One of the bands he loves is Jellyfish. I had never heard of this band until I heard him play a few songs in another band he was in at the time. WOW! Amazing. They were only together from 1989–1994, at which time one of the members formed another band called The Grays (which included Jon Brion, musician/producer with whom I was familiar from his work with my all time fave Fiona Apple, but also appeared on Jellyfish's last record). The Grays had even a shorter career, having only put out that one record (I believe).
To make a long story short, I had created a Jellyfish "station" on Pandora and came across The Grays. This was some time ago, probably over a year. I remember mentioning the band to Paul at that time, and he probably listened to some of their stuff with some interest, but it must not have grabbed him at that particular time because this week he told me he has a new favorite record. I asked him what it was and he said it's by The Grays ("Have you ever heard of a band called The Grays?" he asked me), called "Ro Sham Bo." Ha!
So, needless to say, I listened to the entire record on Spotify (and actually bought the mp3 version of the whole record on Amazon). I was re-enchanted as well, and now I'm listening to it pretty much non-stop. I'm listening to it as I write this.
I thought the album title, "Ro Sham Bo," was probably just some kind of nonsense word(s) they had made up. So I looked it up and found that it does have a meaning... It's the "Rock Paper Scissors" game, basically! It seems to usually be spelled out as one word—Roshambo. There's all KINDS of stuff on the Internet about it!
Here's a website that goes into the possible etymology through history: THE WORD DETECTIVE (LINK)
I'll be damned.
Anyway, Jellyfish and The Grays are both fantastic power pop bands that warrant a listen.
Check out these songs:
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