The Black Crowes have apparently broken up

So I'm still a little unclear about the politics behind this split and quite frankly I was never a huge fan of these guys. But I have to say the full BTF...ATF is one of the finest modern rock albums I've heard. It's ambitious, rootsy, deeply rewarding. I'm a sucker for double albums, every big band has to try one and good & bad I think the results are always pretty interesting. But it's so rare to hear something as fully formed as that album, and yeah it really has to be heard as a double. I love how "Aimless Peacock" introduces the "song for everyone to sing" that comes up in "Shady Grove," how "Captain" then introduces the sense of weary rebellion, and on and on - "Houston Don't Dream About Me" is a tremendous road ennui song. These guys are not reinventing the wheel here but man do they know just how it turns.
Also: I add the "Dolphins" and "Sweet Nuthin" covers to my playlist, fantastic performances. I don't know, maybe it was the spirit of Woodstock or good old Levon but they nailed it on these sessions. I'm sad that it looks like they won't ever follow it up, but part of me thinks they wouldn't be able to top it.

 

I too have been waiting for top notch vinyl reissues, but I'm really starting to feel that it's not in the cards. Here is a link that has been posted and updated with TBAs for almost 2.5 years:
http://store.acousticsounds.com/index.cfm?get=results&searchtext=black,crowes&status=Pre Order

So disappointing, but let's be honest...the Black Crowes organization (and I'm never sure who to blame exactly but since he's at the helm I'm gonna blame Pete Angelus) always seems to drop the ball in some strange way, especially with release dates. They can't ever get it right and I hate it. They are my favorite post-1980 band and certainly in my top 5 all-time list. So many good things about them...so many head-scratchers as well...

 

Remember those classic videos Pete did with David Lee Roth... when Dave was in the fat suit... the Fabulous Picasso Brothers, right?
Oh well, sorry for the digression.

 

I am a huge Crowes fan...they're the last of a dying breed, a legit rock and roll band, throwbacks but also not retro. I only saw them once, in 2001, but it was a great show, and I've bought everything they've ever released. If this is truly the end, I'm saddened but alright with it. I do wish they'd quit all of this stopping and starting though. Either soldier on or end it once and for all.

 

Now that I think about it... Pete A as a manager was the person who indirectly got me into the Black Crowes. I was listening to the Howard Stern show one morning and he had the Black Crowes come in and touted them as a band that David Lee Roth discovered. It was just when the Jealous Again video started hitting MTV. Loved how arrogant and snotty Chris was... and he was completely confused when Howard asked him about David Lee Roth 'discovering the band'. That must have been an angle that Pete worked to get them on the show. As soon as it was done, I ordered 'Shake Your Money Maker' through the old Columbia House CD club and loved the band since.

 

sorry you dont know how to have fun. LOL@"the hits."

 

I don't recall how I found out about the Crowes but I skipped their Philadelphia debut when they opened for the Michael Schenker Group at the Trocadero. I had no desire to pay top dollar for an opening club time slot.

I made sure I had an advance ticket for their November 1990 Chestnut Cabaret show and it was a screamer. Sold out, hot rock and roll. I was bowled over by the SMAHC album but skipped their jump to the big Tower Theater stage because I had become a club snob. I wanted to see bands up close working a crown from a 12" stage, not a reserve seating theater.

I guess I'm a pop music fan because I just couldn't connect with the live show of the next tour. The band played a secret show at the Trocadero before Amorica was released. I was in the know with the club's doormen so I walked in and joined the fun. The band opened with the fast paced hits but then Chris told us to calm down, stop crowding the stage and crowd surfing. He let us know that the Crowes were the show, not the audience and he would stop the show if we didn't behave. Then he told the audience that he was going on to a new trip. Thus introducing the jam band version of the Crowes and I lost interest.

I still listen to the first three CDs but never saw another Crowes live show except for the Jimmy Page thing.

They wrote some amazing tunes, full of pop and energy. To me, it's a shame they couldn't balance between their jamming and pop leanings.

 

I liked the various incarnations of the band. There were a couple of jams where I wished they'd play a more concise version of the song, mainly Non-Fiction and Thorn (never was a fan of a drum solo). At the same time, watching Rich "direct" as each member traded off leads was always pretty cool.

