Post a controversial music opinion

yes but those early Material albums (Temporary Music, Memory Serves) will always be special to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2sxEEImNxk

no not that stuff, I only like them with Fred Maher on drums, through 1981, when they were a band not a project (to borrow Carducci), then the Laswell effect sets in and it's all guest stars from there on out

I mean it's OK but those early EPs and first album are so great, along w/ the Massacre album

That track barely has a (vocoderized) vocal. I'm not mad about Material-with-vocals either besides Whitney Houston and Nona Hendryx's tracks.

i immed swerved into bangkok shocks saigon shakes laswell glops

I really really really wish I liked Hanoi Rocks more than I do

Yeah, that's a big one for me on the "bought the CD, tried hard, just couldn't get into it" list.

Low Life is an all time record for me, and I also like his Dub Chamber records, but maybe i just like noise and glop.

I love the Miles records and admire his two solo albums, but I don't think that Tony Williams's drumming on Emergency rocked enough. I like the record enough to have both mixes, but there's no-one in the group who holds anything down (the aimless walking organ bass isn't much help). The playing on Turn It Over was more straightforward, but the group energy is starting to flag.

...and none of the drumming on Emergency sounds much like Keith Moon to me.

It doesn't sound like Moon to me, either, but it sounds influenced by Moon. If that makes any sense. And I'm willing to accept that it doesn't.

Thought this was interesting:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/charlie-watts-rolling-stones-drummers-beatles-jazz-1216494/

Watts talks about seeing Tony Williams in the young drummer’s early years with Miles Davis. “He was so unlike anybody else,” he says. I mention that during an interview with Williams he once told me that the single influence who opened him to drumming so wide was Keith Moon. Watts’ eyes grow wide, and he leans his head rearward as if taken aback: “Blimey.”

When I thought about it, I say, it made sense. “Not to me,” says Watts. “Keith Moon, there was a character. Loved him. There’s only one of him. I miss him a lot. He was a very charming bloke, a lovely guy, really, but quite…”

Watts pauses to make a “whew” sound. “But he could be a difficult guy, really. Actually, there wasn’t only one of him. He was more like three people in one. He used to live here in Los Angeles for a while, in some of his madder days. God, I remember being here once with him when he tried to turn me on to chocolate ants; he was walking about with tins of chocolate ants. That’s what I mean. He was not your regular guy, in that way, but he was, in his heart, a nice guy. I always got on well with him.”

Watts shakes his head and smiles at the memory. “He was an amazing drummer with Pete [Townshend]. I don’t know if he was a very good drummer outside of Pete,” he adds, laughing. “A lot of guys, I don’t think, would have liked playing with him. He didn’t play real time or anything. He wasn’t funky or anything. He was a whole other thing. He was on top of everything, and maybe that’s what Tony liked, but you’d never think that Tony was like … I would have thought Roy Haynes was his big influence.

Bonham >>>>>> Moon > Watts >>> Baker

Ginger may have had technical chops, but wasted them on unmusical wankery. Moon lacked chops but compensated with a gonzo creative sense and personality.

One of those dudes was unimpeachable and his name was John Bonham.

I don't have a strong opinion about Tony Williams.

tony wiliams: good drummer, terrible band leader

where does mitch mitchell fall in all of this for ya'll?

i like him

i would basically agree w/YMP

One thing I never understood -- and I posted this elsewhere -- is why, even though "fusion" owes much of its existence to Hendrix, no "fusion" musicians seemed to seek out Mitch Mitchell for collaboration (or Billy Cox, for that matter).

I agree about Bonham.

Tony Williams did have a crazy arc...utter mastery as a teenager, absorbing all the great drummers and taking it all somewhere new, just incandescent creativity and technique. And then the initial moves into rock and fusion, and my guess is afterward playing jazz at big festivals more than small clubs had a big effect? As well as having his own reputation and being a leader maybe. I know from his clinics that he talked a lot of control and consistency, and changing his technique to achieve it.

And he never stopped playing jazz, he had his group with Mulgrew Miller and Wallace Roney (even if his playing & sound came off as a lot heavier than in the '60s), and focused on composing. His last record was a jazz + orchestra suite that he wrote. It really sucks that he didn't live to be an elder statesmen and mix it up with the current generation, I'd love to know what kind of influence they might have had on him aesthetically.

xp

Austin, thanks for the prompt. Mitchell is also up there in all-time world-class forever faves. So maybe

Mitchell = Bonham >>>>>> Moon = Watts >>> Baker

As may be clear by now I am not a Baker fan

somebody once tried to tell me that hendrix was "ruined" while being backed by mitchell and that band of gypsies was clearly superior. lol.

i've always really liked mitch mitchell and thought of his style as similar to moon's in that kind of "controlled chaos" sort of mode. mitchell obviously has a lot more restraint by comparison, but he was constantly just all over the place.

on that note, miles was documented about how much of an impact hendrix had on him - d'ya think tony williams absorbed any of mitchell's vibe, like idk, via osmosis?

