Breaking the Tie

If we ever meet, Brayton, I'll buy you a drink just for that last bit. How true!

And then you can buy me a drink to make up for your illiterate apostasy re. CCR.

Okay, that nearly made me spit out my drink on the keyboard. I don't dislike CCR, I was just never a fan. I've liked John Fogerty's solo stuff more than CCR for some reason. I also can't stand the Eagles, but I've liked almost everything the various members have done solo (with the exception of Timothy B. Schmidt, who should be thrown in prison if he ever writes another song as loathsome as Love Will Keep Us Alive).

Yes vs. whom did u say? Queen? It was OK to listen Queen every now and then for the last ~30 years. But after my son brought home a raft of Queen CDs and played them non-stop at home and in the car - I began to throw up after the 3rd day. Nowadays by consensus we either switch off the radio (in the car) or switch stations whenever a Queen number comes along. BTW I did see Dreamtheatre and Yes. Glad to see Yes live - alive and kicking 35 years after they were formed.

I was thinking last night that I saw Yes almost exactly 20 years ago, in August of 1984, and they were already something of an old chestnut band by then. 90125 was a HUGE comeback album from them and they hadn't had a hit prior to that for nearly a decade. And THAT was 20 years ago. Makes me feel old.

See, here's the problem. Too many folks know Queen only for Bohemian Rhapsody/We Are the Champions, etc. Queen II, though it's rife with gay overtones (not that there's anything wrong with that), is just spectacular musicianship, produced back when they really didn't use synthesizers (just a lot of guitar and vocal over-dubbing). Give that a listen before drawing any final conclusions.

Queen performs "I Want to Break Free" for a Coke C2 commercial. Suck they do.

One thing you can say in Queen's defense is that they aren't Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

"Hey look, rock fans! We waste seeming hours of your time showing off our chops and we still aren't as inventive or interesting as a fourth-rate jazz musician"

Feh. No wonder why punk happened.

Oh come on. ELP, when they were "on" they were really "on." I saw them in '91 & they were fantastic (despite Greg Lake). Have you ever heard their version of Mussorgsky/Ravel's "Picture's at an Exhibition"? Or Aaron Copland's Hoedown or Fanfare for the Common Man played w/ a shuffle. If their versions of classical pieces aren't inventive, I don't know what is.

As to Yes/Dream Theater, not only was the show great, but the Borgata is a real classy casino. While the rest of AC sort of has that "social security check" crowd vibe going on, the Borgata seems as close to Vegas as AC is going to get.

For my own musical tastes, I find that I like at least some of nearly every genre, including prog or art rock. It really just depends on my mood. There are times when I love to listen to the kind of 20 minutes pseudo-classical suites done by Yes in the 70s (I was such a big fan of Yes as a younger man that I was one of the 12 people in the world who actually owned the album Tormato). The musicianship was incredible. At other times I yearn for the simplicity of John Lee Hooker or Robert Johnson.
I was never a big ELP fan (and don't get me started on ELO). But I loved Yes, both the early stuff and 90125 (which was THE album of my junior and senior years in high school - my friends and I listened to almost nothing but that album), early and middle Genesis (everything up through Duke and Abacab), Rush (I was a Neil Peart fanatic, like most high school drummers), King Crimson and the like.
So my rejection of Queen is not because I dislike the whole genre of complex, classical-inspired rock. I don't know that I can articulate what makes me like one and hate the other, but I meant it when I said that Queen is what I imagine a rock band led by Andrew Lloyd Webber would sound like. And Webber is, in my view, the musical equivalent of an ebola virus outbreak.
I also find my musical tastes changing as I get older. I find my preference is more for soul than for sheer musical complexity. Neil Peart is the undisputed God of rock drumming, but as I got older I found I preferred to listen to drummers who, while they were not as technically flamboyant, integrated more with the music and did little subtle things that made them noticed (as opposed to big fills and making themselves stick out). I like drummers who can surprise me within the framework of the music, whether it comes from the frenetics of Stewart Copeland (very difficult to predict) or from the smooth understatement of Vinnie Colauita (the master of subtle cymbal work, and the best wrists in the business - and he went to the same school that Jon Rowe went to).
If you want to see a perfect illustration of what I mean, go get the concert video of Sting's Soul Cages tour and focus on Vinnie's drumming. The music isn't terribly complex, and the rhythm stuff typically requires a nice tight groove. But just listen to the subtle little variations that Vinnie is doing within that framework. In particular, there is a little double cymbal flare (ride and high hat) that he does during Jeremiah Blues that made me rewind the tape about a dozen times. It's just brilliant, but it also fits perfectly in the background of the song.

