For your summer enjoyment--From '77 Oakland

June 17, 2014 4:10 PM

Peter Frampton was a GOD during my high school daze (SLYT) Take note at 10:00, when he takes over the drums.
He hasn't lost anything but a bit of hair. He still tours and has the chops.
He is playing his beloved 1954 Les Paul
After the happy reunion, he plays it for the 1st time.
Peter Kenneth Frampton (born 22 April 1950) is an English rock musician, singer, songwriter, producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. He was previously associated with the bands Humble Pie and The Herd. Frampton's international breakthrough album was his live release, Frampton Comes Alive!. The album sold more than six million copies in the United States alone and spawned several hits. Since then he has released several major albums.[2] He has also worked with David Bowie and both Matt Cameron and Mike McCready from Pearl Jam, among others. Frampton is best known for such hits as "Breaking All The Rules", "Show Me the Way", "Baby, I Love Your Way", "Do You Feel Like We Do", and "I'm in You", which remain staples on classic-rock radio. He has also appeared as himself in television shows such as The Simpsons and Family Guy. Frampton is known for his work as a guitar player and particularly with a Talkbox and his tenor voice. (WiKi)

rockers still at it

posted by shockingbluamp (55 comments total)

As Wayne Campell said of "Frampton Comes Alive", if you lived in the suburbs, you were issued it.
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:27 PM on June 17, 2014 [11 favorites]

"OH YEAHHHH!

What a song to play on that!

(Man... that is cool.)"
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 4:31 PM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

As Wayne Campell said of "Frampton Comes Alive", if you lived in the suburbs, you were issued it.

... and like pretty much everything I was issued, I rejected it.

Not that bad an album in places, but man was it overplayed, over-hyped, over-everythinged. I came to hate it. And short of the cash, I doubt it did him much good. I seem to remember hearing he got booed on his next tour ... mainly it seems for not being "as good as the album".
posted by philip-random at 4:36 PM on June 17, 2014

Check out his profile picture at Google+ (his profile, just the pic). An excellent Terrygilliamization.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:39 PM on June 17, 2014

If it wasn't for "Frampton comes alive" I would never have had a place roll joints.
posted by I love you more when I eat paint chips at 4:39 PM on June 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

if you lived in the suburbs, you were issued it

Seriously. That record was everywhere.
posted by thelonius at 4:41 PM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

But "Baby I Love Your Way" was the de rigeur first slow dance track at every high school dance in America without a live band for the next eight years, until "True" from Spandau Ballet came out and seized the position for the rest of eternity.
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:43 PM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

(Though I suspect more virginity has been lost overall to the Frampton number.)
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:44 PM on June 17, 2014

God, I hate Peter Frampton.

Thats not a bad tune tho. *slinks away, after threadshitting*
posted by sfts2 at 4:48 PM on June 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

God knows why I'm posting so much to a Frampton thread but I've just remembered he had a completely gratuitous guest role on the increasingly silly Donald Bellisario series "Black Sheep Squadron" (nee "Baa Baa Black Sheep") in which he played, IIRC, a young English quasi-hermit of noble birth living for no apparent reason on a Pacific island in the middle of WWII, and spent the episode swapping cultural tidbits with a young stranded US Marine pilot with an equally implausible hairstyle. I cannot believe I remember this.
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:52 PM on June 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

Saw his tour maybe two/three years ago. He is not phoning it in. He owns the stage - terrific performer.
posted by j_curiouser at 4:54 PM on June 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

I recall a documentary which included a bit about how Bowie came to select Frampton as his touring guitarist. Short answer: he is enormously better than you think he is.
posted by Enron Hubbard at 4:56 PM on June 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

there is no shame for a man crush George_Spiggot. Own it. Love your Frampton.
posted by shockingbluamp at 4:58 PM on June 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

I remember watching an interview with Frampton about his early band the Herd, where a manager walked in and said upon seeing his golden locks "You're the singer!" "No, I Play guitar." "Wrong."

