Chalkhills Digest Volume 11, Issue 28
Date: Saturday, 2 July 2005
Chalkhills Digest, Volume 11, Number 28
Saturday, 2 July 2005
Topics:
re: P.Hux
Enter Easter and American Gods
Re: The Ever Popular Ringo Controversy
Ringo
Wonderfalls on UK TV
Beatle drums
Re: It's Nearly Africa and other "mash-ups"
Prague sightning
addendum
Ringo was (a) god
Michael V and the Beatles
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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:48:46 -0400 (GMT-04:00) From: Danny Phipps <phipps117@earthlink.net> Subject: re: P.Hux Message-ID: <8310499.1119970126588.JavaMail.root@wamui-polski.atl.sa.earthlink.net> The illustrious Michael (any kin to Giani?) Versaci doth quote in Chalkhills 11-27: > > Parthenon Huxley has recently released an album of ELO covers. > > I like it A LOT! > > http://www.parthenonhuxley.com/homemadespaceship.html ... to which I reply ~ It's interesting that you mention Parth here, Michael. I'm from North Carolina and before Mr. Huxley so-called "made it big" out in L.A., he originally had a cool 3-piece band years before called Rick Rock that made a name for itself around the local clubs in the Triangle area of NC here. I actually met Parth during this time, since my oldest brother-in-law (Hi, Chip!) played drums in the Rick Rock combo. Mr. H is a very genial and warm, friendly person and I remember the band made some damned good music back then, too! I have a Parthenon (now known as P.Hux) recording called "Purgatory Falls" which is a loving collection of songs he dedicated to the memory of his first wife who'd died from cancer. Highly recommended recording, too, I might add!! I'm very interested in getting more material by him, so thanks for the link, Michael. :-) -- "If we press on, the milk of sweetness conceived in us will spread over us in fruitful flood." ~ Peter Blegvad
------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 19:30:20 +0200 From: "don device" <device@noos.fr> Subject: Enter Easter and American Gods Message-ID: <001501c57c07$1010f810$a43e4251@computer> Fellow denizens, I've just finsished reading 'American Gods', a whopping tome by and English chap (for those of you alrerady scrolling downwards due to presumed ethnocentrism on my American-Expat self) by the name of Neil Gaiman... It should be of interest to any of you attracted by the mythological/Celtic/greenman aspect of our boys' work... Let's just say Odin's in there bleeding for you and me, adn Easter enters dressed in Yellow, and if it's not yolk, she does put away her fair share of devilled eggs... Do yourself a favour and read it.... ciao4now; d" ps: Andy's comment in the Guardian 'coldplay' artcle are spot-on....
------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 13:55:56 -0400 From: David Schwab <david@david-schwab.com> Subject: Re: The Ever Popular Ringo Controversy Message-ID: <BEE7076C.1701%david@david-schwab.com> > Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 08:29:15 -0700 (PDT) > From: Michael Versaci <michael_versaci@yahoo.com> > It is a known fact that Paul played the drums on "Back In > The U.S.S.R," and "The Ballad of John and Yoko" and both of those > songs are locked in way that some other songs of the same era are > not. Paul also played drums (and guitar) on Helter Skelter, with John on bass. You can also hear Paul adding drums to "Got to Get You Into My Life," with the original drums mixed quite low. I'm sure I know of other songs he played drums on, but can't think of them at the moment. I had heard that Ringo had left the band for much of the White Album, and that Paul had played drums on a good number of tunes. Not sure if that's true, or just that they often they worked on tracks by themselves, and Paul enjoyed playing drums. On Back in the U.S.S.R., George was playing a Fender Bass VI, and he also plays bass on Honey Pie. And of course that famous guitar solo in Taxman was Paul. I guess the bottom line is much of who we thought played what in the Beatles was not always the case! David -- If it was so, it might be; and it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic. - Lewis Carrol www.david-schwab.com www.imanicoppolamusic.com
------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 13:31:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Benjamin Lukoff <blukoff@alvord.com> Subject: Ringo Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0506281321160.15327-100000@vaal.killerlink.net> Michael Versaci <michael_versaci@yahoo.com> wrote: > Have said that though, starting around "Rubber Soul," I hear timing > issues concerning both tempo and being on the beat. Missing the > beat coming out of a fill. Not being on top of things during > transitions. It doesn't affect my love or appreciation of their > records, but I hear it. I've often heard that starting around 1967, > Paul would sometimes sneak into the studio and replay the drums on > certain songs. Everyone knew he was doing it but no one spoke of it > openly. It is a known fact that Paul played the drums on "Back In > The U.S.S.R," and "The Ballad of John and Yoko" and both of those > songs are locked in way that some other songs of the same era are > not. I agree with you that the songs on which Paul plays drums are more "locked," but not that that's an improvement. "The Ballad of John and Yoko" is a bit *too* tight for my taste.