Like you, my musical tastes are all over the place. I can just as easily get into Bob Dylan, Neil Young, or John Lennon, as Yes or ELP. What makes music good is the same thing: Passion & feel; it doesn't matter whether it's complex or simple music, a Wagnerian score or just Bob Dylan & his guitar & harmonica.

A lot of the Prog rockers did some very bad music along with some very good. When ELP were "on" like on their first album or Brain Salad Surgery, or Trilogy...I think they played w/ a lot of fire.

My favorite prog rock band, BTW, are Kansas. Not only are they America's original progressive music, but they are, I think, the most underrated prog rock band. Like all of the other prog rockers, they did their share of bad music as well as good. But their first 5 studio albums have their share of gems (Journey from Mariabronn, The Pinnacle, Song for America). Many people I talk to aren't even aware that they play progressive music, because the only songs they are familiar with are Dust in the Wind & Carry on. And others just don't get their music, considering it 2nd rate prog rock. But occasionally I come across other fans who do get it. Like at the Borgata, I was wearing a Kansas shirt, and met 3 or other fans, who pretty much felt the same way that I did.

Jon Rowe:

I also find my musical tastes changing as I get older. I find my preference is more for soul than for sheer musical complexity. Neil Peart is the undisputed God of rock drumming, but as I got older I found I preferred to listen to drummers who, while they were not as technically flamboyant, integrated more with the music and did little subtle things that made them noticed (as opposed to big fills and making themselves stick out).

Musical Anecdotal Evidence Dep't: a friend of mine who played in a punk band in Cincinatti back about 10-15 years ago (but who also listens to tons of other forms of rock, obviously) has repeatedly stated that Neal Peart is a mixed bag; he can play like a madman, but he can always tell where Peart is going. He could even play Peart's drum bits if he practiced them long enough.

Now, John Bonham, on the other hand, he has more respect for - and largely because of the opposite reason. He still hasn't been able to figure out the drum bit to "Immigrant Song" despite the fact he can follow - and even imitate - Peart. The same applies to Keith Moon.

Speaking of other prog-rockers:

Two words: King Crimson. Red is one of my favorite LPs of all time, and although some of their early output is a mixed bag (the old "technique vs. pomposity" argument rehashed yet again), listening to tracks like "Discipline" will make you forget guitar hacks like the detestible Yngwie Malmsteen in a second.

If Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart count, they're in. By a country mile. Granted, some of their stuff was not helped by the decision of some brainless A&R consultants in trying to make them "commercial" (particularly Beefheart), but the better material from both has continued to shine. And Zappa was one of the better spokesmen against censorship of art among rock musicians in the 80's and 90's.

Peter Gabriel. It isn't just that "3" (the Peter Gabriel LP with the "melting face" cover) is one of my favorite LPs of all time; he's far more versatile, more nuanced (and less crassly commercial, IMHO) than any of his former colleagues from Genesis, and he may be one of the few prog-rockers who was able to walk away from the trappings of his former band and grow as an artist in his own right.

This conversation reminds me of how opinated musicians and music critics can be. Back when I was in Berklee, we used to get together, those of us that drank, drank, (believe it or not, some in the group were "dry"), and argue.

One guy in particular -- brilliant guy, great musical ear, good composer and owner of fantastic "analog" synth rack, loved King Crimson, really didn't think much of Yes, or Kansas, loved Genesis, and although he knew ELP were a mixed bag, liked ELP a lot better than he did Yes (he thought Keith was infinitely supeior to Rick -- although he knew Greg Lake at times drug the band down).

And another guy who went onto get masters degrees from Yale & Harvard in music and is now a professor in Berklee's composition department hated Progressive Rock. He evidenced an attitude much like what Sandefur said in his most recent post on this subject: Sophisticated music was the domain of classical (and by that term I mean all "concert" music, not just the classical period) and jazz music (and presently he's a classical composer, whose had many commissioned pieces of work). Rock music was more about raw emotion. He like the Beatles, the Stones, Sex Pistols, Lou Reed. Rock music shouldn't be fancy; the jazz & classical folks do that kind of music much better.

