Posted On: Saturday - February 10th 2024 2:55PM MST
In Topics: Music Humor
Dishonable Discharge, remember them? Hold that name in your head for a second. It sounds kind of punk. Wait, you'd never heard of them you say, the band later to be called The Pretenders?
Per Wiki, Pretenders singer Chrissie Hynde's own "provocative band project, centered around her own songwriting, was initially called...."
Wait for it...
(Mike Hunt's) Dishonorable Discharge*
I know, it's pretty crude, lewd, and all the rest, but that name was BRILLIANT! (And that's not in the modern British sense in which it, like the American "awesome" for a while, just means "good".)
I have the Learning to Crawl album from this band on vinyl. (The video here is a vinyl "rip", so I hope we can hear some crackling and all for auld lang syne.) I will have to say that the internet has sorely disappointed me when it comes to a good review or discussion of this album. Years ago, I'd read reviews that made perfect sense about the concept, and I see this as a concept album. I'll write about that in another post, seeing as I want to feature at least 70% of the album on Peak Stupidity. It's THAT good.
It's also very negligent of us to not have featured Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders more than once before on the site. That was a post with Stop your Sobbing - a Kinks tune - as a long distance dedication to some Berzerkely Professor sobbing about not getting enough Reparations.
Middle of the Road is the first song on Learning to Crawl. We'll keep going with this one...
The Pretenders as the band stood for this album. (2 of the members had just died. Yes, drugs.):
Chrissie Hynde – lead vocals, rhythm guitars, harmonica, backing vocals.
Robbie McIntosh – lead and rhythm guitars, backing vocals.
Malcolm Foster – bass guitar, backing vocals.
Martin Chambers – drums, backing vocals, percussion.
On other songs there were a few different musicians. I'll note them.
Man, the blog posts are building up out the yin-yang. I believe this is because I am perusing different sites and trying to keep up with news in closer to real time. I don't know if this is the best way to go. More next week - stupidity in 32 flavors.
* If this takes a while to sink in, I don't blame you, but you do need to watch more old Simpson's episodes, and anyone who grew up with a land-line phone before caller-ID must have done a little of this at some point...
Comments:
Moderator
Monday - February 12th 2024 8:28AM MST
PS: Thanks for that Hawaii story, Mr. Smith. Should we just cut that place loose? I've never been - I hear it's beautiful, but that doesn't mean it ought to have ever been a part of this country. I imagine it was admitted for military reasons more than anything, or D-votes?
Alarmist, I don't know if that was directed to me, but yeah, Joan Jett and Chrissie Hynde used to give me that same vibe.... vibe, if I may ;-} They'd start off angry about something, but then they want you to wrestle them to the ground. Then it could get fun...
Alarmist, I don't know if that was directed to me, but yeah, Joan Jett and Chrissie Hynde used to give me that same vibe.... vibe, if I may ;-} They'd start off angry about something, but then they want you to wrestle them to the ground. Then it could get fun...
The Alarmist
Sunday - February 11th 2024 2:10PM MST
PS
She was sexy ... if you dig biker chicks.
What’s your take on Joan Jett then?
My wife and I watched the Christmas-time Yellowstone Marathon while in the States, and there were a few scenes with Beth Dutton that left my wife thinking what a beast she was, so at one point I shocked her by saying, “Honey, if I hadn’t married an angel like you, that’s likely the kind of woman I would have ended up with.”
She was sexy ... if you dig biker chicks.
What’s your take on Joan Jett then?
My wife and I watched the Christmas-time Yellowstone Marathon while in the States, and there were a few scenes with Beth Dutton that left my wife thinking what a beast she was, so at one point I shocked her by saying, “Honey, if I hadn’t married an angel like you, that’s likely the kind of woman I would have ended up with.”
Adam Smith
Sunday - February 11th 2024 12:07PM MST
PS: Meanwhile, in other news...
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24415425/aloha-spirit.pdf
https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/08/hawaii-court-gives-middle-finger-to-scotus-claims-spirit-of-aloha-overrides-constitution/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/10/hawaii-supreme-court-gun-laws-ruling-aloha-spirit-wire-quote
From the "ruling"...
Because he didn’t apply for a permit, he lacks standing to raise a Second Amendment challenge.
- and -
The spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities. The history of the Hawaiian Islands does not include a society where armed people move about the community to possibly combat the deadly aims of others.
Interesting times... ☮️
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24415425/aloha-spirit.pdf
https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/08/hawaii-court-gives-middle-finger-to-scotus-claims-spirit-of-aloha-overrides-constitution/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/10/hawaii-supreme-court-gun-laws-ruling-aloha-spirit-wire-quote
From the "ruling"...
