Grand Funk Railroad

In the early 70's, I was the drummer in a band ( junior high school age). We played quite a few songs by Grand Funk from those early albums and regardless of what any critic my have written about GFR, those songs were an absolute blast to play. ...

 

Ha! Me too! I was the drummer with my friends in the garage band we had in high school....we did GFR too along with some Alice Cooper, Bowie, Mott etc...fond memories of days long passed.

 

Listen, honestly and respectfully, I wouldn't know where to start to answer this post. I wrote a long diatribe about naming these two bands in the same sentence, but I deleted it. I thought I was probably rude and I don't try to be. I am a huge GFR fan. One of my very early favorites. After re-reading your post, I'm thinking you weren't comparing their music but their lack of critical fame correct? I have never heard anyone put these two bands in the same sentence........

 

most critics are writers first and foremost, and always gravitate towards a bands lyrics, and usually judge them first and foremost by lyrical content. Musical prowess doesnt often count for much, and, its often dismissed for... whatever reason. Take your pick.

Meltzer and Pearlman wrote lyrics for BOC. Like I said.

Way too many critics made a career out of skewering people that had the guts and the skill to do what the critics could not. Rolling Stone was the absolute worst; if they hated something, I usually tried to find it and give it a listen.

Lester Bangs was always my favorite, at least he had a sense of humor. To read a "typical" sample of the snot-nosed sort of sneering psuedo-intellectualism of the "I cant play a note but I know good music" idiocy of the snob critic, head over to the thread about Paul McCartneys "Back to the Egg" album and find the Rolling Stone review of the album. Holy cow.

As far as GrandFunk, yup, I loved those guys and had a bunch of their albums. I never got to see them in concert, but thanks to YouTube at least finally I got a look.

 

first album I ever bought.... maybe Paranoid by Black Sabbath. One of those two. I liked both a lot. My parents liked neither.

 

I guess you knew this, but, for E Pluribus, he finally cut slots in the old Messenger and took out those weird single coils, and shoved in some humbuckers. Same guitar as before otherwize, weird thing with the built in fuzztone... Survival I liked a lot too, but for the mellower stuff on it.

 

Not a big fan but I think that "Bad Time" is one of the all-time great pop singles.

 

I saw them in Fort Worth in late 1969 or early 1970. Fantastic show. I was just a kid and loved it. I'm not sure I even have any GFR in my collection at the moment, but when I hear the old stuff occasionally, it does take me back to a fun time (and a fun show).

 

Mark, Don, & Mel was my very first Grand Funk Railroad album...purchased on pre-recorded cassette and amazingly...I played it for the first time in maybe 30 years about 3 years ago and both cassettes still played !

I rocked on all 4 sides in honor of old times ...

This album turned me into a fan and currently, I have everything up to We're An American Band .

After that I lost interest except for Locomotion and Some Kind of Wonderful until the Frank Zappa produced Good Singin' Good Playin' which I also own and consider a totally underappreciated gem.

My two favorites besides that one and Mark, Don & Mel would be Grand Funk (Red album) and Survival, both of which still get spun fairly often.

F the critics. I know what I like and I liked these guys a lot.

Still do ...

 

No, I didn't know that. Interesting. Thanks for telling me, another piece of good trivia for the deep recesses of what is left of my mind.
I like Survival and EPF both a LOT. I Can See Him In The Morning is one of the most beautiful works of aural art I have ever heard. Mark Farner always wrote a lot of songs that were deep and sincere.
Loneliness still blows me away too, beautiful song.

Also, to this day I cannot figure out how he got the sound he did on the guitar intro to Save The Land with those dissonant chords. I have tried to figure that out for years. I have been very good at figuring out strange chords and unusual guitar sounds but that is one that I still pull out and try to get now and then.
Before I die.................

 

Correct - comparing lack of critical fame and thank you for stepping away long enough to realize that, rather than fixing bayonets and going over the top. Rare commodity on the net, restraint is....

I wore out my copy of Caught In The Act back in the day. That being said, if Nickleback floats someone's boat, that's not my look-out. I turned in my gun and my badge and quit the Music Police long ago.

 

GFR is a band that has always been important to me. First, with the red album, closer to home, live (some rich university students had this and allowed us young teenagers to hang around them. Rode around in their Fairlady Z, on top of the world) and then back to On Time. "Into the Sun", fantastic song. Survival...wow. was a big fan through We're an American Band...and was stunned to see Brewer as the composer and vocalist on that giant hit. Because up until then it had been all Farner. Quite frankly, I never knew he had it in him!
I did give Shinin' On a try...but by then I was moving on into different music.
Am very sad to hear that Farner has been displaced from his own band. All three were important to their sound, but Mark was the heart and soul.

 

as a young 14 year old in 73 I bought Mark Don and Mel with what little money I had from mowing yards in the neighborhood.
Some where between then and now the album went missing ( hummm --- maybe the wife pitched it or sold it in a garage sale??
no that would never happen ) Anyways about two months ago a local record shop had a used one for $2 and I had to get it.
Spent a whole sunday afternoon slamming cold beer and cranking the stereo up ---- what a bass line on those tracks.
My Advents ( old ones also like me and the album ) rocked the house that afternoon and I mean the bass was shaking the drywall baby , that reminds me --- I think its time to do that again
thank you guys for reminding me

 

Any band without him doing GFR songs is a cover band.

 

I think Survival is their best album. Certainly, my personal favourite. On vinyl. Delicious.

 

I rather enjoyed my old 8-track of it!

 

The one album I listen to most now is Phoenix. When I was younger, I was kind of disappointed in it because it didn't have the sledgehammer sound of the albums that preceded it so I kind of forgot about it for almost 20 years, but when I rediscovered it I found it to be the real hidden gem of their catalog.

After escaping the grips of Terry Knight, they self-produced an album that sounded much more musically mature than the Knight-produced albums, but without the slickness of the radio friendly albums and singles that followed. I'm never going to claim that Farner's lyrics were brilliant but I don't care. The passion he poured into his singing and playing more than made up for it.

These days, I think this is their best song, and it stands up to anything by their more critically acclaimed counterparts.

 

I always liked them lot, CCR too, whom the critics both disdained in the early years. Now (and for some time) these bands are recognized for the fine music they did.

 

Give me the power trio of Mark,Don, and Mel!! Grand Funk Railroad is the lineup for me. After that....you can give or take it. The power of that early lineup alone should be marked for hall of fame status.

 

I loved those guys! I bought "Closer To Home" and the 3 disk live album on the same day. Those guys sure took a lot of crap from the critics, but it was always good time music for me. I bailed after the second live album, but I'll still crank up "I'm Your Captain" when I hear it.

 

I don't really remember the media being harsh on CCR.
But on Grand Funk Railroad the media showed no mercy. To the point where if you hadn't heard them you would have thought they didn't even know how to play instruments or sing.
Just about everything the media said about GFR turned out to be fabricated, very little of it was fact.
With CCR, it seemed the media mostly ignored them.

 

They were. They were considered a commercial singles group, not the thematic, album-oriented band that became beloved of FM stations in the 70's.

 

Not trying to derail the thread, but I do agree with rockledge that media was not being harsh on CCR. I can't recall whether they were ignored or not. They sure were all over the radio.

 

They were all over the radio, yes, but so were all the other hit-makers. The rock cognoscenti, the hip critics, did not for the most part laud the band in the same way as Cream, Pink Floyd, The Who, and the emerging progressive bands. CCR were not a hip band at the time, in a word.

 

CCR was never actively disdained by the rock critic establishment the way GFR was.