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duke richardson

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Silver Dagger

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DandelionPowderman
Doesn't "funky" actually mean dirty?

I always thought it meant 'groovy'.

yeah it sure is that, its a stinkier kind of groovy..

How was that Rod Stewart line?

"My body stunk, but I kept my funk"

That was Glyn Johns.

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DandelionPowderman

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duke richardson

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Silver Dagger

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DandelionPowderman
Doesn't "funky" actually mean dirty?

I always thought it meant 'groovy'.

yeah it sure is that, its a stinkier kind of groovy..

How was that Rod Stewart line?

"My body stunk, but I kept my funk"

great line in a great song, DP!

does your band do that one? Georgia sattelites did a fine cover of it, but I imagine its a hard one to get right..

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duke richardson

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DandelionPowderman

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duke richardson

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Silver Dagger

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DandelionPowderman
Doesn't "funky" actually mean dirty?

I always thought it meant 'groovy'.

yeah it sure is that, its a stinkier kind of groovy..

How was that Rod Stewart line?

"My body stunk, but I kept my funk"

great line in a great song, DP!

does your band do that one? Georgia sattelites did a fine cover of it, but I imagine its a hard one to get right..

We definitely should have done it!

Yeah, love the Satellites' take on it as well

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mighty stork

I think Black and Blue sounds so different is because this album was made as they were trying out different guitarists to replace Mick Taylor. It's going to have a different feel because they aren't used to playing with each other yet.

Probably why all the tracks, even the rockers, are so slow, come to think of it.

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alimente

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FP
I read a Nick Kent article about the Stones in the late 70's. In it engineer Andy Johns complains that Keith Richards would have a great track but then go over and over it with the band until all the life left it. He is referring to the GHS and B&B albums I think. I was interested to know if anyone has more details on this and the reasons why? Was Keith a perfectionist in the studio? Did he always work this way? To my ears at least there is a definite change in the swing of the band after Exile on Main Street. The rhythms feel stiffer and colder somehow. If you compare the genius of a riff such as Monkey Man with the leaden bar chords of fro examples Heartbreaker it is quite a contrast. Monkey Man is infinitely funkier! Of course this may simply be a case of one song being more inspired than the other and of course Keith's drug problems did not help. But did the drugs sap Keith confidence in his playing so he was forced to play for hours looking for the perfect take? Were the rest of the band too messed up to get the same feel as before? I just find it interesting that the bands engineer should be so critical of their approach.

Well, band (studio) engineers usually listen more often to developing takes and tracks than even individual band members so it is no wonder that they are able to form their own opion or even be critical.

That said, without this actual listening experience we are in no position to decide wether Andy Johns actually has a point or not. As such, it is just an opinion. Without an actual comparison - "here, listen to this take, and then listen to the finished released track!" it is impossible to play the judge in this case.

It is possible, however, that early takes, sometimes even the first take, sound lifelier than any later takes, but that's no written rule.

A great Producer like Jimmy Miller can see past the sentimentality of a take that he simply enjoyed and instead push the band into developing the song > This is certainly true in the SFTD film. Keith has often said they didn't truly conceptualize a song until it was played on tour... Working out the bugs in the studio is part of the same process. Andy Johns is kind of out of his league with his criticism. Insiders who write books are devils, Sometimes I'll tell you all a story but I'm careful to leave out the negative. I firmly believe artists deserve their fog screen between who they really are and what we believe and want them to be.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-01-15 21:57 by DoomandGloom.

Overcooked? Says who?

Interesting criticism brought by Johns. Now to think of that, BLACK AND BLUE rockers - "Hand of Fate" and "Crazy Mama" - do have that kind of 'tired' or 'lifeless' feel in them, even though I think that partly is a charm in them, and I have always thought that it was intentional (which still can be so; it is Keith's judgement vs. Johns' here). Anyway, I think all the albums from GOATS HEAD SOUP to BLACK AND BLUE, especially in rockers section, partly suffer a kind of similar 'lifelessness', which is resulted in some rather forced sounding efforts. There is none of that in their previous albums, especially in the Big Four. I think especially IT'S ONLY ROCK'N'ROLL album as a whole sounds rather forced, even though the song material is still rather strong, and there, supposedly, is nothing wrong with the band either. The songs in particular I have in my mind are "If You Can't Rock Me" and "Dance Little Sister", both of them being potentially great, but still somehow not coming out so naturally or effortlessly as they should do. Just put EXILE on by comparison, and you get what you mean... Had Richards really exhausted the band (and especially Charlie Watts)? That sounds a rather 'logical' explanation (though there surely are other factors as well).

DoomandGloom above mentioned Jimmy Miller, and his ear pick up the 'right' take. Could it be that those albums do suffer from the lack of a great producer? Someone - a trusted third man - who say to 'no' or 'yes', 'enough' or 'more', when there is a need for that? Of course, Keith's drug problem was getting worse, and those albums, if any, might suffer from that. What worked beautifully - Keith's intuition and 'stubborness' - during the 'Big Four', and especially in EXILE ON MAN STREET, started to show some human weaknesses, and what Johns describes can be one symptom of that.

