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melisa-may-taylor72 · 4 years

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QUEEN BEFORE QUEEN

THE 1960s RECORDINGS

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PART 4:

THE OPPOSITION

JOHN DEACON WAS THE QUIETEST MEMBER OF A MIDLAND-BASED FIVE-PIECE WHOSE GREATEST AMBITION WAS TO PLAY ANOTHER GIG.

Initial research John S. Stuart. Additional research and text: Andy Davis.

John Deacon was the fourth and final member to join Queen. He became part of that regal household 25 years ago this month, enrolling as the band’s permanent bassist in February 1971. His acceptance marked the culmination of a six-year ‘career’ in music, much of which he spent in an amateur, Leicestershire covers band called the Opposition.

From 1965 until 1969, Deacon and his schoolmates ploughed a humble, local furrow in and around their Midlands hometown, reflecting the decade’s mercurial moodswing with a series of names, images and styles of music. The most remarkable fact about the Opposition was just how unremarkable the group actually was.

Collectively, they were an unambitious crew: undertaking precisely no trips down to London to woo A&R men; winning only one notable support slot for the army of chart bands who visited Leicester in the ‘60s (opening for Reperata & the Delrons in Melton Mowbray in 1968); and managing even to miss out on the option of sending a demo tape to any of the nation’s record labels. The band’s saving grace is its solé recorded legacy: a three-track acetate — although even this was done for purely private consumption, and has rarely been aired outside the confines of their inner circle.

It is perhaps indicative of the Opposition’s modest outlook that their most promising bid for stardom, a beat contest, was called off before they had the chance to play in the finals. For John Deacon and friends, it seems, merely being in a band was reward enough.

Considering of all of this, it’s easy to imagine the response to the following story, related in the ‘60s to one of the Opposition’s guitarists, Ronald Chester:...[ ]

...[ ] “There was a teacher who worked at Beauchamp School, which John attended, who told fortunes. They went to see her one Saturday and were told, ‘John Deacon is going to be world famous and very, very rich. Of course, they all fell about laughing. She was determined that this was going to happen. But they all thought it was a joke."

What particularly amused Deacon’s colleagues was the unlikeliness of this scenario, given the plain facts of his demeanour. John was born in Leicester in 1951, the product of affluent, middle-class, middle England. As a youngster, he was known to his friends as ‘Deaks’ and grew up to be quiet and reserved, what Mark Hodkinson referred to in ‘Queen — ‘The Early Years’ as “a ghost of a boy".

“He is basically shy,” confirms Richard Young, the Opposition’s first guitarist/vocalist, and later keyboardist. “I suppose he was quieter than the rest of us — but he was fairly static with Queen if you look at him on stage.”

Ron Chester agrees: “John was quiet by nature. His sister, Julie, was the same. Once he got going, though, he wasn’t any different from anybody else. But on first approach, you really had to coax him out of his shell. We’d have to pick him up. He couldn’t walk down the road to meet us."

CONFIDENT

Despite any lack of personal dynamics, Deacon was a capable teenager: “He was very confident," recalls another of the band’s guitarists, David Williams. “But in a laidback sort of way. He didn’t have a problem with anything. ‘Yeah, I can do that’, he’d say. We used to call him ‘Easy Deacon’, not because of any sexual preferences, but because he’d say something was easy without it sounding big-headed. I remember saying to him once, I’m going to have to knock off the gigs a bit to revise for my ‘A’ levels. What about you?’ ‘No’, he said, ‘I don’t need to. I’ve never failed an exam yet, and I’ve never revised for one’. Ultimately, he was just confident, with a phenomenally logical mind. If he couldn’t remember something, he could work it out. And, of course, he got stunning results.”

John’s earliest interest was electronics, which he studied into adulthood. He also went fishing, trainspotting even, with his father. Then music took over. After dispensing with a ‘Tommy Steele’ toy guitar, John used the proceeds from his paper round to buy his first proper instrument, an acoustic, when he was about twelve. An early musical collaborator was a school mate called Roger Ogden, who like Roger Taylor down in Cornwall, was nicknamed ‘Splodge’. But his best friend was the Opposition’s future drummer, Nigel Bullen.

“I’d first got to know John at Langmore Junior School in Oadby, just outside Leicester, in either 1957 or 1958,’' recalls Nigel. “We were both the quiet ones. We started playing music together at Gartree High School, when we were about thirteen. We were inspired by the Beatles — they made everybody want to be in a group. John was originally going to be the band’s electrician, as he called it. He used to build his own radios, before we had any amps, and he fathomed a way of plugging his guitar into his reel-to-reel tape recorder. He was always the electrical boffin."

The prime mover in the formation of the group was another Oadby boy they met on nearby Uplands Park, Richard Young. “Richard was at boarding school," recalls Nigel Bullen. “He was always the kid with the expensive bike. He played guitar, and what’s more had a proper electric, with an amplifier. He instigated getting the band together. Initially, we rehearsed in my garage, and then anywhere we could. John played rhythm to begin with. He was a chord man, the John Lennon of the group, if you like."

SWITCH

Despite his later switch to the bass, Deacon’s technique on the guitar also developed, as Dave Williams reveals: “Later on, I remember he could play ‘Classical Gas’ on an acoustic, which was a finger-picking execise and no mean feat. It’s a bit like ‘McArthur Park’, a fantastic piece of music, and when I heard it, I thought, ‘Bloody hell. You dark horse!’ Because he never showed off."

The Opposition’s first bassist was another school friend of John’s called Clive Castledine. In fact, the group made its debut at a party at Castledine’s ouse on 25th September, 1965 (their first public performance took place the...[ ]

...[ ] following month at Gartree’s school hall). Clive looked good and appreciated the kudos of being in a group, but he wasn’t up to even the Opposition’s schoolboy standards. “I was the least proficient, to put it mildly,” he admitted to Mark Hodkinson.“His enthusiasm was 100%,” adds Richard Young, “but his actual playing ability was null, so we had a meeting and got rid of him.” Deacon took over, initially playing on his regular guitar, using the bottom strings. “John was good,” Young continues. “It was no problem for him to switch to bass. He hit the right notes at the beginning of the bar, and we were a better band for it. Whereas Clive made us sound woolly, as anyone who just plonked away on any old note would, John was solid.”

DIARY

Young turned out to be the Opposition’s archivist, keeping a diary of each gig played, the equipment used, and the amounts of money earned (as indeed did John Deacon). Richard’s diary documented the day Deacon — now, of course, bassist in one of the world’s most famous groups — first picked up his chosen instrument. “In an entry for 2nd April, 1966,” says Young, “it reads, ‘We threw Clive out on the Saturday afternoon. Had a practice in Deaks’ kitchen, and Deaks went on bass. Played much better.’ John didn’t have a bass, so we went down to Cox’s music shop in King Street in Leicester, and bought him an EKO bass for £60. I paid for it, but I think he paid me back eventually.”

“John’s bass style with the Opposition was the same as with Queen,” reckons Nigel Bullen. “He never used to play with a plectrum, which was unusual, but with his fingers, which meant that his right hand is drooped over the top of the guitar. Also, he plays in an upward fashion, which I’d never seen before, certainly when we were in Leicester. Over the years, I’ve watched many bass players adopt that style. I’d say he has been copied a lot. I’ve mentioned this to him, but he doesn’t agree.”

Clive Castledine wasn’t the last member of the band to be dismissed. “The vocal and lead guitar side of the Opposition was changing all the while,” recalls Nigel. “Myself, John, and Richard Young were always there — as were Dave Williams and Ron Chester later on — but we had a succession of other musicians who I can hardly remember now. There was a guy called Richard Frew in the very early days, and a young lad called Carl, but he didn’t fit in. After we began playing proper gigs, Richard decided he wasn’t happy with his singing and wanted to move onto keyboards, so we brought in Pete Bart (formerly with another local band, the Rapids Rave) as a guitarist and vocalist. He was good, but again, didn’t last long.”

“Bart was a bit of a rocker, while we were all mods,” remarks Dave Williams. “We were impressed by mod bands like the Small Faces and the original Who. Bart seemed to come from a different era altogether.”

“Deaks had the Parka with the fur collar,” remembers Ron Chester. “And short hair, a crew cut. Mirrors on his scooter.” Richard Young agrees: “John was more of a mod than us. But you couldn’t really pigeonhole the band, because our music went right across the board”.

”Buying Deacon his bass was no one-off, and Richard Young is remembered as the group’s benefactor. Being older than the others, he had a steady job working for his father’s electronics company in Leicester, which brought him a regular, and by all accounts, generous wage. He rarely thought twice before splashing out on equipment for the other members.

RECEIPTS

“Richard bought me a P.A.,” recalls David Williams. “But he didn’t ask, he used to think that the group needed it. He’d buy it and then say, ‘You owe me this’. My mum used to get really annoyed. She’d was at that going- through-my-pockets stage, probably looking for contraceptives. She once found a receipt from Moore and Stanworth’s, a local music shop. It was for a Beyer microphone, which cost about £30. I was still at school, getting pocket money, and my mum said, ‘What on earth is this?!’ Receipts on the Sunday dinner table, that sort of thing. It was good, though. The group needed it.”

“I was dead serious about the band,” claims Young, who switched to organ with the arrival of Williams in July 1966. “Perhaps more so than anybody else. I could see it going nowhere if money wasn’t pumped into it.”

“Dick Young was an accomplished organ player,” adds Dave, “and he improved the group quite a lot. He always had plenty of dosh, and a car. But he was totally mad, a crazy bloke. He’d come round with an organ one week, then next week, he’d have a better one. He ended up with a Farfisa, with one keyboard on it, then one with two keyboards — one above the other. Then he had a Hammond, an L 100. which was really heavy. Then he had a ‘B’ series one. The ‘L’ was top-of-the-range and he sawed it in half to make it easier to carry!”

Dave Williams helped to improve the group as well. “He was at school with us,” says Nigel Bullen, “but in another band, who we always looked up to.” That band was the Leeds-based Outer Limits (who went on to issue several singles — without Dave — in the late ‘60s). “I joined the Opposition after they asked me to watch them and tell them what I thought,” recounts Dave. “The Outer Limits were older lads, all mods, but I was after something a bit more easy going, and the Opposition were my own age. They were okay, but I first saw them at John’s house, when they were still practising in bedrooms, and they were absolutely awful. I said, ‘Have you thought of tuning up?’ They said they had. But it sounded like they were playing in different keys — totally horrendous. It was so funny. They were so conscientious, they’d all learned their bits, but hadn't tuned up to each other. That was my first tip.”

“Our first proper gig was supporting a local band, the Rapids Rave, at Enderby Coop Hall,” recalls Nigel Bullen. “They used to play at this village hall every week. and then we ended up doing it every week for quite some time.” Richard’s diary records the Opposition’s debut taking place on 4th December 1965, and that the band’s fee was £2. Thereafter, they began to offer their Services in the local ‘Oadby & Wigston Advertiser’, which led to bookings in youth clubs and village halls in local hot-spots like Kibworth, Houghton-on- the-Hill, Thurlaston and Great Glen.

SCHOOL WORK

By spring 1966, the Opposition were playing every weekend, school work permitting. The peaks and troughs of their career are illustrated by the following memorable gigs: one at St. George’s Ballroom, Hinckley, on 23rd June 1967, when just two people turned up and the band went home after a couple of numbers; and a September appearance in a series of shows at U.S. Airforce Bases in the Midlands, at which they were required to play for four-and-half hours with just two twenty-minute breaks. It was nothing if not diverse.

“It didn’t seem to matter what you played,” says Dave. “People would clap simply because you were making music. They never said, ‘Do you do Motown, or soul stuff?’ ” The band’s repertoire initially consisted of chart sounds and the poppier end of the R&B spectrum. “Although we were inspired by the Beatles, we never did any of their songs,” claims Nigel. “But we covered the Kinks, the Yardbirds, and things like Them’s ‘Gloria’, and the Zombies’ ‘She’s Not There’.

They also altered their name slightly to the New Opposition, which they unveiled at the Enderby Coop Hall. “The name-change was decided overnight, when John moved from rhythm to bass guitar,” recounts Richard, whose diary records the date of the transition as 29th April 1966. Interestingly, though, it makes no mention of another local group also called the Opposition, long thought to have been the reason for Deacon’s crew adopting the ‘New’. The change did act as an impetus for further development, however, instigated by Dave Williams, who soon took over as the group’s lead vocalist.

“When I joined they were doing all Beach Boys stuff,” he recalls, “and I think I may have brought in a little credibility. In the Outer Limits, I’d been playing John Mayall, the Yardbirds, that sort of thing, plus that group was into really good soul like the Impressions, and fantastic vocal bands from the States. So I had a broad musical knowledge by then, whereas the Opposition had been a bit poppy.” Appropriately, the words “Tamla” and “Soul” were now added to the Opposition’s ads and calling cards.

Towards the end of 1966, the New Opposition were enhanced further by the arrival of Ron Chester, who’d previously played with Dave Williams in the Outer Limits, as well as in an earlier band, the Deerstalkers. “Ron Chester was a bit eccentric,” claims Richard Young. “He never used to go anywhere without his deerstalker. He was a really good guitarist (“stunning”, adds Dave Williams). We were probably at our best when Ron was in the band.”

On 23rd October 1966, the New Opposition entered the local Midland Beat Contest. They won their heat, landing themselves a place in the semifinals on 29th January 1967. They won this, too, and steeled themselves for the finals, which were due to be held on 3rd March 1967, when they were to be pitched against...[ ]

...[ ] an act called Keny. The stars of the show would have been the nearest the Opposition came to having a rival: an outfit called Legay. (A year later, incidentally, this band issued a now collectable single, “No One” (Fontana TF 904,£80J.) Unfortunately, for all concerned, however, the contest never took place. “That was a fiasco,'' laughs Ron. “Somehow we won those heats, but in fact, I don’t remember seeing anybody else playing. I don’t know whether we won by default or not. After that, they pulled the plug on the competition — probably because they knew we’d be playing again!”.

