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artu
Promising
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 08, 2013 07:13 PM |
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Hendrix songs are good but they depend a lot on HIS performing artistry. That's why they are not covered as much as Beatles, Rolling Stones, Dylan, even Paul Simon to name just a few. (With 40 years of Rock and zillions of bands of course you can come up with quite a lot of Hendrix covers too, I mean in comparison). Most people I've met who listen to Rock, think of him as a guitar hero first, not as Hendrix the composer. I'm in the middle, since I've never been a great fan of his circus moves but really liked his songs and loved his rather elegant performances. But my point is, the way he's known for HOW HE PLAYS THE GUITAR, the experiments and the feedbacks and the distortion, pedals, psychedelia... had a lot to with the fashion of his time (which is quite short unfortunately). If he had lived longer, chances are, we may have witnessed a rather calm performer, probably more bluesy. I don't think he'd go the way Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple went and sound all too eightiesish... He'd be either funkier or more Dire Straits like... But that's just speculation of course.
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markkur
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Once upon a time
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posted October 08, 2013 07:38 PM |
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@ Artu
For me, the most important gage in this discussion is that "span of time"; and back then, during the early days, all British rockers were amazed and intimidated by Hendrix. Part of that may have been his on-stage antics but <imo> it was Jimi's technique and innovation that made all those players take notice. C.S. Lewis once said of Tolkien; "he was like lightning out of a clear blue sky"...that was Hendrix.
JollyJoker said:
...If you take his interpretation of the Star Spangled Banner - I mean, you MUST have hear those sounds in your head before you try to produce them on an instrument. Or with studio technology...in my mind Led Zeppelin/Jimmy Page have a lot more in common with Hendrix than Clapton has, because Led Zep has the same or a comparable attitude towards the Blues - and towards showmanship. Jimmy Page fiddling his guitar with a violin bow
<imo> Back then, showmanship for any act was largely dependent upon the razzle-dazzle of the performer. Today, computers & various types of technicians, too often, control the show. Heck, I am sick of the lame video presentations that are often used today; i.e. there is a guitar player and he is standing fairly still. "Image control & Presentation" has placed 7 cameras around said player. The single view is a product of a planned "chain-lightning flash-around between the 7 cameras" and thus creates a silly illusion that this guitarist is really jamming. "Man!, that guy is good!...did you see his face and fingers from those 7 angles?" The director/manager shouts; "Your face man, your face, you've have to look busy, really busy." <LOL>
JollyJoker said:
...I really like the Beatles, and I like Paul McCartney - he's a survivor and a real artist who LIKES being a musician, playing, writing songs
I would not have agreed a couple of decades ago but I got past an old bias and I do now...he is the real-deal. Btw, I had to smile when I realized he was age 70 when doing that tribute this past May. No doubt, he agrees with Neil Young; "better to burn-out, than fade away" 
JollyJoker said:
...leaving Jimmy Page as the guy a duel with Hendric would have been most interesting at the time, because he's on par with Jimi in his own way.
I agree with you, Page and Zeppelin are one of my all-time picks but don't you think if we limit any comparison to the mid to late 60s, just before Hendrix's death, that Page would suffer the same fate as Clapton and the rest? Whole Lotta Love hit the charts in what, 69? I suppose if we put the comparison at 1971, then maybe Page and a few draw closer but I still think, to a large degree, they were following and adapting from his radical inspiration. Shoot in the mid-60s most groups where just tossing their band-costumes.<L>
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JollyJoker
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posted October 08, 2013 08:11 PM |
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Quote:
Hendrix songs are good but they depend a lot on HIS performing artistry. That's why they are not covered as much as Beatles, Rolling Stones, Dylan, even Paul Simon to name just a few.
The reason is that Hendrix pushes his songs to the limits of what you can put into a song, emotionally. The songs are HIS with body and soul, so much so, that even the songs he chose to cover become his. The same thing is true for Led Zeppelin - not many covers around of their songs.
Quote:
Most people I've met who listen to Rock, think of him as a guitar hero first, not as Hendrix the composer. I'm in the middle, since I've never been a great fan of his circus moves but really liked his songs and loved his rather elegant performances. But my point is, the way he's known for HOW HE PLAYS THE GUITAR, the experiments and the feedbacks and the distortion, pedals, psychedelia... had a lot to with the fashion of his time (which is quite short unfortunately).
No, that's not doing him justice. If you listen to Are you Experienced in 1967, that has nothing experimental. It's the songs of someone who knows how he wants to sound. It's not like he experimented wildly and randomly and stumbled about something. When he came to London he had played a couple of years already for a lot of acts. He used the Wahwah pedal already with his second stint with the Isley Brothers and with Curtis Knight - it was a pretty common sound in 65 already. Hendrix is the clash of all this with Swinging London, sure, but look at his productivity. He built his own studio to be able to create the sounds he was imagining.
markkur said:
JollyJoker said:
...If you take his interpretation of the Star Spangled Banner - I mean, you MUST have hear those sounds in your head before you try to produce them on an instrument. Or with studio technology...in my mind Led Zeppelin/Jimmy Page have a lot more in common with Hendrix than Clapton has, because Led Zep has the same or a comparable attitude towards the Blues - and towards showmanship. Jimmy Page fiddling his guitar with a violin bow
<imo> Back then, showmanship for any act was largely dependent upon the razzle-dazzle of the performer. Today, computers & various types of technicians, too often, control the show. Heck, I am sick of the lame video presentations that are often used...
Well, as I said, that showmanship is something typiocally American and typically Black at the time, and I also think there's nothing wrong with it.
JollyJoker said:
...leaving Jimmy Page as the guy a duel with Hendric would have been most interesting at the time, because he's on par with Jimi in his own way.
I agree with you, Page and Zeppelin are one of my all-time picks but don't you think if we limit any comparison to the mid to late 60s, just before Hendrix's death, that Page would suffer the same fate as Clapton and the rest? Whole Lotta Love hit the charts in what, 69? I suppose if we put the comparison at 1971, then maybe Page and a few draw closer but I still think, to a large degree, they were following and adapting from his radical inspiration. Shoot in the mid-60s most groups where just tossing their band-costumes.<L>
You are probably right. In his time frame Hendrix is just his own league.
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artu
Promising
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 08, 2013 08:41 PM |
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Edited by artu at 20:45, 08 Oct 2013.
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Quote:
Well, as I said, that showmanship is something typiocally American and typically Black at the time, and I also think there's nothing wrong with it.
Actually, I thought it was The Who which turned that sort of thing into a fashion during the sixties (Jerry Lewis is a different Era) and turns out I am right. It's not specifically American:
Wiki
Anyway, I've never been a fan of it. About this, I always prefer the behavior of Jazz or Classical players, musicians playing music.
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JollyJoker
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posted October 08, 2013 10:01 PM |
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You start now mixing up things, that you should invest a little more time into to research properly. Destroying equipment is a completely different thing that has nothing to do, with, say, playing an instrument with other than the regular body parts, whirl it around in various ways, play it in seemingly impossible positions, wear glitzy costumes - which is showmanship, American and American Black style, part of a specific style of entertainment.
The Who destroying their equipment on stage is something different, different even from burning a piano or the two or three times Hendrix burned a guitar - that was supposed to be a sacrifice. That and the more often seen ramming the guitar against an amp, producing feedback is built on sex.
The mic stand is also an often used requisite for all kinds of stuff.
Hendrix would call that "gimmicks"
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artu
Promising
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 08, 2013 10:28 PM |
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Call it this or that, smashing your guitar to the ground or burning it or even playing with your teeth are, if we look at the bottom-line, the same thing to me, there is no subtle differences, they are not metaphors or anything, they are just discharging a lot of energy and doing tricks for a crowd who seeks exactly that, to discharge together. I am not at all amazed or moved by that part of Rock culture, actually I consider it its weakness and it's sad to see that kind of BS, be it a one-man show or a techno show, replacing musical innovation and talent more and more, while all of it turns into a market for 13 year-old kids.
As Dylan puts it very wisely (slightly paraphrasing, it's been a while since I've read this): "Everybody turned into those guys who were watching the atomic bomb tests and shouting "wow, what an energy!" Energy this and energy that... It all turned into a giant freak show with lights, t-shirts, smoke screens, anything but elephants. But great music had been done way before that and it never needed any of this."
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JollyJoker
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posted October 09, 2013 07:26 AM |
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Your position is absurd.
A record is something else than a show, and if you really suggest that "theatrics" have no place in a Rock concert, you limit an art form, inventing some purist rules in a typical "it must be done in this way or else it's ruined" way of a true fanboy. Or someone who wants to be right, no matter what.
What is more, I resent discussions with people who throw everything into one and the same can, just so they can summarily trash them all. Makes discussion pointless.
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william
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LummoxLewis
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posted October 09, 2013 09:03 AM |
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Like you said before to me JJ, it's an opinion. Don't go calling it absurd just because you don't happen to agree with it.
For me personally, I don't mind all the theatrics but if I were to go to a show my focus wouldn't be on that, it'd be on hearing the actual musicians doing what they do best and that's playing music. It's not necessary all the lasers, smashing guitars, fireworks etc. It makes it look visually pleasing but you don't need it to enjoy a show.
____________
~Ticking away the moments that
make up a dull day, Fritter and
waste the hours in an off-hand
way~
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 09, 2013 10:13 AM |
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1- Being a purist is again about the music itself, this is just pointing out to an aspect that has evolved into a dead weight. It's not about rules, it's about getting bored with all that bubble and bursting it.
2- It was you who said those "gimmicks" came back to haunt Hendrix and he quit them. Seems like he agreed with "the purists" in the end. From his own words, we know he was not happy with all that.
3- All those aspects, which can INDEED be generalized as a category, as long as you determine your reason to do so, could have been fine, if not overdone. If they were a little seasoning on the dish, it would have been even fun. I saw SRV played with his teeth on stage too, but he's not famous for it, he probably did it like once in every 30 shows, Chuck Berry's duck walk was stage show but it didn't overshadow his songs.
4- When imagining a guitar duel between Clapton and Hendrix on stage, (which happened btw, it just wasn't recorded), the theatrics is especially relevant. The theatrics is part of the topic because I said this in the first place: "Personally, I prefer Clapton because his style is much more catchy in a melodic way and self-aware. Hendrix, especially if he is live, sometimes puts in too much circus moves (even if you are just listening, not watching), which does not impress me at all."
5- Always wanting to be right? I had changed my mind many times over my discussions with many people, including you. I don't delete or change my posts, anybody can check. It's you who has this obsession to always have the last word and when you cant, you take the offensive route. I have seen only two people here who never ever change their mind, one is you, the other one you can guess. Not exactly something to be proud of.
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markkur
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posted October 09, 2013 06:55 PM |
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I'll switch gears and talk about theatrics a bit more.
I probably tipped my hand when I described the Show-Techs of today but my disgust with the modern music scene goes much further that a show; unfortunately for my tastes the corruption of music goes much deeper.
I agree with you Artu that the gimmicks are a distraction from the music, however in a concert setting? I'm aok with however a person or group wants to present the music. i.e. Yes was my favorite Act to go see; they would piece together some great visuals etc. but the Tour I recall that I thought they did their very best was a newer innovation called "in the round." They actually cared that fans had paid money to "See" them.
You mentioned Dylan, there's a man that today that I highly doubt would have been more than a songwriter; because he wasn't Model-Material and he did not have a sweet voice; <imo>he would not been "packaged" as a performer. Why? The trend today centers on "Marketing" and "Image-creation"; everyone has heard the word...formula. Whenever, some new group scores a hit with a new sort of sound, then the Studios go to work to create a wave of such acts. i.e. AC/DC comes out and then we were flooded with AC/DC replica bands.
Maybe things have changed now but I doubt it. It's a cultural (perfection obsession)thing and it  Even in news and reporting plain-janes or people with common-looks don't sit on broadcasts etc. and I've not seen any ugly folks with amazing talent hit any of my screens lately.
For me, I would absolutely want the Dylan, Carole King, or Neil Young types, to do their thing, as themselves and be complexly independent of today's marketing and packaging machinery.
It was not that long ago that I knew a person that was writing songs and had this goal..."not much more than 3 minutes" That's todays standard and I'd rather see burning-guitars or smashed-amps any day then that demanded corruption at the very heart of...music.
Btw, I've no doubt you both would agree here, I'm just being...old and crank...y...crank it up!.
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JollyJoker
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posted October 09, 2013 08:21 PM |
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markkur said:
I'm aok with however a person or group wants to present the music. i.e. Yes was my favorite Act to go see; they would piece together some great visuals etc. but the Tour I recall that I thought they did their very best was a newer innovation called "in the round." They actually cared that fans had paid money to "See" them.
The Tubes were one of the handful of acts I actually saw twice, end of the 70s - and that's because of their show. I mean, the music was soso - I suppose White Punks on Dope is known -, but also pretty varied. Don't Touch me There is pretty schmaltzy, but the Tubes were a band that wrote the music fitting to the theme of the song, which means that the style would wildly differ from song to song. "Slipped my Disco" is a disco stomper, "Mondo Bondage" is somewhat kitschy metal, Young and Rich is overblown melancholic smokey bar, Madam I'm Adam is, well, difficult to describe, but probably featuring early Rap (1976), and so on. But watching them enacting all that stuff was immensely entertainig.
Yes. Right. The 3 big ones. Yes Album, Fragile and Close to the Edge. If you ask me, Close to the Edge was too close to it, and having to pick between the Yea Album and Fragile I'd pick the former. Steve Howe is such a good guitar player, and on that album the balance is just right. For me.
Yessongs is of course a legend. As well as EL&P's Welcome Back ...
