Tune Tag #72 with David Burton of "If You Get Confused": Allman Bros, Ozzy, Wishbone Ash, Uriah Heep, Billy Joel, Pavlov's Dog, Blue Öyster Cult
Warm up the station wagon! It's a Classic Rock bonanza for this one! A couple of Baby Boomers Tune Taggin'? Hardly. Would you believe our guest isn't even 30? Wait'll you meet this guy!
Howdy, David! Tag! You’re IT!
Tune Tag welcomes of If You Get Confused!
David is the 28-year-old creator of the newsletter If You Get Confused, where he shares notes on songs that have meaning to him in hopes that they might provide meaning to other people too.
He is a lifelong fan of music, and started his newsletter as a passion project to share music with anyone who wants to listen and find new ways to connect with the music he loves.
The title of his newsletter is named after the Grateful Dead lyric: “If you get confused, listen to the music play.” That’s a method that’s always worked for him, and his hope is that his newsletter helps anyone else who might need it!
Last week, we enjoyed the company of Tad Callin of !👇
Next week, Tune Tag in to see of Skateboarding on Their Altar!
David’s song #1 sent to Brad: The Allman Brothers, “Stormy Monday” (Live At Fillmore East, March 13, 1971)
David’s rationale: The foundation of my musical knowledge and appreciation comes from my Dad, who is also a huge music lover! When I was young, my Dad would always play Sirius XM radio channels like 70’s on 7 or Classic Vinyl Rock. When I was younger, I was embarrassed to see my Dad singing along with “old people” music when I was in the car!
But as I got older, I started to really enjoy this music (and didn’t realize how much knowledge I had picked up over all those years in the car with him)!
My Dad's favorite band is The Allman Brothers. He says that 1971’s At Fillmore East is the best album of all time. My favorite song on the album is “Stormy Monday,” which I particularly love for the guitar playing. The extended solos and instrumentals paved the way for me to start to appreciate live renditions and music without needing words….which led me to find the Grateful Dead, and more recently, getting involved with jam band music.
Brad’s song #1 sent to David: Wishbone Ash, “Rest in Peace,” 1976
David’s response: I have admittedly never heard of Wishbone Ash before. But, after some quick research, it seems like the reason Brad picked this was because of the dual-guitar influence, which includes the use of steel guitar. The Allman Brothers Band famously had the duo of Duane Allman and Dickie Betts on guitar, and Wishbone Ash seems to have had a similar setup with Andy Powell and Ted Turner.
Both bands probably drew a lot of inspiration from blues music, but Wishbone Ash has a bit of a different style to them. I really like it. I love this song and will definitely be looking more into the band’s work after this!
The specific song choice stumped me a bit. Maybe the morbid tones of “Rest in Peace” and “Stormy Monday” both blend together nicely.
Brad’s rationale: Longtime Atlantic Records producer, Tom Dowd, produced both the Allmans live album and this Wishbone Ash.
Brad adds: I certainly was aware of the duo of dual guitar players in the bands, David. Ash was pretty big in the day, and were a fun one to be a fan of if you were into rock and hard rock in the early-‘70s. If you were with friends at, say, an Allmans concert, you’d seem pretty hip if you could spring a sudden, “Have you heard the new Wishbone Ash?” on them!
David’s song #2: Uriah Heep, “Easy Livin’,” 1972
Brad’s response: I keep thinking there might be a dual guitar link here between Wishbone Ash and Uriah Heep. I think they both (Ash, anyway) had a thing with guitar-solo harmony playing.
David’s rationale: My research on Wishbone Ash revealed that Wishbone Ash member Martin Turner left the band after they wanted to bring in a lead vocalist and demote his duties to bass guitar only.
He was replaced by John Wetton (Roxy Music, U.K., Asia) of Uriah Heep. Wetton was also eventually replaced by another former Uriah Heep member, Trevor Bolder (was in David Bowie’s early-’70s Spiders From Mars).
I chose “Easy Livin’” as it’s another song that I learned from my Dad. Brad adds: Tell your dad, David, that I used to sing “Easy Livin’” pretty regularly at karaoke a decade ago! That, and Deep Purple’s “Burn” were incredibly fun to sing. Of the two, the only one I mechanically-lowered the pitch on was “Burn,” but, just by a hair. Has Dad turned you on to “Burn”? Here ‘tis, if not!
