if i could trade places......


i hope we might have some fun with this one, while learning something of ourselves and imparting to others a bit about our unique tastes and passions. here’s the fill-in-the-blanks drill: if, for one night, i could trade places with a [musician, singer, participant-live or dead] in a concert by [a group, composer or individual-live or dead], I’d do so because [ reason or explanation ]. this is not a rigid construct but only a rough formulation of an idea for each to build upon.

i’ll give an example, by way of further explanation and as a “starter post,” as follows: if, for one night, I could have stepped out of my lawyer’s shoes and suit and taken on the role of another, I’d have chosen to be the tambourine player in eric clapton’s band that played and recorded the tracks that became the “unplugged” album. this part is one, even I, could have performed adequately and would have put me in the middle of a performance i judge to be among the most seminal of the last couple decades of the 20th century.
cornfedboy
Kelly; I'll take the plunge. As a young pup I loved Rock and Roll and Buddy Holly was a hero of mine. I have also played guitars, both acoustic and electric, all my life (mostly badly) and like many young "rockers" wanted to be an R&R "hero".

Later on I came to appreciate and really love the blues and understand that was where R&R evolved from. So, with that background, I'd like to trade places with George Thorogood the night he played Atlanta, GA. with his band the Delaware Destroyers. His Atlanta performance is on CD, and is excellent.

The thing about G. Thorogood that I really admire is that he, and a few others, have kept the soul of original (classic) Rock & Roll alive. He is not a polished guitar player, but he has perserverance, and he puts his whole being into his performances, while giving blues their due. To me, what he and his band does is what Rock & Roll is all about. And in his comments at Atlanta, he acknowledged the roots of his roots. I could also have chosen John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival-- doing "Green River", but CCR is close to my own age, and their music always was pretty much "classic rock". Cheers, Craig.
........should be roots of his music, but 'roots of his roots' is pretty deep ;>)
I would have loved to have been Lindsey Buckingham during the recordng of "Rumours" I never would have let that beautiful Stevie go!
I would like to have traded places with Alan Parsons, step into Abbie Road Studios and create some of the best studio recorded music in history. If I had to narrow it down a bit probably from June 1972 to January 1973, granted that is a long period but it is hard to decide when you have a career like Parson's has. To follow suit with Kelly: wipe the grease off my face take the wrench out of my pocket and transport myself to England and work on creating some great music. Also if Alan was not around my secound runer up would be Brian Eno(funny that both have worked together) creating one of his masterpieces. Oh and this has nothing to with lust.....well at least any that I will admit too.
I'd really want to trade places with Frank Zappa, one of the true geniuses of our time. With his skill and knowledge of music and the top-drawer talent he always had assembled, can you imagine the possibilities? His work lives on, and continues to amaze me to this day. Distant second would be either Fagen and/or Becker and conduct modern day symphonies as Steely Dan. Jeff
My first fantasy would have been to play the guitar solo on "Secret Agent Man" live at the Whiskey, Johnny Rivers, the second would have been to do the same on "Green Onions," the studio version. I have always loved the raw guts and simplicity of these particular works/solos.
I would liked to have traded places with the gentleman on the first pew with a good angle to watch Bach play the organ in a great Cathedral.
OK. A little more low brow now. I would love to be the backstage hand in charge of replacing broken and thrown drumsticks by Neil Peart of Rush. I think I could do that job and it would allow me to watch him from behind the kick drums.
Kelly, you chose badly. The tambourine is a harsh mistress. And Eric always liked me better.
My choice. I would say Robert Johnson, still alive of course, c. '67 (68?), in attendance at the Fillmore when Cream performed Crossroads. I wonder what he would have thought?
Beam me into E. Clapton the night he performed "Spoonful". Although compositionally challanged, the spirituallity, sincerity and intensity of this work add up to: "Big Medicine". Everything's alive about it...
What a wonderful thread Cornfedboy and from a lawyer no less.....it reminds me of a recurrent phantasy which I had in younger times of being a jazz trumpeter or a bassplayer in the days of be-bop and the "cool", or playing dixie, or singing the blues. Must have been a compensation for my dayly chores and pretending to keep an unperturbed professional stance. Funny, come to think now, I love classical music, but I never dreamt of being a classical performer..makes sense. Thanks Cornfed, you helped me to a bit of personal insight. Not bad for a lawyer (-:, maybe we should switch professions, law was one of my early choices, by the way.
Regards,
An audiophile writer, living on an island in the Mediterranean. Funny, Cornfedboy, I trained as a lawyer and took a post-grad course in Ethnopsychiatry (hi Detlof!)-- but never exercised either. When younger, I thought I could double up as a blues guitarist (hi again, Detlof).
Regards!
I suggest Sardina, Greg, not the Costa Smeralda, but the wild part in the mountains, where there are still bandits (sometimes) and true hospitality (mostly) and some of the old people still think, that strangers are messengers of (the) God(s). Its swiftly passing away, though.
Detlof, thanks, I'll check it out & start phantasizing. Hope the power supply is good out there -- or should I take an industrial grade battery with me.
Cheers!
Get your own generator, diesel preferably. Oh, and it is SardinIa of course, not Sardina and they have wonderful music there......warm regards!
As a kid, Mick Jagger was my idle, so back then, I have to say I would have killed to trade places with him....(sometime in the late sixties - perhaps during the tour that produced "Get your Ya Ya's out")

