The Last Bass Outpost
Main Forums => The Outpost Cafe => Topic started by: westen44 on March 04, 2022, 08:12:46 AM
-
https://www.loudersound.com/features/cream-albums-the-essential-guide
-
With only three and a half studio albums under their belt, ranking them doesn't make much sense (it's like ranking Hendrix' first three albums), they're not Neil Young! :mrgreen: All of them were a blueprint for rock music that came after. I have that comprehensive 4-CD set, a Best of and the RAH recording from the reunion, given their long time apart and their collective age, that was surprisingly good.
-
I was also really surprised at how the music from the reunion turned out so well. The drummer up the street disagreed. He must have been expecting the sound of Cream from the 60s. I guess that's natural to feel that way, but a person needs to be realistic, IMO.
-
I still listen to Disraeli Gears regularly.
-
The two (or three) worst things about Cream are;
- How nine out of 10 people reply when you say: "I really like Cream!":
"Yes, Freddie Mercury was great."
- How everybody says they were "inspired" by Ginger's and Jack's style, yet 90% of all rock music since the 80ies shows zilch of their influence. While Clapton - the most conventional player in Cream - has spawned zillion devotees (he's good, I'm not knocking him). I hear Jack Bruce in Flea's approach to the instrument. Yes, he's famous, but how many bassists play with anything approaching the same zest & quest as Flea?
-
The two (or three) worst things about Cream are;
- How nine out of 10 people reply when you say: "I really like Cream!":
"Yes, Freddie Mercury was great."
- How everybody says they were "inspired" by Ginger's and Jack's style, yet 90% of all rock music since the 80ies shows zilch of their influence. While Clapton - the most conventional player in Cream - has spawned zillion devotees (he's good, I'm not knocking him). I hear Jack Bruce in Flea's approach to the instrument. Yes, he's famous, but how many bassists play with anything approaching the same zest & quest as flea?
You can't really use influences as a predictor of musical style. Sometimes people lose their way. Alex and Geddy were heavily into Cream. EVH adored Clapton. Steve Howe was a Buddy Holly nut. Kind of difficult to pick up those influences listening to 2112, Eruption or Close To The Edge.
-
Geddy plays more angular than Jack, but in that angularity he's organic - an organic little square! :mrgreen: I hear some Jack in him, he's not scared to go places. I find very little warmth in Lifeson's guitar playing though, his style I always found hardest to connect to in the Rush instrumental triangle. Same thing with Howe, excellent player, but no warmth.
-
Sometimes influences are a lot more subtle than overt. Don't sell Jack's influence short.
-
I wish it were greater! But neither his penchant for bending on short scales/playing fretless on long scale basses to play between keys nor his avoidance of root notes (or lower notes in general) has left much of a mark in commercial pop music. Probably because it is deemed uncommercial and a hassle to record right and in one go.
I guess you could say that his preference for a more distorted bass (though not always in his career) has seen a general resurgence since Grunge came along.
In the 70ies, there were several bands whose bassists were unabashedly Jack Bruce-influenced: Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath, Mel Schacher of Grand Funk, Jim Lea of Slade, Felix Pappalardi of Mountain, Dennis Dunaway in the original Alice Cooper Group ... and I would count in Geddy Lee of Rush and John-Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin too. In all of'em, you could really hear his handwriting. Name me five bands of the same scale active today where you hear Jack Bruce'isms as much? Flea is the only guy I can really come up with though happily he himself has left his mark on a younger generation of bassists.
There was quite a bit of Jack Bruce in Cliff Burton too come to think of it. But it is my pet theory that Metallica needed Jason Newsted's more conventional style to mount the peaks of success. Steve Harris of Iron Maiden is another one - he shares Jack Bruce's frenzy.
-
"Name me five bands of the same scale active today where you hear Jack Bruce'isms as much?"
Are you kidding? I can't even name five bands any more. ;D I just listen to old stuff.
