LROOE press

[AzEaglesFan]

I finally found a copy but the article wasn't near long enough and I would have liked a lot more pictures. :P

[Glennsallnighter]

Wow, Molly. I hadn't noticed that during the show!

I've spent more time and parking money than I should have done going into town every day to look for this. Fingers crossed that it's out this week.

GA, I may take you up on this offer as well if I have no luck this week!

Brooke, you deserve a discount ticket for your next Eagles concert for that!

Absolutely No Problem GEF. But I havent seen it yet. However I'm up at the centre most days so I'm still holding out.

[Mrs Frey]

That is very cool, Molly!

Well, I haven't seen the new copy of Rolling Stone here. I'm lucky if I EVER see ANY copy of Rolling Stone here.

Well hows about I get you one when I eventually get mine and post it on to you MF?

Well, I would just call you a sweet angel, my dear.

[Brooke]

Brooke, you deserve a discount ticket for your next Eagles concert for that!

Good idea, gef! Would you please call Glenn and tell him to send it right away? I'm in dire need of an Eagles concert right now!

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Okay - After reading my newly acquired issue of Rolling Stone Magazine along with these reviews, I'm warning everyone - I'm going to rant. If you don’t want to hear a rant, then quit reading this now!

But let me preface my rant by saying that I LOVE DON HENLEY!!!!!

This rant is not a diss on Don, but it is a diss on those people who seem to have the attitude that the Eagles consist of Don Henley and some other guys.

Some of these people think that the only member of the Eagles that has any talent is Don Henley. They seem to think that he is the only one that can sing, he is the only one that can write lyrics, he is the only one that knows a good song when he hears one, and he is the only one who can perform.

I have always found this attitude very offensive. First of all, if any of it were true, Don wouldn’t be in the Eagles, he would still be a solo artist. The truth of the matter is none of the members of the Eagles, past or present, have come close to the Eagles success as solo artists. What is it that makes the Eagles so special? It is that the Eagles consist of 4 (formerly 5) unique and very talented individuals. Each of them is very gifted in their own right. However, it is the combination of these four unique, talented men that collectively make the Eagles the very special entity that it is. None of them can achieve the sound of the Eagles by himself.

One of the things that has always been a real sore spot with me, is when people undermine or devalue any of the band members worth. Now, I am not saying that any of them aren’t ever deserving of criticism. I’m saying that you can criticize their actions, but not their value to the band. I am also not trying to suggest that all four members contribute equally. We all know that isn’t the case. But each of them is a key ingredient in the Eagles “recipe”. You all know how it works – when you bake a cake, sugar isn’t the main ingredient, but it sure ain’t the same if you leave the sugar out. Obviously, the glue is Don and Glenn (sorry Timothy ) – they are the two that have been around since the start. One of them is just as critical to the Eagles formula as the other, and to suggest otherwise is just ridiculous, IMHO. I always thought part of the reason for the Eagles success is that when you put on an Eagles CD, it’s not like listening to the same song 10 times. Each member contributes to the sound, even though Glenn dominated the band’s early sound, and Don it’s latter sound.

I, too, was pretty ticked with the “Air Supply” comment that Glenn made in Rolling Stone. I’m not sure what his intent or motivation for the remark was, but whether he meant to or not, he diminished his value to the band, as well as Joe’s and Tim’s. None of these guy’s music, individually or collectively, is Air Supply. What were you thinking, Glenn? You don’t have to put down some band members, including yourself, to pay a compliment to another one. I do agree with what Brooke said. Glenn seems to be quite content to leave most of the PR stuff to the others, especially Don. Maybe he doesn’t enjoy doing the PR stuff anymore. He does appear to want to shun the spotlight and keep a relatively low profile these days. So Glenn, you wanted a successful album, and you got your wish. You can run, but you can’t hide. Oh well, Glenn - suck it up!

[Freypower]

Spot on again, Dreamer.

When Glenn says things like this all he does is give ammunition to the people who want to put him down. We have already seen the 'Air Supply' comment used by a reviewer. We see reviews where only Henley is written about (with comments like 'Glenn Frey sang a couple of songs' and 'Glenn Frey sang the first verse of How Long'). We have also seen Glenn drop three of his own best known songs from the set list and not touch anyone else's except for SG & HITW, and then he has only increased his own quota with two new songs. He really does seem to have the idea that fans aren't interested in him or his work.

I repeat that his songs on LROOE, though they may be 'relationship' songs and are not dissertations on the state of the world, are as valid, and are also as enjoyable, as Don's songs.

And yet his modesty and his self-deprecation remain admirable, when they are deployed in a more positive way than they are here, which is most of the time.

[sodascouts]

I don't know if this has been caught before and I just missed it, but I figured I'd post it anyway:

Don Henley does Q&A with The Record:

Don Henley knows most fans show up to hear “Hotel California,” not the new stuff.

“Of course, the people still love the old stuff,” Henley wrote in an e-mail. “But over 3 million of our fans, in this country, have the new album, so the new songs are not alien to a lot of them.”

As the Eagles prepare for five New York-area shows to promote their new double album, “Long Road Out of Eden,” Henley agreed to trade e-mails with The Record.

Q. In another interview, you said, “We’ve always concentrated on the craft of songwriting, our bedrock.” How long did it take you to write this album? Which were the most difficult songs to piece together?