- Doxa

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LieB
I think DoomandGloom's post makes a lot of sense.

There is always that spectrum going from "first take with a lot of life but also mistakes" to "55th take without mistakes but also without life". Then of course there's seldom a "perfect" or best take. Sometimes you have to work very hard on something, perhaps if you wanna nail a very tight rhythm; at other times you need that spontaneity that comes with the first loose take, which can work great for solos where you just wanna capture a magic moment.

Keith's "stubbornness" in the studio has been mentioned by several people. I think it's the way he works -- he wants the rhythm, the song as a whole, to work, and spends a lot of time to get there. Perhaps it's just a mess in the beginning and it needs a lot of work. In someone else's ears (like Andy Johns') the song might however feel stiff after the 55th take.

On the other hand you have someone like Mick Taylor who is famous for nailing a fantastic solo on the first take (again, Andy Johns said this about the Winter solo). That's the other way to work, to capture that special feel which disperses after the very first takes. This makes perfect sense if you're a virtuoso soloist like Mick T, who don't carry the song structure but rather adds those "magic" things on top and relies on the feel of the moment.

I'm not really saying Keith doesn't look for the feel of the moment, but rather, he may need 50 takes to get there, and it's another kind of feel or another aspect of the song/recording.

Ok so now you know how they constructed the world's greatest intros. Yes the band was probably already playing when they slid into the intro to Brown Sugar, sometimes even what we perceive as basic tracks are likely already edited. Charlies' fill intro to BOB sounds smooth because he was in the midst of the song perhaps. The Glimmers learned these tricks early on.. Engineers studied the people at Sun or Motown who could do pretty much everything you can imagine on protools with just a razor blade and 2 stereo tape machines, quickly!!! The genius of Keith and Mick's song writing is somewhere in the midst of this complete understanding of their medium .. The Stones have pushed the boundaries of song form by making unconventional edits, for example BOB the bridge falls in a odd place using the same chord as previous. There are many instance where sections are inserted from the creative point of view rather than a natural one or conventional one. So now we have an eye on why Jagger feels he needs to telegraph bridges and solos as he does and why sometimes a cue is missed, the records are still a challenge to re-create. Indeed, the greatness of Bill Wyman comes to mind here because he knew and studied the arraignments better than anyone and hammered and telegraphed the entrances to sections allowing the front of the stage to wail.... Darrell of course knows the songs as well but he could never be as irreverent on stage and is hired to fix a mess, not dictate the song.

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DoomandGloom

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LieB
I think DoomandGloom's post makes a lot of sense.

There is always that spectrum going from "first take with a lot of life but also mistakes" to "55th take without mistakes but also without life". Then of course there's seldom a "perfect" or best take. Sometimes you have to work very hard on something, perhaps if you wanna nail a very tight rhythm; at other times you need that spontaneity that comes with the first loose take, which can work great for solos where you just wanna capture a magic moment.

Keith's "stubbornness" in the studio has been mentioned by several people. I think it's the way he works -- he wants the rhythm, the song as a whole, to work, and spends a lot of time to get there. Perhaps it's just a mess in the beginning and it needs a lot of work. In someone else's ears (like Andy Johns') the song might however feel stiff after the 55th take.

On the other hand you have someone like Mick Taylor who is famous for nailing a fantastic solo on the first take (again, Andy Johns said this about the Winter solo). That's the other way to work, to capture that special feel which disperses after the very first takes. This makes perfect sense if you're a virtuoso soloist like Mick T, who don't carry the song structure but rather adds those "magic" things on top and relies on the feel of the moment.

I'm not really saying Keith doesn't look for the feel of the moment, but rather, he may need 50 takes to get there, and it's another kind of feel or another aspect of the song/recording.

Ok so now you know how they constructed the world's greatest intros. Yes the band was probably already playing when they slid into the intro to Brown Sugar, sometimes even what we perceive as basic tracks are likely already edited. Charlies' fill intro to BOB sounds smooth because he was in the midst of the song perhaps. The Glimmers learned these tricks early on.. Engineers studied the people at Sun or Motown who could do pretty much everything you can imagine on protools with just a razor blade and 2 stereo tape machines, quickly!!! The genius of Keith and Mick's song writing is somewhere in the midst of this complete understanding of their medium .. The Stones have pushed the boundaries of song form by making unconventional edits, for example BOB the bridge falls in a odd place using the same chord as previous. There are many instance where sections are inserted from the creative point of view rather than a natural one or conventional one. So now we have an eye on why Jagger feels he needs to telegraph bridges and solos as he does and why sometimes a cue is missed, the records are still a challenge to re-create. Indeed, the greatness of Bill Wyman comes to mind here because he knew and studied the arraignments better than anyone and hammered and telegraphed the entrances to sections allowing the front of the stage to wail.... Darrell of course knows the songs as well but he could never be as irreverent on stage and is hired to fix a mess, not dictate the song.

Which may be why some of the intros are famously tricky to get right from cold on stage - even without interference from Scarves and suchlike entities.