Vernon’s a terrific follow on Twitter, btw. Glad to hear the CBGB’s is solid. I came across a promo single of Cult of a Personality that included a couple live tracks including the Tracy Chapman cover, so I thought that would scratch a live Living C9lour fix, but now I’m second guessing that decision!
On a Bill Simmons podcast today on the ringer, the same website from the Vivid article I posted yesterday, Bill calls them ‘In Living Colour’ while mentioning new content on the website this week.
Yes! Now that I'm home, I just grabbed it and it is indeed an Australian edition. Eclectic track listing, but a pretty cool comp. Pride (Living Colour album) - Wikipedia
Yes, much to my surprise! Little did I know that to track it down I had to go all of four feet. When Tower Records was still a thing in Chicago they had an amazing import section, I'm sure that's where it came from and it just got lost in the endless pile of plastic. The version of Final Solution is epic.
thanks. I want that plus the rare releases dread , the import biscuits and the hard to get whats your favorite colour compilation
For me, a flash in the pan, although like most other artists who had a brief heyday, they will always have their loyal cult following.
I wouldn't go that far, but Reid certainly has the worst lead guitar tone of any name player I'm aware of.
Saw these guys live in Tampa some time around 1989 or 1990 on a MTV 120 Minutes-sponsored co-headlining tour with the Godfathers. I went there to see Living Colour but wasn't all that impressed. But the Godfathers were fantastic.
Absolutely love Living Colour. Time's Up and Stain are my favourites. Saw them in 1993 on the Stain tour and they were fantastic. My ears rang for about a week because they were so loud, but otherwise, it was fantastic. I love Vernon Reid's guitar playing and tone. If Frank Zappa morphed into a demented noodling, widdling, million notes a second type player, he would sound like Vernon Reid. It's ugly and beautiful at the same time, and it's not so slick that it's sounds mechanical and soulless.
I can see how someone might say that on certain songs, but on songs like Type, I think his tone cuts right through and has a frenetic energy to it that fits the song perfectly.
Discussions of Tone in the Rack Effects Era is pointless. Nobody playing through that type of front end had any discernible Tone, really. Vernon had some really smooth sounding rigs that he used in spots (Solace for example).
When would you peg the boundaries of that era? Because, IMO, some of Reid's contemporaries had phenomenal tone: Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani. I even love that era for Alex Lifeson.
I'll give you Johnson and Leifson, those guys are dripping with great tone (and really I never understod how Johnson was able to have the touch he does through his rig, which was massive then). Satriani's was pretty similar to Vernon's in those early years. Sometimes amazing others, meh... it really depends greatly on how you use all of that gear. But I would say from around 1985 - 1995 there were a ton of great players who abandoned tone for a giant rack of effects and pre-units (EQ, Noise Gates, etc).
Great band all around, I prefer Muzz to Doug, but they really are both fantastic bassists. Have Shade on the way to me, and I am definitely looking forward to hearing it. I like that they didn't really sound like anyone else.
See, I hear Satriani's tone on The Extremist and Flying in a Blue Dream and to me, it just sings. When we get to Crystal Planet and later, I'd agree, it starts to sound like Reid a bit. Another guy who I feel had sick tone back int hat day was Jason Bieler of Saigon Kick. I was a lousy player, but I wanted a Rivera just to sound like him. I later learned that tone is 90% hands, 10% gear. And then of course, there is Slash.
Not to mention that a couple of the Time's Up songs could be considered AOR hits as Type and Love Rears It's Ugly Head were played a lot back in the day.
Yeah, I looked at it that way when I came up with six earlier in the thread. Though the songs that made up the six surprised me. I heard Nothingness way more than Leave it Alone, and thought Elvis is Dead got more play than the numbers suggested. I still think their biggest mistake was never releasing Solace of You in the US.
