Bands you keep trying to like but can't get into

thought it was funny when he did this and just picked 13 albums he played on

https://thequietus.com/articles/10797-ginger-baker-baker-s-dozen-favourite-albums

hey, it is called "Baker's Dozen"

lol. I mean only *half* of them are albums he played on, but still

Also funny that he disses Mitch Mitchell, who is a much more fluid player with a much better sense of jazz (but didn't have the ego to think he was an actual legit jazz drummer)

Meanwhile, here's Baker thudding it up with Haden and Frisell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql6iGLZL14w

Classic or thud.

1969 Life magazine feature on Elvin Jones:

https://tinyurl.com/y54wk93x

Curious to know what the patriarch of the new percussionists would think of his adoring progeny, I paid Jones a visit next day in his cheerful little flat on Manhattan's West Side. Sipping beer out of a jelly jar clinking with ice cubes, he listened with closed eyes and bent, perspiring forehead while I spun discs by the Who and Blind Faith and Santana. The Afro-Cuban rockers he dug, but mostly as musical wallpaper. Keith Moon's drumming during the "Underture" of Tommy produced appreciative comments: "See there, where the tempo started to die, how he picked it up! The man is a drummer. Everything they play, he contains it."

Only Ginger Baker, of the now defunct Blind Faith, got the strong put-down. Raising his head after an ominously silent hearing of "Do What You Like," with its enormously long drum solo, Jones growled: "Nothing happenin'. Cat's got delusions of grandeur with no grounds. They should make him an astronaut and lose his ass!"

Ha, was wondering when it would get to that quote.

Too right, he damn near ruins that album.

I'm checking out "Do What You Like" right now... haven't even gotten to the drum solo yet, and ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz....

lollll that's awesome, never read that before - love his take on Moon as well

Man, this bass solo is rough. Guess the drum solo must be next....

Yes, and then Elvin Jones went on to perform with Ginger Baker's Air Force.

I forgot about this Yardbirds song "Shapes of Things" -- it's a great one for sure

xpost

definitely rare to hear of a jazz player holding their nose and playing on some rock or pop bullshit for a good check

Ginger Baker *and* Tony Williams play on Album by PiL!

charlie watts is a hero for refusing to play the hi hat & snare at the same time. he put more swagger in the backbeat than anyone.

it's just a bummer he doesn't have rhythm

geez louise is there some kind of concerted campaign to troll drummers about charlie watts? wtf

I wouldn't worry about it, Turrican is determined to mention how much he hates Charlie Watts in as many threads as possible.

just Turrican doing his thing from what I can tell xp

my comment was in earnest btw, I love the stones & charlie watts specifically

i'm not worried, i just think it's weird
is "being wrong about how rhythm works" his thing? that's weird!

Not going there!

LL I was not being serious up there

charlie watts is a hero for refusing to play the hi hat & snare at the same time. he put more swagger in the backbeat than anyone.

― :∵·∴·∵: (crüt), Tuesday, May 21, 2019 10:32 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Swagger? He looks stiff as fuck when he's drumming, and you can hear it.

itt turrican finally unmasked as Kenny Jones

i can see why you might think that re: stiffness, but i disagree.

Kenney Jones was a great drummer, particularly on the stuff Small Faces did for Immediate.

I'd rate Kenney Jones, Mitch Mitchell and Mick Avory all higher than Ginger Baker, actually.

Kenney Jones is a seriously great drummer.

keep trying to like turrican but can't get into it

he just hits that one note constantly

No rhythm either

Just bashin away

Charlie Watts drumming is cool because it sounds like someone getting beat up in a really systematic but bluesy manner

someone getting beat up in a really systematic but bluesy manner

That's actually the perfect description of the time Watts decked Mick Jagger in 1984.

("Don't ever call me your drummer again. You're my fucking singer!")

I'll take this over anything Cream recorded...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIPL1NwQAY0

It pains me to say it at the moment, but Cardiacs. Love the idea of poppy prog (or proggy pop, if you prefer), but really not getting it in this case.

I really want to get into Afrobeat as I love the idea of it and it's nice to have on in the background, but every time I sit down and try and actively listen to a Fela Kuti track I get fidgety around the three minute mark.

― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap)

I've since rectified this opinion.

My problem with Fela is that I get into it and then get curious about the lyrics and end up finding out about some social issue in Nigeria for an hour. Wait, that’s not a problem.

But I can’t get into Phoebe Bridgers.

XXXP - Anagram, perhaps try some Cardiacs adjacent stuff like Kitten Pyramid, Army of Moths or Slunq.

Thanks, I'll give those a try.

Haha, I thought Kansas and Styx were poppy prog. I'm starting to dig into this manic avant-prog-punk band, though. I found Guns a little easier to digest at first than Sing to God.

Cardiacs were never prog-proper tbf (with a few exceptions), they're much more of a psychedelic art-punk-pop group, and I'm not convinced the bands MN suggests are as proggy as you're after either

Cardiacs-influenced prog-pop that doesn't shirk the pop or the prog, and is awesome:

Major Parkinson - Blackbox https://majorparkinson.bandcamp.com/album/blackbox
Lost Crowns - Every Night Something Happens https://lostcrowns.bandcamp.com/album/every-night-something-happens

I mean, <3 Army Of Moths but they're basically a Britpop band with especially grandiose ideas

But you should check it all out obviously!

That Major Parkinson album especially is such a cool synthesis of campy, synthy Full Pop with winding, segueing, modular, callback-strewn Full Prog, will def call out to the Steven Wilson fan in you

The record I was going on about on the Thinking Plague thread also recommended FFO Steven Wilson and maybe Bent Knee I would say, but it's not out until 30th August now apparently.

The Cardiacs don't seem poppy to me, though, except in the broad sense in which Mr. Bungle is also pop music. Do people really hear them that way? From descriptions, I was expecting something hookier but I am getting into them when I listen for everything that's going on compositionally. It seems something like an aggressive postpunk take on RIO?

yeah i think when people use "poppy" talking about the Cardiacs all they really mean is "short songs"

It could certainly seem a little perverse as a description but it depends how you think about pop. Then again stuff like Gina Lollabrigida and A Wooden Fish On Wheels seems like pop songs to me. Even more so a things like Odd Even, Bellyeye, Flap Off You Beak, Manhoo. like half of Sing To God. If that's RIO it's even more obliquely so.

I mean, "Long Distance Runaround" seems closer to pop music in the first place? I don't require poppiness by any stretch and am liking them, tbc, just not sure that approaching it as poppy prog sets up the most helpful expectations.

After the death of Tim Smith (RIP), my brother - who is a full on progger these days - posted a live track on Facebook which was a kind of anthemic three chord number and is literally the only time I've managed to listen to a Cardiacs track all the way through. Then I made the mistake of listening to some other stuff from the same concert... egads, no no no.