Dire Straits..crap/not crap

[Orang Utan]

rolled up jacket sleeves is a hot look. you've no style obv.

 

[DotCommunist]

wrong . Anyone who bobbles around on stage with their sleeves of their ridiculous baggy yuppie suit rolled up Miami vice style , with no shirt under it , barefoot on a gym mat wearing a luminous fucking head band is by definition a soulless fucking monster who should be impaled on very high stakes . The name of that soulless monster is Dire Straits . The band who put the dire into diahorrea .

yeh I am young enough not to remember that shit, and in about five years time Dire Straits will have passed out of dadrock and into critical re-appraisal by people as old as I am and will be seen in context raher than in the jaded memories of those who endured/enjoyed them firsthand. So there.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Dire Straits are awful piss

 

[Citizen66]

Generally middle of the road 'dad' rock. Walk of life is embarrassing.

Have a couple of saving moments though like Brothers in Arms (the song) and Sultans of Swing.

Bad



Not quite so bad

 

[MellySingsDoom]

During the Punk Wars, your humble narrator was a wee lad in Milton Keynes, a real cultural backwater at the time. Radio 1 (apart from Peel, bless 'im) avoided the stuff (Mull of Fucking Kintyre, anyone?), but they would sometimes play some "dangerous" "new wave", of which "Sultans of Swings" was the prime candidate. Seemed nice enough at the time (and for all you lot listening to Throbbing Gristle in 1979 as 8 year olds, the Phillip Best Executive Snug is over that way >>>), although I thought the lyrics were about yer actual Sultans wigging out on the Medina. Fortunately/unfortunately for me, Dad Melly on one of his visits North of Watford proferred a tape of Pink Floyd's the Wall, thus introducing me to the joys of bombastic "theme" rock and untrammeled lyrical misanthropy, so that was my musical innocence knocked for a burton.

Dad Melly used to play "Private Investigations" round his place, and the moody "dang, dang, dang, DANG DANG!" of it was really OK. Alas, any fleeting love affair with the Straits died once "that" song got caned everywhere, Stepdad Melly wore out the tape of "Brothers in Arms" to death, and in a copy of my sister's "Smash Hits", I read about this group called Half Man Half Biscuit, who were compared to this band called The Fall. "Indie music"? said I, "I must purchase this here HMHB disc". and thus my musical education/degeneration began, and soon I was up on my Melody Makers and NMEs, guffawing at their trouncing of all that "epic rock" stuff, and going through a Maoist musical re-education where Knopfler and Co never, ever pleased my ears oncce - the love that dare not speak its name......

Now? Yer man Knopfler is indeed a talented guy, and seems like a genuine feller to boot. But as for Dire Straits, their music just seems too....clean to these ears now.

 

[jdncl]

Here man, they're fuckin mint.
End of.

 

[rorymac]

Mark Knopfler is mint as you like imo

 

[rorymac]

2:45 onwards could give any guitarist a semi imo

 

[Casually Red]

If he's a mint then he's a Foxes Glacier shite flavoured mint .

 

[ouchmonkey]

tiresome, plodding, muso toss

 

[danny la rouge]

tiresome, plodding, muso toss

Muso? I get the tiresome, plodding toss, but "muso" implies some sort of technical complexity, albeit applied without taste.

 

[ouchmonkey]

people will forever bang on about how talented a guitarist he is.........meh

all technique and no groove

 

[Orang Utan]

people will forever bang on about how talented a guitarist he is.........meh

all technique and no groove

this is well groovy:

 

[danny la rouge]

people will forever bang on about how talented a guitarist he is.........meh

all technique and no groove

Except, he isn't actually very technical. Just dull.

 

[rorymac]

He's top drawer and a seriously nice bloke is Mark imo

For all of our toil
All of our plans
Castles are built in the sand
And after the storm
After the waves
Together we'll build it again
It's not for the castle
It's not for the sand
Not for the view from cedarland
It's just for the smile
The care you can bring
It's just to build a beautiful thing

 

[Johnny.L]

At the time I thought the first album was great, albeit ripping off JJ Cale a bit too much. Downhill all the way since then.

 

[ouchmonkey]

this is well groovy:

don't make me hate you

 

[lighterthief]

Too late?

Very early, very cool Dire Straits. Alchemy Live is a brilliant album. Knopfler is a virtuoso guitarist. Nothing not to like

 

[lighterthief]

And lest we forget, this utter gem:

 

[shagnasty]

I too am a dire straits fan,sultans of swing one of my favourites

 

[Bakunin]

Mark Knopfler is mint as you like imo

Evidence of this is amply supplied by this rendition of Sultans Of Swing from their live album called Alchemy: