Defend Phil Collins

What a happy coincidence.

Shortly before the 2005 election (when Collins was living in Switzerland), Labour supporter Noel Gallagher was quoted: "Vote Labour. If you don't and the Tories get in, Phil Collins is threatening to come back and live here. And let's face it, none of us want that."

Noel OTM?

As he wrote in his book, he moved to Switzerland because his wife at the time, who he may have subsequently remarried, was Swiss, and they wanted to live near her parents.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, October 20, 2018 12:31 AM (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup - and if his wikipedia article is to be believed, then he continued to keep homes in the US and the UK, not to mention he's no longer living in Switzerland but Miami, and has done so since 2015.

Rich expats with houses lying empty for most of the years while people are sleeping on the streets, better hope Corbz doesn't win the next election.

heard "something happened on the way to heaven" in the food court the over day and it brightened my day

― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Thursday, October 18, 2018 9:33 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, it's a great one, that... the chorus is up there with his catchiest, I think. ...But Seriously may have been better regarded by fans of his first three albums if it had been about 15-20 minutes shorter.

And if it had been called ...Butt Seriously

I don't think you want to see his new version of that cover...

BS might be better regarded if (a) the song about homelessness wasn't the massive (b) David Crosby didn't sing on it (c) he'd included more drum machine twaddle

The segue on 'Three Sides Live' from Behind The Lines into Duchess with Phil jamming live with the faders on the CR 78 is so fucking great.

I'm listening to Wind & Wuthering again, which I suppose is considered to be the last of Genesis' true symphonic prog works, and y'know, by that stage in their career I guess they'd earned the right to do whatever the hell they felt like, individually and collectively. That both Genesis and Phil Collins ended up super-huge is just the icing on the cake, really.

the title of this thread always makes me think of 'move heaven and earth to defend the life of chairman gonzalo' - now that the Tory allegation has been debunked, ilx should start a new rumour that Phil is a maoist

I always thought the cheesy percussive synth break down in the long Tonight Tonight Tonight was Tony, cycling through presets. But the live at Wembley video shows it's Phil hitting pads. He can do better!

Air Drums.

I've always felt that if that Phil "I'm a Tory" interview existed you'd be able to find it on the internet.

The segue on 'Three Sides Live' from Behind The Lines into Duchess with Phil jamming live with the faders on the CR 78 is so fucking great.

I wish it lasted forever.

I just saw that yeah, he's sitting down a lot on this tour. I mean, this is just sad looking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhgCYbIOxms

And also no Chester on drums! (Phil's got his son playing instead.)

a disgusting display of nepotism imo

nice to see gandalf on bass tho

This is something of a theme. Jax Nielsen plays drums in Cheap Trick, Jason Bonham (obv) in Zeppelin, Max Weinberg (now in Slipknot!) sometimes played with Bruce, Jeff Tweedy's son played drums in Tweedy ... There are probably more.

Hard to top Denardo Coleman

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ac/6f/ca/ac6fcaaec6b081e08090b4f0c4bd9ca0.jpg

Hooky's son is playing bass in his NO review

Wolfgang Van Halen

Gandalf is Leland Sklar, just googled him HO LEE SHIT look at this guy's credits, talk about a pro

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leland_Sklar

Yeah, he's a session monster. For a while Phil used Nathan East, who is even crazier busy.

yow, that's a helluva resumé alright

I quite like this home movie camcorder footage of Genesis making their self-titled album, shot by Phil...

https://youtu.be/iMm-08uZXfo

Leland Sklar is a GOD

Isn't Leland Sklar's nephew or something a long-term old school ILM poster?

just think how good Collins the drummer was that he played with Nathan East.

All anyone needs to do to hear what Collins brought to Genesis as a drummer is listen to Trespass and Nursery Cryme back to back. Or a version of 'The Knife' with Collins drumming. Collins' drumming swings and grooves more, and although his drumming is quite busy on the earlier stuff, his fills complement the material, rather than some of the lumpen, misplaced fills his predecessor does on Trespass.

When PC joined Led Zeppelin at Live Aid he has spoken about how Page tried to gaslight him before the performance.

Page asked him if he knew his cues and Collins said yeah and sang the bit prior to the guitar solo as an example and Page came back with 'No!....No!' which confused PC and put him massively on the back foot when he came to play, so he sits out that section and lets Tony Thompson completely fuck it up and then took most of the flak for the terrible performance.

For years I thought Page was a dick for doing that to Collins but after seeing this YT vid I wonder if he actually knew that it was likely going to be a car crash regardless of who was drumming, because it seems that a lot of people play that section completely wrong anyway, including Tony Thompson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhlLtd19szw

Phil's book has a whole section on Zep at Live Aid. He makes a pretty convincing case that he was the only one that had any clue what was going on, exacerbated in part by drugs (Page and Thompson), general assholery (Plant), totally shitty playing and singing (Page and Plant), and a complete lack of preparation (everyone but Phil).

Here's an intriguing quote from Plant on one aborted post Live Aid reunion btw:

“As much as he wanted to do it, it wasn’t the time for Pagey to do that,” Plant said in 1988. “He had just finished the second Firm record, and I think he was a bit confused about what he was doing…We did about two days. It was a most embarrassing moment, to have all that will and not knowing what to play. Jonesy played keyboards, I played bass a bit. It sounded like David Byrne meets Hüsker Dü.”