-
Truth of the matter is that Jack's style is anathema to what bands like U2, Coldplay, Muse or Nickelback require. They need a root note based, steady-throb-with-little-dynamics approach forever enslaved to the drums. A bass that could just as well be played by a keyboard (and often sounds like it too). Try that with a Cream live recording! :mrgreen:
-
"Name me five bands of the same scale active today where you hear Jack Bruce'isms as much?"
Are you kidding? I can't even name five bands any more. ;D I just listen to old stuff.
Squire Dave has the floor!
Oh yea, oh yea, oh yea.....the gentleman's motion is seconded.
-
"Name me five bands of the same scale active today where you hear Jack Bruce'isms as much?"
Are you kidding? I can't even name five bands any more. ;D I just listen to old stuff.
+1, I watch music awards nowadays sporting a blank stare……… Rarely recognize more than one group.
-
Bunch of old men you are! :mrgreen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-8xMWA6_ZE
-
Truth of the matter is that Jack's style is anathema to what bands like U2, Coldplay, Muse or Nickelback require. They need a root note based, steady-throb-with-little-dynamics approach forever enslaved to the drums. A bass that could just as well be played by a keyboard (and often sounds like it too). Try that with a Cream live recording! :mrgreen:
I realize you don't like Muse. But, seriously, U2, Coldplay and Nickelback aren't even close to being in the same league as Muse. This may be the only time I give you advice, but check out the bass lines to the "Absolution" album. The whole album is light years away from anything U2, Coldplay or Nickelback have ever attempted. It's true the last few albums by Muse have sucked. But some of the old ones are pretty good. It also might be kept in mind that, even though you might not be able to hear it in their music, Muse was inspired by Jimi Hendrix. I know this, of course, by what band members have said in interviews. How relevant that is, I'm not sure. But you would have to wonder if Coldplay, U2 and Nickelback have even heard of Hendrix. The music of all three bands is mind-numbing. As for Cream, that was very possibly the greatest band of all time. Of course it will be hard to find anything to match what they did. And as important as Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton were, Jack Bruce was the driving force.
Addendum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC09S6JYY7o
Although this is about an 18 minute video, there is no need to go much beyond the 8 minute mark. By that time a clear decline in Muse's career, unfortunately, had begun. In other words, things begin to fall apart roughly by 2009.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMmMqfQZkxA
Ok, ok, ok, naming and shaming Muse was unfair, they don't belong with the others!
Actually, I don't even think that Cream were the be-and-end-all of rock music, they did have a tendency to drag on a little bit, especially live, even back then! But that doesn't diminish their influence and how far they took improvisation in rock.
-
The Allman Brothers also had a tendency to drag on pretty often, but they were still great.
-
True, but with two guitars, two drummers and a keyboarder, there was a bit more going on as regards musical colors. It was also a more gentle breeze improvisation, Cream was more intense in a sometimes exhausting way.
Sting once said something very perceptive about the demise of The Police: He said it that it became like painting from a color palette with always only three colors, no matter what you did. And that he wanted the availability of more colors to flesh out the songs he was hearing in his head. In Police, he had a greatly versatile guitarist and a totally idiosyncratic, gifted drummer, but it was still always the same colors.
Much as I like the charm and freedom of trio music, I can relate to that. Cream, Jimi Hendrix Experience, early Grand Funk Railroad (sans extra keyboards), Taste/early and late Rory Gallagher (ditto), Trapeze, Robin Trower Band, ZZ Top, Rush, even King Crimson in the RED era or UK (in Jobson/Wetton/Bozzio line-up) - none of them sounded really varied in musical colors. Not in a way a band like, say, The Beatles (with George Martin as the fifth Beatle) or Queen did.
Clapton moving on from Cream had a lot to do with that - it wasn't just having heard The Band's songwriting, but also the infinite musical colors The Band could produce (largely thanks to Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson). He never returned to a three-piece-line-up and is tellingly one of the few guitar gods that would nearly always want a second guitarist with him. I believe to him "trio rock" had become a somewhat adolescent concept - discuss! :mrgreen:
Police became actually quite a bit of an "orchestra" in the studio with the later albums - Zenyatta Mondatta was really their last sparse album (though not as sparse as the first two) -, but not sparse enough for Sting's ambitions obviously.
