Dire Straits.

GoFish

To stick my oar in I think, like so many other bands, it was a case of right place right time. Dire Straits had a mellow, grown up sound that suited the dominant demographic of the time, who were ageing together. It was not punk or metal or disco or even prog. The songs were well crafted and sung dylanesque, the guitar work was top notch and played on a 50s strat. So lots of familiarity but it was fresh and not trading off 15 year old hits.

For the record, I've never been a fan due to being the wrong age and having Money for Nothing being on MTV etc constantly, but have greater appreciation of the songs as I whizzed past 40 and beyond.

axisus

For me they are a band with amazing songs (eg Brothers in arms) and songs I absolutely cannot stand (eg Walk of life).

Most very popular bands seem a tad 'generic' (eg Coldplay). 

Mark is a great guitarist, but his solo albums are dull as dishwater.

As a band, right place, right time etc.


I will always have time for Alchemy, and if I hand picked my own best of album it would be superb.

axisus

GoFish said:

...  due to being the wrong age and having Money for Nothing being on MTV etc constantly ...

Oxymoron?

scrumhalf

Dire Straits always seemed to me to be a rock band for people who didn't really like rock music. 

scrumhalf

Dire Straits always seemed to me to be a rock band for people who didn't really like rock music. 

Blueingreen

GoFish said:

To stick my oar in I think, like so many other bands, it was a case of right place right time. Dire Straits had a mellow, grown up sound that suited the dominant demographic of the time, who were ageing together. It was not punk or metal or disco or even prog. The songs were well crafted and sung dylanesque, the guitar work was top notch and played on a 50s strat. So lots of familiarity but it was fresh and not trading off 15 year old hits.

For the record, I've never been a fan due to being the wrong age and having Money for Nothing being on MTV etc constantly, but have greater appreciation of the songs as I whizzed past 40 and beyond.

A lot of truth in this.  Round about the time they were at their peak I moved from doing a post-grad in literature and playing in an original material band to a job in a financial services company.  So I was dividing my social life between two very different groups, my old arty/alternative/muso crowd and a much more conventional crowd from work. The people from work were hedonistic and fun but I tended not to see eye to eye with them about music.  Dire Straits would have been by far their favourite band.

So pretty much all the Dire Straits fans I knew were accountants.  The band came to the fore at that tipping point when the kind of rock people associate with artists like Dylan was ceasing to be the music of rebellion and starting to be the music of small c conservatives.  And they fitted what that demographic wanted to a t.

GoFish

axisus said:

GoFish said:

...  due to being the wrong age and having Money for Nothing being on MTV etc constantly ...

Oxymoron?

I've been called worse

AK99

GoFish said:

To stick my oar in I think, like so many other bands, it was a case of right place right time. Dire Straits had a mellow, grown up sound that suited the dominant demographic of the time, who were ageing together. It was not punk or metal or disco or even prog. The songs were well crafted and sung dylanesque, the guitar work was top notch and played on a 50s strat. So lots of familiarity but it was fresh and not trading off 15 year old hits.

Yes - exactly. Good stories, with some wonderfully poetic lyrics too.

And all I do is miss you and the way we used to be
All I do is keep the beat and bad company
All I do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme
Julie I’d do the stars with you any time

Not entirely sure about rhyming 'be" with "company-ee" - but when he follows it up with the rather wonderful "All I do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme" you could forgive him a lot. Plus..the way he changes the delivery and pace (if that is the right word) of the vocals throughout the song just makes it so listenable. Hell of a gifted musician and song-writer - imho.

Redlester

GoFish said:

To stick my oar in I think, like so many other bands, it was a case of right place right time. Dire Straits had a mellow, grown up sound that suited the dominant demographic of the time, who were ageing together. It was not punk or metal or disco or even prog. The songs were well crafted and sung dylanesque, the guitar work was top notch and played on a 50s strat. So lots of familiarity but it was fresh and not trading off 15 year old hits.

For the record, I've never been a fan due to being the wrong age and having Money for Nothing being on MTV etc constantly, but have greater appreciation of the songs as I whizzed past 40 and beyond.

I agree with this. Basically hit big with people who liked guitar music and were in the very late 20s/ early 30s and wondering where all the 'decent songs' had gone. Blokes mainly, still in flares and who used the term 'guitar work' when listening to records. 


I am not of that generation, by the way. I do probably blame them for getting me into guitar as a kid when I too heard Money for Nothing and was knocked out by that intro. 

Other than that I do not really like them or even the idea of Dire Straits. The 1980s, arena version of the band is rather too eighties for me- rather like headbands actually.  

That said, I do think that the first record is one of the great British debut albums, a beautifully  crafted, unpretentious little gem of an album. I do think that Knopfler is a talented writer and player, but rather like certain other artists of all genres, I personally find that a little goes a long way- I can really connect with some of the work, but get tired of it very easily. 

Parker

Nearly finished the book. It just sounds like being in Dire Straits was the antithesis of every other rockstar. If they could be tucked up with cocoa on the tour bus by 9pm, I think they’d have been happy. They don’t need to be doing lines of coke off a hooker’s chocolate starfish, but perhaps just drive a mini in to a duck pond in Dudley, or something!? He’s saying it’s good they didn’t do any of those things as they could keep gigging for longer. Whoopty fecking doo….it’s better to burn out than to fade away! They were the biggest band in the world for a couple of years. Sounds like they did everything they could to actually avoid enjoying that. 