------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 19:50:57 +0100 From: "simon PATRICK" <pad@78vw.fsnet.co.uk> Subject: Wonderfalls on UK TV Message-ID: <001201c57c12$52522d60$785e86d9@78vw> Yep its true, Wonderfalls airs on Sky 1 on Tuesday 5th July @ 21:00. If anyone else has mentioned this already then I apologise for the repetition. Regards Simon
------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:00:16 -0700 (PDT) From: Jim Smart <jimsmart1@yahoo.com> Subject: Beatle drums Message-ID: <20050629180016.39150.qmail@web30209.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Ringo is fine, but I don't think he'd cut it on an XTC album. Paul played the drums on Dear Prudence, too, and on the Band on the Run album, and one of his recent ones. Other artists who've played their own drums in ways I like: Jon Brion, Adrian Belew, Jason Faulkner... Jim "get this damn trivia out of my head" Smart
------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 11:33:14 -0400 From: John Relph <relph@tmbg.org> Subject: Re: It's Nearly Africa and other "mash-ups" Message-ID: <17093.25146.372516.874403@f5.idiot-dog.com> On Thursday, 2005, Paul Culnane <paulculnane@yahoo.co.uk> spewed: > > Re: recent discussion about some track containing a sample of "It's Nearly > Africa", that someone heard on the radio while visiting Australia. Dunno > anything about this, but are you sure it was INA, and not "Melt The Guns"? > Triple-J-FM here were playing a track by some Japanese outfit (their name > eludes me just now), which blatantly sampled that diddly little riff from > "Guns" - an interesting juxtaposition. Does anybody have a clue what song this is and which artist performs it? Enquiring minds want to know! > I've recently heard two other XTC mash-ups (as I believe these things are > gauchly referred to). One courtesy of fellow Chalkster Bill Sherlock, by > some mob called Go Home Productions, called "Londinium Loves", which > cleverly blends Blur's "London Loves" with XTC's "Towers Of London" (with a > dash of The Kinks' "Tired Of Waiting"). Mr. Go Home, otherwise known as Mark Vidler, has done some brilliant mash-ups of XTC. He's a big fan. His best XTC mash-up, IMHO, is Tweet On XTC: "Making Plans for Vinyl", mashing XTC's "Making Plans for Nigel" and Tweet's "Oops Oh My". Brilliant. > The other one is more obscure and my memory fails me as to who, what, where, > why, but this was also really cool - again "Towers Of London" this time > segueing into the Beatles' "Rain". I think this is just the end of "Londinium Loves"! It also features the crows from "Senses Working Overtime" if my ears don't deceive me. -- John
------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 17:02:00 +0200 From: "don device" <device@noos.fr> Subject: Prague sightning Message-ID: <002401c57e4d$d5d254c0$a43e4251@computer> Hello all, First, an XTC sighting, or more exactly, one of the uffungtom horse on the marquee of a pub in Prague. This is from about four years ago, so god knows if it's still there, but for doubters, I have picture of my slightly less round self gloating over a pint in front of it and sporting (coincidentally, IKYN) my own lovely forest-green shirt... Picture quality so-so, but enough to disgrace you naysayers (and you 'ni'-sayers althemoreso!) Next: Where can I find an XTC ringtone? I've been killing myself trying to re-compose 'Wake-Up', which seems to me quite apropos, yet clearmy quite beyond the comprehension onf any music program I can find... A simple smaple would do nicely, and I'd be glad to throw our boyz a shilling for their trouble...) cheers, d^2
------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 17:18:41 +0200 From: "don device" <device@noos.fr> Subject: addendum Message-ID: <000701c57e50$2a366ae0$a43e4251@computer> all, i should have mentioned that for the ringtones, I have a MOTOROLA E398, not an Eriksonn... I did take the time to consult the archives, for goodness sakes! No flamez please! best,d^2
