeping and updating an archive for future generations so that they can enjoy and discuss Tull. Whether you agree or disagree with other Tull fans is not really the important point - what is important is that we're "keeping the flame alive" so that future generations can look back and see and hear the music we enjoy just as folks enjoy the music of, for example, Beethoven, Eldward Elgar or Louis Armstrong.
Benefit is my favourite album, but only just. Heavy Horses brings back strong memories for me as does Crest or Passion Play for example. Each has their own part to play in my life acting as bench marks where I took a right or, for that matter, wrong turning in my life.
If often wonder how different my musical preferences would have been if I'd turned down the chance of seeing Tull in the early years and I regret having not seen Tull play live in the seventies when I seem, in hindsight, to have been working 26 hours a day to raise a family, pay bills and afford the luxuries in life that we all crave and enjoy.
Given another chance, I'd probably like the same music, make the same decisions (for right or wrong reasons) and be the same as I am now.
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