Errors-To: admin at elephant-talk dot com Reply-To: newsletter at elephant-talk dot com Sender: moderator at elephant-talk dot com Precedence: bulk From: moderator at elephant-talk dot com To: newsletter at elephant-talk dot com Subject: Elephant Talk #944 E L E P H A N T T A L K The Internet newsletter for Robert Fripp and King Crimson enthusiasts Number 944 Thursday, 21 February 2002 Today's Topics: Berlin on Bruford/Levin/Watanabe Guitarist = Insult? (Mark Tucker) Bassists tony levine "1989" box set guitarists Favorite bassists addendum 30th anniversary edition question bassists who rock and/or roll Bass Players A rambling post inc. stuff about bassists . . . Re: BEAT (and the rest) Guitar teams Re: Favorite bassists? Mine was born in 1685 ------------------ A D M I N I S T R I V I A --------------------- POSTS: Please send all posts to newsletter at elephant-talk dot com To UNSUBSCRIBE, or to CHANGE ADDRESS: Send a message with a body of HELP to admin at elephant-talk dot com or use the DIY list machine at http://www.elephant-talk.com/list/ To ASK FOR HELP about your ET subscription: Send a message to: help at elephant-talk dot com ET Web: http://www.elephant-talk.com/ Read the ET FAQ before you post a question at http://www.elephant-talk.com/faq.htm Current TOUR DATES info can always be found at http://www.elephant-talk.com/gigs/tourdates.shtml You can read the most recent seven editions of ET at http://www.elephant-talk.com/newsletter.htm THE ET TEAM: Toby Howard (Moderator), Dan Kirkdorffer (Webmaster) Mike Dickson (List Admin), and a cast of thousands. The views expressed herein are those of the individual authors. ET is produced using John Relph's Digest system v3.7b (relph at sgi dot com). ------------------ A I V I R T S I N I M D A --------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 11:50:46 -0800 From: Anil Prasad Subject: Berlin on Bruford/Levin/Watanabe Hi folks, Innerviews just published an interview with bassist Jeff Berlin in which he comments extensively on working with Bill Bruford. He also discusses his time with Kazumi Watanbe, in addition to some cute comments about Tony Levin's approach w/Bill vs. his own. You can read it here: http://www.innerviews.org Thanks ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 23:07:44 +0000 From: "Cameron Devlin" Subject: Guitarist = Insult? (Mark Tucker) >By the way, your exclamation that being called a guitarist is >insulting: >do you really want to stick with that? Indulging in this >reductio ad >absurdem (every player is just a musician) is a bit much. >The sobriquet is >merely an identifier. I didn't say every player is just a musician (I think), I said that the people I listed aren't guitarists, they're musicians. I would say that people like the ones I listed are so gifted musically that just referring to them as a "great guitarist" is an insult to what they do. There are other people that are just guitarists though - the ones who are just technique monsters. In my mind, this includes people like Steve Vai, Joe Satriani etc. - these guys' material is simply "look at me, I can play the guitar" (from what I've heard of it - I could be wrong but albums like Surfing With The Alien are just, for me, boring). So for me, no, Robert Fripp is not a guitarist he just plays the guitar. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 18:12:22 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time) From: "Darin Lemieux" Subject: Bassists My top list of favourite bassists ranks 5 of the best active players in the world. In no order at all: Tony Levin Trey Gunn Les Claypool Victor Wooten Geddy Lee Thanks for your time, Darin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 17:25:05 -0600 From: "t t" Subject: tony levine Is Tony Levine--the electric bassist on Charlie Mariano's 1972 album "Mirror" the same as Tony Levin? Also my favourite bassists--Eberhard Weber Charles Mingus Jaco Pastorius Chris Squire and others for a variety of reasons...mostly uniqueness. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 18:32:22 EST From: Biffyshrew at aol dot com Subject: "1989" box set Jonathon Smith wrote: >Can someone answer a question for me? In the discography in the back of >Sid Smith's book, there is a mention of an anniversary collection consisting >of ITCOTCK, Lark's Tongues In Aspic, Discipline and an "anniversary album." >Can anyone tell me what that consisted of? It was not a King Crimson disc, but an anthology of EG artists, with many Crimso-related tracks. Track list: King Crimson: In The Court Of The Crimson King ELP: Lucky Man T-Rex: Get It On Roxy Music: Virginia Plain Brian Eno: St. Elmo's Fire Roxy Music: Love Is The Drug 801: Miss Shapiro Bryan Ferry: Let's Stick Together U.K.: In The Dead Of Night Roxy Music: Dance Away Robert Fripp: North Star Brian Eno/David Byrne: America Is Waiting King Crimson: Elephant Talk Killing Joke: Love Like Blood Bryan Ferry: Is Your Love Strong Enough Penguin Cafe Orchestra: Perpetuum Mobile Your pal, Biffy the Elephant Shrew "This Night Surrounds Time And Forces It To Surrender" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 01:23:19 -0000 From: "neil mcnaught" Subject: guitarists Tom Verlaine!.... but then probably not fast or wiggly enough for most of you. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 18:28:57 -0800 From: "Brian Pearson" Subject: Favorite bassists addendum How could I EVER have neglected to mention the great BOOTSY COLLINS? His work with James Brown & various P-funk projects virtually defined the FUNK bass style. His slappin', snappin', poppin' right hand technique & angular syncopations have influenced thousands of other bassists. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 19:58:37 -0800 From: "Ron the ProgNaut" Subject: 30th anniversary edition question I have all the 30th Anni editions, but SaBB, Red & Discipline in the GEM case format, anyone know where I can get these? I've been lucky to find most of them here locally (Santa Monica, CA). In case anyone might want to sway me towards the "LP" formats, I just prefer the hard plastic case to protect the paper inserts ;) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 05:14:29 +0000 From: "Peter Shindler" Subject: bassists who rock and/or roll Hey gang, I stayed away from the "best guitarists" thread, but I couldn't resist piping in with another long waste of bandwith regarding some cool bass players. Some of these guys are superhuman chops machines; others are just dudes with a great sense of groove. Here goes, in no particular order: Tony Levin (duh) Jah Wobble Bill Laswell Ron Carter (the rock-solid foundation of Miles Davis's second quintet) Paul Chambers (Miles and Coltrane's go-to man) Kai Eckhardt (find John McLaughlin's "Live at the Royal Festival Hall" disc and check this guy out!!!) Bagithi Kumalo (the supergod on Paul Simon's "Graceland" album; yeah, he's the mother who played the solo on "You Can Call Me Al") Larry Graham (Sly's main man) Sting (the perfect musician? maybe not, but the Police sure rocked) Robert Black (Bang on a Can - the man can PLAY) Robbie Shakespeare (with every reggae artist ever) Aston "Family Man" Barrett (w/ Bob Marley and various other Rastamen) Mike Mills (REM - no chops at all, but he always does right by the song) Adam Clayton (U2 - ditto) Tina Weymouth (Talking Heads - stark raving minimalism that you can dance to) I must also throw Trey Gunn in here too... I like what he's doing, and I've admired his low-end stuff ever since the Sylvian/Fripp days. If you have access to the first release of "Damage," go listen to "Darshan" again. His performance on that one alone puts him in my hall of fame. I should also like to include Kiss's Gene Simmons, not really as a bass player, but more like a Rock & Roll Icon. His visage belongs on Mount Rushmore (with the makeup, of course). Peter "There's no bad music, only bad musicians." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 06:33:12 EST From: GORTAY at aol dot com Subject: Bass Players The "who is the best bass player" debate is so sad and pathetic I just have to join in! Of the KC players I think my favourite has to be John Wetton. There aren't many people who could hold their own in a power trio with Fripp and Bruford and he has a lot of great work in other bands too. Extra points for being from my home town - points off for being in the truly dreadful Asia. Of non KC players there are many who are outstandin in context as part of a standard rhythm section but lose the plot when out on their own. Chris Squire and Bill Wyman spring to mind. Of the upfront stand alone players two of my favourites are Jah Wobble and Bill Laswell whom I saw together last year in the group 'Solaris'. Stunning. Bill Laswell particularly has done a great deal to put the bass at the centre of a body of interesting and diverse work. But the best bass player I ever saw was a guy from a jazz trio called Back Door. I think his name was Colin Hodgkinson. There was no guitarist in the band so, somehow, he played the bass parts and the lead guitar parts, chords included, all at the same time on his bass. You could hear the album and just think it was overdubbed but see him live and you realise it was real. Gordon Taylor. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 12:43:03 -0000 From: "Nicholas WHITTAKER" Subject: A rambling post inc. stuff about bassists . . . ET! So bassists huh? John Wetton creates an awesome sound on his KC albums - so funky & amplified. Holger Czukay - rubbery Geddy Lee Chris Squire - 1 word, exemplary. John Paul Jones. Somebody mailed something a while ago about RF's political convictions - i forgot 2 save it like i meant 2 so i would b grateful if any1 could mail it 2 me. Er, got 2 go 2 a lecture, bye! |\| / ( |( \^/ |-| / + + @ |( # r ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 08:49:44 -0500 From: Kevin Holm-Hudson Subject: Re: BEAT (and the rest) One way of listening to the 80s albums, for me, is to think of them as highlighting particular players (though of course they all shine on all of them--don't get me wrong). I think of "Beat" as being the "T Lev album"--of the three albums, I think it has some of his most stellar bass and stick work, including places where the stick sounds more like one of the guitars ("Sartori in Tangier"). "TOAPP" is, of course, the "Belew album"--not only for the first side, but even songs like "Dig Me" sound like they wouldn't be out of place on a Belew solo album. "Discipline" is harder for me to fit into this pattern, but one can focus on the energy of Bruford's playing or on the yin/yang interplay of Fripp's discipline and Belew's inspired chaos (on "Elephant Talk" or "Thela Hun Ginjeet"--there's also the Belew fronted "Indiscipline" and the Fripp-dominated "Discipline"). IMHO, "Discipline" is the only one of the three where they really sounded like a *band*--the other two start to sound more like various solo projects to which the others contributed (rather like the Beatles White Album in that respect). Kevin Holm-Hudson -- Kevin Holm-Hudson Assistant Professor of Music Theory University of Kentucky 105 Fine Arts Building Lexington, KY 40506-0022 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 10:04:27 -0500 (EST) From: Art Cohen Subject: Guitar teams Two guitar teams that are worth mentioning: Richard Thompson & Simon Nicol from the original Fairport Convention. Tom Verlaine & Richard Lloyd from Television. --Art ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 15:41:13 -0500 From: "Stick Man" Subject: Re: Favorite bassists? Mine was born in 1685 Regarding bassists - I are one, and I can think of lots of heroes. However, I thought we should pay tribute to my favorite bass writer and that is JS Bach. His lines are elegant, indestructible, and educational. The pieces he has written for cello sound great and make for good agility exercise on the bass, even if they are transposed. Plus, the Stick is tuned sort of like an upside-down cello and if I keep eating my Wheaties I might be able to rip out some lines on that too. Hey, it just occurred to me that playing cello lines on an instrument with inverse tuning is kind of like Jimi playing the strat upside-down because he was left handed. Uh oh... a 6 degrees of separation thing with Bach and Hendrix is happening in my head. I am sure the Star Spangled Banner fits into this somehow... Ah... Bach. Stickman -- http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup Win a ski trip! http://www.nowcode.com/register.asp?affiliate=1net2phone3a ------------------------------ End of Elephant Talk Digest #944 ********************************