A few years later he ditched that shit to play grungy blooze boogie with a few ugly dudes called Humble Pie. Punk as fuck move, kinda.
posted by jonmc at 4:58 PM on June 17, 2014 [5 favorites]

Now I have to go deliver my paper route and am back in love with my neighbor Tracy.
posted by vapidave at 5:02 PM on June 17, 2014 [11 favorites]

Anyone remember the stunned teen anger when Frampton teamed up with the Bee Gees?
posted by octothorpe at 5:05 PM on June 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

anyone who doubts frampton's abilities as a guitarist isn't paying attention.
posted by fingers_of_fire at 5:10 PM on June 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

Frampton was pop pure and simple, a teen hearthrob manufactured. Kids knew it at the time. We all did. A lot of good guitarists then, you kidding? He wasn't in top 10 of his era, let alone all time. Ritchie Blackmore, Alvin Lee, Townsend, Jimmy Page, Mick Taylor, Garcia, Tucker Boys and Skynryd, Springsteen, David Gilmour, Zappa, I'm just gonna stop. No particular order tho.

I was payin' plenty of attention at the time, being all freshman in college and all.
posted by sfts2 at 5:19 PM on June 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

Is old Peter Frampton way better looking than young Peter Frampton? Or do I just think that because I'm old, too?
posted by HotToddy at 5:23 PM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Anyone remember the stunned teen anger when Frampton teamed up with the Bee Gees?

I certainly remember their joint starring role in what must have been the most cocaine-fueled motion picture effort of 1978. Note that the embedded clips don't appear to work in the US but here, for the time being at least, is what appears to be the entire film.
posted by George_Spiggott at 5:28 PM on June 17, 2014

Nick Hornby, from "High Fidelity":

The song that makes me cry has never made me cry before; in fact, the song that makes me cry used to make me puke. When it was a hit, I was at college, and Charlie and I used to roll our eyes and stick our fingers down our throats when somebody—invariably a geography student, or a girl training to be a primary school teacher (and I don't see how you can be accused of snobbishness if all you are doing is stating the plain, simple truth), put it on the jukebox in the bar. The song that makes me cry is Marie LaSalle's version of Peter Frampton's 'Baby, I Love Your Way.'

Imagine standing with Barry, and Dick, in his Lemonheads T-shirt, and listening to a cover version of a Peter Frampton song, and blubbering! Peter Frampton! 'Show Me the Way'! That perm! That stupid bag thing he used to blow into, which made his guitar sound like Donald Duck! Frampton Comes Alive, top of the American rock charts for something like seven hundred and twenty years, and bought, presumably, by every braindead, coke-addled airhead in L.A.! I understand that I was in dire need of symptoms to help me understand that I have been deeply traumatized by recent events, but did they have to be this extreme? Couldn't God have settled for something just mildly awful—an old Diana Ross hit, say, or an Elton John original?

posted by MonkeyToes at 5:29 PM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm proud of us...It only took three comments to get to "your favorite musician sucks"... the tradition lives!
posted by HuronBob at 6:00 PM on June 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

For all the hate Frampton gets from people who heard too much of him at Middle School dances, well, I hate to break it to you oldsters, but my generation's got y'all beat. We were treated to this crime against humanity all through the mid to late nineties.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:02 PM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Frampton was pop pure and simple, a teen hearthrob manufactured.

Question: does anyone remember studio albums from whence the songs on "Frampton Comes Alive" came? I sure don't. Here in Canada, I'd not heard of the guy before this album - I wasn't cool enough then to know about Humble Pie at the time.

My point is... this live album was actually kind of a fluke mega hit, wasn't it? So, I dunno about the manufactured teen heartthrob thing. Though the pop feel is certainly there. And the hair....

Yes it was played to death... but it remains a guilty pleasure for us. And I'd say he's an underrated guitar player - I think too many people want to deduct points for having stooped to making lightweight music, having too few drug busts, and not dying at 27.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:11 PM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Frampton lived just a few blocks over from a friend of mine when he lived in Cincinnati. There were occasional "sightings!"

Whenever I hear a tune from this album I am magically transported back to Guantanamo Bay in the late-Spring/early-Summer of 1975. I was on my first ship and it having just come out of the yards, we went to Gitmo for refresher training--wherein our 16-18 hour work days consisted of both doing your normal job and doing every drill imaginable--over and over again--to get the vessel ship-shape. RHIP (Rank Has Its Privileges) being what it is, the senior enlisted guy in my division played Frampton Comes Alive on a constant loop. Constant. Loop. Every. Day.

