< To: Subject: Re: Well, this should keep the McCartney Thread alive for another 1200 posts... Message-ID: We live in a world where Paris Hilton's daily activities dominate the news media...so I can take excessive pub when Macca or Brian Wilson make an album. The world is what it is - you need your bullshit filter on 24/7 because much is pandered to the lowest common denominator. Sure, Lefsetz rants a lot - his favorite artist is Bob Lefsetz, so how could anyone else measure up? Just more shtick - he's in it for the fame, not the feeling. And like with music, when the material sucks, ignore it, and hope that occasionally a hit sneaks through. But back to Macca and Wilson...actually, I'm glad that a lot of the old guard still make records, even if many of them don't appeal to me. Until the day when gun is placed to temple, whether or not I listen/buy/like is up to me and I'm thankful I get the opportunity to form an opinion. I don't owe artists anything, and they don't owe me, and if I like what they are selling I will be a customer and we're both happy. That part of the business model survived intact. (With forced retirement I'd have missed the last releases by old farts like Graham Parker and Ian Hunter, and Hunter's two most recent releases are arguably the best he's ever done, gravely voice and all. Dude is *68* years old...I'm floored!)>> Exactly, Bill. I'm baffled as to why anyone on this list would raise the ol' "why can't the old guard write and perform songs now as well as they did back when they were in their twenties?" topic when several of us Auditeers have made it a point to extol Parker's *Don't Tell Columbus* and Hunter's *Shrunken Heads*. Both are fantastic albums that were released no more than three months ago, and both were released by artists who certainly define the word "veteran". Geep is 56 years old, and his first album, *Howlin' Wind* (back when he was the frontman of Graham Parker & the Rumour), was released 31 years ago. Hunter, as you noted, is 68 freakin' years old, and his first album (Mott The Hoople's self-titled debut) came out all the way back in 1969, although Hunter's first appearance on record was supposedly with British pianist/singer Freddie "Fingers" Lee several years before. I recognize the fact that neither Parker nor Hunter is of the stature of Brian Wilson or Paul McCartney, although neither one is a stranger to the Top 40 on either side of the Atlantic (and Mott The Hoople's "All the Young Dudes" and "All the Way From Memphis" continue to be US radio staples to this day). Most people who are likely to start up the "too old to rock'n'roll" conversation are likely to be unaware of Parker or Hunter ... although that shouldn't be the case on Audities, both because this is a list filled with rock'n'roll congnoscenti and because *Don't Tell Columbus* and *Shrunken Heads* have both been touted here. Nevertheless, those two albums are each 2007-vintage proof that you can, indeed, write and record songs in your dotage that stand up to the records that you made back in your salad days. Greg Sager