Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
Amazingly on many live albums from their 76 tour (Germany mostly), Close Your Eyes was the only Rising track present (Stargazer being the second-most present). Neither Run With the Wolf and Tarot Woman ever made it (as Light In The Black), and Starstruck only in a medley. If only Kill The King hazd been on Rising, we'd have a near-perfect album (ALITB is still only OK).
And yes, On Stage is sometimes criminally short on time playing.
I forced myself to review a couple of BN albums (borrowed from my library sytem) for PA, but it was mostly pathetic.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
Blackmore rules, period. Even the non Dio albums have great material and I enjoy them in a different way.
There are a few songs from the JLT era that are a guilty pleasure to me : "Stone Cold", "Street Of Dreams" or "Desperate Heart". Nice Poppy songs with the Blackmore touch. The rockers from that era sound quite generic to my ears ("Power", "Rock Fever"...). I felt the magic of the Dio era was gone, as was most of Blackmore's aura of edginess (is that a word ?) and mystery, but I liked the melodic playing that the man in black refined in the 80s.
I never could stand listening to Blackmore's Night more than a few seconds, so no guilty pleasure there.
There's some great songs from the post Dio albums, Stone Cold for one is excellent although does sound rather like Foreigner but that's not a bad thing. On the instrumental front Difficult To Cure was fun and also Maybe Next Time.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
Husker Du were Gods.
What can this strange device be? When I touch it, it brings forth a sound (2112)
Don't really have a problem with any Post-Dio Rainbow up to Slaves And Masters or Planet P.
I had the opportunity to see all three Rainbow singers back in the day. Gotta admit, I liked them all at the time. Dio version was the best IMO
The funny thing is that almost all of Ritchie's studio efforts up until the '90s or so were done on Vox amps, not Marshalls. The Marshall stacks were just for touring--initially because they were so loud (probably weren't being miked until Deep Purple graduated to arena shows). He used the 200-watt Marshall Majors for touring back then, which is partially why his live tones had that amazing 'clean bite' to them that you won't get out of a regular Marshall Plexi. Almost more like a Fender tone.
[QUOTE=profusion;922183]Not surprising. Townshend regularly used a Fender Bandmaster (and a Gretsch Chet Atkins Hollowbody!) in the studio, while Frampton favored an Ampeg combo. Page frequently used a Supro amp.The funny thing is that almost all of Ritchie's studio efforts up until the '90s or so were done on Vox amps, not Marshalls.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
Everything you say is true. But...
In theory, a lot of heavy metal bands actually do record with full stacks. I remember seeing an article on Slayer in Guitar Player, and they showed the rigs that King and Hanneman were using. Or at least what they said they were using. I forget what make and model they were using, but they each had big 2 4x12 stacks like they'd use onstage, with the mics pressed up right up against the speaker cabs.
I also remember Vinnie Vincent claiming he used Laney stacks when he recorded the first Vinnie Vincent Invasion album. And so on.
Of course, I'd never call any of those guys to be paragons of "great guitar tone". I think those guys were trying to prove they were oh so macho or whatever. You can just imagine producers and engineers warning them, "Uh, lads, it doesn't really work that way!", and the response being, "No! I need something manly!" And that's why their records suck (well, that plus the lack of songwriting, tasteful arrangements, etc).
I know you sometimes hear people talk about how they were looking for acoustically "live" rooms (i.e. something with a lot of natural reverb) to record in. That's why Deep Purple were looking to record at the Montreux Casino, because they felt all the recording studios in England were too "dead", I think Ian Paice said "Good for folk music, not so much for rock n roll".
But I've also heard it said you get the best guitar tone by recording in a "dead" room, like the ones that Paicey didn't think were very good for rock n roll. I remember reading an article on Billy Zoom, the guitarist from the band X. He said someone told him that he was at a Van Halen session, and they put Eddie's amp in the deadest corner of the room, and put a single SM-57 on it. He said he tried doing it that, and voila! It worked perfectly, adding that he always struggled to get a tone he liked when doing things the other way around.
Modern hard rock & metal guitars are almost entirely close-miked. Traditionally with a single SM57 just off the center of the speaker and right up against the front grill, but now often paired with a Royer R121 (the first ribbon mic that can withstand loud guitars).
You could record a full stack, but typically you'd separate the two cabinets and mic them separately. This can be useful for blending different mics or mic positions. Room mics on distorted guitars mostly add mud, in my opinion. Jimmy Page got away with it, but he didn't really use that much distortion.
No Stranger In Us All? Not even a honorable mention or something?
Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000
A while back I dug out Difficult To Cure again. I'd forgotten how ropey some of it was, especially 'Magic'. Russ Ballard's 'I Surrender' is at least a well written song in this style, IMHO.
Blackmore should have talked Joan Baez into filling Dio's shoes in Rainbow. She had the pipes powerful enough to fill the void and would have made the guitarist's transition to Blackmore's Night smoother.
It's not a bad one for sure. Doogie works quite well for my ears but the drums are lacking that open hi-hat and that bugs me. They sound too sterile for me. It's hard rock, after all, why lose some of that sonic quality by stifling the sounds that can be used.
Wonder if that was O'Reilly's choice or Blackmore's.
Really like Ariel. Ritchie channels that gothic vibe well when he chooses to.
Was a cool show. Temple of the King startled me. I wasn't expecting anything other than maybe Man on the Silver Mountain from the first album. I think I saw them with Chuck Burgi on drums but that was a long time ago and I didn't know that Ritchie would go through three drummers on the tour.
Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000
Bookmarks