Least talented guy who somehow made it into a great band

Curious to hear your thoughts on this.

and he/she can't have only been in for like 2 weeks

what a great thread!

just, so fun and fascinating

Bez

damnit frogbs!

Would Al Jardine be a contender for this?

pwned

http://www.kweevak.com/2000-graphics-articles/2009-07-31-yes-asia-03.jpg

al jardine's written a few good songs in his life and makes 'help me rhonda' what it is, he def would just be some rando if it weren't for the beach boys but there are plenty of people in famous bands w/ less to their name

Ringo Starr

http://vml1.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Onabolu.jpg?9d7bd4

I think Ringo was actually pretty good at what he did. He was clearly overshadowed, but he wasn't untalented.

"guy" is not shorthand for "person" fyi

http://www.nndb.com/people/671/000031578/sid-vicious-sm.jpg

Michael Ivins of the Flaming Lips

let's not get our panties in a bind xpost

i obviously didn't mean to imply that there aren't talentless women. in fact, i can think of many.

what do you have against Poliopolice, guys

Albert Hammond Jr.

polio, police, what's not to love?

I'm America's badboy

Richie Manic

Oh come on, Richey may not have been able to sing or play guitar, but he was a pretty good lyricist

Mickey Finn's amateur bongo work somehow enhanced T Rex by its very amateurishness.

Are we really going to have to go over the Ringo stuff again?

Also how is the answer not Sid Vicious?

this book co-written by sid's mum would have you believe he co-wrote all the songs...

Or John Densmore?

The answer IS Sid Vicious. But it's still a fun game to play.

Jack White

John Densmore? I can see how someone might not like the Doors, but Densmore is a great and very innovative drummer.

Jeffrey Hammond Hammond

Michael Clarke?

Brian Rosenworcel

Albert Hammond Jr.

eh, i think he was probably one of the more talented Strokes

I do like the Doors!

Jim Morrison.

Jeep MacNichol

Jim DiSpirito

Bob Weir (at least int eh beginning)

sick mouthy otm

Although, the "great"ness of the Doors is up for debate.

Stevie Nicks

(lol j/k everybody be cool)

Mark E. Smith

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i keed, i keed

it's gotta be a "singer" though

greatest gap between one member vs every other member i'd give to daltrey tbh

axl rose (it kills the teenage me to say this)

xpost

^ This.

Stevie Nicks

― it's smdh time in America (will), Wednesday, April 4, 2012 4:55 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^horrible opinion

also john densmore is like the MOST talented member of the doors!

wait michael anthony too. wasn't he supposed to be a bad superstar bass player? also completely nondescript like adam clayton. he was really good at drinking i think.

no, Michael Anthony is pure unadulterated JOY

xp wow you are the last person i would expect to defend Roger Waters's bass playing. Wasn't that you who said they should have replaced him with Lemmy? :)

There should be a music combine where musicians are pitted to prove their chops and then we can have a draft to assemble the greatest band ever to record the best song ever and then we can finally stop listening or making music because we would have the most factually perfect song possible and I started writing this I was being sarcastic and now I would like to pledge to my own kickstarter to fund this idea

that happened in 1972 and it produced Close to the Edge by Yes

Also every "least talented guy" rolls the most unforgivingly perfect joint you can imagine so there's that too..."intangibles"

i love Yes.

It is too early to get Yes-ed out people

Waters never played good basslines, early or late, he's a donkey

Stevie Nicks

― it's smdh time in America (will), Wednesday, April 4, 2012 10:55 PM (eleven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

(lol j/k everybody be cool)

― it's smdh time in America (will), Wednesday, April 4, 2012 10:55 PM (eleven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

He said he was joking before a minute had passed

Re: Michael Clarke, Peter Lewis of Moby Grape had this to say, and I'm pretty much in agreement:

CM : I saw (Clarke) playing not long before he died and he and the band were terrific.

PL : It was enough to break your heart. He drank himself to death—he’d been drinking since he was 16 years old—his liver, his whole body stopped working. He was in the hospital. I guess he never thought he was going to die. It’s just too bad. I didn’t really know Michael. Michael was the most friendly of the Byrds. I knew him and Crosby better than the other ones. The Byrds were the ones that changed the course of western music. They did.

CM : I always felt that. They brought in folk rock, then they practically brought in psychedelic rock, then they practically brought in country rock.

PL : McGuinn was my idol, I loved him. The way that guy plays guitar, it’s fabulous. But McGuinn is distant ; it’s hard to get to know him. Crosby’s not too distant, but he can be a total asshole. He doesn’t much care who he’s an asshole around. But Michael was always cool. There’s a guy I would have like to have known better. I know he had his problems—there were all sorts of stories—but to play with him was such a trip because he was this weird kind of drummer. He was so inventive.

CM : I remember him doing something unusual : leaving out a hit that you were expecting in his rhythm, and you’d think, how does he do it ?

PL : Yeah ! Right.

CM : But he got put down a fair bit for his drumming. People seemed to think he wasn’t good.