Chris-
I was the one who wrote about drummers (Jon is a guitarist, and I assume a damn good one given his alma mater). Generally speaking, you can play anyone's drum parts if you practice long enough. If your friend finds Bonham less predictable than Peart, I find that pretty astonishing. Bonham was a very good power drummer, but nothing he played was very difficult to reproduce. Moon was far more difficult to reproduce, but I frankly think that was because he wasn't all that good, just wild. It was unpredictable because it made little sense in the song.
I found Peart far more difficult to reproduce than any other drummer back in those days (I haven't played in many years, I doubt I could play anything more complex than AC/DC's Quarter Note Phil Rudd these days). Peart is truly a transcendant talent. I've just found that I prefer to listen more to other people now, ones who play more subtly than him. You mentioned Zappa. Vinnie Colauita was one of his two amazing drummers (Chad Whackerman being the other one). King Crimson had Bill Bruford, who was also in Yes, easily among the greatest drummers in rock.
Peter Gabriel I am a huge fan of, and he has had one of my other favorite drummers play with him for many years, Manu Katche, who also played with Sting for a couple years (Sting, like Zappa, is a very reliable weathervane of musical talent - if you've played with Sting, you have to be a top notch musician, period). Manu Katche is the drummer behind the spectacular live version of In Your Eyes (in my view, the greatest love song of the rock era). I could never reproduce what he does. It's so unique. I remember another drummer saying in an interview once that he found Katche impossible to imitate because he didn't play the beat, he played everything around the beat, so the beat was like a tunnel. That's a perfect description of what he does. It runs so counter to everything you're taught as a drummer that trying to change over and do that hurts your brain. But the effect is amazing.

Jon-
Did you ever hear the band GTR? They were shortlived, but it was Steve Howe and Steve Hackett together on guitar, with Tony Levin on bass and I forget the singer and drummer. Nice guitar stuff.

Chris-

I was the one who wrote about drummers (Jon is a guitarist, and I assume a damn good one given his alma mater).

Oh. Thog can't read posted by: line, apparently. Thog also type too fast. Thog sorry.

Generally speaking, you can play anyone's drum parts if you practice long enough. If your friend finds Bonham less predictable than Peart, I find that pretty astonishing. Bonham was a very good power drummer, but nothing he played was very difficult to reproduce.

Your milage varies. Hardly a surprise, but...

I find the entire question of technique to be just a bit too...er...pedantic at times. Sorry if the word is off-putting, but having suffered the worst of people who have a lot of technique but have nothing to say with it (my Yngwie Malmsteen example stands), the only thing I can say in Terry's defense is that I'll send him a link to this thread and see if he wants to explain his position more adequately than I can.

As to Bonham: the fact that the poor bastard drank himself to death doesn't overrate him in a fashion similar to, say, Kurt Cobain's early exit. Chances are he still wouldn't've been eclipsed as a prime example of how to properly play drums, Heavy Metal Division. Granted, that sort of music has to be your cup of tea (for me, it is, but not universally - nothing would satisfy me more than the ability to build a time machine so I can go back and strangle the little bastard who was responsible for all those godawful hair metal bands from the 80's), but I still think he was instrumental in making a shitload of people take up the drums in the first place - maybe more than Peart.

Moon was far more difficult to reproduce, but I frankly think that was because he wasn't all that good, just wild. It was unpredictable because it made little sense in the song.

Not really. The Who was largely predicated on the wildness of their presentation (after all, they practically invented the entire smash-up-the-instruments finale), and Keith fit perfectly in that approach. Some of his playing may seem wild, but he could be almost robotically straightforward - "The Seeker" or the studio version of "My Wife" being good examples of same. In a way, he's a much more calculating drummer than you might expect. It's also ironic to the point of bizarre that he and Bonham both joined the choir invisible at roughly the same time.

