Oh yeah - on one of the early, early archived shows, Tom takes NRBQ apart; IIRC, he claims that NRBQ traffics in the kind of pre-punk "boogie" that punk rock was supposed to get rid of.
What did he mean by pre-punk "boogie"? What bands specifically would fall under that category?
Well jeez guys, I was paraphrasing. I'm now listening to the episode in question...The April 17, 2001 episode has Tom's opinion on this NRBQ stuff: "Crummy bar-band music....The worst rooty-toot toot music...." ...Tom compares the "rock and roll" of The Ramones to the "rock and roll" of NRBQ; Tom says the reason why the Ramones' rock and roll was superior is that "the Ramones didn't have any BOOGIE in them....The worst band in history." Keep in mind that Tom takes Al Green to task in this same episode.
Okay, so my memory of this episode - last heard about 9 months ago - was not exact, but I THINK that was the point Tom was trying to get across: that the punk bands who tried to recapture the fun and energy of 50s/early 60s rock didn't use "boogie" in their sound: i.e. no one played any shuffles, no I-IV-V chord progressions (for the most part) or walking bass lines (to be reductionist about it). To many rock critics and punk fans, yes, many think of rock history in pre-punk and post-punk terms, and I guess I thought Tom's thoughts on NRBQ succinctly summed up this point without having to say it out loud. Tom never says anyone was "replacing" anything; those were my words based on the hazy memory of this show. But....Add this episode to the Kid Ebay discussion of pub rock, and I think we can guess Tom's feelings about those kind of musical features that define pre-punk rock (not talking specifically prog like Emerson Lake and Palmer, but that too - talking about bland mainstream rock in the mid-70s) and the stuff that came after. Sure, Led Zeppelin had some "boogie" in them (i.e. "Boogie With Stu," but...)
That's my interpretation, and I may be being presumptuous, and sorry if I was, but yeah, okay.
As for what bands would qualify as "Boogie," I would guess early Doobies, Status Quo, Canned Heat, some Ten Years After, Dave Edmunds, Little Feat, uh....I guess all those mid-70s bands who were still doing Chuck Berry riffs in a "tasteful" way, unlike, say, the New York Dolls, who were far less reverent about it. Uh...I dunno. (shrug) Didn't think that post was gonna cause such a brouhaha.