Brad’s song #2: Ozzy Osbourne, “Crazy Train,” 1980
David’s response: Looks like we have some more band member cross-over here! When Ozzy left Black Sabbath to start his own thing, he formed the band with a few members from Uriah Heep. Once their first album, Blizzard of Ozz, was released, it was just under Ozzy Osbourne’s solo name.
The hit track from that album was “Crazy Train”--Brad’s choice!
Brad’s rationale: Lee Kerslake on drums for both the studio-Uriah Heep and Blizzard of Ozz tracks. That same year (1980), Randy Rhoads stopped in at the Music Plus/Glendale, the record store I had just become assistant manager of in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley. That story here:
David’s song #3: Billy Joel, “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” 1989
Brad’s response: Former Foreigner and Spooky Tooth guitarist, Mick Jones, joined Billy in producing this song, and its album, Storm Front. Both Ozzy and his Blizzard of Ozz and Joel were on CBS Records: Ozzy on the CBS/Jet affiliate, and Joel, Columbia proper.
David’s rationale: Switching it up from a band member tag, I wanted to pick a song with a similar theme to “Crazy Train,” which discusses the effects of The Cold War, highlighted by this verse:
Heirs of a cold war
That’s what we’ve become
Inheriting troubles, I’m mentally numb
Crazy, I just cannot bear
I’m living with something that just isn’t fair.
Another song that covers The Cold War (and much more) is Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” I admittedly don’t really love this song, and it’s one of my least favorite by Billy Joel. But, as he recaps all of the events that span the course of his life, including the Cold War, the song shares similar sentiments to “Crazy Train” about some general uneasiness about the world and its conflicts. Relevant to this moment in time? Some might say...
Brad replies: You’re in good company, David! Even Billy isn’t the biggest fan of his song! Here he is at Oxford University, speaking specifically about “We Didn’t….”:
Somehow, though, the song was nominated for a Grammy for Record of the Year (a producer’s award…OK, a little more understandably! “Song of the Year,” and even Billy might’ve flinched!) and, in late 1989, became Joel’s third single to reach #1 in the U.S. Storm Front became Joel’s third album to reach #1 in the States.
He was invited to sing the song, in fact, at the same 1990 Grammy telecast on which it was nominated:
Brad’s song #3: Band Geek, “I Go To Extremes,” 2017
David’s response: Brad’s gone with another Billy Joel song here, but covered by Richie Castellano and Band Geek. I can’t say I am familiar with this group, but I love what they’ve got going on. It’s clearly more of a “grassroots” operation, but they are very good. Especially the singer!
Brad’s rationale: Another Billy song from the same album, but a bangin’ cover of another song I used to enjoy singing in karaoke a decade ago!
David’s song #4:
“Don’t Fear the Reaper,” 1976
Brad’s response: All I’m seeing from the Band Geek/Billy Joel cover is the thread from Billy to his cover to this BÖC 1976 hit…Columbia Records for both.
David’s rationale: Due to the Blue Öyster Cult Connection, had to go with the SNL classic, “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”
Brad’s song #4: Pavlov’s Dog, “Late November,” 1975
David’s response: Brad closes this out with another new band & song for me! I have never heard of Pavlov’s Dog (the band, I mean. I am familiar with the psychology experiment of the same name!). They’ve got a bit of a prog rock feel to them, mixed with a little Heart sound. I really like it!
Looks like the connection here is that the album that “Late November” appears on was produced by Sandy Pearlman and Murray Krugman, who also produced records for Blue Öyster Cult, including Agents of Fortune, where “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” appears.
Brad’s rationale: On the studio books for producers Sandy Pearlman and Murray Krugman was this Pavlov’s Dog album, Pampered Menial (on Columbia Records), about a year before they tackled BÖC’s Agents of Fortune (co-produced with David Lucas).
Thanks to Brad for having me on Tune Tag! I had a lot of fun sharing some of my story and music while learning some new things and having a lot of fun along the way!
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Thanks for having me on Brad! Had a ton of fun Tune Tagging with you. Picked up plenty of new songs, bands, and trivia along the way too.
P.S. Would have loved to see some of those Uriah Heep and Deep Purple karaoke performances!
Great to see you finally get the Tune Tag handshake, David! And a nostalgic visit down classic rock lane!
I was thinking that David might pick something from the 2024 Jon Anderson and The Band Geeks album, True. It's quite excellent, way better than I expected. I haven't checked to see if it's the same lineup as Band Geek, but I know that Graziano and Castellano are in both.
And I always love a BOC pick (I had them in my latest TT), though I wasn't clear on the connection from Band Geek -- did they cover "Don't Fear the Reaper"?