Because he didn’t apply for a permit, he lacks standing to raise a Second Amendment challenge.
- and -
The spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities. The history of the Hawaiian Islands does not include a society where armed people move about the community to possibly combat the deadly aims of others.
Interesting times... ☮️
Moderator
Sunday - February 11th 2024 11:41AM MST
PS: J1234, re Chrissie Hynde and her looks: When you're a young guy, and little bit of cute is CUTE. No, the punk outfits on women aren't sexy at all, or new wave, or whatever that is. Maybe if there were some outfits that involved mini-skirts. She was not particularly sexy, no.
Moderator
Sunday - February 11th 2024 11:36AM MST
PS: J1234, yes, I mentioned that in the comments under another post (which led me to think of this band and Chrissie Hynde and read some Wikipedia). Miss Hynde was a big lefty (of course), but "big lefty" then doesn't compare to big lefty now, i.e., she wasn't a crackpot-nutcase. However, she didn't like Rush Limbaugh using that bass line from the band's song and was trying to get him to cease & desist, as they say.
Rush had not gotten permission from anybody or paid rights, but then Miss Hynde saw that her Mom like El Rushbo and his show so much that Chrissie let it slide. See, even with differences in opinion, things were just so more mellow 4 decades ago.
Anyway, I'll write this stuff again when I post that song, only partially going along with my take on the "concept" of that album but a great song. (Very much due to that great bass line, I think!)
Rush had not gotten permission from anybody or paid rights, but then Miss Hynde saw that her Mom like El Rushbo and his show so much that Chrissie let it slide. See, even with differences in opinion, things were just so more mellow 4 decades ago.
Anyway, I'll write this stuff again when I post that song, only partially going along with my take on the "concept" of that album but a great song. (Very much due to that great bass line, I think!)
J1234
Saturday - February 10th 2024 11:25PM MST
PS-
I always got a kick out of hearing that Pretenders song on Rush Limbaugh's show for all those years. I just now looked it up on wiki and apparently Chrissie didn't mind him using it, though she was hardly a Rush fan.
She was one of those semi-attractive (when younger) female pop stars that I didn't find appealing, even as a young man. She came across as dour and seemed to have an inflated opinion of her looks. She was slightly pretty, but still kind of looked like a female version of Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman with a little Keith Richards mixed in. Her eyes were beady, too. No thanks.
I always got a kick out of hearing that Pretenders song on Rush Limbaugh's show for all those years. I just now looked it up on wiki and apparently Chrissie didn't mind him using it, though she was hardly a Rush fan.
She was one of those semi-attractive (when younger) female pop stars that I didn't find appealing, even as a young man. She came across as dour and seemed to have an inflated opinion of her looks. She was slightly pretty, but still kind of looked like a female version of Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman with a little Keith Richards mixed in. Her eyes were beady, too. No thanks.
Moderator
Saturday - February 10th 2024 8:04PM MST
PS: Chrissie Hynde is still with us, Alarmist. Yes, that's quite coincidental. Sometimes I think and part of it all was in a dream from the previous night.
Mr. Blanc. I know that song too, of course. I think that song was the influence behind the name of the band, as I recall reading. Billy Joel also a song that must have been influenced by it - "Last of the Big Time Spenders". I like that one, though almost no one else has heard of it.
Mr. Blanc. I know that song too, of course. I think that song was the influence behind the name of the band, as I recall reading. Billy Joel also a song that must have been influenced by it - "Last of the Big Time Spenders". I like that one, though almost no one else has heard of it.
MBlanc46
Saturday - February 10th 2024 5:10PM MST
PS The Pretenders? Sorry, doesn’t ring a bell. There was a song titled “The Great Pretender” in the late fifties. I can still remember a few of the words. (Don’t worry, I won’t start to sing.) I had to look up who recorded it, though: The Platters.
The Alarmist
Saturday - February 10th 2024 3:23PM MST
PS
It’s one of those spooky days when I start out the day explaining the Pretenders song “Watching the Clothes go Round” to my wife as we wait for our front-load washer to finish a load, then to see “Back on the Chain Gang” pop up on a BBC show later in the day, and now to see the Album featured prominently.
Is Chrissy Hynde still alive ?
🕉
It’s one of those spooky days when I start out the day explaining the Pretenders song “Watching the Clothes go Round” to my wife as we wait for our front-load washer to finish a load, then to see “Back on the Chain Gang” pop up on a BBC show later in the day, and now to see the Album featured prominently.
Is Chrissy Hynde still alive ?
🕉
I remember being warned not to go to the Pretenders show when stationed in Europe as they were playing at the socialist gathering. While their music is ok, their politics suck.