What is Hip? – IOTW Report

What is Hip?

Tell me, if you think you know.

h/t PHenry.

40 Comments on What is Hip?

  1. I can see, hear & feel hip …. this is definitely Chicago hip (btw, robot moves ain’t hip). lots of brass. reminds me of good funk. CTA had it w/ Kath. EWF had it. Rick James, James Brown, Parliament & Funkadelic, et.al. heck, even local bands back in me youth had brass sections …. anyone remember ‘Lawrence & the Arabians’ in the DC area in the early ’60’s?

    College bands doing Herb Alpert didn’t have it. Folk rock doesn’t. Bluegrass doesn’t. Country (especially today) doesn’t have it. doesn’t mean I can’t like & appreciate them, they just ain’t hip … ‘cept maybe Hank Williams, Sr. 😉

    btw, Bob Dylan ain’t hip

    now …. argue about the Stones being hip

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  2. Hip is what’s connected to the thigh bone, which is connected to the knee bone, which is connected to the knee bone, which is connected to the leg bone, which is connected to the foot bone, which is connected to the toe bone. I’m sure you remember the song.

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  3. Was there in those days. Many of our musicians (and a lot of the audience) had Dads who fought or were killed in WWII (including many of our friends in GB).

    Although, we never talked about it. We were always like a silent Family, always concerned about each other. Always made good money and music. Never out of a job.

    Girls, whose Dads had the same fate were always there. just did not understand WHY? in those days. Thought that that’s how it has always been.

    What a dream. What memories…all of it, including Tower Of Power.

    Hip! Man! Hip!

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  4. Geoff. Yeah. I’m always in the fight and Tuesday is when I will re-engage. But I am up to my neck and needed some escapism. It worked to restore my soul.

    Make sense? I can only eat but so much shit in a week.

    We have a new battle in Virginia. I’ll be in it. Youngkin vs McAuliffe. Sears vs who cares. Miyares vs the terrible AG whose name escapes me.

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  5. An incredibly tight musical group. I worked at a music store after high school, and one of the guys that worked there had a Tower of Power album he played while repairing instruments. One of the tracks was an insanely tight version of Dizzy Gillespie’s “Salt Peanuts”. I wish I could find it now …

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  6. PT Henry:

    Always had that “funny feeling” that you were from that era.

    Good taste in music, BTW. You got an ear. Would not be surprised if you’re not one of the musicians in the “Tower of Power” Professional Photos. Probably ran across each other.

    Played, at least half the cities in all but sixteen states. Tombstone shall read:

    “It was All a Dream”

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  7. Yea well I was backing out of a power rack about two weeks ago. 225 pounds on the bar and my first step backwards with my left foot I felt something pop. sciatic. My hips killing me. I know longer want to be hip.

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  8. PHenry.
    Yep dun burned out myself, working like a slave for a year.
    I get tired of commenters trying to take down others on this site, what is the point.
    If you want to read a real fight go back to 2015 and read the comments leading up to President Trump winning. The Cruz Camp hated us who were in the President Trump Camp.
    We are all on the the same side,most of the time.

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  9. @joe6 ~ didn’t say I didn’t like Dylan. just said I didn’t think he wasn’t hip
    my question was, can one argue the Stones were hip?

    p.s … not saying I don’t like the Stones either …. consider their mid ’60’s to early ’70’s stuff their best … after that they were a tribute band to themselves …. not that there’s anything wrong w/ that (gotta make the $$$)

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  10. You silly kids.

    Back in 1972 all of the Bay Area bands came up to the Carson City speedway and put on a hell of a show.

    As for me, I worked on the retail side of the music biz and video biz most of my adult life.

    Nothing glamourous. Just retail/wholesale.

    Stocked cassettes when the US Navy brought in aircraft carrier group into Naples, Italy. It was madness. Good times though.

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  11. @joe6 ~ it’s all good, … just trying to stay the flow of PHenry’s original query of what is hip

    I like a lot of many genres from Delta Blues, Southern Swing, Bluegrass, Appalachian, Classic Country, Swing, Rockabilly, Elvis, English Invasion, Southern Rock … love John Haitt, ABB, Zep, Beatles … big fan of Sinatra, Emmie Lou Harris, Ronstadt, J. Joplin, Adele, even Lady Gaga on some of her work. not a fan of rap or anything today created by autotuning … same 4-chord non-musical sound

    “you can’t spell CRAP without R A P” ~ Gregg Allman

  12. Tower of Power, one of the best bands ever! “What is Hip”, Love that jam.
    Saw them in the mid seventies at my Junior college.
    In fact, I made the banner for their performance and met some of the musicians. I was definitely star struck. Nice guys and very professional.
    Hipness is absolutely what it is.

    Another great Tower of Power hit and one of my favorites;
    https://youtu.be/t9BRqGpppJw .

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  13. Playing real instruments and singing and dancing with no computers fixing everything is definitely hipper than today’s “artists”.

    My father wore those men’s platform shoes.
    We used to know a band who toured New England who played this sound in their act. Lewis and Clark Expedition.
    They let our parents sneak us in to see them.
    Like previous commenters pointed out, the Chicago sound was great in person.

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  14. Joe 6 and PHenry, I am a big fan of Leon Russell, I like all of his music but especially his alter ego of Hank Wilson. I loved all his covers of a lot of the good old country and western and honky tonk songs of the 40’s and 50’s. And I still have the albums from back then.

  15. My brother and another of my room mates in the mid 70’s took my copy of that terrible Disco album Roller Maidens From Outer Space (don’t ask me why I had that record) and used it for skeet, shooting it multiple times with CO2 powered air rifles until they had completely obliterated and destroyed it. It deserved to die an ignominious death.

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  16. I saw Tower of Power when they played at the old Paramount in Seattle, about 1973. They opened with “Nightclub” and it just got better from there. $5 tickets and gas was .36/gal.

    Didn’t we live at about the last best time on earth? I’ve always thought so.

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  17. So, purple, pink, green orange hair (Bozo), tatted body, face piercings and a bull nose ring isn’t hip? They’re standing across the counter from you flipping burgers or filling a drink cup, Management thinks it’s hip or it’s desperation. I think it’s desperation for hired help.

    I saw what looked to be a 13-14 yo girl (runaway?), filthy, barefooted, laid out on the sidewalk with another young kid drinking booze. I guess I should at least give an applause for the tatted up kid behind the counter. At least he showed up to work, unlike the girl who left her garbage laying on the sidewalk. No respect and we aren’t going to get it, so, don’t feed the wildlife.

  18. 99: That song came to mind when I first saw this post.

    AA: These days you didn’t need a mortgage to see a concert. Tickets to the great 1938 great Big Band concert topped out at $2.50 — that is under $50 allowing for inflation. https://youtu.be/3KSKN9J6r74

    Mrs. RMM and I have been talking lately about how there used to be “teen clubs,” and local bands of people in their teens or early 20’s would be in bands and play at those venues. It would be nice to have something like that again.

    Kids today just aren’t being exposed to different types of music. We gave our Granddaughter a set of CD’s with classical music for her 6th birthday. My DIL has a Django Reinhardt CD that my Granddaughter loves.

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