The Electra Forums

When you hear songs on a commercial that you really LIKE and it makes you look up that song again. Or even worse, you hear piped in music and YOU LIKE IT.

I saw an insurance commercial and I heard this song from when I was a kid (a very young kid at that). I had to look it up. It sounded like Chicago. It had that deep voice that Terry Kath (I think that his name was) had, and it had a huge massive horn section (trumpets, sax) so it was VERY Chicago-like. It didn't hurt that I played trumpet into college and played in some Jazz Bands and also for Pep bands in High School and into College. Well the song was "Vehicle" but it was not by Chicago but by a one hit wonder from Chicago called Ides of March.

Check it out. If you are old enough you may have flashbacks. But tell me, doesn't this make you think of Terry Kath and Chicago? There is something about a brass/horn section that really cannot be recorded. They completely will rip your head off in a live situation - the sound can be massive. Maybe it is because I played I feel this way. But you don't get that anymore. Arts are NOT supported in that fashion, people listen to junk from a DJ or they do a single acoustic gig or karaoke it because nobody pays to hear music anymore. Let's face it, a horn section, singer, and rock band are EXPENSIVE. Man, I'd love to hear or play that kind of stuff. The guitar work is not that impressive, not bad, pretty normal for the time. But it fits and integrates into the wall of sound very well. Maybe being a trumpet player is partly why guitar tone and amp tone are important to me too. It is the entire package that makes the person I suppose. Seems like there ought to be a big rocking band, like the Black Flag, Chicago, and this Ides of March era out there making good music again. Last time I saw Chicago, they were still pretty good with only one or two original members. Now I don't know if they have anyone.

Ides of March, "Vehicle"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiLaNEFyCiM


Oh yeah, the lyrics are a bit creepy - the whole candy and stranger picking up people in a black car thing... I don't condone such things, but the song is really great.

_________________
Thorny

Vehicle always made me think of Blood, Sweat & Tears. I know I am old because we used to have the 45 of this record.

_________________
"This is the way that pop ends, Not with a BANG but with a box set whose fourth disc you never get around to playing” - Simon Reynolds

"My guitar wants to kill your Mama" - Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention

Ahhh, yeah; Blood sweat and tears or a NZ band from about the same era called Quincy Conserve.... Singers got a good set of pipes, too though perhaps not quite as capable as Malcolm Hayman or David Clayton- Thomas!!
Not too bad a song though I will say that it never made it to NZ in the 70s...

I loved playing with a horn section on the few occasions I got to do so simply because those blokes could REALLY play, no fooling around for them and boy, oh boy; the sheer power of the sound sends shivers up my spine!!

talking of ads, down here, ther's a TV ad for something - I cannot remember what!! - that uses the Eurythmics "Sweet dreams(are made of this)" that propels me backwards in time....

_________________
Every guitarist I would cross paths with would tell me that I should have a flashy guitar, whatever the latest fashion model was, and I used to say, 'Why? Mine works, doesn't it? It's a piece of wood and six strings, and it works.'

Angus Young

Have subsequently done some more reading, and the singer evidently later formed the band Survivor in the 80s - and got a few hits with them. Also he wrote some hit songs for some other artists too (and some jingles for advertising). And, at least as of a few years ago, has been touring. There is something about that wall of sound of a band with guitar, drums (percussion), bass, keyboard, and a well integrated horn section. Live it WILL send shivers up your spine like you say. Last time I heard Chicago was maybe over 10 years ago now, but they still sounded great.

I never heard the Big Band sound of Brian Setzer live but that would be another animal all together, but killer in its own right. My mother loved that before she passed away. She was once quite a "jitterbugger" (or so I have heard).

_________________
Thorny

I would kill to see the Brian Setzer Orchestra......dude (and his bands) is straight up bad*ss!!! Any of you 6 stringers into Danny Gatton? What a talent he was.......

Setzer has it all, really; silky, silky guitar chops, a great voice and stage presence to beat the band!! The BSGO music I've heard is jaw-dropping stuff!

It was hearing the horns in a band I was in many years ago that turned me on properly to big band and orchestral music; funnily enough, the William Tell Overture come up in random play in the car yesterday and I swear it makes me drive faster than rock music ever does!!

My preference, though, for horn type stuff is Kenny Ball and his Band; there's an interplay between all of the instruments that is just sublime.... I suppose purists will turn up their noses at it because its not "real" jazz, but, boy; does it ever skip along?!

_________________
Every guitarist I would cross paths with would tell me that I should have a flashy guitar, whatever the latest fashion model was, and I used to say, 'Why? Mine works, doesn't it? It's a piece of wood and six strings, and it works.'

Angus Young

Wow what a great song that is. I guess I must've always thought that was Blood, Sweat & Tears because I never gave a second thought to look it up.
I also remember seeing a very much older and heavier (weight wise) version of Survivor on a Starbucks commercial following some guy around and plugging his name into the song Eye of the Tiger trying to pump him up. Very funny.

Not long ago I was in Kroger with the wife getting groceries and noticed Pink Floyd on the speakers in the middle of the day and it seemed a bit louder than normal. This gray haired lady in front of us (about my age) was getting into Comfortably Numb. I was on an elevator at the hospital a few months back and they were playing Zep.

_________________
SlmGuy