CASINO

“The heats took place in a club in Leicester called the Casino, which was the place to play,” adds Nigel. “The guy who ran the competition was an agent for the club. His company was called Penguin (or P.S) Promotions and he walked like a penguin too, with his feet sticking out. The final was going to be held in the De Montford Hall, which is still the main venue in Leicester. We thought, ‘Crumbs, this is it, perhaps we might make the big time.’ But the guy did a runner with all the money — people had to pay to come to the heats. So the final was called off.”

David Williams wasn’t too fussed, as he scored another prize that night: “I remember taking a girl back to Dick’s car on the strength of us winning our heat. I said, ‘Can I borrow your keys, Dick? He said, ‘What for? You can’t drive!’ “

Were the New Opposition — or the Opposition, as they dropped the ‘New’ again in early 1967 — left in limbo by the cancellation of the Beat Contest? Having achieved the most public recognition of their talents so far, were they disappointed with the loss of the chance to prove themselves further?

“No. It was almost insignificant,” reckons Ron. “We didn’t really look upon it as a stairway to stardom.” And what would John Deacon have thought? “Nothing really,” suggests Chester. “ ‘It’s cancelled. What are we doing next, then?’ That would have been about the depth of it. We were a village band, all gathering at the church hall to try and improve our abilities. The financial aspect of it wasn’t in the forefront of our minds. We were more concerned with our music, and if we could get a booking doing it as well, to pay off some of the equipment, then that was a real bonus. Three bookings a week was enough for us while we were working or still at school.” Despite any dodgy dealings, history does have the Penguin promoter to thank for the only professionally-taken photograph of the Opposition. (“We didn’t go much on photos in the band,” remembers Dave Williams.) On Tuesday, 31st January 1967, two days after winning the semi-finals, the ‘Leicester Mercury’ dispatched a staff photographer over to Richard Young’s parents’ house in Oadby. Here, the group lined-up in the front room, looking more like refugees from 1964, rather than 1967. The only indications of the actual date are perhaps Ron Chester’s deerstalker hat and the ridiculous length of David Williams’ shirt collars — seven inches, no less, from neck to nipple.

“Dave was very extrovert,” recalls Nigel. “But we all had those silk shirts with the great long collars made by our mums and grandmas for our stage gear.” Dave admits: “Our clothes were all a bit mixed up. We had silk shirts with tweed jackets — which were fashionable for a while — and bell-bottoms. Musically, we were pretty good, better than...[ ]

...[ ] most of the local bands around that time, but we had this squeaky-clean, schoolboy image which let us down. I used to get frustrated when we were billed with other bands, and they’d all play with so many wrong chords but had a better image and still the punters applauded. Were they stupid? We were still at school — we didn’t leave until we were eighteen — and weren’t allowed to grow our hair long”.

“After the mod thing,” he continues, “long hair became really important. Bands were growing their hair right down their backs. I remember getting to one gig with John and Nigel a year or so later, and the other group were already on. And when they saw us they turned round and said, ‘Look! They’ve got no hair!’. We were quite upset about that”.

“We also went through the flower-power look,” Dave adds. “And then we got into those little jumpers without any sleeves that Paul McCartney used to wear, the ones so small that half your stomach showed. And then it was grandad shirts without the collars and flares.” Ron Chester: “The flowery shirts and flared trousers were everywhere. We looked like a right shower of poofters. But so did everybody else. You stood out if you didn’t wear them.”

1967 also heralded the arrival of an additional attraction to the Opposition’s stage show: two go-go dancers. At least, it did if the existing literature on the subject is to be believed. “I vaguely remember it,” admits Richard, “but speaking to Nig, neither of us can recal who those dancers were”.

Dave Williams throws some light on the subject: “They were the jet-set girls of the sixth form, they came from the big houses. They came to a couple of gigs and just started dancing. Somebody who booked us for the following week actually advertised us ‘with go-go girls’. But they were never really part of the show.”

ART

On 16th March, 1968 for a gig at Gartree School, the Opposition changed their name once again. “We called ourselves Art,” reveals Nigel, “because Dave was arty, that is, he was training as an artist. It was as simple as that.” Dave agrees: “It was my idea, because I’d been doing art at school.” Nigel Bullen was aware of another band using that name around the same time (the pre-Spooky Tooth outfit), but assuming them to be American, reckoned they’d be no confusion. As the Leicester-based Art never made it to London, there wasn’t.

Despite wording like “A time to touch and feel, to taste and experience, to hear and understand” appearing on the group’s tickets, Richard maintains that Art was “just the same band” as before. “Nothing changed."

“It was mutton dressed up as lamb, really,” admits Ron Chester. “We thought if we were called something different, people might come because they were curious. But it didn’t make a lot of difference. The audiences were captive at the places we played anyway. There was nowhere else to go on a Friday or Saturday night. Everyone used to roll up to see whoever was on, whether they’d heard of them or not.”

1968 was the year psychedelia caught up with many provincial British bands. The Art were no different, but their acknowledgement of what had been last year’s scene in London was via sight rather than sound. Their light shows seem to have been particularly memorable, as Dave Williams explains: “They were brilliant. We used the projectors from school, filled medicine bottles with water and oil, and projected through them to get this lovely golden, amber backdrop. As the image came out upside down, when we poured in some Fairy Liquid, it dropped straight through in a blob, but came out on the wall like a giant green mushroom cloud. It was amazing, and we had about four of them at the back, projecting over the band.”

John Deacon was party to another of Dave’s exploits. “One day,” recalls Williams, “John and I bought a 100-watt P.A. — which was pretty big for those days — and took it into the lecture theatre full of kids at Beauchamp School (which Deacon had attended since September 1966) for our version of Arthur Brown’s ‘Fire’. We cranked it up as loud as we could, put the light show on, and let off these smoke bombs, which were DDT pellets we’d got from the chemist. All the kids started choking, and then the headmaster walked in...[ ]

...[ ] with a load of governors. You could see the fury in his face. One of the governors asked what we were doing. ‘It’s a demonstration in sound and light, sir,’ I said. ‘We’re using these ink bottles turned upside down, but we’re a bit worried about these DDT pellets so we might knock the smoke on the head, but we’re still experimenting.’ And he fell for it!”.

INFLUENTIAL

Towards the end of 1968, a crop of new groups began to have a profound effect on the maturing schoolboys: Jethro Tull, the Nice, Taste, and in particular Deep Purple. Ron: “We used to buy Purple records and learn to play them. We’d seen John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and the Downliners’ Sect in Leicester, the Nice, King Crimson. These sort of groups. We learned a lot from just watching them. They were influential. There was always a big discussion in the band as to whether we should do a particular song. Once we’d decided that, there’d be another big discussion as to how we should do it. Everybody had their say.”

Hair, too, had finally began to grow: “John grew his quite long,” recalls Ron. “We all had longish hair, but not shoulder length. We couldn’t look too unkempt for the normal side of life, but we didn’t want to be too prissy for the other end of the spectrum. That was when we started playing universities, and we went a bit heavier. The audiences were far more serious minded about music and more enthusiastic. In some of the youth clubs we’d been playing, the audience would be moving around on roller skates, or peeling bananas all over the place, things like that”.

“We felt we were making an impression towards the last year or two of the band,” he continues. But it went no further: “We were at school, some of us had jobs, and there was an element of common sense overriding what we would have liked to have done. None of us wanted to chuck in our apprenticeships or courses. If we’d had a flair for writing our own material, we might have taken off. But we just played what was popular, nothing different from most other groups. That wasn’t a basis on which to launch ourselves. So it never happened."

“We didn’t think that far ahead,” admits Richard Young. “I just thought of playing and getting repeat bookings. John was probably the least ambitious of all of us, to be honest. I think he felt that there was no mileage in what we were doing, although it was good fun. I think he had the impression that this was a hobby, a phase he was going through.”

Sometime in the Sixties, possibly 1969, but maybe earlier, Art recorded an acetate. Whatever the date, the crucial point is that John Deacon was present at the session. “We weren't asked to do it,” recalls Nigel. “We just wanted to make a disc. I think it cost us about five shillings.”

The venue was Beck’s studio, thirty miles south east of Oadby in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. “I’d never been in a studio before and it seemed awesome, really,” recalls Dave Williams. “It was a fairly decent-sized room for acoustics. It was all nicely low-lit, with lots of screens. The guy knew what he was doing.” Richard Young was less impressed, though: I’ve been in studios all my life,” he says. “That was just another session. Nothing about it stood out.”

The “guy” Dave remembered was engineer Derek Tomkins, who informed the group that they could record three tracks in the time allotted. “We’d only gone in there with two, ‘Sunny’ and ‘Vehicle’,” says Nigel, “and we didn’t want to waste the opportunity, so Richard knocked up a little instrumental called Transit 3’ — named after our new van, the third one — right there in the studio. Although we were purely a covers band, everybody had a bash at writing, but we never did anything of our own on stage. The exception was Transit 3’, which was incorporated into the set after this session.”

“ Transit 3’ was about about the only track we ever wrote," reckons Richard Young (“Heart Full Of Soul”, as reported in ‘As It Began’, is in fact a Graham Gouldman nurnber). “I initially had the idea, but I can’t really remember anything about it. It’s very basic. It wouldn’t take a great deal of effort to write something like that.” To the objective observer, “Transit 3”, taped in mono but well recorded, is a fairly uncomplicated, organ-led scale- hopper, reminiscent of Booker T & the MGs.

“Everybody was listening to ‘Green Onions’,” confirms Nigel, “so Booker T would have been an influence there.” But for all that, it’s well- played, with memorable lead and twangy, wah-wah guitar passages courtesy of Dave Williams. And, crucially, John Deacon’s thumping bass is plainly audible throughout. On this evidence, the Opposition were clearly a tight, confident outfit. “Transit 3” could have been incorporated into any swinging ‘60s film soundtrack, and no one would have jumped up shouting, “Amateurs”!.

UNFAMILIAR

The other two tracks, covers of Bobby Hebb’s ‘Sunny' and the more obscure, soul- tinged ‘Vehicle’ (later a hit for the Ides of March), featured a vocalist, but an unfamiliar one: another of the Opposition’s fleeting frontmen. “We had a singer for a while called Alan Brown,” recalls Nigel. “He came and went fairly quickly. He was good, really good. Too good for us, I think. That wasn’t him saying that. We just knew it.”

On both songs, Brown is in deep, soulful voice, sounding not unlike a cross between Tom Jones and the early Van Morrison — if such an amalgam can be imagined. The Art’s reading of “Vehicle” is edgy and robust, dominated by Richard Young’s distinctive keyboards and Nigel Bullen’s bustling drum work. Dave Williams is again in fine form, delivering more sparkling wah-wah guitar, while on the cassette copy taped from Nigel Bullen’s acetate, at least, John’s bass is very prominent, over-recorded in fact, booming in the mix.

“Sunny” goes one better, breaking into jazzy 3/4 time halfway through, before slotting back into the more traditional 4/4. It’s an imaginative arrangement, with alternate soloing from both Dave and Richard, while the whole track is underpinned by swirls of Hammond organ and John Deacon’s pounding bass.

“We did ‘Sunny’ as part of our stage set,” says Nigel, “but I don’t recall us ever going into the jazzy bit. That’s quite interesting. We might have talked about that before we went into the studio, but I think it was just for this session. Dave had two guitars, a six-string and a twelve-string, or it could even have been twin-necked. I still quite like the wah-wah he played on that track. By this time Richard would have been onto his second or third organ — he was heavily into Hammonds and Leslies."

Operating as they did in a fairly ambition- free zone, and having prepared the listener for a mundane set of recordings with their trademark laid-back approach, Art’s acetate comes as something of a revelation. Let any bunch of today’s schoolboys loose in a studio for an afternoon and defy them to come up with something half as good!

Just two copies of the Art disc are known to have survived. John Deacon’s mother is believed to own one and Nigel Bullen has the other. “I’d forgotten all about this record,” admits Nigel. “We know that one copy was converted to an ashtray!. We stubbed out cigarettes on Richards at rehearsal one night.” Although treated with anything but respect at the time, the importance of the disc is now apparent to Nigel Bullen: “This is probably John Deacon’s first recording, apart from tracks he did in his bedroom on his reel-to-...[ ]

...[ ] reel, which are probably long gone. Although, knowing John, they’re probably not!”

The beginning of the end for Art came in June 1969, when John Deacon left Beauchamp. With a college course lined up in London, his days with the band were obviously numbered. He played his final gig with the group on 29th August at a familiar venue, Great Glen Youth and Sports Centre Club. By October, he’d moved to London to study electronics at Chelsea College of Technology, part of the University of London.

Another blow was dealt in November, when the band's lynchpin, Richard Young, left to join popular local musician Steve Fearn in Fearn’s Brass Foundry.

“They were a Blood, Sweat and Tears-type of group,” recalls Richard, “and paid better money than I’d been used to. I was out five nights a week, on about £3 per night, against an average of about £10 between us.” The previous year, Richard had played session keyboards on the Foundry’s two Decca singles: “Don’t Change It” (F 12721, January 1968, £10) and “Now I Taste The Tears” (F 12835. September 1968, £8).

SAVAGE

Ron Chester departed shortly afterwards, and gave up music: “I left in the early 70s, after John Deacon moved to London. John was replaced by a bass player was called John Savage, who unsettled me. He had different tastes and drove us a bit hard. His approach was totally different from Deaks's, and he was much more interested in the financial side of things. We’d all been mates before, we didn't just knock about for the band. It just wasn’t the same.”

Nigel, Richard and Dave pushed on into 1970 with the new bassist, changing the band’s name again, this time to Silky Way. They returned to Beck’s studio to record a cover of Free’s “Loosen Up” with another vocalist, Bill Gardener, but that was the band’s last effort. Dave left after falling into Nigel’s drumkit, drunk on stage at a private party one Christmas. “I waited for them to pick me up the next day,” he recalls sheepishly, “but they never carne.”