 

Your last sentence probably summarizes how the Crowes lost about 90% of their audience from 1995 onwards. However, I think the whole "Crowes as jam band" idea gets a little blown out of proportion. At the height of their jam-band phase, 1995-97, and probably 2005-2006 after the reunion, there were only ever a few songs that got the jammed-out treatment. My Morning Song, Thorn In My Pride, Ballad In Urgency --> Wiser Time, Bring On Bring On, Halfway to Everywhere, Nonfiction, Hard to Handle...I'm probably forgetting something, but the rest might have gotten an extended ending or some extra solos. The Crowes version of jamming was to put a lengthy, structured intro or outro piece onto a few of their songs. They really were never a true fit for the jam band scene. If you followed their live shows, you probably recognize that the "jams" I just listed changed very little over the years. The main point the Crowes took from jam bands was to vary their setlists so drastically from night to night that they rarely repeated songs, except in the 1998-2001 period when they consistently played hit-heavy sets that the rabid fanbase hated. Anyway, there were always hits included in there somewhere if you were willing to take a 90-minute ride across their catalog. I never thought that was too much to ask for the price of a concert ticket.

 

I hate the term "jam band". Every band should jam to some extent, otherwise they're a pop group.

It suggests the Crowes just aimlessly noodled onstage, which couldn't be further from the truth. Some even label Amorica and Three Snakes & One Charm as being too indulgent, when the latter, in particular, contains very concise songs.

Remove the "jam" from the Crowes and you get 1998-2001. In other words, watered-down crap.

 

Exhibit A on why the Crowes rock - 5/31/93 at the Pinkpop Festival.

 

Whatever...."the hits" meant 'their best known stuff'...either way, they still su*ked on that tour.

 

Hey! I actually enjoy a bit of those years too. I really think they were on to something coming out of the gate full tilt in June 1998 with the new lineup. That summer club tour sounded exciting, but then they stopped putting fresh songs into the setlists and the whole thing went stale.

 

I watched them in October 1998 in London and was shocked (in a bad way) at how generic and slick they'd become. Chris was dressed like a tit all in white (like on the By Your Side album cover). Didn't bother going to another Crowes gig until three nights in a row in March 2006.

 

It was cool to see The Crowes adopt some of the practices oaassocated with the Grateful Dead, such as changing up setlists each night, extending songs via jamming/improv and permtting audience recording - but unlike the GD, the Bros. Robinson didn`t recognize that not all songs can be moved around willynilly (?) in a setlist, and not all songs are interesting when extended/jammed out. Fans paying to see a loud, rauchy, blues/rock R&R band like TBC, do not want to see the band open a show with a dirge like Descending, or Ballad in Urgency. Nor do they want to suffer through jammed-out/extended versions of well-written, purposely short/tight, song like Non-fiction.

There's a reason why the Dead reserved faster--tempo songs like Bertha & Deal for opening and closing sets, and didn`t subject concertgoers to extended/jammed-out versions of slow tunes like Candyman & Ship of Fools. During a show you need to have tunes of various paces, lest much of the audience loses interest. And if you`re a loud, brash, blues/rock R&R band in the vein of the Stones, Faces, etc. and really believe you'll be able to sustain an audience after killing their buzz right out of the gate with a ten minute, jammed-out version of a ballad, you`re very naive and/or too self-absorbed to recognize you`re overestimating your appeal.

 

I'm with you. Given the type of rock they were capable of playing, I really wanted to like this band. "Hard To Handle" and "Twice As Hard" were a joy. "Remedy" is killer. "Wiser Time" is awesome. But I've seen this band twice on a festival bill in the 90s, and each performance was a dud. The last time I tried to like this band was By Your Side--bought it right when it came out based on positive reviews--and although it kicks off to a decent start, overall it's pretty meh, and the song about getting married or whatever made me wretch, at least mentally. I've listened to a few other of their albums end to end, and these guys are no stranger to the total clunker track.

I like their first greatest hits CD, but to me these guys were never much more than a really good singles band. I do appreciate Chris Robinson's contribution to Phil Lesh's live efforts, because he knows how to deliver on the blues rave-ups that the late Pigpen sang, if not so much the less blues and soul-oriented material.

I saw Rich Robinson recently on the Experience Hendrix tour and he did a B+ job, not bad at all, but he'll never blow me away.

Edit: But if it makes the fans here feel better, I think these guys will reform within, say, six years or so. It's pretty clear from Rich's press release that he's monumentally pissed at his brother because he goes out of his way to point out that the band's demise is, at least in large part, due to his brother's demands (bad form to throw him under the bus publicly, dude, I don't care how mad you are). Anyway, Rich's public airing of bad blood sets the brothers up nicely for a future make-up and huggy-fest reunion tour and album. I'll be surprised if that doesn't hsppen.