PL : Well, they’re fuckin’ crazy ! When you hear what he did on those songs like “She Don’t Care About Time” or “Set You Free This Time,” where the high hat would go off and it would be different every time. It was perfect. McGuinn was saying one time, “It takes that guy longer to learn a part than anybody I know but once he learns the fucking thing, it’s the perfect part.” It’s like Ringo Starr.

I like Stevenson like that too, ‘cause he was going to work on it. He had a funny little marching thing that he’d do that was unique and nobody else did. The “Hey Grandma” shuffles that Don played are cool. Drummers are all different. Playing folk rock with Michael was like—he’d go into some chord change and you could feel it four bars ahead of time. The whole thing would build, and you’d hit it and it would go swoosh, like taking off on another level. He could just do that so well, think of the song.

Link no longer works, but if you punch this into archive.org, they've archived it: https://craigmorrison.com/spip.php?article67

Waters never played good basslines, early or late, he's a donkey

― MaresNest

^^^

no way let there be more light rules! even if its simple or whatever. i love that bass sound.

xp wow you are the last person i would expect to defend Roger Waters's bass playing. Wasn't that you who said they should have replaced him with Lemmy? :)

Well, that goes without saying re: Lemmy. Waters probably didn't know what he was doing early on but, because of that, he often played interesting unusual stuff that a "proper" bass player wouldn't have thought of (rather like Holger Czukay in fact). Later on, when he became ploddingly proficient, I can't remember a note of any of his basslines - apart from "Money", which I don't really like much anyway.

(xp) Or the theme from "More", which sounds like Can.

Didn't Gilmour play bass on Money anyway?

Possibly, Waters wrote the bassline though.

Waters probably didn't know what he was doing early on but, because of that, he often played interesting unusual stuff that a "proper" bass player wouldn't have thought of

Ha, that's how i feel about Nick Mason on drums

but I tend to look at Waters in early footage of PF think the gut has stars in his eyes and sucks at playing bass.

yeah i guess there are a couple of things where his bassline is the main riff of the song

*guy

Same for Mason, yes, come the 70s it's like he got out the pipe and slippers.

OTOH, I can't listen to any Floyd tribute band because inevitably the drummer has been influenced by too many other bands and is too technical of a player.

Most drummers don't lag 0.5 of a beat behind the rhythm, true

the other example i had in mind was Roger Waters, given his early crimes against bass playing although obviously the quality of the material he wrote later on is undeniable and he is really not a good example.

― Deflatormouse

when fred frith was in naked city, roger waters' bass playing was a huge influence on how he played!

Also every "least talented guy" rolls the most unforgivingly perfect joint you can imagine so there's that too..."intangibles"

― chr1sb3singer

so yeah victor hayden (the mascara snake) probably doesn't count but he _was_ on trout mask replica (and played live with them at amougies) and _was_ completely musically untalented and was only in the band because the was their drug connection

(xp) Or the theme from "More", which sounds like Can.

― The British Boy of Film Classification (Tom D.)

i mean it's literally the bassline from "let there be more light" slowed down

wait michael anthony too. wasn't he supposed to be a bad superstar bass player? also completely nondescript like adam clayton. he was really good at drinking i think.

― scott seward, Tuesday, January 30, 2024 1:28 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i mean forget the bass playing his backing/harmony vocals are crucial to the band

I'd like to know in what way Frith's playing in NC was influenced by Rog, makes me think of Flea talking about how Les Pattinson influenced him.

Most drummers don't lag 0.5 of a beat behind the rhythm, true

The slower the tune, the more time there is to play around with where you land on the beat, tempo is a pretty big part of how feel is perceived.

they should have replaced Mason with Terry Bozzio when they had the chance

I'd like to know in what way Frith's playing in NC was influenced by Rog, makes me think of Flea talking about how Les Pattinson influenced him.

― MaresNest

can't find a cite but my general feeling was that he was talking more like wanting to play very simple basslines rather than trying to be like chris squire. a lot of bass players wanna go out there and be heroes and that's not always the right approach for things. now, pink floyd's rhythm section went beyond "rudimentary" and into "bad", i'd say. god, the funniest pink floyd story i know is that waters and mason had to do the backing track for "atom heart mother" in a continuous take. nick mason's approach is at least distinctive - he does the chico hamilton rototom thing at every opportunity. for waters, i mean, he had the audacity to just go out there and play fucking octaves. i can respect that. that said, dude went out there and wrote "set the controls for the heart of the sun" in '67, which is one of their all-time jams, and provided a great opportunity for him to hit a gong and have it light on fire. he had to have had a lot to do with their stagecraft, right?

good point

nick mason's approach is at least distinctive - he does the chico hamilton rototom thing at every opportunity. for waters, i mean, he had the audacity to just go out there and play fucking octaves

this is similar or at least related to how i see it

i 100% hear a lot of Syd in Frith's guitar playing, the sing-song brittle awkwardness of it

can:t say i hear Rog in his bass playing but he was obv listening

Interesting, I don't doubt Frith's intentions but it's hard to reconcile what he said with playing very fast and busy jazz basslines read from a chart.

Also, I don't wonder if that story about Waters and Mason playing AHM all the way through is a story.

i 100% hear a lot of Syd in Frith's guitar playing, the sing-song brittle awkwardness of it

― Deflatormouse

i mean frith literally did play with syd in the last minute put-together boogie band in 1972!