Richard and Nigel moved into a dinner- dance type outfit called the Lady Jane Trio — “Corny, or what!”, laughs Bullen — but Nigel left music altogether soon afterwards to concentrate on his college work. Richard turned professional, moving into cabaret with the Steve Fearn-less Brass Foundry, before forming a trio called Rio, finding regular work on the holiday camp and overseas cruise circuit. In the late ‘70s, he joined a touring version of the Love Affair.

Down in London, John Deacon caught a glimpse of his future world-beating musical partners as early as October 1970, when he saw the newly-formed Queen perform at College of Estate Management in Kensington. “They were all dressed in black, and the lights were very dim too,” he told Jim Jenkins and Jacky Gunn in ‘As It Began’, “All I could really see were four shadowy figures. They didn’t make a lasting impression on me at the time.”

While renting rooms in Queensgate, John formed a loose R&B quartet with a flatmate, guitarist Peter Stoddart, one Don Cater on drums and another guitarist remembered only as Albert. The new band was hardlv a great leap forward from Art: they wrote no originals, and when asked to perform their only gig at Chelsea College on 21st November 1970, supporting Hardin & York and the Idle Race, they hastily billed themselves — in a rare fit of self-publicity for the quiet Oadby boy — as Deacon.

A few months later in early 1971, John was introduced to Brian May and Roger Taylor by a mutual friend, Christine Farnell, at a disco at Maria Assumpta Teacher Training College. They were looking for a bassist. John auditioned at Imperial College shortly afterwards. Roger Taylor recalled Queen’s initial reaction to Deacon in ‘As It Began’: “We thought he was great. We were so used to each other, and so over the top, we thought that because he was quiet he would fit in with us without too much upheaval. He was a great bass player, too — and the fact that he was a wizard with electronics was definitely a deciding factor!”

How did the members of the Art/Opposition back in Leicester, view John’s success with Queen? “It wasn’t sudden”, says Ron Chester. “First we heard he’d got into another group. We couldn’t believe that — were they deaf? There were all these sort of jokes going along. Then we heard he’d got a recording contract and the next thing he had a record out. It was a gradual progression. No one dreamed he would end up the way he did.”

“I don’t think we expected success for any of us" admits Nigel Bullen. “Richard maybe. He was the first one to go professional. But when John left for London to go to college, he left all his kit here. I thought that was the end of it for him. He had absolutely no intention of continuing. His college course was No.1. It was only after he kept seeing adverts for bass players in the ‘Melody Maker’ that he became interested again.”

He also seemed to lose some of that ‘Easy Deacon’ touch which so impressed Dave Williams in the ‘60s. “He’d ring up these bands,” continues Nigel, “but when he found they were a name act, he bottle out. When he went to auditions for anonymous bands, where he would queue up with about thirty other bass players, he had a bit of confidence. He just wanted to play in a decent band. Once I heard what Queen had recorded at De Lane Lea, and John played me the demo of their first album, I thought they were well set.”

CABARET

By early 1973, Dave Williams had forsaken a career in animation to join Highly Likely, a cabaret outfit put together by Mike Hugg and producer Dave Hadfield on the back of their minor hit, “Whatever Happened To You (The Likely Lads Theme)”. While Dave was in the band, they recorded a follow-up single which wasn’t released, before evolving into a glam rock outfit, Razzle, which later become the Ritz, who issued a few singles. “During Queen’s early days, before they’d had any real success, John came to see us once,” recalls Dave, “and said, ‘I wish I was in a band like this which could actually play some gigs’.” Dave concludes: “I remember John coming round once around that time, saying I’ve got a demo’. ‘So have I!’, I said. So we put his on first, and the first track was ‘Keep Yourself Alive’. My mouth dropped wide open and I thought. ‘Bloody hell! What a great track’. I remember saying that the guitarist was as good as Ritchie Blackmore — who was still our hero then — and thinking ‘They’re serious about this. This is the real thing’.”

RECORD COLLECTOR Nº 198 FEBRUARY 1996

⬅PREVIOUS: SMILE

https://melisa-may-taylor72.tumblr.com/post/639672109315014656/queen-before-queen-the-1960s-recordings

➡NEXT: IBEX, WRECKAGE & SOUR MILK SEA

@natromanxoff, @mephisto92, @moviestorian, @x5vale, @39-brian, @onegoldenglance, @crosmopolitan, @an-abyss-called-life, @his-majesty-king-mercury, @i-live-for-queen, @brian-39-may, @toomuchlove-willkillyou, @brimaymay, @sail-away-sweet-sister, @drummerqueenrmt, @old-fashioned-roger-boy, @briianmaay, @inui-mycroft, @deacytits, @iminlovewithrogscar, @drowseoftaylor, @brianmayislongaway, @balticlover, @astrophysicist-guitar-god, @miez-lakatz, @brianmayoucease, @jesus-in-a-life-boat, @aslongasthereismusic, @roger-taylors-car, @silapril, @sherrifanciesfriskyfreddie, @tenderbri, @brianmydear, @thosequeenboys, @millionairewaltz-carpediem, @painandpleasure86, @bribrifrenchfry, @xlucylennonx, @a-night-at-the-abbey-road, @inthedayswhenlandswerefew, @madformeddowstaylor, @queenrogertaylorfan, @let-roger-get-a-lunch, @queen-for-life, @rethought, @drivenbybrianmay @mymakeupmaybeflaking, @old-but-still-a-child, @let-roger-get-a-lunch, @warriorteam1924, @funnydressesweirdhairanddance, @painkiller80, @thefanhuman13, @yourtieddownmother, @hgmercury39, @brimi-stardust, @thefairyfellermercury, @retroromantics, @sailawaysweetbrimi, @sophiaintheskywithdiamonds, @holybrianmaywritingbear, @lydiannode, @39-yellow-daffodils , @ure-gonna-loveme-when-u-seeme, @kaykaybeachgirl, @foxmonkey, @deakysgurl, @redspecialandclogsandcurls, @briansrainbowsocks-deactivated2, @delilahmay39, @ohmybribri, @bless-the-queen, @everythingaboutfreddie, @doitforthevine67, @recordsoftheseventies, @rhysjoejoshtomfarisblog, @tenementfunsterwithpurpleshoes, @drummah-in-a-rocknroll-band, @beatlegirl1968, @maylorsqueen, @autumnscenemcyt, @gralto, @alittlepeoplemagic, @rainbowsockbrian, @frejudy, @drivenbybri, @yourlocalmusicalprostitute, @saik-ava, @omb-xx, @sassymaylor, @somekindofroger, @starlightmay, @freddiemercuryismylife, @sunshine112, @chrysochromulina, @glitteryloveravenue, @deakyislife51, @0-primejive-0, @just-a-skinny-lad, @bluewillowmom, @sassiesillie, @stesichoreanpalinode, @farrokhbulsaramercury, @tayloredofqueen, @rushingheadlong, @izzy-is-slightly-mad, @scandalacious, @0-my-fairy-queen-0 @39-volunteers-to-space@zodiacaldust, @deakytaylor, @queenband70s, @deakyeveryday, @drivenbybrimay @70smay

#Queen Before Queen #Pre-Queen Series #John Deacon #The Opposition #🎤🎵🎸👑⭐

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willowpudge27 · 2 years

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Album Impressions: It Means Everything by Save Ferris (first listen)

Whats up Imma try this thing where I write down my thoughts while I listen to an album track-by-track in the hopes it'll help me as an attempt to listen deeper and also maybe someone will find it interesting to read. That's about it, if I hate this I'll probs delete it so ;P

What I know going in:

This is a ska punk band, I've never listened to the album before, but I really loved the Come On Eileen cover when I had my ska punk phase at 14. I've been discussing ska punk with my roommate recently as all the energy of punk... but what if it was fun? So I'm looking forward to this one. After some cursory googling I can also tell you it was released in September, 1997, the guitarist/singer Brian Marshburn wrote most of the songs (except..y'know), & the trombone player's name is T-Bone Willy

The World Is New (Marshburn)

FUCK YEAH SKA PUNK IS BACK!!!!! I really dig the texture between both singers here. Song is approximately "Everything is bad but when I'm with you the world is new" Horn section is tight & jaunty. Oh nice little come-down ending

Nobody But Me (Marshburn)

PSYCH we're back! Another love song with Monique Powell alone singing. nice groove change to a half-time feel in the chorus. Christ Monique Powell has a fantastic voice, she sounds like she's having so much fun. ending horn riff is straight out of double-dash

Superspy (Marshburn)

Oh shit it's the swing revival, who is this, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy? basically kinda yeah. Minor blues-y Steppin Out vibe about. Horn solos traded around by horns & guitar, this is basically just a fun lil big band chart

Come On Eileen (Rowland, Patterson, Adams (Dexys Midnight Runners))

and we're back to hard-driving rock 'n roll. guitar part in this is clean. Wikipedia didn't credit who arranged this but it's really well put together. Functionally I think it almost makes the message of the song (we're young and invincible, let's escape together) and makes it a little easier to resonante by making it just a little less weird & British. Little stinger at the end mostly just reminds me of finding radios in Portal 2 tbh.

Goodbye (Marshburn)

Bringing back the Steppin' Out bassline to sing about heartbreak I see ;) The organ in the fast bit is a really nice textual touch. Powell's inflections are so so good you guys damn.

Sorry My Friend (Marshburn)

Oh okay this has the exact same opening as a Reel Big Fish song, I wanna say...Beer? Anyway this song is about a friend breakup. Something feels just slightly toanlly disonnant about this jaunty little sax solo over the word "sorry" over and over. Guitar solo with Metal Harbor guitar tone lol.

Lies (Marshburn, Powell)

Sexy halftime groove; I haven't said much yet but the bass tone on this album is also sexy: Super punchy with pick but bassist Bill Uechi still gets a nice bottom out of it. Another sax solo, this time sexy & moody, but only for a moment before a really tasty bridge. Maybe the coolest single section in the album so far

Little Differences (Marshburn, Powell)

Hell yeah more Mario Kart breakups!!! Sicknasty percussive organ breakdown fuck yes.

Spam (Marshburn)

Yo this song is about the meat. Holy shit didn't expect That celebrity name-drop. This is a very very silly song, I'm delighted by this in its entirety

Under 21 (Marshburn)

This is a (jaunty) tragedy about getting carded when you're underage :( She tries to flirt through the bouncer but gets in too late & misses the band :(

Everything I Want To Be (Marshburn, Powell)

A more laid-back vibe for the final track on the album. It's a duet back & forth between the two singers about ennui & the meaninglessness of life. Don't worrry, after a minute of that bullshit we get jaunty again! This song is probably this best encapsulation of it, but throughout the album the amount of dynamic & textural contrast between sections has been super cool, nothing ever settles in one place for too long.

Final thoughts?

This was a great little record that I had a blast with! When I listen to ska-punk I am placed in a world where war was never invented and everybody is skanking everywhere all the time.

I had a good time writing this so I may do more I guess. Or not

#save ferris #it means everything #first listen #music

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doomedandstoned · 3 years

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In Conversation with KOMATSU

~By Willem Verhappen~

Photo by Patrick Spruytenburg

For the past decade or so, super massive mothersludgers KOMATSU have been crushing eardrums and bulldozing down venues all around the world. While early releases of the Eindhoven, the Netherlands based band, like their 2011 self-titled EP and 'Manu Armata' (2013 - Suburban Records), display a relentless combination of stonerized sludge that lives up to the band's name, Komatsu always kept evolving and expanding their sound.

Their latest record, 'Rose of Jericho' (2021 - Heavy Psych Records), is on the one hand a natural successor to 2018's 'A New Horizon' (Argonauta Records), but surprisingly also introduces the listener to a more rocking side of the band. I had the chance to sit down with vocalist/guitarist Mo Truijens and guitarist Mathijs Bodt and after some chit-chat, we went to talk about the new record, the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and much more.

KOMATSU - Rose Of Jericho by HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS Records

Last year, I was in contact with your bass-player, Martijn Mansvelders, and he told me you were impacted pretty bad by the corona measures.

Mathijs: Indeed. Our entire planning basically went down the drain. It started with the last bits of our recording process. We started recording during Carnaval [the end of February] at the Anker Studio in Eindhoven with Peter van Elderen (TankZilla, formerly of Peter Pan Speedrock). Things went very well and we were just at the point where we could start recording the vocals when COVID hit. Usually, there's always one of us present to oversee the process, but that wasn't allowed. After that you get into the mixing process, where usually the entire band is involved and in the studio. As you can imagine, that didn't go through.

Mo: In this case, it was mostly just me who was there. Also because we still had to do the vocals and the mixing of the vocals.

Mathijs: Right, and we got the mix-downs sent to us after which we had to write down and send in our comments. That took a bit longer than expected, but it worked out nice.But like you said, we had planned to release the record during the summer, do a Brazilian tour in September, followed by a release show, here in Eindhoven at the Effenaar. After that we were going to do a two-week tour through Europe. Initially the release show was planned for October 15th, but that got postponed until January, then early February, then the end of February, then the 12th of June, but thanks to the test events we can finally present our record, which was released in February, on the 25th of April.

Mo: What's nice is that this is certain. We don't know whether we'd be allowed to play on June 12th, but April 25th is certain. We found that we couldn't keep on postponing the date, so we decided that if we couldn't play then, there wouldn't be a release show. You can imagine that we're in a rush now with rehearsals, because we were thinking "soon", but now it's happening "very soon".

Mathijs: You have a point there. You're saying we rehearsed a bit, but we couldn't rehearse in our own rehearsal room. Even with the 1.5 meter distance and a face-mask, we weren't allowed to be in there with four people. I believe we've only had 6 rehearsals.

Mo: The good thing is that we're allowed to rehearse now, because currently we're a performing act. I've checked it with the authorities and it's allowed.

You already mentioned that Peter van Elderen produced the record. What was his influence on the process?

Mo: He has a good view on songs and regarding the vocals, while I had rough ideas, he really helped me improve them. He was a great help.

Mathijs: Of course we also have quite a history with Peter. Mo and Peter used to play in Repomen together and I used to be a roadie for Peter Pan. We know him through things like PopEI, Speedfest, Peter Pan, Repomen.

