The above book is a fantastic window to the band and indeed the 60′s west coast scene, esp LA, by their drummer Michael Stuart.

I regard their first 3 albums as exceptionally enjoyable listening and Forever Changes, like the rare great albums takes a few listens before it really becomes apparent how good it is. Get the updated version with one of my favourite Your Mind and We Belong Together. Arthur did indeed lose it a bit but as per the book, when you realise how much coke, smack, weed and acid was available, LOVE were survivors. It’s a shame Arthur, for whatever reasons only he knows, didn’t take the band touring more and headlining more shows as more promotion would have found them a wider audience even today.

I watched a great documentary film, think its actually called Love Story Documentary Film. Last interviews with Arthur, he gives the directors a tour of LA, his old houses and haunts, talks them through his teenage walks up to Capitol and Elektra – the rest of the surviving members are all present and hopefully this great piece of footage will be on dvd at some point

I’ll take a wild guess here and say we all prefer the music we were listening to when we were ten or twelve or something like that.

And as for the 80′s, the UK had many, many great acts during that period

Yeah, this was more a post about American bands, and the era Love created during, which is why I didn’t mention it. So thanks definitely for naming such incredible bands.

One thing I will say is that when I mentioned the horribleness of the 80s, I was referring solely to what our douchey friend said. I happen to think some of the greatest music ever made happened in the 80s, but sadly, the cliche is true, that in the 80s none of them got on American radio. (Which is why the indie scene has its true roots in the college rock scene.)

England was pretty much batting a million during the decade. Every band you mention, (ESPECIALLY Momus. Momus is pretty much my patron saint, and ESPECIALLY The Smiths), but I’d add New Order, The Cure, Cleaners from Venus, Would Be Goods, Stone Roses (the first album came out at the end of the 80s), My bloody Valentine, and many others.

I’ll also say that we’ve forgotten to mention the rise of rap music. Jesus, New York in the 80s is like London in the 60s for the conflagration of amazing music changing styles and evolving practically every day. The Golden age of rap is incredible and incredibly important.

Perhaps the next time I do a music post, I’ll be much more thorough in my discussion.

As regarding rev.paperboy, I’m sorry but I do happen to like The Damned over Dylan. Your comment is exactly the kind of mythologizing that annoys the shit out of me (No offense personally mind you). I’m supposed to like Dylan better because the damned are “musical footnotes”? Um, no thanks.

Just because a band is fellated on the cover of every baby boomer nostalgia magazine doesn’t mean they weren’t great. And just because someone is more than a musical footnote doesn’t mean they were. And I think I made my proclivities clear in this regard – I like less popular bands.

Scott Walker, for example, will never be more than a (hugely celebrated) footnote, and he’s a vastly superior lyricist, the complexity and depth of his words makes Dylan look like an uneducated nursery rhymer. Or, more like one.

So maybe the planet I live on has shitter music than yours. At least we’re not a bunch of boring, 60s worshipping cliches.

Whiny three-chord predictability on a stick (even if the guy had timing and could write lyrics)

Velvet Underground: With Nico/White Light, White Heat

Incompetent and horriffically overrated three-chord droning.

Beach Boys: Pet Sounds

Clever and well-arranged surf music; a gilded turd.

The Byrds: 5D/Younger Than Yesterday

Passable, if a little prone to those interminable and overdone Blues/Rock tropes that so many US Rock bands seem to be unable to steer clear of.

Jimi*: Are You Experienced?/Axis: Bold as Love

Inarguably great, if occasionally self-indulgent. Might well be the noted British influence.

And as for the 80′s, the UK had many, many great acts during that period, from The Jam, The Smiths, Aztec Camera, Lloyd Cole, David Sylvian, Talk Talk, The The, Peter Gabriel, Simple Minds (until Derek Forbes left), XTC, Nick Cave, Prefab Sprout, The Lilac Time, The Cardiacs, Furniture, The Blue Nile and Momus to Terry Hall’s various ventures, and on and on.

Sorry, you lost me there. We can agree to disagree about whether the Byrd and Jefferson Airplane and even the Grateful Dead are good, great or indifferent, but if you are going to argue that minor footnotes to the history of music such as the Damned are to be championed ahead of the greatest lyricist of the 20th century….well, obviously we are living on different planets, and yours has much shittier music.

Sorry, I’m tired and cranky. But I am confused where you’re getting your “Love are so obscure and nobody in L.A. cares” facts. Literally every modern band I know of in L.A. has Forever Changes on their shelf. The BJM opened for them on tour, the Alaska! guy jostled to do an acoustic set for them, hipster girls were sewing “free arthur lee” onto their t-shirts for a couple years in L.A., and “Love”‘s first post-prison show, a secret show at Spaceland, was packed to the gills with bands and their actress girlfriends. Members of W.A.C.O. played with Lee when he did the Forever Changes tour. And I’m still only talking about the L.A. bands!

Billy Bragg, Belle and Sebastian, the Damned, and about a bazillion other bands from all eras have covered Love… just at random I’m listening to the Move’s singles collection today, and lo and behold, “Stephanie Knows Who” is there as a cover, one of their last releases. And did you see the celebrity turnout at the fundraiser to get Arthur Lee’s medical bills paid?

It sounds like you’re saying the traditional San Fran bands are somehow more relevant and experimental than Love. Well, just because “A Good Package of Some Value Something Something Will Come to You Shortly” is a great song does not mean that “After Bathing at Baxter’s” really added to music in the same way that Love did and continues to do. Also, the Wrecking Crew DID play on Forever Changes (about two songs of it), and the Mamas and the Papas were actually good, so your jokey comparison sucks.

However, I’m not letting Ross off the hook, either. The Byrds are awesome, and Arthur Lee always acknowledged that when he did “Hey Joe” (then a popular Byrds staple) on the first Love album. Ross just don’t know because he doesn’t have any of the Byrds’ excellent catalogue (in fact, Love’s sound on the first album sounds a helluva lot like the Byrds). Dylan also has great stuff for anyone who’s been paying attention. And Arthur Lee and Hendrix played together on a couple songs, so I don’t see how you can totally love Love and not see any goodness in Hendrix.