Ok, so here begins a list of performances (or parts of them) that were not played very well ...
My first contribution is the intro to "Yours Is No Disgrace". Does not groove at all on the studio version. Extremely stiff.
Ok, so here begins a list of performances (or parts of them) that were not played very well ...
My first contribution is the intro to "Yours Is No Disgrace". Does not groove at all on the studio version. Extremely stiff.
John Paul Jones' keyboard solo in All Of My Love. There's one flubbed double note that always stands out for me.
George Harrison's guitar solo for "All You Need Is Love."Originally Posted by spiderfeathers
"Arf." -- Frank Zappa, "Beauty Knows No Pain" (live version)
I would suggest Jeff Beck's attempt at a doubletracked guitar solo on Hi-Ho Silver Lining. He said once that he was trying to double the first take, but he couldn't quite recreate the first solo very well. I say I would suggest it, because I think the result of his inability to play the same solo twice (at least, on that occasion) waso ne of the things that inspired a certain astrophysics major with a home made guitar to create the classic multi-tracked guitar licks that he gave us during the 70's. So I wouldn't change that one at all.
Far worse to me is Page's solo on Hot Dog. The vision was there, but he's just behind the beat, and as sloppy as he's ever sounded on a studio recording. Too bad because I think Hot Dog is a fun little tune, but this solo really drags it down.
As far as Yours is No Disgrace, sounds fine to me.
Bill
Only slightly stretching the OP's question, one of the worst things I've ever heard was the entire second side of Love's Da Capo album, Revelation. Love is one of my 3 favorite bands ever, but Arthur Lee got some bad acid when he thought it would be cool to play almost 20 minutes of BAD free jazz/psych-babble instead of actually spending the time to write & play good music. That is my sole bone to pick with his genius.
I played it a few months ago & sat through it and it was as cringeworthy as ever. Only side 1 from now on.
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"
President Harry S. Truman
^Agreed on that one. The first side of Da Capo is a masterpiece, the second...isn't!
The end of 'Supper's Ready' has a few issues, there were problems with tape speed etc., but Rutherford makes various mistakes on the bass. Subsequent reissues have 'corrected' these. And then there's Banks' clanger on the intro to 'Behind The Lines', a minute or so in.
The Rolling Stones have a few big ones. 'I'm Free' becomes pretty awful about halfway in, as Charlie Watts completely ruins a transition back into the chorus and Mick Jagger then makes lyrical mistakes. 'Time Is On My Side' did actually have two versions; the first one with a solo organ intro is appalling and was actually released as a single! Thankfully the second one (with a longer, guitar intro) recorded at Chess is a massive improvement.
There's that recording (not commercially released, unsurprisingly!) of 'One After 909' from 1963 where Harrison makes a meal of the guitar solo and you can hear Lennon at the end of the take- 'what kind of solo was that?'.
You remind me of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. You can hear Keith activate his Maestro fuzz, just before Mick launches into the first verse. It's a little buzz right in between the last "and I tried" and "I CAN'T GET NO". Also, I think it's the last verse, you hear Keith jump the gun slightly. You hear him play a single note with the fuzz before Mick can sing "I CAN'T GET NO". I never noticed either until a few years ago, I was listening to it on headphones, and hear those two bits, and I thought "Oops!".
On the topic of hearing effects pedals being turned on, on Uriah Heep's Salisbury, you can hear the "chick chick" as Mick Box turns his wah wah pedal before his solo.
There's a fluffed harmonium note on KC's "Islands" (during the trumpet solo at the 3:15 mark). Surprising that Fripp never corrected it.
Agreed! Love's "Revelation" was a highlight of their Live sets back in 1966 at the time they recorded it for Da Capo but it falls flat in the studio (but the rest of the album is brilliant). However, as one of the first "side long" album tracks it did help open the door for "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", "In Held Twas I" and other 17 to 20 min. long songs.
Agreed. But, with Page sloppiness is a given!
Not so much on the studio albums, where I think his performances are generally pretty meticulous. To me, Hot Dog really sticks out in terms of his Zeppelin studio solos.
Bill
The Byrds 'Eight Miles High' -terrible fumbling on the guitar at around 14 seconds in by Roger Mcguinn and then a really bad solo at 2.58 onwards. It sounds like he'd only just learned how to play the instrument and couldn't cope when he tried to play fast.
I've gotten used to it and just accept it as part of the song. The same way I do with the bum note that Chuck Leavell hits during the piano solo in the Allman Brothers song, "Jessica".
Mongrel dog soils actor's feet
Yeah, same here. I wonder if the Zep tribute bands play it that way?
Wow! I always loved the Bruford/Squire rhythm section. I think they swing like crazy with great feel but that's just me!!!
The Prog Corner
You're very right. Page's playing on ITTOD is sloppy all around. Copious amounts of cocaine will do that to you.
Chad
I don't think he sounds that bad on the rest of the album, only the Hot Dog solo really suffers, imo. And some of his work is beautiful, like All My Love and I'm Gonna Crawl. Nothing wrong with these to me. And I think he was on heroin, not cocaine.
Bill
WHAT bum note?! Time coordinates, please, or it didn't happen.
I was gonna say they'd have to, because otherwise the casual fans would you say "You didn't play the song the way it is on the record", but then that me think about how much liberty a tribute band can take with a given song onstage, vis-a-vis replicating the studio version, a well known live version, or do you improvise at all? Maybe that's a topic for another thread.
At 3:07 - sounds to me his finger caught the next key by accident.
Mongrel dog soils actor's feet
What about that bum note from Tom Scholz of Boston on...um...Sorry, I got nothing.
Early versions of Ten Years After’s ‘Working on the Road’ on Cricklewood Green slowed down alarmingly in one spot, apparently the result of a technician leaning on the tape machine during a crucial stage in the production process. This has been rectified (in part) on later versions of the song (it seems from about 2002). Not exactly a musician’s second take, but a production second take.
Cream - world of pain
Ginger Bakers drums
re: Jessica,
OK, I hear what you're talking about. It doesn't sound like a bum note to my ears, but I guess I could hear someone might see it that way.
On the topic of bum notes, somewhere around here, I have a video of Yes from the Big Generator tour. At the time, Tony Kaye's entire keyboard rig onstage consisted of two Yamaha KX76 or KX88 MIDI keyboards, linked to a bunch of MIDI synths and samplers hidden under his riser. I think it's during the big finale of Starship Trooper (and on this concert, they do just the Wurm section), he plays this solo where one of the Yamaha keyboards "forgot" to send MIDI note off information on some of the notes, so they keep sounding, making it sound like he's totally frelled up the solo. Tony must have been thinking, "Why can't I just have five keyboards onstage, like I did on the last tour?!".
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