Mo: The circle is complete, so to say. And Pieter [Kloos] eventually did the mastering. It doesn't get more Eindhoven than that.

Mathijs: We recorded the previous two records with Pieter. That worked out great, but for this one, we wanted to try something different. Not because it didn't work out with Pieter, but we just wanted to try something different this time. Peter was heavily involved from the start and he joined our rehearsals and such. We recorded the record in just over a day and a half. Everything is live, with some guitar overdubs added afterwards.

Mo: We finished those overdubs just before the lock-down started, so all the music was recorded.

Mathijs: I think we spent three, three and a half days on the music, so that was a relatively quick process.

The album title, 'Rose of Jericho' (2021), is a symbol of resurrection. I can imagine that relates directly to your new sound.

Mo: Yes, there is certainly more variation and dynamics on the record.

Mathijs: The rose of Jericho, or resurrection plant, is a plant that can go without water for ten, fifteen years. When it receives water it pops back up as a flower. That concept really spoke to us, and that's why the instrumental title track has a bit of a western feel to it.

Mo: We really went for the desert atmosphere on that one. You can almost see the tumbleweed pass by during the intro. The track was originally meant to be called "Tumbleweed," but then I found out that Candybar Planet already has a song called "Tumbleweed." I still liked the desert idea, and eventually we renamed the track "Rose of Jericho."

Can we expect anything special for the release show?

Mo: We'll be playing all the tracks of the record live. In the past that wasn't always the case. I think a lot of these tracks will remain in our set. Of course we will revise our set when we're playing a real metal festival. We'll probably be playing more of our old stuff then, although the roughness is still there in the new tracks.

Mathijs: At some point you're starting to weigh your choices while writing songs. We want to be able to play them live, because we're still first and foremost a live band. That's where we really shine. This was also a period of reflection and we figured that we had fifty tracks on four records. You start listening to them in a different way and you come to the conclusion that we already have so many hard songs.

Mo: Martijn often says things like "This is a quiet song," but a quiet Komatsu song is still far from a quiet song.

Mathijs: We didn't plan on changing our style. It came together in quite an organic way, as a result of playing live, rehearsing and recording. The COVID period was also quite interesting in that regard, because Mo and I never stopped writing music, and we're currently at the point where we could start arranging songs for the next record.

'Rose of Jericho' is your first record on Heavy Psych Sounds. How did that collaboration come about?

Mo: Gabriele [Fiori] arranged a couple of tours for us, like the ones with Nick Oliveri and Duel.

Mathijs: The first tour after I joined the band was the one with Mondo Generator and he arranged the one with the Freeks, featuring Ruben Romano of Nebula and Fu Manchu. So we were already in contact and at some point we just called him.

Mo: Yeah, that was for the previous record, but for that one we ended up at Argonauta. Now we all just said, let's just do it.

Mathijs: It's really cool to be part of a roster like that, to be part of such a stoner family. Gabriele, one of the two people running HPS, also plays in Black Rainbows and to see how involved in the scene he is and what he does for the scene, to be a part of that is just amazing. We already had the connection through the stages we shared and the tours he arranged for us and this is just the next step. It's not the most logical step, but try and find a label where we perfectly fit in with our distinctive sound.

Mo: When we write music, we don't try to fit in the stoner, the metal, or whatever group. We just make the music we like. We don't have any rules from ourselves, telling us what we can and can't do.

Mathijs: In the end we just make the music the four band members like to make.

Photo by Patrick Spruytenburg

About that, what are your main influences?

Mo: The Melvins is a favorite of mine, especially their quirkiness. Of course there's a lot of stoner bands, but my roots are within 80's hardcore punk music. Due to the whole COVID thing I started collecting records again. I bought a new record player and now I'm searching Discogs for vinyl of records I used to love and used to have on cassette.

Mathijs: I think that I'm the biggest metalhead in the band. You [Mo] are the punk rocker, Martijn is the new-waver, even though he's also into old school hip-hop, and Jos [Roosen, drums]is a Tool fan and he used to play in Dreadlock Pussy. He and I went to the 25th anniversary show of Machine Head's 'Burn My Eyes' together. He's into that as well. He's also really into metal, but also bands like Helmet. I have quite a broad taste. I'm really into Cannibal Corpse, but I also like the Melvins. I actually met Mo at a Melvins show and a week later I got a call on whether I would like to join his band. The Black Sabbath influence is also clearly present on Rose of Jericho. That first riff is basically a Sabbath riff.

Mo: Sabbath is the mother of all metal bands. I saw Blue Cheer live at Roadburn once. It's slightly different, but from the same period, I think. Absolutely brilliant. They did an interview for the Top-2000 once, where they were still living in a house together, blowing and making music.

Mathijs: I also really like those genre-crossing bands, like High on Fire. They're metal, but also have stoner elements, together with some psych and some rock.

Mo: When I used to play in punk bands, there were set rules, but now I can do whatever I like.

Last question, did you guys discover any new music you're really into?

Mo: Absolutely, they've been around for a while already, but I recently discovered Helms Alee. They're a man and two women and they all sing. When they sing together it's just amazing. Mathijs also got me into Made Out of Babies, featuring Julie Christmas. I'm usually not a fan of female singers, but this is something else.

Mathijs: Yeah, I showed you the record she did with Cult of Luna. That's such an amazing record. Recently I've been listening a lot to a Finnish band called Oranssi Pazuzu, especially their latest record 'Mestarin kynsi'. There are so many different elements in there, it's really cool.

Mo: Recently I bought two Floor records. They've got three records, one that sounds like shit and two that are amazing. I got those on vinyl.

Mathijs: I'm also looking forward to the new Mastodon record. They made a record with the guy who produced the best Tool records and they say it will be far more sludgey, slow and doomy than their previous works.

The curfew is rapidly approaching, so I think it's time to wrap up. Thank you for this interview.

Mo: Thank you and see you later. Maybe later tonight in prison if we don't hurry up.

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#D&S Interviews #Komatsu #The Netherlands #stoner rock #space metal #hard rock #Heavy Psych Sounds #Willem Verhappen #Doomed and Stoned

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worldoftom · 3 years

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okay okay, i'm so excited for your wips!! what can you tell us about Soft Punk Rock Tom?

Aw thanks!! They've all been dead since before 2019, but I still look at them quite fondly, I have to say :)

So, soft punk Tom already has these two headcanons that explain a little of their dynamic, but basically it's bass player Tom + guitarist reader on tour with their punk rock band. Both in utter denial about nurturing feelings for each other. Him because yn is mostly shy and apparently emotionally unavailable. Her because Tom likes to sleep around a lot. And things start going VERY awry when she walks in on him shagging some chick in their dressing room for the third night in a row 💀

> check out my wips

#there are so many layers to them #and their friendship when they're not peeved at each other #or jealous of each other :(#so fluff and angst and friendship and concerts and a lot of crazy shipping #b answers #dear anon

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bonelessone-blog · 5 years

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How To Play Electric Guitar - A Beginner's Guide

Learning how to play electric guitar can be a challenging, yet very rewarding thing to do. It can be fairly easy to pick up the basics though, and actually, with the right guidance, you could be playing some of your favourite songs in next to no time. To fully master the instrument however, can take years of practice and dedication; indeed, it can take an entire lifetime. How far you want to take it is up to you. In this article I'm going to discuss some of the key things you'll have to know if you want to learn how to play electric guitar, and cover some of the techniques that are used by professional guitarists.

The electric guitar is a very versatile instrument, and it can be heard in many different styles of music. Whatever the type of music though, broadly speaking the electric guitar will usually fulfil one of two roles - either that of an accompaniment or rhythm instrument, or that of a solo or lead instrument. First of all then, I'll explain briefly how to play electric guitar effectively as a rhythm instrument, to accompany a solo voice or lead instrument.

The rhythm guitar forms part of the rhythm section of a band, usually along with the drums and bass guitar. The role of the rhythm section is to provide a backing over which the lead instruments or voices can be played or sung. Because of this, it is very important for all instruments in the rhythm section to play together in perfect time, in order to keep a steady tempo to what is being played. If you hear a band with a good, tight, rhythm section, it's a sure sign that they are very competent musicians, whereas one of the biggest giveaways of an amateur band is sloppy timing amongst its rhythm players. To achieve good timing when learning how to play electric guitar you should always use a metronome when practicing. This will make you sound much more professional when you come to play in a band.

You'll find that in a lot of music, the role of the rhythm guitar is primarily to play chords in a rhythmic pattern so, for this reason, learning as many chords as possible, and being able to change between them fluently is an essential part of learning how to play electric guitar. You'll need to learn different strumming patterns and rhythms as well as the chords themselves, but strumming is not the only way chords can be played. Individual notes of the chord can also be picked, one at a time, either with the fingers or a pick, as arpeggios, or broken chords. This is another very common thing to hear rhythm guitarists playing. It is a lot more difficult than simply strumming in time, so will require a lot of practice. Care should be taken to play all the notes cleanly and evenly, and in time, in order to sound professional.

But there is more to rhythm guitar than just chords and arpeggios. Another common type of rhythm guitar playing involves the use of power chords, particularly in rock music. A power chord is basically a two note chord containing just the root note, and the perfect fifth. Sometimes the octave is added to fatten it up, and there are variations whereby the fifth may be diminished or augmented for example. Power chords are usually played with some amount of distortion, and are often moved around the neck in quite fast sequences. It is best to play power chords using down strokes and palm muting to keep it sounding tight. Anyone learning how to play electric guitar should spend time practicing power chords cleanly and rhythmically, in time to a metronome, as a lot of guitar music relies heavily upon their use.

Another important aspect of playing rhythm guitar is learning how to play riffs. A riff is a repeating melodic pattern, chord progression, or refrain which makes up the basis of a composition. Although they can be used in any genre of music, they most commonly appear in rock music. They can be very simple - just a few repeated notes - or very complex and fast, as might be heard on heavy metal records. They can be one of the most technical sides to rhythm guitar playing and, therefore, it's important that you get to grips with playing riffs early on when learning how to play electric guitar, so that you become comfortable and confident incorporating them into your playing.

So that explains a bit about rhythm guitar, but what about electric guitar as a solo or lead instrument. Thanks to the vast array of sounds, and the expressive timbre that the electric guitar possesses, it is perfectly suited to this role. Learning how to play electric guitar as a lead instrument is one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling aspects of guitar learning, as it allows you to truly express yourself as a musician. Mastering lead guitar, though, will require you to become proficient in a number of specialist techniques, as well as gaining a thorough knowledge of scales and theory. Let's take a brief look at some of these techniques.

Most of the time, lead guitar consists of single note melodies, runs, and licks, so it is vital, when learning how to play electric guitar as a solo instrument, to master the art of picking correctly. In order to pick cleanly and accurately, you should hold your pick close to the tip, so that only a small part of it touches the strings. This will give you more control when you pick. Try to keep all movements as small as possible, and don't allow your picking hand to become tense. The actual motion for picking should come from the wrist, not the elbow or fingers. As with all guitar practice, picking should be practiced with a metronome, and you should pay attention to the dynamics of the notes as well - try to play all notes at consistent velocities.

The next two most important techniques to master when learning how to play electric guitar are string bending and vibrato. These closely related techniques are a fundamental part of lead guitar playing, particularly if you want to play rock or blues. Having a good vibrato will really make you stand out as a good player - a bad vibrato is the hallmark of an amateur - so it's important to spend time working on yours. Vibrato is achieved by bending a note slightly sharp, and then returning it to its original pitch, over and over again. The motion for this should come from the wrist, not the fingers, so it's a good idea (contrary to what you should do normally) to hook your thumb over the top of the neck, to get a good grip. You should then use a twisting, rocking motion of your forearm and wrist, whilst keeping your fingers straight and still, to produce the vibrato effect. One key mistake made by amateurs is not returning fully to the original pitch after the bend up, making the note sound sharp and out of tune, so pay close attention to your intonation at all times. You can vary the 'width' of the vibrato by increasing or decreasing the amount of bend you apply, as well as the speed. The important thing is to stay in control of the vibrato, and don't let it run away, out of time or too fast. This will require a certain amount of muscle strength to be built up in the wrist and forearm, so you should practice this regularly, and be patient.

String bending uses the same technique, but instead of alternating between two pitches, you bend up, usually a semitone or a tone, to a new note and stay there. You can add vibrato to this new note, or bend it back down as you wish. You can also bend up to the note before you pick it, and then release the bend the bend once it is played. It is best to use either your second or third fingers to do bends with as these are the strongest. Again, it is important to watch your intonation when playing with bends. Another technique, which gives a similar sort of sound to bending, is sliding. This is another very common technique heard in lead guitar playing, so needs to be mastered by anyone serious about learning how to play electric guitar. To play a slide simply pick a note then slide your fretting finger up or down the fretboard to another note. This second note can be picked once you reach it, or left ringing from the original note as you like.

Picking every note you play can sound a bit jaggedy and harsh; sometimes you want a smoother sound. Playing notes smoothly is called legato, and on the guitar this is achieved using hammer-ons and pull-offs. To play a hammer-on all you do is play a note, with your first finger say, then to play the next note you hammer the string with your next finger, say your third finger. You do not pick this note, the sound is produced by the hammering action of your third finger. At first this is quite a difficult technique to master; many beginners find it hard to get adequate volume from the hammered-on note. Therefore, when learning how to play electric guitar, you should practice this technique regularly, as always with a metronome, and pay particular attention to achieving even volume and tone with all hammered-on notes.

The opposite of a hammer-on is a pull-off. This is played by playing a note, this time with your third finger for example, then with another finger already in place on a lower fret, say your first finger two frets lower, you pluck the string with the third finger of your fretting hand by pulling it towards the floor - hence the term, pull-off. Again, the second note is not picked, the sound is produced by the pull-off action. This is a slightly more difficult technique to learn than the hammer-on, but anyone wanting to learn how to play electric guitar as a lead instrument needs to master both. By combining these two techniques you will be able to play very fast, impressive guitar solos.