 

This is the point where you went wrong. BYS was a terrible album to 'like this band'. Even us longtime fans didn't 'like this band' at this point. Sell-out production - Kevin Shirley (yuck) and The Crowes release this album instead of 'The Band'?! Wow - they bowed to corporate pressure on this one and it showed!

 

There's a huge difference between the expectations of the Dead fanbase and the Crowes fanbase.

The Dead were not a popular band until "Touch of Grey" hit #9 (on the pop chart) in 1987, which was 22 years after their debut. Prior to that their highest charting single was "Uncle John's Band" which hit #69 in 1970. The Dead had the freedom to play whatever they wanted because there were no casual fans to satisfy or hits to play. Hell, the Dead even shelved their signature song ("Dark Star") after they got tired of playing it.

The Crowes, by comparison, came out of the gate as a popular band. "Hard to Handle" hit #26 and "She Talks to Angels" hit #30 on the pop charts. On the rock charts the Crowes had 6x #1 singles and a #2 single from their first two albums. "Shake Your Money Maker"was a #4 album and "Southern Harmony" opened at #1. They lost the best new artist Grammy to Mariah Carey. They sold 7,000,000 copies of their first 2 records. They were a popular band.

Popular bands breed casual fans and casual fans like to hear the hits played in the familiar arrangement. When the Crowes started mixing up sets, dropping the hits and jamming they alienated the casual fans but didn't have enough diehards (unlike the Dead who only had diehards) to sustain.

My two favorite bands are the Dead and the Crowes. And from the get go Deadheads didn't fully embrace the Crowes because they were too popular, too mainstream and CR was too much of a rock front man.

 

I love it when rock bands open shows with slower, more contemplative songs. I don't go to concerts to hear fast and loud songs; I go to hear music.

 

[QUOTE="Gammondorf, post: 11746898, member: 34549" When the Crowes started mixing up sets, dropping the hits and jamming ...[/QUOTE]

That was one of the most exciting things about the Crowes and what I appreciated about them more than anything. The fact that ANY song in their catalog could pop up at any point and that every show was different. I remember many times staying up late just to see if Crowesbase.com would update and show the latest setlist when these guys were on tour.

 

Singer Chris Robinson has offered his first comments on the breakup of The Black Crowes and explained that the split was a result of the band's lack of songwriting.

"It came from songwriting," he tells the Broward/Palm Beach New Times. "The Black Crowes don't write songs anymore. They don't think of the present or the future. I like making albums and playing concerts. I was sitting on two EPs' worth of written songs."

Growing impatient, the singer revived the Chris Robinson Brotherhood - originally launched during the Crowe's 2010 hiatus - and released its third album, "Phosphorescent Harvest", last year.

"The Black Crowes were a rebellion," explains the singer. "This is a pragmatic reaction to how I feel. The only revolutionary thing we're doing is staying out of the music business. There's Olive Gardens and Red Lobsters in music. We just don't eat there. We're grassroots."

Chris' comments follow a statement issued by brother/guitarist Rich on January 15 announcing the end of the Crowes. "It is with great disappointment and regret that after having the privilege of writing and performing the music of The Black Crowes over the last 24 years, I find myself in the position of saying that the band has broken up," said Rich. "I hold my time with the Black Crowes with the utmost respect and sincerest appreciation. It is a huge swath of my life's body of work."

 

That's a good way to summarize it. I went to a lot of shows, and especially over recent tours would always be walking out with two groups of people. The first was the fans who were saying "I can't believe I finally heard Exit", for example. This was usually a smaller group. The larger group would be complaining that they did not play She Talks to Angels (one time I heard that complaint even when they did play it, which was sort of funny), or Jealous Again/Hard to Handle.

That second group is likely not coming again next time you swing through town, plus they're not buying your new music anyways. There were some shows that I thought were great, but included none of the radio songs. The BFT/AFT shows I saw started with an acoustic section...if you're there to hear Hard to Handle, pie-eyed Chris in a straw hat signing Garden Gate was likely a bit of as shock.

 

that maybe true. i've seen a lot of shows and can't really think of a "bad" show. but i like TBC.

 

during this period, 1992-1993 is imo the crowes peak and when they are easily, easily the best band on the planet. anyone who watches this band kick that much ass on stage and doesnt like it/agree is no friend of mine. ha ha..

seriously, THIS is what rock and roll is supposed to look and sound like. everything else is just pretending, and no one had gotten it so perfect since 1975.

 

My preference is the 1992 - 1997 years - that's their peak for me. So much great music released and unreleased in this time period. I wish a box set could be released from this era of unreleased tracks. I guess they will languish in boa's archive for him to fret over and no one else will ever hear them. Hmm.. whatever.