The Last Bass Outpost
Main Forums => The Outpost Cafe => Topic started by: Basvarken on August 25, 2023, 08:10:04 AM
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Just saw Neil Murray post this on facebook:
Sadly I have to pass on the dreadful news that my friend and colleague since 1974, Bernie Marsden, has passed away. So many great times with him, musically and personally. A great loss. RIP Bernie.
Rest In Peace Bernie Marsden.
I actually prefer his singing over what Coverdale has been doing to (t)his song for the last 20 years or so...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Pst1uwoJg
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So sad. Best Whitesnake guitarist ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyRjIoYjIUg
49 years ago, his first TV appearance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGghvgGZeSs
So fluid and melodic ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHZ55vMvfg8
We wish you well, Bernie, what a player, singer and writer you were.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO4UrYM8ddg
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Best Whitesnake guitarist ever.
Agreed!
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That's sad. Not only a great guitarist, he seemed like really nice guy as well.
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RIP
From Jack's final studio album
https://youtu.be/Qt1NkEa30jk
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RIP Bernie Marsden. Wow, he sounded great on that Jack Bruce album. I'm going to have to go back and listen to that album again. He played guitar on tracks 9 and 10 I think.
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Same fate as Jeff Beck: bacterial meningitis. And I thought that scourge hat been all but wiped out by antibiotics.
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I had the good fortune to see him play many times and meet him a few times too... rip, Bernie... :sad:
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Just saw Neil Murray post this on facebook:
Rest In Peace Bernie Marsden.
I actually prefer his singing over what Coverdale has been doing to (t)his song for the last 20 years or so...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Pst1uwoJg
That's got to be the best version of that song that I've ever heard. RIP Bernie.
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Shouldn't this be the best version, Tom, the original 1982 recording?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSlSaGcc0QM
The vid is deceiving:
- you see Cozy Powell drumming, but you hear Ian Paice,
- you see Mel Galley playing the left hand lead guitar, but you hear Bernie Marsden, who wrote the song with DC,
- you see Colin Hodgkinson playing bass with a pick, but you hear Neil Murray playing with his fingers.
In other words: The only people you see in the vid that actually recorded the song in its original form are DC on vox, Micky Moody (with hat) on right hand lead guitar and Jon Lord (ex-Led Zeppelin) on Hammond.
The reason for the whole charade was that by late 1982 when the vid was filmed, DC had fired half the band, namely
- Bernie Marsden (for being too jokey on stage, not being hungry enough for the US market and for gaining too much weight),
- Neil Murray (for allegedly not being the right bassist to pair with Cozy Powell, a total misjudgment by DC given that Neil had played with Cozy's solo band before and that it was Colin Hodgkinson who couldn't adapt his style to Cozy's "Barbarians at the gate"-pummeling of the drum kit) &
- Ian Paice (for not being hungry enough to conquer the US market from the ground up - Little Ian said he had no intention of repeating for WS the grueling US touring schedule DP had committed to ten years before to break through),
yet had not (re)recorded anything with the new line-up yet - instead the new line-up was presented with the then not yet released last album recording of the disbanded old line-up.
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Still there is a lot to be said in favor of Bernie singing that song. His singing sounds friendlier.
Not as affected as Coverdale.
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Make no mistake, I love Bernie's voice, but it's a quintessential British pop voice, he wouldn't have found it hard getting a job with 10cc, Pilot, Badfinger or The Hollies (I dig all four). It's just not a rock voice, but then it doesn't have to be. On Lovehunter, an album which overall I found disappointing after the in my ears stronger Trouble, I thought (and still think) Bernie's Outlaw better than any track sung by DC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8CiNgiqCoI
The chorus is sublime and only Bernie could sing it like that (though you hear DC's backing vocals on the verses).
Jon Lord's synth solo is a cracker too. I love synth solos, they sounds so nicely fluid.
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I certainly have no argument with the album cover art. That's as good as or better than Frank Frazetta's artwork.
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I thought the art was hi-gloss airbrush porn, I didn't really mind it, but it did Whitesnake no favors at the time (neither commercially nor with critics, it was even controversial within the band with everyone except DC rolling their eyes :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:) and was kinda dumb and lurid, not exactly light-handed. And the hand of the woman resting on the snake always looked weird-wrinkly to me. Is she aging faster because she has reptilian sex?