I've covered the most common techniques used in lead playing, and those are the ones you absolutely have to master when learning how to play electric guitar as a solo instrument, but there are other, more advanced techniques that you might like to look at as well. I must warn you that these can take a lot of practice to get to grips with, and their applications are more limited than the techniques discussed above, but they will set you apart from other guitarists if you do take the time to master them. The first of these is tapping. Tapping is an extension of the legato technique looked at earlier, but this time you use fingers of the right hand to hammer-on, or 'tap', notes that the left hand can't reach. In its simplest form only one right hand finger is used, and often it just taps repeating three or four note patterns at very fast speeds. This technique does produce some very impressive results, and with a little practice it's actually quite easy to master.

This simple, one finger, tapping technique is just the beginning though. Taken to it's logical extreme you can use all four fingers of your right hand to tap, in what's called '8 finger tapping'. In practice, 8 finger tapping often uses only 7 fingers, as the first finger of the right hand keeps hold of the pick to allow easy transition between techniques. Using this technique enables players to play things that would otherwise be impossible, like full scale single string legato runs, large intervals, and very fast arpeggios. The principles of right hand tapping are the same as those for left hand hammer-ons and pull-offs. As I'm sure you'll appreciate, to get really good at this will take a long time, and a lot of practice and, with its limited application, only players who are really serious about learning how to play electric guitar tend to worry about it.

Another advanced technique, one with perhaps more application, and certainly more common, is sweep picking. Sweep picking is used as a more efficient way of moving the pick from one string to another, particularly when you are only playing one note on each string, such as when playing arpeggios. The technique itself is quite simple, but it takes a lot of practice to master it. It involves playing successive strings using all downstrokes, or all upstrokes, depending on which direction you are going, in a 'sweeping' motion, similar to strumming. The key is in maintaining control of the timing of each note played with the picking hand, whilst making sure only one note at a time is being heard by careful muting with the fretting hand. Once mastered, this technique will allow you to play amazingly fast arpeggios with ease, but when done badly it can sound terrible, so you really have to practice this technique before attempting to use it in your playing. It can also be used when playing scales or runs when changing between strings - in this case it is often called 'economy picking'. When learning how to play electric guitar as a lead instrument many people leave sweep picking till late on, as it is very hard to master, but I would advise anyone who is serious about their playing to try and tackle it early on, for precisely the same reason. It's definitely a technique worth having.

All this technique however, as important as it is to develop, is useless if you don't know what to do with it - in other words, what notes to play, and when. The only way you can learn this is by becoming proficient at playing, and understanding, scales. A scale is a group of notes that work well together over a given chord or backing. Examples of common scales include the minor and major pentatonic scales, the major scale, and its modes. When learning how to play electric guitar it is vital, especially if you want to be able to improvise or compose your own solos, to be able to play as many scales as possible, and in any position on the neck.

Scales must be practiced until they are ingrained in your head, so you can play them without thinking, but playing scales up and down is only one way to practice them. You should play them in thirds, melodically and harmonically, fourths, fifths, and all other intervals. Practice different sequences of the scale notes too. For example go up three notes, then down one, up three, down one, etc. Or up six, down three, or up three, down one. There is virtually unlimited number of ways to practice scales; play them all on one string, on two, or three. Play them up and down skipping one string all the way. By practicing scales like this you will become fluent at playing the right notes, without just going up and down the scale, enabling you to improvise and compose guitar solos that are much more musical. Anyone learning how to play electric guitar should make learning scales a priority. Vsiti

In this article I've given a brief overview of the most common techniques used to play electric guitar, but there is another important aspect to the instrument that I'd like to quickly look at before I'm done, and that is getting a good sound. This will require an amplifier of some kind and, perhaps, some effects. It's very important, when learning how to play electric guitar, to understand the importance of producing a good, professional sound out of your instrument and equipment. Whole books have been written on this subject, so I won't go into too much detail here, but I'll just mention some of the most important things to think about. Of course, the sound initially comes from the instrument itself, so make sure it is well looked after, properly set up, with good strings, and in tune. Take full advantage of the controls on the guitar, as well as the different pick-ups. The real secret to getting a good sound is in the way you play. Experiment with different pick angles, and velocities, and pay attention to the sound of the notes you play. Always try to avoid unwanted string noise. more

As for amplifiers, there are so many to choose from, it really comes down to the type of sound you're looking for, how much power you need and, of course, how much you're willing to spend. Whichever amp you use though, you should spend time familiarising yourself with the controls, and experiment until you find some sounds you like. It is worth noting, however, that often a sound which sounds great on its own will be lost in the context of a full band as it fights for space with the bass and drums. If this happens, you usually need to turn up the mids. Also, you usually don't need anywhere near as much distortion as you think you do, as this can also muddy the sound, especially in a live context. Finally, a brief word on effects units; use them wisely. When done correctly, effects can add a whole new dimension to your guitar sound, but when over used, or miss-used, they can ruin it. Often, over-use of effects is a means of hiding bad technique, so don't fall into that trap. If you can play well, you shouldn't need to smother your guitar with effects in order to sound good. http://www.bonelessone.com

That brings me to the end of this article which I hope you've found informative and interesting, even though it is only the briefest of introductions to some of the technique involved in learning how to play electric guitar.

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sargenthouse · 6 years

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Album Of The Week: Brutus “Nest” // Stereogum

Full review via Stereogum

The “about” line you’ll find on Brutus’ social channels serves as an apt manifestation of the Belgian post-metal band’s art: minimalist, mysterious, and menacing. It reads:

“Trouble comes in threes. So does Brutus.”

While evocative, the tagline does not provide much in the way of background, clarity, or definition. Even so, it’s probably a better jumping-off point than whatever rote bit of bio I might offer by way of a beginning, so let’s take what they’ve given us and fill in the blanks, starting by breaking the phrase into its component parts:

“Trouble comes in threes.”

This is a reference to the Rule Of Three: an ancient principle that applies (or can be applied) to basically every element of human history, from the Egyptian pyramids and Aristotelian philosophy to marketing techniques and molecular physics. The Rule Of Three is so prevalent in communication that it’s often invisible, which only underscores its effectiveness. It is supposedly captured in the Latin phrase “omne trium perfectum” (or “everything that comes in threes is perfect”). So far, so good? Good. So:

“So does Brutus.”

This would appear to be a reference to Brutus’ personnel configuration, the most obvious way in which the band “comes in threes.” Brutus are a power trio, i.e., a three-person lineup built around guitar, bass, and drums, in which every player is required to do the heavy lifting. In Brutus’ case, the work is split between drummer/singer Stefanie Mannaerts, bassist Peter Mulders, and guitarist Stijn Vanhoegaerden. The archetypal power trio is Cream — Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker — who introduced the template in 1966, and whose protean dynamic was described beautifully by Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, who wrote of seeing the band for the first time: The curtain drew back and the three of them started playing “Crossroads.” I had never seen or heard anything like it before. I was simply staggered by the amount of equipment they had: by Ginger Baker’s double bass drum, by Jack Bruce’s two 4-by-12 Marshall amps, and by all of Eric Clapton’s gear. It was an astounding sight and an explosive sound … I remember Ginger Baker was insane back then, and I’m sure he still is. He hit the drums harder than anyone I’ve ever seen, with the possible exception of Keith Moon. And Ginger hit them in a rhythmic style all his own that was extraordinary. Eric Clapton we don’t have to talk about — it’s obvious how amazing he is. Then there’s Jack Bruce — probably the most musically gifted bass player who’s ever been.

READ MORE HERE ON STEREOGUM

#Brutus #Nest #Stereogum #Album Of The Week

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thethoughtreport · 11 years

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Interview: TheRuinCity

TheRuinCity are a 5-piece pop/rock band from Washington DC who originally formed back in 2010. To date they have released 2 EP’s including the recent ‘Let Love Live’ which was released in October 2012 to critical acclaim. Michael Daknis, frontman and piano player told me how the band was formed, “Well, David (Hoppel, guitarist) and I have been playing music together for a long, long time. We’ve played in a few bands together in the past and have always written together. We basically decided back in 2010 that it was time to get some things recorded and see where things go. We talked to David’s younger brother Josh (guitarist) and he wanted to be involved too. So we slowly started writing and recording together. Dillon (Knighton, drummer) and Kyle (O’Keefe, bass and vocals) joined shortly after… and here we are now.”

Kyle describes TheRuinCity’s sound as, “Cohesive, melodic and dynamic.” They first came to my attention with their track ‘Home’ which is a good example of the mesmerizing melodies and beautiful music that the band make so well. Currently unsigned, Kyle tells me what else they get up to when not making music, “All of us are either full time students or have full time jobs, so that keeps us pretty busy. When we’re not working/studying/playing and writing music, we pretty much just hang out. We’re all big movie guys. We actually just had a huge ‘Harry Potter’ marathon. Watched all of them over the course of 3 days. It was awesome,” he smiles.

2013 is going to be an exciting time for the guys who say they have plenty in store for their fans, “We have a few things in the works. We’re recording a single in June with Dave Elkins (lead singer of Mae). We also have a few other things we’ll be announcing soon,” Mike promises. “You can expect a new music video before the end of the year too. You can also expect it to be bigger and better then the last one,” Kyle adds.

Being based in Washington, the guys tell me what they love and hate most about it, “What we love most is the people. Our fans are the best in the world! The DC area is a really tough place to get things rolling. People are so busy, and there’s always something else going on. That’s probably the thing we hate most,” Mike explains. I ask each member to share one strange fact about themselves and whilst Dillon says he is a perfectionist, Joshie has double-jointed thumbs and Mike’s left arm is double-jointed. My favorite quirks come from David who tells me, “I have an outie belly button named Maximillian,” and Kyle says, “I absolutely despise cucumbers. I think the world would be better without them!”

Mike and Kyle are the big sports fans in TheRuinCity but they are all big fans of the Redskins as well as the Capitals and the Nationals. Although they share some similar music tastes such as Copeland and Death Cab For Cutie, each band member has his own favorite music he is listening to right now. Joshie is enjoying Mumford and Sons and Radiohead, David is listening to Derek Webb and Jars of Clay, Dillon has Periphery and Steven Wilson on his playlist, whilst Kyle loves The Album Leaf and Explosions in the Sky, leaving Mike who is listening to John Mayer and OneRepublic.

TheRuinCity are definitely a band I would love to see live but if they could perform anywhere, where would it be? “We would love to travel to Europe or the Australias to perform. Actually Asia would be cool too. Basically anywhere overseas,” Mike smiles. The guys go on to tell me the best piece of advice they were ever given. For David it was, “The game has changed, but the players are the same.” Dillon, who earlier said he was a perfectionist, says the best advice he got was, “Don’t be a perfectionist!” and for Mike it’s, “Write what you feel.” I can’t help but laugh when Joshie reveals his to be, “Don’t hit the red button,” whilst for Kyle, “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.” Who knew TheRuinCity were so funny as well as being such talented musicians?

Kyle leaves me with the message they like to convey with the music they make, “Hope. When we write, we try to make things as relatable as possible for our fans, but the goal and focus behind everything we do is to bring people hope.” You can follow the guys on Twitter @TheRuinCity and like their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/TheRuinCity to keep up with updates from this amazing band. You can also download both EP’s from TheRuinCity on iTunes now!!

#interview #music #unsigned #underground

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sinceileftyoublog · 6 years

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Live Picks: 5/11-5/20

Jess Williamson; Photo by Kari Rosenfeld

BY JORDAN MAINZER

I’ll be in London from tonight until the 19th, so I wanted to get you covered until the 20th!

5/11: Shabazz Palaces, Empty Bottle

When we saw Shabazz Palaces at Riot Fest last year, we noticed the headiness and understated nature of the set in comparison with other sets at the festival. Seeing them in a small venue, in contrast, is ideal.

Experimental hip hop band Leaf Set opens. Jill Hopkins of Vocalo Radio DJs before the show.

5/11: Kem, Anthony Hamilton, & Eric Benet, Wintrust Arena

The R&B Super Jam tonight at Wintrust Arena features a diverse lineup. There’s quiet storm artist Kem, who mixes spirituality and love on albums like Intimacy. There’s the best known, neo soul singer Eric Benet. And then there’s Anthony Hamilton, whose Back To Love remains one of the best R&B albums of the decade and who often finds himself collaborating with hip hop artists, unlike the other two. Whether they play together or alone or a mix of both, it’ll be sure to be a great show.

5/11: Loma & Jess Williamson, Schubas

Loma, the band consisting of Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg and Emily Cross and Dan Duszynski from Cross Record, has only their self-titled debut, which we enjoyed very much. In a headlining set, they should be able to play most or all of it. The extent to which they replicate live an album that’s loaded with effects and nature sounds is to be seen.

Jess Williamson follows up 2016′s great, stark Heart Song with something much more expansive. Cosmic Wink, out today, is her Mexican Summer debut. It’s inspired by her move from Texas to California, new love, and the death of her dog. “When I don’t know what home is, I can turn into your arms,” Williamson sings on album closer “Love On The Piano”. It’s a sweet sentiment, but the rest of the album, despite the romance, still has those Texas high and lonesome qualities--it was recorded there, after all. Opener “I See The White” recalls some of the more melancholy tracks on Angel Olsen’s My Woman, while the Rhodes-laden “Wild Rain” is desolate and emotive.

Williamson will also be doing an in-store performance and signing at Shuga Records at 5 P.M.

5/11: Bing & Ruth, Constellation

The last time we saw ambient classical collective Bing & Ruth, they put us in a trance playing their great No Home of the Mind. Sine then, they’ve released an EP, Dorsal, as well as a single, the gorgeous “Quebec (Climber)”, released as part of the upcoming Stadiums & Shrines 10th anniversary compilation Dreams.

TüTH, the industrial project of Disappears bassist Damon Carruesco, opens. Brent Heyl DJs before the show.