Also, I don't wonder if that story about Waters and Mason playing AHM all the way through is a story.

― MaresNest

oh, probably - i mean, tape editing was a thing that existed in 1970; it's such a great story though that i don't even care if it's not true

as a limited bass player I definitely took inspiration from waters' limited bass-playing - and whenever i default to playing octaves in a JAM situation it is definitely channelling him (Eugene particularly I guess)

Also, I don't wonder if that story about Waters and Mason playing AHM all the way through is a story.

Why? It seems entirely possible to me! It also might help explain why Waters hates it so much.

Waters and Mason playing AHM all the way through

just standing staring at each other in silence for three or four minutes during the "Mind Your Throats Please" bit

Waters was probably making doi-doing noises

Waters was probably making doi-doing noises

― The British Boy of Film Classification (Tom D.)

doing his bad impression of a pict

honestly when i think of frith in naked city i just think of his bass playing on their version of "lonely woman", which is a literal meme. that album is full of musical jokes i didn't get when i first heard the album... i was listening to the beginning of their version of "a shot in the dark" and at one point they're just "fuck it, here's the 'be my baby' intro"

Waters yelling "silence in the studio" 50 times

XP to Tom - I think I read in The Flaming Cow, that when Geesin received the tapes so he could write his parts he said it was edited together in various sections.

Eno in Roxy Music

I liked that Fred Frith played both guitar and bass in Art Bears, there's a prejudice against guitarists who pick up the bass as well. Don't know how or if this worked in a live setting.

It seems entirely possible to me! It also might help explain why Waters hates it so much.

yeah

think I read in The Flaming Cow, that when Geesin received the tapes so he could write his parts he said it was edited together in various sections.

oh

i mean frith literally did play with syd in the last minute put-together boogie band in 1972!

he rehearsed with Stars (Syd, Twink and Jack Monck) but bailed after one rehearsal because, as he put it, Syd couldn't play anymore and there was no point pretending he could. probably the right call.

It doesn't make a lick of sense that the two of them would play it alone without the others, even if it was just the bass and drums that were being recorded.

Eno in Roxy Music

― bbq

idk, graham simpson wasn't that great, and davy o'list was flat out terrible... it says something that ferry moved heaven and earth to get o'list in roxy music and promptly sacked him in favor of one of their roadies. not only that, but it was a trade up, by, like, a lot. manzanera is a fantastic guitarist.

my favorite story about eno in roxy music was the story of one gig where he just sat on the floor looking fantastic and did nothing. turned out that one of the cables powering their stuff wasn't working and he was quite literally holding things together. hell, watch that old grey whistle test performance... after whispering bob harris introduces them by saying basically "here's a new band called roxy music, i think they're shit", they come on and do ladytron... they kill it despite ferry not having quite found his visual style yet. eno, though, eno very much _has_. god, eno was the fucking best femboy of all time. like, ok, you can't say anybody who could put together outfits like _those_ is _untalented_. way more talented than he is now, that's for sure. my favorite eno meme is "present-day brian eno looks like the ceo of an austrian startup that manufactures high-precision nozzles for 3d printers and early '70s brian eno looks like his wife who breeds award-winning british shorthairs and plans to poison him someday and live on his fortune in majorca for the rest of her life".

he rehearsed with Stars (Syd, Twink and Jack Monck) but bailed after one rehearsal because, as he put it, Syd couldn't play anymore and there was no point pretending he could. probably the right call.

― Deflatormouse

it's actually really interesting to listen to "number nine" by the last minute put together boogie band... syd's playing is absolutely bad out of tune blues. frith, though, his playing is really cool, somewhere between syd's playing in "interstellar overdrive" (no glissando tho) and frith's playing style on "guitar solos". worth listening to for frith alone.

I saw Fred Frith play at a coffee house in Boulder once, it was an experience.

He has been excellent every time i've seen him live

it's actually really interesting to listen to "number nine" by the last minute put together boogie band...

well, shit! when did that start circulating? i thought i had everything with syd on it but stopped paying attention probably 20 years ago

well, shit! when did that start circulating? i thought i had everything with syd on it but stopped paying attention probably 20 years ago

― Deflatormouse

ah jeez i'm not sure but it's been around for years and years. there's some interesting stuff out there. bob dylan blues, you know that was released? not very good. and there's this really interesting tape from the background of a film recording made in april 1967 that sure sounds like pink floyd playing in the background, maybe an improvised part of arnold layne...

thanks for that. I do have Bob Dylan Blues and everything that's officially out (including Rhamadan which was mp3 only bonus track iirc). No idea about this film background unless it is Flame Schon's movie which i've heard about but haven't uh, obtained.

Nah it's not Dope, I do have a two minute bit of that from Youtube though, it's really good. the rest of the movie sounds frankly horrifying and i don't think i'd watch it. i, uh, this is going to maybe sound stupid but i didn't know there was a film of "invasion of thunderbolt pagoda" though, i might check that one out. honestly there's a lot of underground film stuff i don't know much about.