It took about three years to write the majority [of] this album, although a couple of songs go back further than that. The one song that stands out in my mind as being difficult to finish is the title song, “Long Road Out of Eden.” That took about two years to complete.

Q. Disc 1 seems to be the more emotional of the two discs; Disc 2, the more intellectual. When you sat down to work on this double album, were you trying to create discs with two distinct identities?

It was not our original intent to do a double album. Once we found that we had written and recorded too many songs for one disc, the decision was made to release a two-disc package. Glenn [Frey] did the sequencing and decided which songs to put on each disc. I think he did a good job.

Q. Unless you buy the album online, you have to pick it up at Wal-Mart. You’ve said you’re “not a fan of big-box retailers.” Did it take some convincing to get you to agree to this deal? And have you heard from any fans who were upset with this move?

Yes, it took a lot of convincing. Our manager, Irving Azoff, came to us with the idea of going with Wal-Mart. I was immediately skeptical, but after several months of research on Wal-Mart’s efforts to make the company — and all of its vendors — greener, I acquiesced. Besides, I figured that Wal-Mart couldn’t be any more evil than a major record label.
We did get some heat, but most of it was from people who didn’t like us to begin with.

Q. Playing a cover of “Boys of Summer” seems to have become a prerequisite for any musician trying to start a band. Which artist(s) does the best “Boys of Summer” cover?

I like the Hooters’ version. That’s the band, not the — uh — restaurant.

Q. In the song “Long Road Out of Eden,” you wrote, “Behold the bitten apple — the power of the tools; But all the knowledge in the world is of no use to fools.” Is this an indictment on the way Americans are using new technology?

Interesting question. That’s certainly one way to look at it. There’s an incredible amount of mindless crap on the Internet, just as there is on television and radio, not to mention the stuff in print.

We have all this miraculous technology, now, that can instantly provide us with endless information about anything and everything, but in many ways, we haven’t gotten any smarter or wiser.

The line in the song is also a biblical reference to the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge and the anthropological fact that when ancient man learned to make tools, that’s when civilization supposedly began. So, in some ways, we are astonishingly advanced, but in other ways, we are just as primitive as those cave men.

Q. You’ve said a chimpanzee would be an improvement on President Bush. If you were given the controls to the country, what would be the first change you would try to implement?

Hypothetical questions are always a no-win situation, but here goes: I would do a major overhaul of U.S. foreign policy and energy policy, which in recent years have become almost indistinguishable. We’ve got to get off this petroleum bender. There has been an enormous amount of damage done to the environment and to our reputation around the world.

Q. The second CD’s final song (“It’s Your World Now”) includes this line: “It’s your world now, my race is run, I’m moving on, like the setting sun.” Sure sounds like you guys are trying to pass the torch. Is this the last Eagles album?

It very well could be. But I’ve learned not to prognosticate when it comes to the Eagles. It will take us another two years or so to tour the globe. After we recuperate from that, we’ll see if anybody’s in the mood to write and record. Your guess is as good as mine.

E-mail: kerwick@northjersey.com

[Mrs Frey]

Dreamer, thanks for your thoughts. I agree with you completely. As I've stated elsewhere, the Don Henley bias (and allow me to say that I too love Don Henley) in various reviews has irritated me. All the Eagles are important to what the Eagles are. Don stated in the "60 Minutes" interview that he cannot sound the way he does in the Eagles without "these guys". Enough said.

FP, I agree with your thoughts, too. If only Glenn realised how much he means to his many fans.

Soda, thanks for posting that interview with Don.

[TimothyBFan]

Can I get a big AMEN for all of the above! And as I said in another thread-I hate the Air Supply thing also- and since he has said it, I have seen it in print a couple of times and I get angry every time. It just seems so belittling.

[Freypower]

OK, well, I now have my copy of Rolling Stone and can make some comments.

It's a pretty lightweight article. If only Young hadn't felt the need to glorify his own past experiences with the band - but that is typical Rollingstonespeak, where the author is as important as the subject. It is all the Hunter S. Thompson and P.J. O'Rourke stuff the magazine is so obsessed with. I am baffled by the use of so many old photos. Here was an opportunity to show the band as they are now - an opportunity I am sure they would have taken were the subject one of their cover darlings like Madonna, the Stones, U2 or Springsteen.

Maybe we leaped too hard on Glenn for the 'Air Supply' thing (although it doesn't help that it is singled out and highlighted in a big blue paragraph). Glenn then 'uncoils with his explosive laugh' which suggests to me that 'Air Supply' was said in a very deadpan way, like 'Prelude To Obscurity'.

Felder states that U2 still care about the music, despite the money, which never was and never will be the case with the Eagles. Pass the sickbag. Apologies to U2 fans but they are just as big a moneymaking operation as the Eagles. And again if he thought all that, why the hell didn't he leave? I loved Don's account of all this, with the 'Mr Felder' stuff (thank God there were no arch 'Mr Freys this time).

I loved Joe's story about going to Westminster Abbey, my favourite church in the world, and 'sitting on Sir Isaac Newton'. Imagine wandering through the Abbey and seeing that familiar blonde head.
I would like to share a story about my trip to London in 1980 when I was visiting St Paul's Cathedral. Coming towards me was a man wrapped in an overcoat with spiky blonde hair and big round eyes. It was Rod Stewart (he was doing some gigs at Wembley at the time). I stared and my mouth fell open. He looked back. I walked past and left him to himself.

Just some 'random notes'.