5/11: Meat Wave, Catapult Records & Toys

Here’s what we wrote about Meat Wave when they opened for Hot Snakes at Thalia Hall back in March:

“If you’ve read us for the past few years, you know we love the songs and shows ever-ascending local heroes Meat Wave, having covered three different sets of theirs. Their last full-length release was 2017′s The Incessant, but earlier this year, they released two new songs, one-minute stomper 'Shame' and creepy slow-burner 'Dogs At Night'. Subtle, but still just as pummeling; their set should contain a lot of the latter, and not much of the former. Be thankful for that.”

Local two-piece punk band Drilling For Blasting and UK grunge band Strange Planes open.

5/11 & 5/12: Lizzo, Aragon

I’ve been a fan of Minneapolis hip hop artist Lizzo since her 2013 debut Lizzobangers, which she followed up in 2015 with Big GRRRL Small World. The former established her as a dexterous, hyperactive MC with a feminist tilt. She showed off her singing chops on the latter. But her 2016 EP Coconut Oil and tracks she’s released recently see her going in many different directions. The title track to the former is soulful and infused with gospel, while new tracks like “Truth Hurts” and “Fitness” are some true Lizzo bangers.

Fleetwood Mac worshipers Haim headline.

5/12: Helen Money, Hungry Brain

Cellist Alison Chesley is classically trained, but that’s right where formality ended. She started Verbow with Jason Narducy and then, after Verbow broke up, was a session musician in Chicago. But it wasn’t until her first solo album Helen Money and her subsequent adoption of the moniker that she truly started pushing the cello to its limited. Fast forward to 2016, and Chesley released her magnum opus Become Zero. Featuring Neurosis’ Jason Roeder and Rachel’s Rachel Grimes, Become Zero is a true mash of genres, bending the lines between experimental noise and metal while Chesley used digital processing for the first time. It was to great effect, as she made an album as full of sorrow and empathy as harsh soundscapes.

She plays with Peter Maunu and Carol Genetti, who play an opening set of their own.

5/12: Moritz von Oswald, Smartbar

Moritz von Oswald was one of the most influential 90′s dub techno producers, having done great work with both Basic Channel and Maurizio. Over the past 10 years or so, he’s branched out under his own name, whether with Detroit pioneers Carl Craig and Juan Atkins, by himself, or with the Moritz von Oswald Trio, his project with Sun Electric and Vladislav Delay. (I’m particularly fond of their album Fetch.) The Hamburg master should give a fantastic DJ set.

Deep techno DJ Olin and TEXTURE Detroit resident and founder Soren and Jacob Park open.

5/12: Speedy Ortiz, Subterranean

In 2015, Speedy Ortiz followed up their great debut Major Arcana with the even better Foil Deer. Supporting that album, they improved tenfold as a live band. When they went to record what would become their third album Twerp Verse, the 2016 U.S. presidential election happened, and they scrapped the strictly personal stuff and went political. Sadie Dupuis and company have always been political from a social and feminist perspective, but not so outspoken as on Twerp Verse. Musically, the album is consistent with Dupuis’ solo project Sad13, embracing the synth and Dupuis’ ever-improving voice over the wiry guitars for which the band first became known.

Local hero Nnamdi Ogbonnaya and Ohio band Didi open.

5/12: Vijay Iyer Sextet, Constellation

Vijay Iyer is captivating by himself and in duo form. So performing his sextet material (last year’s great Far From Over) with a steady band (besides a set of rotating drummers) should be a captivating live show. The band includes horn players Graham Haynes, Steve Lehman and Mark Shim alongside bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore.

There are two shows: one at 8:30 P.M. and one at 10:00 P.M.

5/13: Bill MacKay & Ryley Walker, Cafe Brauer

They’ve already turned upside-down one wholesome holiday. Whose to say they won’t do it at Mother’s Day Brunch at the Lincoln Park Zoo? Over/under on Walker banter about yoga pants stands at 2 jokes.

Walker’s release shows for his new record Deafman Glance, out next Friday, are on 5/18 and 5/19. We previously wrote that Deafman Glance is “an arty record, subdued, embracing of free jazz and minimal synth music as much as folk.”

5/13: Obituary, Pallbearer, & Skeletonwitch, Metro

Obituary’s self-titled album, released last year, wasn’t just a return to form. It’s one of their best records, one that stands to refine the death metal tropes the band has been exploring from the get-go, from the swirling riffs of “Kneel Before Me” to the stomping “Lesson In Vengeance”. The songs should sit well beside the band’s catalog.

Last year, Pallbearer followed up their breakout album Foundations of Burden with the divisive Heartless. We liked but didn’t love Heartless. Either way, whatever you think of the band, they’re becoming better and better live. They just released a new single, “Drop Out”, and mini-documentary to go along with it, as part of Adult Swim Singles Program. It’s your typical track from the Arkansas band: lead singer Brett Campbell goes full-on Ozzy Osbourne, while the divide between the sky high electric guitars and guttural electric bass is larger than ever.

Despite turning over band members quite a bit, Ohio metal band Skeletonwitch is remarkably consistent, from 2011′s great Forever Abomination to 2013′s Serpents Unleashed. They release their sixth full-length Devouring Radiant Light in July and have released a single, the epic and black “Fen Of Shadows”. It showcases new vocalist Adam Clemans (who first appeared on their 2016 EP The Apothic Gloom) while reminding you why you’ve always loved the band: the dynamism between guitarists Nate Garnette and Scott Hedrick.

German thrash metal band Dust Bolt opens.

5/14: Damien Jurado & The Light, Lincoln Hall

Singer-songwriter Damien Jurado has been popping up here and there since the 90′s to release an occasionally jaw-dropping, brilliant record, like 2003′s Where Shall You Take Me? or the trilogy of Maraqopa, Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son, and Visions of Us on the Land. A week ago, he released his 13th studio album, the gentle The Horizon Just Laughed. While it might not have the psychedelic leanings of his best work (save for “Silver Timothy” sibling “Florence-Jean”), it’s sparse and gorgeous nonetheless.

Afro-folk singer-songwriter Naomi Wachira opens.

5/15: Justin Townes Earle & Lilly Hiatt, SPACE

Justin Townes Earle played City Winery back in February. Here’s what we wrote about him then:

“The Justin Townes Earle of 2018 may not be as exciting as the same singer-songwriter who released the mighty one-two punch of Midnight at the Movies and Harlem River Blues almost 10 years ago, but he’s got so many good songs across his discography that it’s almost better to see him live than take a deep dive into his discography. He quietly released his 7th album, Kids in the Street, in 2017, and it’s probably his best since Harlem River Blues, but you know the crowd’s gonna cheer the loudest for 'They Killed John Henry' and 'One More Night in Brooklyn'.”

Nashville singer-songwriter Lilly Hiatt recruited a new band for her third album Trinity Lane, and it’s her best record yet. With John Condit on guitar, Robert Hudson on bass, and Allen Jones on drums and production by Michael Trent of Shovels & Rope, Hiatt has found the perfect sound for sad stories like “The Night David Bowie Died” and honky tonk jams like “See Ya Later” alike.

5/16: Asking Alexandria, The Forge

Back in January, Asking Alexandria co-headlined the Riviera with Black Veil Brides. They co-headline The Forge with Black Veil Brides this time. Here’s what we wrote about them then:

“British metalcore band Asking Alexandria perhaps peaked with 2016’s The Black. While their new self-titled album, released last month, is an interesting departure in their sound, opting for more straightforward, melodic hard rock, it makes you miss the band’s louder moments.”

Scottsdale metalcore band Blessthefall open.

5/16: Rival Consoles, Empty Bottle

Persona, the latest album by Rival Consoles, is purportedly inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film of the same name. What’s more obvious is its obsession with perception, space, light, and darkness. His use of analogue-heavy synths, acoustic and electric instruments, and effect pedals creates a sonic world that travels faster than the speed of light between beauty and ugly. Songs titled like “Unfolding” do what their title suggests, slowly developing into a beat. The title track skitters, “Memory Arc” attacks like a monster, and “Phantom Grip” loops ominously. And then there’s Nils Frahm collaboration “Be Kind”, a truly light moment on a record, and one that exemplifies the spirit of shared label Erased Tapes.

Local experimental acid house project Africans With Mainframes opens.

5/16: Jean-Michel Blais, Constellation

Quebec composer and pianist Jean-Michel Blais has been slowly rising over the past few years. His debut album II was followed by an especially inspired collaboration with CFCF on last year’s Cascades EP, four tracks of original material and one John Cage rework. Today, he releases his second solo effort Dans ma main, which sees him combine his usual piano-led intimacy with synthesizer textures.

5/16: Power Trip & Sheer Mag, Reggie’s

Dallas thrash metal band Power Trip just released a collection of their earliest non-LP recorded material, showing the raw areas from where they came. 2013′s Manifest Decimation was their debut, but it was last year’s Nightmare Logic that brought them beyond the metal spheres to spots like a co-headlining tour with Sheer Mag.

As a live band, Sheer Mag stood out even before they released their best songs. Now that they’ve released the tracks, they’re on top of the world. Last year’s proper debut Need To Feel Your Love was an effective juxtaposition of 70′s radio rock with radical politics, accessible and loud enough to land on our top albums of the year list.

Orange County hardcore band FURY and DC punks Red Death open. The same bill plays Empty Bottle on 5/19.

5/17: Prong, Bottom Lounge

Groove metal legends Prong are still going strong. Albums like the excellent Carved Into Stone and last year’s Zero Days show that the band is still capable of telling a musical story from start to finish while making room for meaty riffs and complex arrangements, holding up alongside their 80′s and 90′s work.

New York alt metal band Helmet co-headlines.

5/17: Josh Rouse, SPACE

Josh Rouse’s best record is 1972, which combined 70′s songwriting and production techniques with personal, political songwriter. Love in the Modern Age is the 80′s equivalent. Is it as successful? Of course not. But the similarity between the two albums makes me think Rouse will play lots of 1972 favorites.

Synth pop singer-songwriter Deanna Devore opens.

5/17: Marc Ribot, Art Institute of Chicago

Marc Ribot is one of the most creative guitarists around. I’ve seen him do a one-man score to Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid, play with his Ceramic Dog band, and jam with Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo. This time around, he’s doing an in-gallery solo performance at the Art Institute of Chicago in response to the paintings of Ivan Albright, presented in association with the exhibition Flesh: Ivan Albright at the Art Institute of Chicago.

5/17: Wye Oak, Thalia Hall

The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs completes Wye Oak’s transition from raw, guitar-and-drums folk band to expansive synth rockers. Front woman Jenn Wasner’s pop project Dungeonesse and solo project Flock of Dimes as well as Wye Oak’s previous two albums, Shriek and Tween, are clear predecessors to the new record, the band’s best since Civilian. Natural and unbridled, it shows the least restrained version of Wasner and percussionist Andy Stack. The title track’s interweaving arpeggio synths and squawking guitars are the perfect soundtrack to a song poking fun at those trying to find order within chaos. The vocal-driven, cinematic “My Signal” and layered, washy “You Of All People” round out the album’s highlights.

Philadelphia indie rockers Palm open.

5/17: Charly Bliss, Empty Bottle

Charly Bliss frontwoman Eva Hendricks told us regarding the band’s live show, “Our live show is probably the most important aspect of making music for us, so we always want our shows to be as satisfying and fun as possible!” Their debut album Guppy (one of our favorites of 2017) was already fun and continues to satisfy well into 2018. There’s a reason this show is sold out.

Punk band Skating Polly opens.

5/18: Objekt, Smartbar

We haven’t heard much from avant techno genius Objekt since his great 2014 debut Flatland--apart from a few singles here and there. Maybe he has new material. What better place to debut it than Smartbar? Mixes of his old material works, too.

Pre-party for the Movement festival in Detroit. Stripped-down techno DJ Helena Hauff headlines. Local busy and prolific DJ Justin Aulis Long opens.

5/18: Raekwon the Chef, Promontory

Raekwon is responsible for some of the best rap albums ever, whether as a member of the Wu-Tang Clan or solo. Next Friday, he’ll be playing solo hits and Wu Tang Clan songs with the Mo Fitz Band backing him up. Though he may start with tracks from his most recent album The Wild, he should eventually delve into 36 Chambers and Cuban Linx classics, perhaps even performing for other Wu-Tang members, dead or alive.

Raekwon also is somehow playing another set this night at Bourbon on Division. DJ Ryan Ross opens that one.

5/18: Fever Ray, Metro

A Fever Ray show is not to be taken lightly, since Karen Dreijer doesn’t play very often, either as a part of The Knife or with her solo project. Plunge, last year’s follow-up to 2009′s self-titled album, was a stunning achievement. It was one of our favorite albums of last year due to its outspoken politics, frank sexuality, and chaotic beats. She revealed her live band members in a video for standout “IDK About You”.

There are two shows: one at 6:00 P.M. and one at 10:00 P.M.

5/19: TesseracT, Metro

British band TesseracT prove that djent prog metal can actually be tasteful in addition to good. Their masterpiece, 2013′s Altered State, was cohesive and actually beautiful at times, particularly thanks to vocalist Ashe O’Hara. Over the past two albums, including last month’s Sonder, the band has reunited with old vocalist Daniel Tompkins. While his vocals are more cliche whiny than O’Hara’s, the band’s instrumentation remains vital.

Australian metal guitarist Plini and rockers Astronoid open.

5/19: Pig Destroyer, 3 Floyds

Alexandria grindcore masters Pig Destroyer last left us in 2012 with their opus Book Burner. It was fast, violent, and truly dangerous-sounding. Next Saturday, they’re one of many bands playing 3 Floyds’ Dark Lord Day, which we’ve covered twice. To a drunk crowd wanting to hear favorites, expect them to...well...bounce all over the place.

Death metal band Dying Fetus headlines. The abrasive Revocation, blackened thrashers All Hell, jazz-metal outfit Brain Tentacles, and blackened doom two-piece Canyon of the Skull also play.

5/19: Elizabeth Cook, City Winery

Two years ago, we caught singer-songwriter Elizabeth Cook admirably perform songs from her latest release Exodus of Venus, an album inspired by death and tragedy. Over the past year or so, however, she’s been performing lots of new songs that should be out on a new record this fall. She should pepper them into her back catalog next Saturday.

Singer-songwriter Caleb Caudle opens.