Robert Plant playing bass? David Byrne meets Husker Du!?

Lol that it is easier to count that way. Grouping it as odd time signatures (where downbeats are accented) still makes more sense to me. His first bar is fine but placing accents on the & of 4 in the next two bars seems crazy. I'd rather count 7/8, 4/4, 9/8. 2xp

Still, good analysis/transcription

(or the version he has around 4:06 works too)

Yeah, I don't think I agree with the guy in the video that it was meticulously worked out against a strict 4/4, I reckon they felt their way through after a lot of rehearsing or perhaps JPJ comped it up like you suggest sund4r.

It's fun watching the Live Aid clip as PC momentarily down tools and wipes his face with a towel while TT crashes through the section like a drunk rhinoceros.

haha man i'm watching this now, don't know if i've ever seen the whole set

jfc jimmy page a fucking mess

every time I see this bumped it gives me the impression that Phil is being physically attacked

Plant's not in good voice either. Clearly he was unused to yelling after the moody song-poems he'd sung for two years.

yeah he sounds rough too, though it's hard not to rubberneck at page jizzing semi-random pentatonic splatter all over the walls

Jimmy Page is the worst thing about that performance, to be honest... he's completely on another planet. The solo in particular is excruciating.

Also, Phil was used to doing drum duets live onstage with Genesis by that point - the difference being him and Chester Thompson were generally better prepared!

just saw that yeah, he's sitting down a lot on this tour. I mean, this is just sad looking:

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, October 23, 2018 2:08 PM (six days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Because of his dodgy back, I think. He finds it very painful to stand for long periods, hence the seated performances.

Yeah, that's right - I've seen a couple of recent interviews where he's been medicated up to the eyeballs.

https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/phil-collins2.jpg

Turns up everywhere does Phil, here he is as a blacksmith on the cover of a Planxty album.

https://shop.totallyvinyl.com/img/uploads/images/planxty/PLANXTY_COLLECTION_LP_1.jpg

Just for the sake of the few that never heard the story:

Collins’ connection with the Beatles dates back to 1964, when he was hired as an extra in their first feature film, A Hard Day’s Night. Then just 13, he spent the day alongside hundreds of fellow teenagers instructed to shout at the top of their lungs during the climactic television concert scene. Unfortunately, his musical purism ended up costing him screen time. “They wanted kids that were screaming, and I just sat still, which is probably why I was cut out of the film,” Collins told Rolling Stone in 2016. “I remember thinking, ‘For crying out loud, will you stop screaming? Let’s listen to the music!'”

His second experience with one of the Fabs was equally disappointing. In 1970 he was booked to play congas on a session for “The Art of Dying,” to be included on All Things Must Pass. “One night, our managers called me and said, ‘You want to go down to Abbey Road?'” he remembers. “I said, ‘I’m a bit busy, I’ve just had a bath.’ And they said, ‘Well, it’s for George Harrison.’ I went, ‘I’ll get a cab.’ I walked in and there was Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Phil Spector, Klaus Voorman, Badfinger, (guitarist) Pete Drake, (Beatles road manager) Mal Evans and George. Spector was introduced in this brusque way. He was like, ‘Who is this young guy, thinks he can play with the Beatles?'”

Eager to prove his worth, the 19-year-old attacked the song with brute force during the run-throughs – and soon he had the scars to prove it. By the time the recording began, his hands were raw and he could barely play. “After 90 minutes, I had blood blisters. They took a break, and then Ringo’s chauffeur came and said, ‘You’re finished.'” The sound of congas, if they appear at all, can’t be heard on the final mix. “When All Things Must Pass came out, I looked through the credits and there was no mention of me,” he says.

Harrison himself remained unaware of Collins’ participation until 2001, when he was assembling a remastered package of the album in celebration of its 30th anniversary. He and Collins had become friendly in the intervening decades, so Harrison decided to have a little fun with the Genesis superstar. As an apology for not crediting him on the original release, he sent Collins a version of the song that he claimed featured his lost percussion contributions.

“I got a tape from George of the song that I played with the congas quite loud,” Collins told EW. “I thought, Oh, my god, this sounds terrible. In fact, it was a Harrison joke. He’d recorded (percussionist) Ray Cooper. (He said,) ‘Play bad, I’m going to record it and send it to Phil.’ I couldn’t believe that a Beatle had actually spent that much time on a practical joke for me.”

He spends about 40 minutes telling that last story in the more-Partridge-than-Partridge audiobook of his autobiography

It's a great joke

Can I just say again that I love that there's also a British filmmaker named Phil Collins trying to make very political films, and I'm just never able to take them seriously. His latest, Bring Down the Walls, about the power of house music to fight the prison industrial complex, is again very good indeed.

Two teenagers listening to Phil Collins for the first time are blown away... I ❤️ this! Phil Collins is a G... a Legend... The Truth! 💯 https://t.co/2kInJTclY7

— Cyrus McQueen (@CyrusMMcQueen) August 7, 2020