Talk about having mental burn in. (And burn out.)
posted by CincyBlues at 6:21 PM on June 17, 2014

The school I attended in the mid-70s was small and remote, with a radio station favoring jazz, early punk and indie and some album rock. Disco, even accidentally picked up on someone's radio, was winced at; even top-40 tunes were seen as too, too pedestrian for our coolness.

Yet for some reason--probably because on crappy 70s stereos it really did sound good--Frampton Comes Alive seemed to take over most parties, usually at around 1am when things were really rolling, and even the coolest frat bros would be swaying and shouting "I want YOUUUU to show me the WAY!"
posted by kinnakeet at 6:28 PM on June 17, 2014

Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird - this version spent one week at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1988.
posted by stbalbach at 6:28 PM on June 17, 2014

"I got to smoke fake pot with Peter Frampton. That’s a cool story. It’s as cool as smoking real pot with a guy who looks like Peter Frampton. I’ve done that way more."

- Mitch Hedberg
posted by dr_dank at 6:32 PM on June 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

Yeah, 'Pie Frampton is the best Frampton. The rest of the band was heavy enough to counter any incipient pop foolishness. Humble Pie, Rolling Stone (Live 1971).

(RIP, Steve Marriot -- boy, what a singer.)
posted by Bron at 6:32 PM on June 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

An iconic 70's artifact, on par with banana seats, Evel Knievel, jean jackets and HR Puff n Stuff.
posted by davebush at 6:55 PM on June 17, 2014 [5 favorites]

I wanna go to the sun. Still.
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 6:56 PM on June 17, 2014

And RIP Bob Mayo on the keyboards, Bob Mayo.
posted by hal9k at 7:13 PM on June 17, 2014 [5 favorites]

Summer '77ish I'm at camp and in the middle of the night I wake up and from somewhere, distantly, I hear "Whawawhawhawhawhawha." It's probably the counselors having a disco or something but it makes me feel safe and protected and I go back to sleep.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:18 PM on June 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

PF was a guest in the fancy hotel where I was once employed. He charmed all the staff who found him a very nice fellow indeed, albeit a tiny one.
posted by Mr.Me at 7:19 PM on June 17, 2014

I just reacquainted myself with Frampton Comes Alive after not listening to it since the 70's. I don't like the songs as much but I'm loving the arrangements and the playing. He's an amazing player and the band is top notch. It's also one of the first live rock albums I ever liked as a kid and the recording stands up, it sounds very modern.
posted by doctor_negative at 7:28 PM on June 17, 2014

I have no Frampton solo albums in my collection but I've got plenty of Humble Pie. Frampton might not have been on the first tier of British guitar gods but he could burn those strings just fine.
posted by Ber at 7:56 PM on June 17, 2014

...I am magically transported back to Guantanamo Bay...

REFTRA in Gitmo with Frampton Comes Alive as the soundtrack? Sounds like the ninth circle of hell, all right. Tell me you weren't a pit snipe.
posted by ogooglebar at 8:27 PM on June 17, 2014

I saw him in probably 1978 in OKC, and although it was a great time for a 17-year old, I did kind of think afterwards, "wait, didn't he just play the live album for us, exactly as he did it the first time?"
posted by Curious Artificer at 8:54 PM on June 17, 2014

Oh, and don't get me started on the Sgt. Pepper movie. Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
posted by Curious Artificer at 8:56 PM on June 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

It's difficult to seperate the music of your youth from the powerful emotions of your youth.

I gave it a relisten or two and I'm probably not the best person to offer an opinion but that is a sonically fat groove.

The lack of cynicism in the crowd makes me hate these days as much as that stupid cowboy hat chick and her stupid "hey look, I got a chick and you can't see now" boyfiend. I always ended up behind those assholes. It was uncanny.