------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 17:11:46 +0200 From: jeffrey.thomas@bayercropscience.com Subject: Ringo was (a) god Message-ID: <OFD4C47302.85008EA4-ONC1257031.003441E3@bayer.de> Okay, people of the collines de la craie, My old buddy Mike V. threw down the gauntlet, asked the unanswerable question, dared to open an off-topic conversation that has been going on for 40 years and will continue to go on: >I love Ringo, and I think his style was excellent. He had a unique >feel and his personality added much to the overall package of The >Beatles. <snip> >I mentioned these opinions to a very talented multi-instrumentalist >friend of mine, and he said, "Ringo was GREAT! I don't hear that!" > >I wonder what you all think? You might as well start asking people whether Christianity, Judaism, or Islam is the correct religion, but okay, I'm going to allow myself to be sucked into this black hole... I'll *try* to keep it concise, although that is a real challenge. Here goes: If you are a "technical drumming" person, you will have strong negative feelings about Ringo. Although he has done some quite remarkable things from time to time, most of the time he avoids situations that involve anything involving high speed, highly technical, set-encompassing stuff. (In fact, he even avoids a lot of not-so-highly technical stuff like 3-tom left-to-right unbroken rolling fills [whatever the technical term may be].) Hands down, if this is what you look for, Ringo won't give it to you, and you probably don't like him. Actually, many just plain hate him. If you are a "musicality in drumming" person, you will see this differently. Many people of this persuasion have serious issues with some technically very proficient drummers (e.g. Peart, Palmer) because they don't know when less is more. Musicality is not really a function of technical proficiency, which, for people in this camp, invalidates any arguments from the other camp. Musicality: Ringo has this quality. He has an inherent ability (not all of the time) to play what is right for a song. When he is/was wrong, it is often on the side of playing too little, but rarely on the side of too much. And often playing just what was right for the tune. It is a quality more in the "ear" or head than in the hands and feet. Musicality is, for me, playing what fits the music, and Ringo's playing was often brilliant in that respect for the Beatles. Keith Moon's was brilliant for the Who. But Ringo couldn't've played for the Who, and Moon would have ruined the Beatles' music. So each, within his framework, found an ability to express what needed to be expressed in the music he played. Perhaps the truly and exceptionally musical drummer can play for lots and lots of groups and always sound good. (Zak Starkey has so far only proven he is a master of both Ringo and Moon styles, but that is a very wide gap, an impressive accomplishment in itself.) In my eyes, a judge of the musicality is when a drummer develops his own style, and the style is accepted by the musically-inclined fans -- fans which particularly include other musicians. This leads to imitation, which -- if the sincerest form of flattery -- would indicate that Ringo is/was truly a great drummer. Or put a different way: How many other drummers are, 40 years on, still imitated with such passion as Ringo is? This is, by the way, also a compliment often made to our own Terry Chambers, who to this day is still revered by many many other drummers for his unique interpretation in some songs. I recently heard a Green Day song where I thought Tre Cool must have been listening to XTC the day before they recorded the song, so derivative was his style. That is a compliment to TC! Developing your own signature style is in itself often a sign of a higher musical understanding. Some particularly evident styles -- such as the "Phil Collins Registered Trademark" sound, or the sound of Frank Beard in ZZ Top's popular era -- are not based on the player using all of his "chops". They are based on making a "fat", "pregnant" (in the other sense of the word) sound that fits the music. Examples would be "Easy Lover" and "Gimme All Your Loving", but most people recognize those sounds almost immediately, even if they have no idea of drums. You may like them or you may not, but they are interesting if nothing else, and amazingly simple. >I hear timing issues concerning both tempo and being on the beat. >Missing the beat coming out of a fill. Not being on top of things >during transitions. As for the timing issues, I see it and I don't. Certainly, the most obvious and annoying example of this was "You Won't See Me", which is horribly inconsistent. (Yes, they worked fast, didn't use click tracks, etc. But face it, he's WAY off on that song.) There are others, even songs he is praised for, with the same problem. But not that many, really. And more often than not, he is dead on. And