I find the entire question of technique to be just a bit too...er...pedantic at times. Sorry if the word is off-putting, but having suffered the worst of people who have a lot of technique but have nothing to say with it (my Yngwie Malmsteen example stands), the only thing I can say in Terry's defense is that I'll send him a link to this thread and see if he wants to explain his position more adequately than I can.
Oh, I totally agree with you on that, and Yngwie Malmsteen is a perfect example. And of course, most of this is just a question of personal taste. From a technique perspective, Peart is infinitely more complicated than Bonham, and more than almost any other drummer out there. But as I said, that is less and less important to me as I get older.
One of the things that annoys me most about guitar in general is the triumph of technique over soul (I'm sure Jon will jump in here with some thoughts on that) in some circles. Yngwie may be a technically brilliant guitarist; same is true of Steve Vai for that matter. But I'd rather listen to Clapton every day and twice on Sundays. I much prefer the blues, a much simpler type of music.
Playing behind me right now is a live concert of Stevie Ray Vaughan at Montreaux. They just showed him doing Tin Pan Alley with Johnny Copeland, which has blistering guitar licks. Yes, blues is derivative and less imaginative in terms of technique, but it has soul. I'd rather watch something like that, where the music seems to flow out them with passion and heart than I would listen to the most complex technique-laden performances. It's not that I discount ability and hard work at all, but in the end it has to be in the service of something more than itself. Music is, first and foremost and always, about the expression of human emotion.

"Did you ever hear the band GTR? They were shortlived, but it was Steve Howe and Steve Hackett together on guitar, with Tony Levin on bass and I forget the singer and drummer. Nice guitar stuff."

Yep--I've heard it, but haven't gotten around to aquiring it yet. It's on my list (I've got a really big list!)

As to the "shredders" -- yes a lot of that music sucks, no feel, just technique. But I think the good ones put passion in there and play w/ a lot of fire. Even though Yngwie & Steve Vai aren't my favorite guitarists, I would consider them to be of the "good" group of shredders who can make good music while showing off.

Steve Morse & Eric Johnson are the masters at combining great music with great technique.

Steve Morse & Eric Johnson are the masters at combining great music with great technique.
I saw Eric Johnson on Austin City Limits a year or so ago and was very impressed, much to my surprise.

I've heard that the first Western album allowed on sale by the theocrats in Tehran is...Queen's Greatest Hits

I am the drummer Chris refers to in the Neil Peart discussion. However, what Chris didn't entirely mention is that I need next to NO practice to figure out what Neil is going. Hell, I can figure it out while listening to any given song for the first time. Very predictable; if he lives his life like he drums, he's a hit man's dream. Maybe I find him too predictable because I studied under a big band jazz drummer for 7 years from 6 to 13 until he passed (rest in peace, Ed... I still miss you). I dunno.

Now Bonham isn't the most technically gifted drummer out there. However, I still can't get the drum line for "Immigrant Song" exactly right. Close, yes. But exactly right... no, and yes, it does bother me a skosh. Well, more than a skosh. And I'm not really a Zeppelin fan... ugh

I also have to agree with Chris somewhat in the soul vs. technique debate. There are times I prefer soul; Tony Thompson is one of my favorite drummers, and he isn't the most technical I've ever heard. Jeez, I went to see The Powerstation live because he was drumming for them. I would have seen Bowie on his "Sellout-O-Rama" tour supporting "Let's Dance" because Tony was his drummer, but I don't recall that hitting Cincinnati. The same holds true for me with Mark Brzezicki, from "Big Country". Kind of goofy music, but a fun drummer.

By the same token though, I don't want to hear a drummer who has no fundamental base in their work. If that's the case, they're all over the place, and it bogs the music down. If a drummer has no soul and all technique, then they sound like a drum machine, like Stephen Morris of "New Order" and "Joy Division"... boring.

Oh well... my two coppas...

Great discussion!
As for the blues, I am a blues guitar player in the Peter Green, Chicago by way of Britian mold. But the reason I picked up guitar is because of Queen and Brian May. My mother was a classical violinist so I was primed for that sound. But something I think everyone should understand is that unlike most of the other Prog bands listed above Queen where only kidding,sort of. A huge sense of humor. "A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races" are of course the titles to two classic Marx Brothers films that specifically poke fun at upper crust elitist culture, get it now? My favorite story is one that was told by Roy Thomas Baker about the sessions for "Bohemian Rhapsody". He said that it took forever to record because everytime Brian,Freddie and John (the choir) sang a "Galileo" they would break down in uncontrollable fits of laughter!
The earthiness of Blues is a recent image that ties in to the folk music craze of the late 50's and early 60,s Freddie Mercury and the boys are the true decendants of Little Richard, T-Bone Walker, Screamin J-Hawkins and other classic performers of the Chitlin Circuit that combined Vaudville (USA) (Tin Pan Alley in England) with Blues and Jazz. Say wasn't Jimi Hendrix a flamboyant progressive musician who spent his early years after the Army playing the Chitlin Circuit?