Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Spacey Space

Haven’t recommended a show in a while, and I certainly haven’t recommended a show in which Vince was the highlight, and I am utterly positive that I’ve never recommended a show in which Vince was the highlight AND the best part of the show was Space, but here we are at 9/16/91 from MSG.

It’s come to this.

It is, however, a spectacular Space that starts with a wheezing and sepulchral hockey organ that–if you’re not paying attention–will scare the shit out of you: it’s a breathtaking two minutes of demonic acoustics. Then there’s a fifteen-minute MIDIthon. Many people, some of them Enthusiasts, shun the MIDI-produced blorps and shmeeps of the era, but they are so wrong. So, so wrong.

(MIDI is a technology that, among other things, allowed you to play a synthesizer with a guitar or any other digital instrument. MIDI stands for Music Is Digital, Innit? It was invented in England.)

Rest of the show is outstanding, and you should listen to it, but Space is the place for this one.

Plus: Bruce Hornsby on GDTRFB.

9 Comments

  1. Tor Haxson

    Good Midi Jerry is very good.

    By the time he got his midi workin it was very good.

    Until then it was not always so good..

    Just sayin.

    • spencer

      This can go either way…..

      • spencer

        This, not so much.

  2. Tor Haxson

    Midi reminds me of the death of the analog synth. So perhaps I am biased against it.

    I remember my buddy shows up with a new synth and it had a midi output and was digital !!!

    Woo Hoo, little did we know that an era was passing.

    No more mellotron using tapes, no more mini moog, no more fat chunky notes or crazy colliding oscilators, no sir, just layered midi. Big washes of strings, sound like a symphony .. not like a funk attack.

    Trump would say something appropriate about the birth of digital synth.

    • Corry342

      The Grateful Dead, for all their adventurousness, never used a Mellotron. Opportunity lost, I say.

      Hunter could have played it. King Crimson’s lyricist (Pete Sinfield) played it on stage–could have been good times. Bad music, sure, Moody Blues were awful, but Terrapin Station with a tinny cassette recording of the dopey orchestral part would have been good for some Laffs. No better than “Tuesday Afternoon,” which was lame, but Laff value for sure.

      • Tor Haxson

        Corry,

        If they had a Mellotron, they would of course had to get “creative” with the tapes. Probably would have had alembic mess with the electronics.

        Perhaps it is best that they never got there hands on one.

  3. Stellblu

    This was actually my first show. As a teenager, I got terrible panic attacks, and, through some really awesome universal synchronicity, it seems I always heard Roses, and it would sort of chill me out. Getting a killer Roses at my first show was all the invitation I needed, so I kind of showed up and never left.

    • Morning Deuce

      And you got one of the spare few Comes A Time! Lucky!

  4. spencer

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