Now, I am older, wiser, I have seen the world myself, had adventures with beautiful women, discovered the finer things in life etc... My musical horizons have expanded dramatically - the world of Bach, Monteverdi, Thelonius Monk are mine! I would have to say in light of this 3 decades of learning and growth my choice would now be........Mick Jagger(you lucky bastard).
Good Thread Cornfedboy. As a youth I had the opportunity to see the Beach Boys back in the middle 60’s. That was during my surfing era. At the time I was aware that Denny Wilson was the only surfer in the group. I wanted to be like him. Especially during the concert when the girls were going nuts over him. It wasn’t like I wanted to play the drums, I just wanted to be him because he surfed and had the chicks “Money for nothing and the chicks are free”

Now that I’m older and a bit wiser, though a bit less testosterone driven than from days of old, I would like to be the Viola player to the beautiful Violinist that played Mozart’s Concertino for Violin & Viola K364 at a concert I attended about a year ago. A husband and wife team that made love on stage to the beautiful 2nd movement of that piece. I had goosebumps running up and down my spine during that performance. I wanted to be HIM!!
At the risk of getting nailed with the bean-counter. . .mine's a little different. If I could switch places, it would be with Paul Simonon on the 21st of September, 1979. On that night, I was caught on camera, at the New York Palladium, performing the ultimate rock-and-roll move. I smashed my guitar.

I would go on to be bronzed in the annuls of rock-and-roll history, when my image lands on the front cover of the greatest rock-and-roll album of all time. My photo speaks, without ever saying a word, for an entire generation of angry youth, and summarizes all that was wrong with music at the time. Me, my picture, my band, and our album, helped change the face of music forever.
Sorry Cornfedboy, looks like I shut it down. Too bad too. Although its not the first time I ever damped a party, I would have thought this one had legs. Great thread notwithstanding its untapped potential.
Chris
David Byrne during the "Stop Making Sense" tour. I could never get away with wearing that suit.
BlBloom: That used to be my favorite music video to watch after a bad day at work. If it were a really bad day I would fast forward to the "I'll Do It My Way" scene from "Sid and Nancy".
Kelly, I wish I was in Vienna circa 1825, my buddy Franz
was in good spirits and the syphillis was not so bad that
he could party a little. We drink all night and sing some
songs. Franz brought along some sheet music and we strike
up a foursome. Someone yells out "hey this part came from
that Death and the Maiden song we sang last week. Can't
you come up with something a little more original." Every
laughs and starts drinking and singing and playing....