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isthisjazz · 7 years

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Lionel Loueke

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak with guitarist Lionel Loueke prior to his performance with the Chick Corea and Steve Gadd Band at the VETs. I wasn’t able to get out the interview before their gig but the conversation we had still reveals a lot about the group and his individual process, which makes it invaluable reading for jazz and guitar fans alike. Below is the full transcribed interview.

How long have you been playing with Chick Corea and Steve Gadd?

Not too long, we did the recording in January and the first gig was in Tokyo in August at the Blue Note. The tour really started that week. We got together about a week for the recording but that’s about it.

So this group dynamic has really formed just from the studio sessions and playing on stage together?

Yeah, well Chick knew that we would be touring so he put the band together with Gadd so right after the recording we could plan for touring and that started end of August. But you know we’ve been hitting it hard and will be going until the end of November.

In terms of tunes for this band, did you all come with them as individuals and all bring in different charts or write them as a group? Or did Steve and Chick walk in with tunes ready to go?

Basically Chick comes in with his tunes, and we play his tunes. There’s one song on the CD that came out from a jam I had with him so we kind of co-wrote that one, but otherwise they are all his compositions.

I wasn’t sure since I know that all of you are fantastic composers and arrangers on your own. I like the idea of coming up with the tune off the jam with Chick, especially with how adept both of you are as improvisors I’m sure you can lock onto an ostinato and find something from that vamp.

Yeah it just happened naturally. We workshopped together for two days just jamming and we recorded everything as we played. He basically used the melody we had and came up with nice harmonies.

With this band having a sax player in Steve Wilson and the right hand Chick Corea has and his melodic virtuosity, how is it to balance the melodic playing you’re doing with the harmonic?

It works fine because there’s no restriction with the harmony or how far one wants to go in or out of the structure as long as the form stays the same for everyone. Everyone is listening so carefully, and in my opinion that’s the sign of any great musician. We give room to each other to stretch out and do our thing so there are no boundaries which is a good thing.

Especially with the players, you guys can really stretch and go into some unique areas, but then I’m sure that with everyone having such big ears the listening that’s going on is next level. Besides just that particular dynamic, even though I know this has been a limited run, is there anything that you’ve learned so far that surprised you and has given you a new perspective on the music as it develops?

It’s not like I’m hearing something completely different than I’ve been hearing before in other bands, it just sounds like a band that has been around for a long time. Chick and Gadd have been playing since the seventies so there is a foundation based on that. Then Carlitos (Del Puerto, bass) has been playing with Chick the last four years and Steve Wilson has been with him for a long time too so I’m pretty much the only one who is new. I’m not working in the territory where everything is new since there’s a history here and everyone is listening for the interaction. One thing that is important here is that Chick is an excellent composer, player, and arranger. So when he arranges a tune he knows exactly what he wanted from day one so it’s just about getting it better and better. We come to these different arrangements or dynamics based but it all works because he knows what he’s hearing. Again, in terms of interaction there’s lots of room for everyone to play around and connect so everyone is just listening carefully to make the music right and find what the music needs.

I can only imagine coming into that foundation. To hear you all lock in is going to be really great.

Yeah, its good! (laughs)

Everyone has such unique voices in that ensemble that just listening to how you all evolve within the interactions is what I’m particularly interested in. I have one more question for you which is sort of a bit “inside baseball”. What sort of new concept are you working on? Is it some sort of new discovery you’ve made with the language of jazz, maybe a new lick you heard, or even a new guitar specific technique. What has been the focus of your practice right now?

I have a few things that I go to from period to period. Right now my focus is on my right hand technique. I don’t choose to play with a pick because what I’ve been hearing off that has been coming better and better, but it requires a much different technique. Mine is different from classical technique since I’m not holding the guitar like them or angled like them. Plus I’m always switching between acoustic and electric which is a different mechanic but I want to play both the same way and sound right. Right now I’m touring on electric so I’m working on that but when I move back to acoustic I focus on that, but that’s just technique. Then you have to go with what you’re hearing, because right now I’m not able to play what I’m hearing so it means I have to go back in on that and the technique together.

In terms of concepts, I’m always looking for new territory either melodically or harmonically. I listen a lot to classical music, contemporary classical music, Bartok, Stravinsky. I listen to the development of movements, how I can apply it in my playing. Instead of throwing many ideas in, just focus on one and try to make sense out of it. Then when it comes to harmony I go to back to the scores and look at the voicing, what chord is that, and apply it to the guitar. I’m always trying to go far from guitar technique to tell you the truth because it’ll always come back to me in a way and my thing is to not sound like guitar even if i’m holding a guitar.

Have you listened to Scriabin at all? Some of his piano stuff is *WHOA*. It’s hard, tough, but great. That whole Russian school with him, Shostakovich, like you said Stravinsky…

Yeah, absolutely, I check them all out. Music today, especially for me, is to look outside of the box. To learn something new and bring it to what I do. When it comes to jazz I very rarely listen to guitar, I focus on piano or saxophone, any instrument that has different type of phrasing that I can incorporate. That’s just one side, then I have the whole African side of traditional instruments that I listen a lot to and try to get the sound close on guitar, all the mutes technique, all that. I have a lot that I switch to from period to period.

Yeah man, it keeps it all fresh. There’s so much to hear and discover. It’s thrilling to hear that you just keep listening to new things and the diverse nature of those sources.

Yeah, it is very important to me.

Well, thanks so much for your time, I’m really looking forward to hearing you all play! You guys are going to play some burning stuff.

Yeah, we’re doing great man. I’m learning from everybody, stealing from everyone in the best way! Listening to Chick’s right hand as you mentioned, his phrasing; all things I’ve thought about but it is best to get from the source. I’m in school. (laughs)

Happening Around Town:

The John Allmark Jazz Orchestra; first Monday monthly @ The Met (Pawtucket) Is This Jazz?; first Friday bimonthly @ AS220 (Providence) isthisjazz.tumblr.com Allary At Arias; Sundays @ Arias Lounge (Providence) Groove Merchants; Mondays @ Fifth Element (Newport) Jazz Jam;Tuesdays @ Ten Rocks (Pawtucket) Groove E Tuesday;Tuesdays @ Murphy’s Law (Pawtucket) Parlour Jazz Jam; third Sunday monthly @ The Parlour (Providence) Jeff Platz Quartet’s Modern Sound Series; last Sunday monthly @ Tea In Sahara (Providence)

To add your listing email [email protected].

Ben Shaw is a local composer and performer. Find him at ahueofshaw.tumblr.com or on Twitter @ahueofshaw.

#blog #newsletter #Lionel Loueke #guitar #jazz #chat #talk #jazz guitar #interview #motif magazine #PVD #providence

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doomedandstoned · 4 years

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The End Is Nigh: A Conversation With OFFICIUM TRISTE Frontman Pim Blankenstein

~By Shawn Gibson~

I was first introduced to OFFICIUM TRISTE when Mors Viri came out in 2013 and I have been a fan ever since! At the time, I had a radio show and got an email from HammerHeart Records with promo and played some songs off of that album.

The Dutch band's music has also pushed me through tough times, mentally and emotionally. There is sadness in their songs, as there is great beauty. Each song has its own dynamic sound with piano, organs, violins, cellos, etc. Officium Triste's albums are heavy as mountains, but have parts within that soar like eagles!

Recently, I had the privilege of longtime singer Pim Blankenstein, who has been with the band since 1994.

Mors Viri by Officium Triste

Officium Triste has been making music since 1994! How does that feel to be with this band now and the current state of affairs?

It feels as exciting as it was when we started out. Of course, a lot has changed in 25 years, but for us as a band our values are still the same. We love slow, heavy and melodic music and we still write this kind of music. Over the years we of course have grown as a band and you keep learning. After the last couple of line-up changes I totally feel this is the best line-up we've had. We're all on the same page and actually things couldn't be better.

What does the name Officium Triste mean?

If you put it in Google translate, it says it means the baleful. Back when we started out our then guitarist Johan Kwakernaak came up with the name, which he got from a Latin dictionary. The combination of words means something like a "sad gathering," such as a funeral.

You are from the Netherlands right? What are some other bands from the Netherlands you guys love?

Yeah, we are from the Netherlands and when we started out there were quite some doom bands we dug like early The Gathering, Celestial Season, Castle or Beyond Belief. Having said that, the doom scene never was that big but we always had killer bands. Just think of Deinonychus or newer acts like Facade, Treurwilg or Beyond Our Ruins.

In other genres we have (and had) great bands, too. Death metal was especially huge. Pestilence, Pentacle, Asphyx, Sinister, Thanatos, Severe Torture, Bodyfarm, Gorefest. I could go on and on. Bottomline is that the Dutch scene always has been and still is great. We know quite a lot of bands personally and we get along real fine.

We are all Doomed! Are you Stoned?

Nope. Used to smoke a lot. Not anymore though. But that doesn't change the fact we indeed are doomed!

The Death of Gaia (Atmospheric Death/Doom Metal) by OFFICIUM TRISTE (Netherlands)

Your latest album 'The Death Of Gaia' came out December 13 2019. What has influenced the writing of this album?

As far as the music is concerned, our core values are still present, which is writing slow, heavy, melodic and melancholic music. I like to say we are still inspired by the bands that showed us the way in the '90s, like Paradise Lost, Anathema, Katatonia or Type O Negative. Along the way, also a band such as Shape Of Despair inspired a bit but also film scores, shoegaze or dream pop.

Lyrics are about subjects such as the decline of our planet, loneliness, insomnia, guilt, and stuff like that -- basically what is happening around us. So the reality of life inspired us in that department.

Throughout the years of your albums there is always great range and depth of song with varied instruments. Are there any instruments you haven't used yet, but would love to include in a song?

From a personal perspective, I'd like to include some percussive elements. I can totally imagine us using some proper timpani for that ultimate heavy sound.

Who did the artwork for 'The Death Of Gaia'?

When we figured out we wanted something different as artwork on this album and moved away from our earlier art, we got in touch with Chris Smith of Grey Aria Design from the US. We liked what he had done for Solstice from the UK and we really wanted that Art Nouveau-type art. Chris totally delivered what we were after.

Art by Chris Smith/Grey Aria Design

What makes you guys laugh?

We actually laugh a lot. We get along really well and joke around a lot making fun of each other. Other than that we are totally into dark, sarcastic humour. Or stand-up comedians like Steve Hughes of Jim Jefferies. Writers like Bukowski or Brusselmans (a Belgian writer). Ren & Stimpy, Pinky & The Brain, Invader Zim. There's plenty of stuff that makes us laugh.

What has been an awkward moment for Officium Triste?

Probably being too drunk on stage in our early years could be considered as awkward. Other than that, not much. Maybe some awkward moments on behalf of our previous bass player, but I won't get into details on that because it's better to let that rest.

You have a long history of making death doom and are in the same boat as other established bands such as My Dying Bride, Katatonia, Paradise Lost. What is in the future for Officium Triste? Will there be another 25 years?

Well, we take it as it is. Our current label Transcending Obscurity is quite happy with us it seems and has been asking if we want to do another album for them. We are gathering new song ideas as we speak, so you can expect another album in the future. Not sure if we'll last another 25 years, as we will be considered as elderly people by then. As long as we're having fun we keep doing what we like to do.

Who is in the band Officium Triste and what do they do in the band?

Right now it is the founding members Martin Kwakernaak on keyboards. He used to be our drummer, too. Gerard de Jong on lead guitars and I (Pim Blankenstein) on vocals. We have Niels Jordaan on drums, William van Dijk on rhythm guitars and Theo Plaisier on bass.

With the varied sounds in your music do you have several session players to record? Sometimes it sounds like you have a symphony accompanying your music!

Actually, this time around we used some session musicians. We decided to record some real string instruments, as opposed to using the sounds from the keyboard, so we asked Chris Davies to record violins. We knew Chris from Eye Of Solitude where he used to play bass and he played violins with Clouds, in which I am involved, too, in a way. He did a great job. On cello we asked Eliane Anemaat. She is quite known for her work with bands, such as Celestial Season, Mayan or Delain. She also did an outstanding job.

What are some bands from the beginning that have influenced Officium Triste? Who are some current bands that catch your attention?

I more or less mentioned some bands in an earlier answer, but we initially were heavily influenced by Paradise Lost, Anathema, Celestial Season, My Dying Bride, Katatonia, and Type O Negative. But also Metallica, Edge Of Sanity, Dismember or Winter influenced us to some extent. Later on, also bands such as Evoken, Mournful Congregation or Shape Of Despair impressed us. Currently, there's not a lot of bands that caught our attention and actually had an impact on us, but we do like bands that mix things up like what In Solitude, Tribulation, Alcest or Chapel Of Disease are doing, to name just a couple.

Film by Buzau Live Music

Beyond doom and death, what other music styles do you like and listen to?

We listen to quite a lot of varied stuff. Like heavy metal, classic rock, shoegaze, indie rock, new wave, movie scores, retro wave. As long as it is good music we listen to it.

Will you ever tour in the states?

Hopefully. If we ever get a proper invitation and stuff is sorted out, well we definitely would like to come. We are crossing the Atlantic in a couple of months to play a one-off in Mexico.

For me, I have felt positive things from the lyrics and the heavy music amidst the doom. I guess its nice to be able to relate to songs and feel the music with your soul. The balance of heavy and almost symphonic and atmospheric music still blows my mind! Officium Triste is one of very few with clean vocals accompanying death growls I love. Most clean vocals fuck me up.

Cheers for that!

"Burning all Boats and Bridges" is my jam! Fuck it all and starting clean! My life has to take another turn! A fresh start is what I yearn for! Please tell me a little about this song.

Actually, this song is basically the only one where we could use music provided by our previous bass player. But since he fucked things up I have a hard time listening to this particular track. I did write the lyrics, though, and I usually start with a song title. I'm not sure where I got it from, but the lyrics are about having a fresh start and cut all ties with your past. It's not something that happened to any of us personally. But I guess everyone can relate to the subject, so I wrote lyrics about this.