as for missing beats off of fills, it's part of his style, and it's interesting. He just does it that way. You can make up for lack of technical proficiency in a couple of ways. One is to learn the technique. The other is to create your own, and this is what Ringo did. If what you created sounds good and you can use it, why not? Ringo's left-handed interpretation of fills on a right-handed set, with the missed beats in the middle and at the end, is fascinating, as are his "backward" fills he occasionally used, particularly early on, to create a sound unique to himself. >I've often heard that starting around 1967, Paul would sometimes >sneak into the studio and replay the drums on certain songs. I actually doubt this story, except on a few tracks. Paul's drumming, while technically not bad at all, has a tendency exhibit less musicality than Ringo's, and certainly less "swing". I think Paul's drumming can be good, but he has the same tendency in drumming as he does in self-production, namely that he has difficulties separating the wheat from the chaff. I don't like "Band on the Run" for just this reason -- he should have let someone else play that album. During the Beatles years, Paul did play the two songs mentioned, plus a couple of others. While I like "Ballad", I don't hear "USSR" as being locked, I hear it as being stiff. One song with a big question mark for me is "Ob-La-Di", because it contains both Ringoisms and Paulisms -- only the Beatles really know who played that one. Paul's greatest moment for me, however, was the final verse of "Dear Prudence", which I also contains both Ringo and Paul aspects, but is one of the greatest drumming moments on any Beatles record. This was quite certainly played by Paul. At the end, I would also like to praise Ringo's 2004 record, "RingoRama". I didn't think he had this record in him, it's what he should have made in 1975 -- he would never have disappeared into obscurity (at least not for musical reasons). If you get the version with the DVD, you can see him (and Eric Clapton, Dave Gilmour, Willy Nelson, Timothy Schmit, Shawn Colvin, Van Dyke Parks...) in the studio, and it's quite fun *and* funny to watch. You will also see Ringo drumming as only Ringo can. Most importantly, it's all new songs and most of them are very, very entertaining. For a Beatles fan, this must be the 2nd most important Ringo album to own, right after 1973's "Ringo". Au revoir! - Jeff
------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 22:59:14 -0500 From: "Brunkhorst" <brunkhorstk@hotmail.com> Subject: Michael V and the Beatles Message-ID: <BAY104-DAV2DA264FC111FCB1A7A8B6B6E50@phx.gbl> On Sat, 25 Jun 2005 08:29:15 -0700 (PDT) Michael Versaci says: .. starting around "Rubber Soul," I hear timing issues concerning both tempo and being on the beat. Missing the beat coming out of a fill. Not being on top of things during transitions. It doesn't affect my love or appreciation of their records, but I hear it. I've often heard that starting around 1967, Paul would sometimes sneak into the studio and replay the drums on certain songs. Everyone knew he was doing it but no one spoke of it openly. It is a known fact that Paul played the drums on "Back In The U.S.S.R," and "The Ballad of John and Yoko" and both of those songs are locked in way that some other songs of the same era are not. I wonder what you all think? .. Sometimes Paul did play the drums. Sometimes John or George played the bass. Those four guys were pretty good musicians, and played a lot of things. (I think Mal Evans played some really bad trumpet on 'Helter Skelter' too.) I think that precise does not by itself equal good. Otherwise, Kraftwerk would be the greatest band in the world. Pro Tools would make all recording artists into gods. Nothing would ever feel weird, all pockets would be huge, etc. I think that 'Michelle' slows down in the last verse. I think I like it. I think that Hal Blaine could not have been a member of the Beatles. I think that George Martin contributed as much to the Beatles as some of the Beatles did. But alone, they have only sometimes connected to me as well as the Beatles did. I think that Miles Davis busted a lot of notes, and he was a genius. I think you might enjoy reading Ian McDonald's 'Revolution In The Head' and Walter Everett's two-volume 'The Beatles as Musicians'. What are you trying to tell us, Michael? Kevin
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