Oh, speaking about Keith Emerson, I seem to remember him ****ing up his equipment as well, stabbing knives into his organ, overthrowing his keyboards ... although he was easily one of the most virtuous keyboard players at that time (and probably ever in the history of Rock Music). I really liked how he developed from The Nice.
Aaaand consider Peter Gabriel's Genesis - a masssively theatrical thing. The list is long. Frank Zappa - one of the greatest composers of the 20th century; Pink Floyd, working with flying pigs even before The Wall - or any drummer whirling the sticks around between his fingers whilst playing. It's fun - and it doesn't distract from the music at all, since you listen with the ears and watch with the eyes.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 09, 2013 08:57 PM |
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Well, to be fair, Pink Floyd's and Peter Gabriel's (haven't seen Zappa's) theatrics has content related to the stories in the songs. That's more like a modern opera approach, if you will. I have absolutely no problem with that. I just don't like effects for effects sake, just like I don't like virtuosity for virtuosity's sake. I went to see the Stones when they were here in Istanbul for example, in the middle of the concert, a mechanical bridge emerged, carrying them to another platform in the middle of the stadium and ironically right after that they started to sing I know it's only rock n roll but I like it!. Now, even that can be justified at some point, saying it functions for people in the middle to see them closer. Still, I don't want to feel like I'm in in Star Trek while I listen to rock n' roll. And most stadium concerts I've been had nothing to with music at all, A lot of shouting and jumping... I can really understand why the Beatles decided not to have concerts at all, as early as 1966. It's not much different from people going to a football game just to discharge in a collective manner. In "Mass and Authority" Elias Canetti writes that one of the reasons the football stadium is built round is, so that the crowd could see the rival crowd, shouting, swearing, cursing as a mirroring image. This way they get to shout more at them and discharge better, fulfill their MASSivness. Not my cup of tea, I'll pass.
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markkur
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posted October 09, 2013 09:20 PM |
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What about the "perfection obsession" comment I made about today's entertainment , do you agree or differ with me?
Frankly I hate the modern creation process, since I can take just about anyone (and this is with my archaic knowledge) and by the use of electronic mastering , make almost any voice sound good; so it's more like "get the face 1st and then add the music". Any opine on that?
I would rather see/hear a shabby but natural performer play their "own stuff" in a garage, than the polished tripe of perfected visualization that's the norm today.
"Video <did> kill the radio star."
@JJ...the Tubes They were quite zany like Zappa and don't forget "Alice" Imagine the times that someone older said "I can't stand HER music" and/or "she sounds like a guy anyway".
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 09, 2013 09:50 PM |
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Edited by artu at 00:36, 10 Oct 2013.
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Well, I'd rather call it fabrication instead of perfection. Since this is also a business, there will always be business men choosing the guaranteed, already tried-out formulas. (They will drink your wine not know what any of it is worth ). But I don't think that's something new, ever since there was a recording industry, you have that. You mentioned Dylan being himself and so on but his generation had to fight Tin Pan Alley plus a lot of censorship. Actually, today anybody can record a song (with quite a decent sound quality) and put it on Youtube and if it's good, it should spread around. so theoretically, we should have had much more quality stuff... Somehow, it doesn't work that way. Maybe, it's what I mentioned earlier in this thread, maybe, when there's this amount of music just within the reach of a click, people just grow numb to it. Or maybe the real innovation is now in Electronic music, I'm quite clueless about that genre except a dozen albums I own (usually soundtrack related). They may indeed be where Jazz was in 1930's or Rock was in the 63-73 Era.
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markkur
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posted October 09, 2013 11:16 PM |
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I agree, I suppose you're right. Though I don't see the u-tube thing as equal to what I meant but I'm with you...and glad it's there. As a matter of fact, since I don't care for the formal industry, all of my newer stuff comes from the mostly unknowns like David Arkenstone, Steve McDonald, Owain Phyfe and others very ground-breaking.
We used to call this underground music.
Cheers Artu
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JollyJoker
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posted October 11, 2013 12:27 PM |
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markkur
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posted October 11, 2013 01:37 PM |
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I would have been impressed,,,if I hadn't seen this at the 1st link.
Jimi 5
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JollyJoker
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posted October 11, 2013 01:48 PM |
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Why do I have to think "circus" when I see that?
Creepy as hell, indeed.
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markkur
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Once upon a time
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posted October 11, 2013 06:29 PM |
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I agree, it's like they have a factory somewhere.  Btw, I forgot to tell you I laughed pretty hard when I finally noticed, that 6-necker was resting on a stool.
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JollyJoker
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posted October 17, 2013 11:47 PM |
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This thread is pages long: 