Zoologically, the snake makes no sense at all, there are no snakes with a frilled lizard head like that. Yes, things like that bug me, if you depict cross-species sex, details count! :mrgreen:
I'm no prude, but if you're gonna be sexist do it with some style. The implied luminous dickhead underneath the woman-skeleton's chin on ELP's Brain Salad Surgery was ok in my book.
(https://rockers.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Emerson-Lake-Palmer-Brain-Salad-Surgery-LP-Vinyl-1.jpg)
Courtesy of the guy who also did the Alien monster, H. R. Giger, who more often than not sprinkled sexual depictions in his SciFi "biomechanical" art:
(https://static-cdn.arte.tv/cdnp-articles/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_medium/public/2018-07/su_giger_220_erotomechanics_vii_1.zustand_scan_neu_1608091445_id_1071000.jpg?itok=968-2eaU)
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General Public Warning: Sex with snakes is dangerous to your health and should not be performed unattended by experienced and trained personnel!
https://www.9news.com.au/national/roundworm-parasite-found-in-brain-of-australian-woman/8c588f41-6a29-44ab-89a8-dbfa282a61e8#:~:text=The%20Ophidascaris%20robertsi%20roundworm%20was,surgery%2C%20still%20alive%20and%20wriggling.&text=Doctors%20suspected%20larvae%2C%20or%20juveniles,in%20the%20carpet%20python%20snake.
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When I was about 10 I started reading books by Edgar Rice Burroughs and continued at least into my teens. Frank Frazetta's art was often found in those books. The album cover art does remind me of what he did, although I don't remember him drawing any snakes. And I don't like snakes myself and agree that Whitesnake album cover could do without that. Overall, though, this art is similar to Frazetta's. Frazetta, to my knowledge, was never associated with porn but mostly just with fantasy/sci-fi. He is called the godfather of fantasy art and highly renowned. However, in my opinion, the artist who drew the Whitenake cover was also really good. If he had known more about this genre, I suppose, however, he would have left out the snake. It's obviously too late now. I read somewhere he never associated himself with a project like that again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_fOF8uKtpc
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I like Frazetta's art, it's much darker than the Whitesnake cover painting, though Frazetta played with sexist tropes (and adolescent fantasies) too. I thought those Molly Hatchet covers ionic.
If Frazetta is either violent or erotic (or often both) fantasy art, then the Lovehunter cover is glorified glam porn.
I know the difference when I see it. :mrgreen:
Chris Achilléos' (he did the Whitesnake cover) paintings tend to be a lot more banal, overt and kitschy, less mythological:
(https://media.mutualart.com/Images/2023_03/28/13/131653142/chris-achilleos--1947-2021--VWP8T-570.Jpeg)
(https://i0.wp.com/downthetubes.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/50506078801_0c34d91d1a_o.jpg?resize=1415%2C2048&ssl=1)
I'm sure that Whitesnake wouldn't have caught the flak they did with a Frazetta cover like this, there IS a difference.
(https://dyn1.heritagestatic.com/lf?set=path%5B1%2F4%2F1%2F5%2F2%2F14152369%5D%2Csizedata%5B850x600%5D&call=url%5Bfile%3Aproduct.chain%5D)
BZW Frazetta did snakes all the time, they're cool animals and motifs!
(https://uploads7.wikiart.org/00307/images/frank-frazetta/serpent.jpg!Large.jpg)
(https://arthive.net/res/media/img/oy1000/work/3c6/29976@2x.webp)
(https://i.redd.it/nhwtl1dlihx21.jpg)
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I never noticed any snakes in the Frazetta art that I saw. Obviously, it was there. Mostly what i saw was found in the Edgar Rice Burroughs books. So, if it was in that, it escaped my attention. But I never have liked snakes and I'm not very interested in seeing snakes in art, either. I disagree with Justice Potter Stewart, though, when he said he knew porn when he saw it. i think something like that can vary too much from one person to another to really define porn in that manner. Certainly, I don't think the Whitesnake album cover is pornographic. To me it fits in with what they were doing. I agree with the comments Coverdale made about the matter.
Chris Achilleos may not have made the polished art that Frank Frazetta came out with, but it seems he did what was needed at the time. I never even saw that album cover when it came out. Was it banned in the U.S.? I wouldn't be surprised. But at that time I had a job that required me to travel so much it would have been easy to miss something like that. I've got the CD ordered now, though.
After having said these things about sci-f/fantasy art, it is no surprise that I'll also admit "Heavy Metal" is one of my favorite movies even to this day. I had no idea Chris Achilleos drew that poster for the movie. This makes me like him even more.
