Saturday, August 25, 2012

Godspeed, Neil

 
Walking on the moon has to be the most amazing thing to happen in my lifetime.
 RIP, Commander Armstrong.

Official NASA publicity photo
(TSG Archives)

5 comments:

Parm said...

Certainly one of the most memorable of third-person experiences; one of the few events where I can clearly remember the circumstances there on Hepner Lane the moment this was broadcast on TV.

Willard "Small Step" Biscuit said...

Weird synergy between the last two posts: I watched TV coverage of the moon landing in the lounge of the Mission Bay Yacht Club.

Parm said...

"Weird" indeed. What were you doing down there? Just visiting?

W. "I've got a case of the Mondays" Biscuit said...

We were visiting The Husters (family friends) who were members of the Yacht Club. They had a son my age, Mike, who I had debates with about the relative merits of Beatles vs The Stones. They also had a daughter Leslie who I had an immense crush on...*sigh*. Oh, and the father, who's name escapes me at the moment, was a dead ringer for Robert Culp.

Parm said...

That Beatles vs Stones thing is a good perennial topic, isn't it? As I recall, the hosts of Sound Opinions took on that topic as something that was worth an entire book.

At the end of the day, one body of work stacked up against the other, I guess I'm a Beatles person. But I acknowledge that the Stones had a lot of cool, special stuff going on. That said, I find myself liking the Stones best when they were literally competing with the Beatles (B Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers - mmmmmmmm). They had some good moments, for sure, in years hence. But they never really stepped outside their box once the Beatles were no more. For example, as awesome as the song Start Me Up is, it's riff is just Brown Sugar in reverse.

Then again, I know the Beatles were reacting to what was around them, and competing with those other sounds, too. But I'm not sure how much L & M ever felt they were competing with M & K rather than, say, Brian Wilson and Bobby Dylan or even Pete T. Instead, the Beatles "did" and the Stones reacted (often, admittedly, with wonderful, wonderful responses).

So, viewing things through that particular prism, I vote "Beatles."

In that same time frame you are mentioning, by the way, I had an older cousin I would see once in awhile and we had debates regarding the relative merits of the Beatles versus Dylan. Did anyone ever debate the relative merits of the Stones versus Dylan?