Which act demands the least *creativity* from its members? *

Didn't Frankie Goes to Hollywood have a guy whose job was to just add a stylish leather-clad vibe to the proceedings?

 

Nah! Because of the way Edge plays, Adam has to be both the bass player and rhythm guitarist. Thinks about it for a second: when you hum a U2 song (and aren’t doing the vocals) chances are you’re humming the bass line.

Adam is very important to that band

 

IMO people who don't know any better love to sh-t on Crazy Horse for their lack of, shall we say, musical virtuosity but it does take a fair bit of talent to know what to leave out musically. And Crazy Horse does. And they are nowhere near as bad of musicians as their detractors would make them out to be. 'Cos if Crazy Horse sucks, what does that say about Neil, using them as his backing band off and on for fifty years? Billy, Poncho, Ralph and Danny Whitten (RIP) musta been doing something right...it's telling that guys like Tim Drummond and Kenny Buttrey -who arguably could be considered 'virtuoso' musicians- claimed that Neil made them play "just like Crazy Horse" and though they didn't necessarily like it, they went along with it.

Crazy Horse fits Neil Young's music like a glove. I think my biggest issue with Neil playing with CSN is their sound is too slick, too perfect. Neil sounds uncomfortable and out of place playing with that lot sometimes. Mind ya, Neil "dumbs down" CSNY at times as well, look at "Ohio". The Horse coulda played that one, easily.

 

There’s a great section in the book Shakey about the tour that resulted in the Time Fades Away album where Kenny Buttery is talking about how Neil would relentlessly ride him about not playing hard enough or straight enough, or loud enough. Buttery says he was wrapping tape around his hands each night because they were covered in bloody blisters and Neil keeps saying he shoulda just gone out (on tour) with Billy and Ralph.

Says a lot.

 

Wham! - if you're Andrew Ridgeley. He was the half that did absolutely nothing, but made a load of money from it.

 

But creatively it has to be fairly easy, right? Hawkwind have a sound. Many other bands do. There's a Def Leppard sound, a Queen sound, an AC/DC sound..... The supporters of these fine bands know what they like and expect from their favoured artists. It's a brave act that veers away from the expected template. At the end of the day it boils down to money and adulation. Get too clever-clever and your audience bleeds away. I get that. Follow the cash, hang on to the lifestyle. No arguments from me.

As a mighty 'Wind fan I'm not expecting them to do a hip-hop album aimed at New York street kids. Neither do I see them in the foreseeable future gathering together the remaining members of Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass and making a CD aimed at the plight of Mexican refugees. (To be fair I'd buy them both regardless. Fan, see?). No, the next Hawkwind album will sound, within reason, like many that they've released previously. As such, being a musician in that act may be easy, in respect of you know the kind of material you're expected to come up with. I wasn't thinking of interpersonal group power struggles or animosity on the road. I thinking of 'easy' in the creative sense. NOT saying their musicianship is of a lesser quality.

 

I love that part (Shakey is one of my favourite books of all time)- Buttrey says he went into a music store looking for the biggest drum sticks they had and the clerk said "Anything bigger and it'll have bark on it!" Seems to me Neil's gone out on the road a couple of times with other people when he should have had the Horse with him. IMO Time Fades Away, as good as it is with the Stray Gators, would have been bonecrushing with the Horse- or even better (since Poncho hadn't come on the scene yet), the Santa Monica Flyers ala Tonight's The Night

 

Paul Stanley is an arthritic cripplew with no voice because of the amount of work he's put into the Kiss stage performance over the years.

 

They stray from their template quite a lot - admittedly, often because they are chasing trends. But things like Unmasked, large parts of Dynasty, The Elder and Carnival Of Souls are by no means 'cookie cutter Kiss.'

 

Kenny Buttrey is probably my favourite drummer in popular music (which inclues rock, country, etc.) and his part on Lay, Lady, Lay is sheer genius.

His style is naturally soft and somewhat diffident, so not a natural fit for the arenas Neil was playing on the 'Ditch' tour.

 

The guy from Sleford Mods always makes me laugh.
Live, he presses play, nods his head & drinks a can of beer. When the song is over he presses play on the next song, nods his head & drinks a can of beer. When that song is over he...

 

Darryl Jones could probably play his Stones gigs in his sleep.

 

I am a bass player and I LOVE Adam Clayton's playing. Doesn't matter that it's simple. His sound is often a major hook in their songs, and has been for their entire career. It's ridiculous to imply that a musician has to play complicated and demanding parts to be valuable and necessary. More busy bass parts would add nothing to U2's sound.

Now people are going to respond to me by knocking U2 generally, but that's not going to detract from my essential point.

 

I'm performing it right now.

 

Somehow this made me think of the Doors. I don't mean their days as a performing and recording group by any means. I'm talking about everything since then. The surviving members release and re-release their material, do an interview where they say Jim Morrison is God, then sit back and collect their royalty checks.

 

You could say that about any retired band including the Beatles. Yeah, Paul McCartney works, but as a Beatle he just counts money. Lazy bugger.

 

And every song in the Ramones catalog is almost all down picking. A two hour show like that, it's MUCH harder than people think.

 

It doesn't really count if you're performing it with a bong.

 

The topic is not whether he is a good or bad player, it is whether what the band calls on him to do is simple or demanding. You seem to be in agreement that it is simple.

He might be able to play like Bootsy for all I know, but that isn't what he does with U2.

 

Your remark seemed pretty critical and that was what I was responding to.

 

Not if you’re typing.

 

Nailed it Mr Freeman. The thread has never been about anyone's musicianship skills, but are they stretched creatively within the parameters of the group they're in.

 

That's what I meant about Darryl Jones. His skills are way beyond what he is required to do for his best-paid gig.

 

Nope. Peter Tork alone would crush all of KISS in musicianship.

 

What exactly did Susan Dey do in the Partridge family other than look hot?