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I find it difficult to view a naked woman straddled on a snake and sliding with her pussy down the ridge of its back while in obvious orgasmic bliss as high art, but that's just me. OTOH, as long as no animals were hurt in the process I'm not one to scale public outrage ...
The only good album covers Whitesnake ever had were the ones of their early two live albums (1x a rather green and not white metallic snake + 1x Bernie Marsden and his SG Doubleneck plus assorted co-musicians) and perhaps Come An' Get It, which was, uhum, (not quite) tongue in (snake) cheek, must have been one of those exceedingly rare Green Clitobras.
(https://i.discogs.com/N0gmUrhPFvevPlgAxRUqXJbmbnnwXi_O-NqVc8S3OQs/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTMzMTI1/MzQtMTQzNTY2NjE0/My02MzAyLmpwZWc.jpeg)
(https://i.discogs.com/BYRcS3_9UMxfGq_gf5F6KedWUc0PBfXb5kXariHoK7o/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:597/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTYwMjA4/NzItMTQxNzUwMzMz/Ni03MjIyLmpwZWc.jpeg)
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/610xEFEiZcS._AC_SL1000_.jpg)
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I don't pay much attention to art at all and never pretend to know much about it (which I don't.) In fact, the same can be said for my attitude toward science fiction. I lean toward the kitschy sci-fi B movies (on purpose.) "Heavy Metal" might also fall into that category. Also, I might add, it's the only animated movie that I can think of that I've ever cared much about. There is something, however, to be said for the sci-fi fans who go in the opposite direction. The ones who get all intellectual about it and stuff. I flirted with that approach when I was much younger. At some point, I let myself gravitate toward the lowest common denominator content.
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Heavy Metal, the soundtrack, stood out for me for one track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdE909-NqFA
That is BÖC in all their dark SciFi glory with Eric Bloom's creepily charismatic and seductive voice plus no cowbell in sight ...
Incidentally, Buck Dharma is much like Bernie Marsden: extremely fluid and melodious.
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Blue Oyster Cult does stand out on that soundtrack. Unfortunately, a few others aren't quite as good, with "Working in the Coal Mine" by Devo possibly being the weakest track for me. It's hard to say. Some of the songs weren't exactly stellar.
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The movie was underwhelming. Lots of good ideas, but underdeveloped.
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The movie was underwhelming. Lots of good ideas, but underdeveloped.
I read something about that recently. The movie critic said by this time someone should have been able to make a movie in that genre, but in a more polished and meaningful way. The potential was never developed and he was puzzled why nothing has happened yet. In the meantime, I'll probably watch Heavy Metal, realizing that's probably the only movie I'll ever get that's like that--imperfect though it is. I may have more tolerance for flawed movies than about anything else. Unfortunately, it's way harder for me to do that with music. That's why my musical taste is so limited. Believe me when I say that's not a good thing.
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Heavy Metal, the soundtrack, stood out for me for one track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdE909-NqFA
That is BÖC in all their dark SciFi glory with Eric Bloom's creepily charismatic and seductive voice plus no cowbell in sight ...
Incidentally, Buck Dharma is much like Bernie Marsden: extremely fluid and melodious.
I think there were a number of great songs on that soundtrack. Heavy Metal from Sammy Hagar, Reach Out from Cheap Trick, Mob Rules from Black Sabbath, Blue Lamp from Stevie Nicks....
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I would include the two songs by Don Felder, including this one which probably doesn't get as much attention as Heavy Metal (Takin' A Ride.)
This song (All of You) is a song about a fanatical love a man has for his lover.) Not surprising from the artist who wrote a song which is about as intense as it gets (Hotel California.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysh4kcrTM5Q
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMtVQqg_tJI
From 2013.
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They both lived happily ever after with the royalties from that (indeed lovely, I never grow tired of it) song (written in 1982/83, i.e. forty years ago). Bernie just checked out a little early, but his wife and daughters need not worry. I don't think there is another ex-Whitesnake member (except DC of course) drawing a similar pension from his tenure with the fanged ones.
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I wasn't even aware of the connection between Bernie Marsden and George Harrison. They had to have been good friends, though. Because when George made friends with someone, he took it seriously.
https://www.guitarworld.com/features/bernie-marsden-on-the-genius-of-george-harrison
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Who is that, Rob? I recognize the older drummer and the bassist, but the lead guitarist looks like Barry Hay, but it obviously isn't ...