Some day I'll tell the tale of the Stray Cats concert at the Eagles Hippodrome in Seattle. Today is not that day.
posted by vapidave at 9:55 PM on June 17, 2014

I saw him playing as one of McCartney's sidemen on that Grammy salute to the Beatles a few months ago and was shocked that he was identified. I think they did the same thing to Joe Walsh as well.
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 9:59 PM on June 17, 2014

"Frampton Comes Alive" was, without a doubt, the most throughly despised and ridiculed album of my young punk years. Everyone held it up as the sort of ultimate example of everything wrong with the guitar-based "rock" music preceding and, mercifully, blown away by punk. Admitting you liked it was social death forever, and rightly so. It epitomised shallow, bland, safe, weedy, unimaginative piddly little songs played with the "Gutless" pedal on max. I still physically shudder when I see it in anyone's collection, and if "Show me the Way" comes on the radio I have to physically destroy said radio before the curly-bonced muppet gets that fucking tube in his gob. Otherwise I will really, quite literally, be sick.
posted by Decani at 12:43 AM on June 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

But hey, different strokes. I'm much mellower than I used to be.
posted by Decani at 12:45 AM on June 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

The hatred for Frampton of course comes down to only one thing: girls liked him and for baby boomer men, there's no greater insult than to like something girls like.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:19 AM on June 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

if "Show me the Way" comes on the radio I have to physically destroy said radio before the curly-bonced muppet gets that fucking tube in his gob. Otherwise I will really, quite literally, be sick.

Protip: radios come with this hardware thing called an "off switch".
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:21 AM on June 18, 2014

I'm ok with Frampton. I was going to regale you all with an anecdote about Frampton Comes Alive, but then I got a tickle in the back of my mind that I had already told you this story and indeed, it is so.

MetaFilter, I think we need to start seeing other people.
posted by dirtdirt at 6:41 AM on June 18, 2014

My point is... this live album was actually kind of a fluke mega hit, wasn't it?

And how much of that had to do with his on the cover, shirt unbuttoned down to there, flowing mane, a perfect embodiment of '70s corporate rock?

Because he was a really good player, I'll always cut him some slack - the hype machine was definitely turned up to 11, but at least he had the musical chops, which you can't say about a lot of the acts at the top of the charts. Plus, I still love the idea that there was a fleeting time when guitar rock/pop actually could top the charts, even if it had to be corporate/bland to get there. Better than a fucking drum machine any day of the week.
posted by kgasmart at 7:57 AM on June 18, 2014

Oh, and don't get me started on the Sgt. Pepper movie. Cocaine is a hell of a drug.

When I look at cheesy movies from the 1970s, I sometimes use an implied "truckload" scale. As in, "How many truckloads of cocaine did it take for the person who greenlighted this movie to think it was remotely a good idea?" That Sgt. Pepper movie easily earns a rating of five truckloads.
posted by jonp72 at 8:38 AM on June 18, 2014

My wife and I went to see Frampton/Journey in New Orleans in about 2001. I was not very excited about seeing PF because I'm lukewarm on his songs. His set was awesome, much meatier and more substantial that I expected. He owned the stage the whole time he was out there. Definitely a real professional. I'm still not a huge fan, but I have a new appreciation for him as a performing musician.
posted by wintermind at 8:47 AM on June 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

TRUE FACT: If all the known copies of Frampton Comes Alive were melted down to their original component oils and paper product and thus recycled, the entire USA could drive Ford trucks forever with no net gain in carbon footprint.
posted by philip-random at 8:53 AM on June 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

A number of years ago I saw Jack Bruce in concert and was quite surprised when he introduced his band. I mean, that guitar player wasn't half-bad!.
posted by TDavis at 10:17 AM on June 18, 2014

Protip: radios come with this hardware thing called an "off switch".

As my old grandpaw used to say when brushing away the pulverised metal and smashed bakelite that was the inevitable result of a Tommy Steele number on the Light Programme, "You can always wash a toothbrush. But once it's been in the bear's ear, fire is the only answer".
posted by Devonian at 11:00 AM on June 18, 2014

God. Homer Simpson wrecks my pig, Cypress Hill steals my orchestra, and Sonic Youth's in my cooler! Get out of there, you kids!
posted by Talez at 10:34 AM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Question: does anyone remember studio albums from whence the songs on "Frampton Comes Alive" came?

My wife asked me that question a couple of weeks ago. Neither of us could remember ever hearing a Frampton studio track.

I love Frampton solely for that lead in "Do You Feel." Somehow, it makes up for the rest.
posted by malocchio at 1:34 PM on June 19, 2014

Sonic Youth's in my cooler! Get out of there, you kids!

Heh. Kim Gordon's only three years younger than Peter Frampton.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:12 PM on June 19, 2014