Philly_Q

I've never really been a fan but as I've said many times, Sultans of Swing was the first song which really made me aware that "that sound" was an electric guitar, and it kicked off my interest in guitars and guitar playing.

When I passed my O-Levels in 1979, my stepmother offered to buy me an album and I distinctly remember being in WH Smiths in Swansea, it came down to a choice between Dire Straits' Communique or Foreigner's Double Vision.  I went for the latter.  And I still don't own any Dire Straits albums.

pigface

I was doing my basic training in the army when I first heard 'Sultans of Swing'. I really thought it was Dylan with a hot guitarist. IMO the first 3 albums were great, 'Love Over Gold' not bad and all downhill from there. I saw them live in Dublin in about 81 on the 'Making Movies' tour and I was both new to Europe and to seeing world-famous bands live, so it was quite an experience.

Snap

The Brothers In Arms album has a special place in my growing up. The first of my mates to learn to drive used to pick us up in a XR3 and this was the album he always played.

Also, I was and still am, a massive fan of the Miami Vice TV show. There is a scene from one of the episodes where Crockett is hunting down a chap in a grubby house, very atmospheric, and the track Brothers in Arms is playing - worked perfectly and the impact really stayed with me. Scene ends up with him finding a dead copper walled up in a drug den - hence the choice of tracks.

You forget how atmospheric Miami Vice was, brilliant show, always used music well.

digitalkettle

Snap said:

You forget how atmospheric Miami Vice was, brilliant show, always used music well.

...and pastels!

Parker

Book is finished. One of the things that annoyed me was he was saying DS rarely used support bands as no one wants to hear them and it’s a hassle. A few chapters earlier he was saying about how they owed a lot to the Talking Heads for their support slots in the early days. Just came across as pretty selfish if they could have supported younger acts to find prominence with the worlds largest band. 

Stuckfast

Always liked Knopfler's guitar playing but his songs and especially his lyrics make me cringe a bit.

The story about how they kicked out Terry Williams during the making of Brothers in Arms is pretty brutal!

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/classic-tracks-dire-straits-money-nothing

Strat54

Knopfler and Illsley are virtually neighbours down there in the New Forest overlooking the Solent so they must get along well. Hard to read books about rock stars who enjoy such lavish lifestyles from a relatively short period of work but moan about fame. The first two records I learnt to appreciate in later life, but at the time they were the music of my older brother. The early live BBC record was good too, the later stuff is not for me. 

Danny1969

Stuckfast said:

Always liked Knopfler's guitar playing but his songs and especially his lyrics make me cringe a bit.

The story about how they kicked out Terry Williams during the making of Brothers in Arms is pretty brutal!

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/classic-tracks-dire-straits-money-nothing

Well he did the tour after so wasn't really kicked out. Replacing drummers for recording is pretty common, being a good live drummer and a good studio drummer are different things really. 
Ringo Starr in the Beatles, Nick Mason in Pink Floyd are 2 examples of my head I can think off that were replaced for songs by the producer .... 
There are many, many drummers in popular bands who didn't play on their bands early records. Just too time consuming to get a good take with a bad drummer. Easier and cheaper  to get a session guy in. With the advent of Beat Detective and sample replacement  this become less of an issue but to my mind if you are going to grid the drummer and use samples it's not really the drummers performance anymore so he has actually still been replaced. 

I first became aware of Dire Straights and Sultans when I was about 12 and an old lady who lived locally just listened to that record on repeat all day long. It certainly sounded really dated compared to OMD and the electro pop we were listening to at the time. 
Years later I got Brothers in Arms and wore it out, loved it. Actually listened to the whole album a few weeks ago, still a masterpiece IMHO

richardhomer

I love the first two albums - great songs, great playing and some of the best Fender guitar tones ever recorded.

I didn’t like Making Movies quite as much but I think Love Over Gold is a genuine masterpiece. Telegraph Road is almost filmic.

I like Brother in Arms much less - things like Walk of Life are pap. Overall, I feel On Every Street was a stronger album.

It’s perhaps worth mentioning that I met Mark Knopfler on both the Love Over Gold and Brothers in Arms tours. He was delightful on both occasions; friendly, happy to talk nerdy guitar stuff and seemingly completely genuine. 

Redlester

richardhomer said:

I love the first two albums - great songs, great playing and some of the best Fender guitar tones ever recorded.

I didn’t like Making Movies quite as much but I think Love Over Gold is a genuine masterpiece. Telegraph Road is almost filmic.

I like Brother in Arms much less - things like Walk of Life are pap. Overall, I feel On Every Street was a stronger album.

It’s perhaps worth mentioning that I met Mark Knopfler on both the Love Over Gold and Brothers in Arms tours. He was delightful on both occasions; friendly, happy to talk nerdy guitar stuff and seemingly completely genuine. 

@richardhomer Long time no speak!

I can well understand that last bit. I mean, MK probably has his moments of being the big 'I am' (who doesn't?) but I can well imagine that essentially he's a decent bloke and genuine as you say. Probably worth remembering that he did indeed have 'a life' before becoming a high profile, best-selling, in-demand musician. I'm sure that must have a lot to do with it as well.