"The End Is Nigh." Do you think this song is relevant to current world events?

That's what inspired it. But to be honest, this world has been a shithole for centuries. So, when I wrote the lyrics I did think about the current state of affairs, as well as stuff from the past. I think everyone can decide for themselves what we talk about, whether it is politics, the environment or overpopulation. It all goes hand in hand, in a way. For the lyrics, I took the Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse as a metaphor. And the second song on the album World In Flames continues with the subject.

Pim, thank you very much for your time! It is a pleasure and an honor!

Thank you, Shawn, for the interview. Much appreciated. Hope your readers will check us out if they haven't done so yet.

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#D&S Interviews #Officium Triste #Rotterdam #The Netherlands #Doom #Metal #Doom Metal #sludge #death doom #blackened doom #Shawn Gibson #Doomed & Stoned

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mercyskies-music · 5 years

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Evaluation of my Performance in the ‘Pilot’ (1/3)

On our first day, we decided on what songs we could play, we quickly decided on doing a cover of a medley that YUNGBLUD performed in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge. This was a medley of Senorita, Back to Black, and Goosebumps. We also decided on playing Counting Stars, and Locked out of Heaven these are popular songs and would be suited to the singers voices. I had little input in regards to the song choices, however I heavily influenced the dynamics of every song as no one in my group spoke up to begin with. Luke suggested we do a house track so we decided on Piece of your Heart in addition to the other songs. At the start of process we decided to make the gig energetic, with songs that we can get people to vibe to.

Our group decided it would be fair for everyone to vote, and voice their opinions equally so we all collaborated and made decisions based on a consensus.

My role within this project was Lead Guitarist, and I organised the group often to keep us on track, I also raised a few concerns I had about the music itself and some changes were made as a result. The songs were fairly simple compared to what I am used to with no solos, and basic chord structures. There were a small handful of problems related to timing but these were not personal issues. I analysed the video for the Radio 1 Live Lounge performance to make sure I was playing the rhythms with the same nuances.

When we played Piece of Your Heart I had to compose a guitar part to play with the group, I had initially made a heavy chorus part but it didn’t seem to fit with the song. I decided to conduct some research into house music so I listened to some stuff that Luke recommended and I learned that guitars in that genre if at all present were more layered so during the verse parts and the drop I played consistently picked muted notes that mimicked the bass line of the song.

As a group we have produced 4 cover songs to perform in the Pilot show, and in a separate group we performed 2 songs.

First Group (Luke, Alfie, Oliver, Me and the singers)

Counting Stars - OneRepublic

Locked out of Heaven - Bruno Mars

Senorita, Back to Black, Goosebumps - YUNGBLUD

Piece of Your Heart - Meduza

Second Group (Conor, Brad, Mia, and Me)

We are Sex Bob-Omb - Sex Bob-Omb

Threshold - Sex Bob-Omb

In regards to the first group, I think some things that stand out as good were: our performance on the YUNGBLUD medley and the Counting Stars instrumental parts, we definitely could have improved the Locked out of Heaven instrumental and the harmonies. The medley went so well because of how we connected as a group we all clicked and the parts all fell into place, we all enjoyed listening to the song so playing it was a treat, this contributed to why the medley was such a success. The dynamics we had in Counting Stars was what made it such a good performance and the girls smashed the vocals. One of the big problems we faced was the absence of Alfie for 5 of our rehearsals, we would have made more progress in those sessions with his support and the presence of a keys player. In the future, we need to find a replacement on the first day not the 3rd or 4th day.

Megan has a fantastic voice and is confident enough to show it off in all it’s glory during our performances, her stage presence and ability to project her voice for meaningful performances made her an asset to our group. Oliver was playing Bass for us, and even though his musical roots are in piano and guitar, Oliver really stepped up to the plate to perform with us and he even adapted his technique to yield the best performance possible. I feel like my ability to keep time and my good ear was an asset to the group as I was able to spot some issues instrumentally, an example of such is that in rehearsals Alfie’s timing was slightly off and that caused the chorus to send very off, I pointed this and and worked with Alfie briefly to fix the issue.

Luke keeping the same tempo throughout the songs, especially Locked out of Heaven, and the girls projecting their voices during verses and harmonies. Luke’s performance on Piece of your Heart was very good as he has never used a drum pad before.

As a group we worked on an original song called Heartbreaker, and while the vocals were all original the music was extremely similar to another song and upon realizing this we dropped it, and focused on other songs.

In group 2, we had our two songs, stage presence for everyone and the guitar playing was good, however we had some issues with timing; this was simply due to the fact that as a side project we only had 4 rehearsals for it and Brad missed one of them beyond his control. The answer of how to make this performance better is to just allot more time to it. Conor’s drum playing was sick, however because we didn’t get time to practice some of the changes are slightly off, Mia started one of the verses and then the chorus too early, however the vocal performance was spot-on apart from that.

In group 1, our communication skills were top-tier, communicating ideas not only in sessions but also via WhatsApp, we discussed issues and made our decisions judiciously. I think our problems lied with commitment, four of our members took time off, only two of them were proper reasons; having people missing from rehearsals impacts productivity and can hinder attitude towards working.

I hardly ever do any proper warm up routines unless my hands are cold, as this causes my fingers to lock up and it makes it makes soloing and finger-style very difficult. I do however, demonstrate commitment to my mental health by having a good jam session if I am stressed to relieve myself of bad energy, and I made certain decisions like spicing up the way I played Counting Stars to keep myself from disliking the music I perform; this is a way to keep things fresh and maintain my ambitious attitude towards music.

~ Counting Stars

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~ Locked out of Heaven

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~ Medley

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~ Piece of Your Heart

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~ Sex Bob-Omb

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chelseawolfemusic · 7 years

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Chelsea Wolfe Talks Hiss Spun // MusicRadar

The word ‘artist’ is used with witless abandon in music, but with Californian songwriter Chelsea Wolfe it feels wholly appropriate.

An originator and creator, over five albums she has constructed an intricate, dark body of work, one capable of crossing vast spaces, from gothic folk to black metal, while still feeling part of the same awe-inspiring aesthetic.

2015’s Abyss saw the Sargent House-signed songwriter develop a cavernous dynamic presence through gigantic, dystopian riffs, all contrasted with a tortured Cocteau Twins vocal. Now she has returned with Hiss Spun – a record that bathes in the bleakness of the current global outlook and delves ever deeper into musical extremes.

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Produced by Kurt Ballou and featuring Queens Of The Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen, it’s her heaviest album to date and something of a black mirror record – one that points aggressively at our ugliest tendencies and states: ‘what hath man wrought?’ or in 21st century terms: ‘look at this gigantic shit storm’.

We spoke to Chelsea about Hiss Spun, what it was like working with Troy Van Leeuwen and Kurt Ballou and the primordial origins of white noise…

This album was produced by Kurt Ballou at his GodCity studio in Salem, Massachusetts during the winter months. It really feels like you can hear that snow-quieted landscape on the likes of Vex or Two Spirit. How did that surrounding impact you and, by extension, the record?

The sense of the cold, quiet outside contrasted with the hissing radiators of the warm interiors is reflected on the record

“Yes, I think the sense of the cold, quiet outside contrasted with the hissing radiators of the warm interiors is reflected on the record. One of the reasons I wanted to record in Salem is because I fell in love with Kurt’s studio last year when I was there working on Converge Blood Moon.

“Sometimes a building has no effect on the recordings, but sometimes it becomes a character in it. I’d say the GodCity building played a big role in this record. The building has three levels: the basement dungeon where much of the drums were recorded, the middle studio area where all the guitars were recorded, and then the upstairs apartment and vocal room. So I thought of it almost like hell, limbo and heaven... Each level had its own personality.”

What are Kurt’s greatest strengths as a producer? What does he bring to a record or a session?

I knew Kurt Ballou would get the kind of metallic, almost engine-like tones I wanted for the bass and guitars

“I wanted to work with him because this record is very drum-focused, and I’ve been a fan of how he records drums for years. Also I knew he’d get the kind of metallic, almost engine-like tones I wanted for the bass and guitars.

“When it came to vocals, it was on me to conjure up what I wanted to, but I had already planned for that because I come into the studio really prepared and almost utilitarian-like: ready to work and push myself as far as I can.”

When we last spoke, you described the tensions - borne from two strong-willed creative characters - you had with John Congleton as being “immediate” but ultimately very positive on Abyss. What sources of tension were there on Hiss Spun? Was it required this time?

“This time is was more of an internal struggle... A lot of these songs are about my own memories, self-destruction, addiction and ill-health so I had to face that and try to become stronger than the songs I was writing; stronger than the memories.”

Troy Van Leeuwen joins you throughout Hiss Spun. Why did that stick? What made that playing/writing relationship such a successful one?

“I knew Troy would get the kind of weird, twisted emotions these songs needed and he did. He’s a great guy and one of my favourite guitar players.

“The main lead lines on Spun are Troy, and the leads on the choruses for 16 Psyche. I also left space for him on that song to do an aching lead part over the bridge. While he was playing I could feel my guts wrenching and it was perfect, so I asked him to keep going in that direction.

“He’s on a few others songs playing lead like Offering. Bryan [Tulao, guitarist] played lead on The Culling and Static Hum, both of which are my guitar songs, along with 16 Psyche. Ben [Chisholm] actually wrote a lot of the guitar for this album as well, like the main part for Spun, Vex, Particle Flux and Twin Fawn.”

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In an interview with No Clean Singing you talk about finding “the right guitar and the right pedals and microphone” before writing. How early in your writing process do you consider tone? Why?

“When I’m initially writing and making demos I’m just going on instincts, but then once we’re in the studio I’ll hone it in and try to think about what’s right for the song - something deep or something more tinny and lo-fi.

“Kurt helped guide me on this journey, finding the right amps and pedals. I ended up just using this EarthQuaker [power amp distortion] pedal called Acapulco Gold, though; it weirdly fit on a lot of songs.”

What were your main guitars and amplifiers on the recordings? And how did you use them to get such sizeable distortion sounds?

The really big distortion tones on the likes of Twin Fawn came about because there are about six layers of guitars on those choruses

“There was an old Gibson amp I think Kurt uses on a lot of recordings that I used a lot... it just has that great vintage tone, but I was also drawn to his Klipp and used that a lot. The Gibson is an older one for sure. Basically Kurt set up a wall of amps and we just went through and tried them all until I was drawn to the sound of one. It ended up being those two!

“In general I don’t always know the technical details of all the gear I choose, I just collect guitars, amps and pedals that I like instinctually. I knew I wanted the guitar tones to sound really metallic on this album, almost like a motorcycle engine, so I was seeking that out on the amp journey.

“For guitars, I used a Fender Jazzmaster with a Randy Rhoads Dean neck, my Gibson 335s, and a borrowed classical. The really big distortion tones on the likes of Twin Fawn came about because there are about six layers of guitars on those choruses…”

A Fender Jazzmaster with a Dean neck is quite an unusual beast. What drew you to that instrument?

“That’s one of Kurt’s guitars - I don’t actually know the story behind it, but I saw it sitting amongst other guitars and was drawn to it. The neck instantly felt good in my hands and then Kurt told me it was the Randy Rhoads edition. I’m such a fan and had Crazy Train on repeat the year before, so it felt meant to be. Plugged into the Earthquaker Acapulco it was a great sound so I ended up using that combo a lot.”

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What do you consider to be the most successful guitar moment on the album?

“16 Psyche was a riff I had kicking around for a year or so, and when I finally brought it to the band I wasn’t sure if anything would come of it, but right away we all had tons of ideas and it came together really quickly.

“Another moment is Ben’s guitar playing on Twin Fawn. He also played through that Klipp and layered the choruses maybe six times - I love the little feedback moments on the pauses, and the way the guitars and drums come together at the end of that song is one of my favourite parts of the album.”

Your press sheet interlinks one of the album’s central themes - global destruction - with the white noise that occurs throughout the album. Why do you think this sound is suited to the topic? What association does it hold for you?

I’ve had a strong affinity for white noise since I was a kid

“Carl Sagan said that 1% of TV and radio static is relic sound from the Big Bang. I think something about that connection to the origin is comforting, and I’ve had a strong affinity for white noise since I was a kid. I was talking more about confronting the chaos of the world with your own internal chaos - accepting the mess of yourself and finding strength through that.”

You’ve said that you want to write escapist music. We get that sensation with the likes of 16 Psyche. Where does the escapism come for you?

“I find a lot of freedom in music. I have my writing studio at home, so I can be in a place where I feel fully myself, and I can work and write at any hour of the day.

“Onstage, it’s taken me years to become comfortable, but my way of dealing is just to lose myself into the songs. Last year, while I was relocating back to Northern California, I was staying with family while I was in-between houses. I didn’t have a lot of personal space, so I ended up writing a lot in headphones, and was reminded of that sense of escapism in music, where you can totally tune out your surroundings and slip into a new world.”

“It seems like the world has been in tears for months, and then you remember it’s been fucked for a long time, it’s been fucked since the beginning. It’s overwhelming and I have to write about it.” In the face of this, do you think escapism is enough?

“No, of course not. I was being honest in saying that that’s sometimes how I deal, but I also strive to put a lot of reality about the world into my songs, and tell stories of people to honour them.

“Particle Flux, for example, has some lines in the choruses that were inspired by watching a short documentary about the refugee crisis coming out of Syria - seeing how these families were torn from their homes and sometimes torn apart, but still remaining so strong: mothers and fathers still trying to make their children smile and pushing on against the terrible situation they’re facing.

“I have a B-side coming out later this year which I’ll be donating the proceeds of to the UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency). There are so many refugee situations right now and they’re struggling to keep up funding for all of them.”

You have traditionally been portrayed as a shy character, but this album feels more overt. Do you feel you are gaining confidence in your abilities as a writer and performer?

“Getting older as a woman and as an artist, I’m becoming more confident, or maybe just giving less of a fuck what people think. [Ultimately] it was fun to write some songs that were more in-your-face and aggressive.”

#Sargent House #Chelsea Wolfe #Hiss Spun #Music Radar

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