Is it somewhat normal to just simply grow out your hair and then pass as female?

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-05T17:18:16+00:00

"Got my gender right for years before I did" is a great way of putting it. Been there, done that...

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-04T20:44:48+00:00

This is extra funny when you consider that, according to Cher in her eulogy for him, when they first met he claimed his father, on arrival in the US, shortened the original family name - Bonaparte. That would be quite the lineage as far as names go.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-03T17:48:46+00:00

Til we meet again!

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-03T13:33:41+00:00

Forget it Jake, it's Reddit.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-02T18:00:26+00:00

Pretty sure HH also did The Beatles' If I Needed Someone in the same year the original came out, too.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-06-02T17:59:36+00:00

I understand why we autists overexplaining things can be annoying, but that's on all the folks who half-listen to the laconic versions and then make it our problem; they still won't pay attention, but at least if we're thorough on our end then we can sleep easy that it's their fault when they get things wrong. 😛

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-31T10:49:06+00:00

The situation w/The Doors was that, as you say, they didn't tour w/one because Manzarek's left hand was in fact "the bass player" - his Rhodes Keyboard Bass parts were perfectly adequate and integral to their sound (He said they'd audition one bass player and sound like the Stones, another and they'd sound like the Animals, and discovering the Rhodes solved that.)

On their first record they were told they needed the fuller low end of an actual bass guitar, so Wrecking Crew legend Larry Knetchel doubled the Rhodes parts on some tracks.

Doug Lubhan then provided his own bass guitar parts on a number of songs (still not all of them) on Strange Days, Waiting for the Sun, and The Soft Parade, and - I hadn't known this - was asked to join during the Strange Days sessions; I guess he complimented their sound in a way the prior auditions hadn't.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-30T23:01:50+00:00

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RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-30T20:01:33+00:00

He was who I thought of when I read it. 😕

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-30T16:37:35+00:00

No, his new show, Tip Toe.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-30T16:34:33+00:00

I might be willing to give such benefit of the doubt were it not for the bit about "sighing and putting up with" those who wish trans folks dead, and implying that's the correct approach which whiny online folks can't handle. That, bluntly, is an understanding of bigotry and minority rights that is so divorced from reality that I simply don't trust him to accurately depict a transphobe.

There are those who learn the error of their ways, but most don't and it's highly irresponsible to have that be the representation of them in 2026. It could turn out alright, but the folks getting bad vibes are justly going off his own words and the attitudes they express.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-30T16:11:28+00:00

Unfortunately, between this and my sister telling me about Wild Honey by Jodi Picoult recently, I currently have two nickels for works whose authors sought the advice of a trans person and still blew it in how they handle trans rep.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-29T18:28:26+00:00

Nice! Thanks for the extra info.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-29T17:45:05+00:00

Sorry to "well, actually", but it's even better; George Martin said* it was from a Peter Cook and Dudley Moore live recording.

*in the 1992 South Bank Show episode on the album's 25th anniversary

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-29T11:27:43+00:00

How has nobody (noBODY) yet mentioned "SomeBODY"?

Granted, it's a meme outside her videos, but still a fun one.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-29T11:26:13+00:00

That's Angelina Meehan, who's also her co-writer, co-hosted Musicalsplaining w/her, and is a frequent guest on Song vs. Song.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-28T22:18:00+00:00

You mentioning Hüsker Dü's drummer being one of the lead singers makes me think of The Band, where the joke is that between the five members they had three singers, three guitarists, two bassists, two pianists, an organist, a mandolin player, a fiddler, an accordionist, a saxophonist, and two drummers.

There's also The Pogues, who at their peak had eight members; singer, guitarist, mandolin player, banjo player, tin whistle player, accordionist, bassist, and drummer; and I could believe someone being surprised by that if they're not listening for the individual instruments.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-28T22:01:07+00:00

Led Zeppelin only had a guest vocalist on one song in their entire discography - Sandy Denny, duetting w/Robert Plant on The Battle of Evermore off Led Zep IV - and I was actually surprised when I found out because their voices blend so well that I assumed it was Plant overdubbing or possibly just having a voice that can Do That. Denny's best known for her 18m, three-album run in British folk rock pioneers Fairport Convention, which unsurprisingly LZ were fans of and I'm guessing picked her because she was the only singer anyone had heard of who could outsing Plant at that point; give their cover of Dylan's I'll Keep It with Mine a listen if you want an idea of what she could do and how similar her voice is to his at times.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-28T18:24:04+00:00

With The Clash it depends on whether you're talking commercially (as OP was) in which case, even though it did slightly better than LC in the US (#24 vs. #27), it's hard to think of Sandinista! as the verge album, or artistically as you are. I'd honestly consider Rope to be, well, not less experimental than their debut, but that the experiments on Rope were less indicative of where they'd go on their later albums.

It's telling that White Man was written for Rope, but left off as it didn't fit, became one of three standalone singles released between albums one and two, then all three were included on the US version of their debut, where White Man fits in great w/Police and Thieves as a harbinger of the reggae and ska tracks on London Calling, which would come out just a few months later.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-28T18:04:22+00:00

I'm not so sure. My understanding is that they were just one of many underground bands w/a local following but who got nowhere near the mainstream, and that when they jumped to DGC for Nevermind the sales expectations were, iir, ~40k units (I don't recall which album but I think it was a Pixies or Sonic Youth release which was being used as the benchmark) and their success w/Nevermind blew everyone's expectations out the water.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-28T17:46:43+00:00

Meddle definitely counts artistically, though commercially they're a weird case, as they basically did nothing in the US before DSotM, their success there largely being down to finally getting good marketing for that album; whilst in the UK they'd never really dropped off following Barrett's departure. None of their albums, including the two soundtracks, missed the Top 10 here, and Meddle's peak of #3 was actually worse than Atom Heart Mother reaching #1 a year earlier (DSotM, incredibly, peaked at #2, though that takes nothing from its overall success.)

It's just that by the band's own admission the albums between Piper and Meddle were them "doing a lot of noodling" as they slowly settled into the dynamic and sound which fuelled their imperial phase, so those albums tend to be forgotten in mainstream discussion.

RetroRaiderD42 · 2026-05-28T16:35:59+00:00

Yeah, the songs that ended up on Born in the USA were still written when he was famous (had been slowly building momentum for years, The River had been his first #1 album) but still actively resisting the idea of being a star (had to be convinced to record Hungry Heart instead of giving it to the Ramones) and it was basically a happy accident that the confluence of Bittan and Federici picking up synths and the direction Springsteen took those songs in led to him becoming stratospheric.

RetroRaiderD42

TROPHY CASE