I also think of Mitchell & Moon as more similar, less as pocket drummers and more as jazz-influenced, busy, and interactive.

Tbh the only Hendrix LP I really spent any serious time with is the Live at the Fillmore East record with Buddy Miles, so through that I'm a Band of Gypsies > UK trio person, lol.

Fun fact: Mitchell auditioned for the Who in 1964, but (obviously) didn’t get the gig.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience doesn't get nearly as much recognition and appreciation as they deserve these days.

(imagining an alternate timeline where moon ends up in the jhe)

the who kinda suck!

laswell glop vs zorn glop

<3 kurt

Dude you want to hear the worst of the worst you gotta check out the Ginger Baker Bill Laswell albums there's like 20 of them.

Ok maybe there's only 2.

Axis is my favorite, and I think Hendrix and the Experience were obviously great players but I think he's so (deservedly) revered as a player he doesn't get enough credit for making great records, great songs with super creative production choices

Ranking of drummers who couldn't sing but sang anyway:

Moon
Baker
Williams

Mitch Mitchell put lots of pauses and holes in his drumming, it feels like he got Hendrix floating.

my fav jimi shows are the exp/gypsies hybrid with cox on bass and mitchell on drums

I def prefer Zorn Glop to Laswell Glop. Laswell Glop has that weird uncanny ECM sheen to it (fretless bass and too much reverb).

And I agree that it's weird that apparently no one wanted to play with Mitchell post-Hendrix. Not even Laswell! You'd think he would have thrown him on an Arcana or Material record, to bring things full circle.

Drummers who drum like that (Loosely, I mean the Mitchell, Moon, Bonham, Baker type) could only get away with it because they were in solid bands that didn't need a centered drummer keeping things rock-steady. They were skilled enough to have a drummer who just played whatever-the-fuck because they didn't need the drummer to be a metronome.

Manyof those bands didn't require a timekeeper to hold down the backbeat, they got the other thing that drummers can provide: manic flurries of ornament.

There's a thing about this: think of the plays "Hamlet" and "King Lear."

Switch the protagonist and you get significantly shorter plays.

Surely you didn't mean to include Bonham in there

yeah was gonna say

I wouldn't call Baker loose, either, if anything his fault was heavy-handedness. But keeping the rhythm wasn't his specialty either.

he kinda sucks actually the more i think about it

i used to think of him as a great drummer i didn't like that much but i think that was just because i felt like he was so well regarded in drummer world i had to take him seriously

Baker's not great on the records that made his name (Cream, mostly). But some of the other stuff — Air Force, the album with Fela, the first Ginger Baker Trio record, his last album Why? — is enjoyable. If you come in with your arms crossed, "Impress me, Mr. Self-Declared Drum God!", then no, there's nothing there. But if you just listen to them as blends of jazz, rock, and West African rhythms, there's more than enough to enjoy there.

oh I do like that first Baker Gurvitz Army record okay though I have a pretty high tolerance for that kinda 70s wooly mammoth hard rock shit

i'll check out those recommendations

to me, Laswell is like half-assed Zorn

Baker is great on that Fela record but he shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as those other drummers

Jordan / ums, fair point! Bonham did seventy times as much timekeeping as the sloppy tomwankers. He is in a category of his own.

Still, Mitchell and Bonham are in a premier tier of all-fuckin-time musicians.

Moon was a lovable goofball. Never claimed to be a genius or a drum god. I am not a fan of his playing but I don't hate him.

Baker's playing is often incoherent sloppy tomwankery. Yet he thought he was a genius and a drum God. Hence he gets some opprobrium.

I love Moon but as people have said there's exactly one band he would have worked in, and he was in it, but it's thrilling to me to hear him and the Ox going apeshit

I wish there was film of the Ginger Baker / Elvin Jones drum battle. (Elvin wins this one)

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

It's not that no one wanted to play with Mitchell. He retired after Jimi.

do u guys love music or what? that baker jones recording is wonderful!

enjoy the trash talk but tbh ginger baker is sounding great atm

It's not that no one wanted to play with Mitchell. He retired after Jimi.

I got to see Mitchell play once in 1986 - with junked-out Stevie Ray Vaughn on a "Voodoo Child" cover, but Albert Collins and Hank Ballard were also there so it was pretty mind-blowing.