I've played in trios myself. And because I'm a busy and melodic/harmonic bassist with a penchant for doing things on bass most people don't do, I believe I was rather good at it, at least that is what people told me who played with me. But for all the intensity and fun of it, I sometimes missed additional musical colors too.
These days, I find any band line up I play in that doesn't also feature a keyboarder (who plays a lot and not just backing!) amputated. :mrgreen: I find the sonics of the early 70ies Elton John Band more attractive than those of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, now stone free me! There must be a closet pianist/organist lurking in me. 8)
-
I was very drawn to trio rock as a teenager. So calling it adolescent rock might be a good description. It started with the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream. Then Grand Funk Railroad and ZZ Top appeared on the scene. There were others, such as Muse, but that was much later.
In my first real band, though, I was the one who pushed hard to get a keyboardist. Except for a brief time when we had a lead singer for a year, I had to do all the vocals, too. It wasn't until my mid-50s that I got the opportunity to be in a three-piece band. This time, thank God, I didn't have to do all the singing. Playing bass with a drummer and guitarist who sang was probably the most fun I've ever had in my entire life. I found that playing in three-piece bands was just as much or even more fun than listening to them. Still, they're relatively rare and I have to admit there are many valid arguments against them. All I can do, however, is speak for myself on the matter.
-
I played in a three-piece-band for a while. It was musically gratifying, I could do what I wanted (and did!, the - very good and versatile - guitarist/vocalist loved anything I did, even harmony bass overdubs in the studio 8) ) plus all outside-musicians really dug us.
Non-musicians were more lukewarm though. I think they were a little overwhelmed at times, we always went down well, but people watched and listened to us in silence rather than groove about and have a good time.
***I played a Kubicki Factor (long scale) with a really upfront sound over a bi-amped "solid state for lows/tubes for the rest"-rig with a 2x700 Watts stereo slave over 1x18", 1x15" und 4x10" Peavey und Hartke alu cone speakers. I would describe my sound at the time as "clearly (some might say: unrelentingly) audible". :mrgreen:
-
I played in a three-piece-band for a while. It was musically gratifying, I could do what I wanted (and did!, the - very good and versatile - guitarist/vocalist loved anything I did, even harmony bass overdubs in the studio 8) ) plus all outside-musicians really dug us.
Non-musicians were more lukewarm though. I think they were a little overwhelmed at times, we always went down well, but people watched and listened to us in silence rather than groove about and have a good time.
***I played a Kubicki Factor (long scale) with a really upfront sound over a bi-amped "solid state for lows/tubes for the rest"-rig with a 2x700 Watts stereo slave over 1x18", 1x15" und 4x10" Peavey und Hartke alu cone speakers. I would describe my sound at the time as "clearly (some might say: unrelentingly) audible". :mrgreen:
That reminded me. The audience reaction to us was also fairly lukewarm. Other bands I had been in usually got a lot better reception than that. The guitarist had a friend who sometimes went along with us on our gigs. She was also a musician. I would have liked to know her better, but she made it clear she wasn't interested. Nevertheless, she gave me probably the biggest compliment I have ever received about my playing. That probably was a peak, though. I'm not sure I could match now what I did then. Now when it comes to both singing and playing I pretty much suck.
-
Successful "power" trios generally require that there be some absolutely staggering talent on board. The instrumentalists are usually doing double or triple duty with vocals, keyboards or whatever. They also have to act as emcees in the absence of a separate frontperson. That kind of scope is not seen much anymore.
-
I've played the trio format for over 30 years and during that time doubled in other settings. Our trio has ever since our first gig multiple times been said to sound like five though we are only three. We all came from playing in 4 piece bands so I guess we all kind of compensate the lack of a second guitar thus sounding "more"?
-
Done lots of trios , and I tend to be a groove player , but can fill it out when the rhythm drops out .
-
Speaking of power trios, look no further ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTpvd3UAXP4
-
I've always liked watching this Nijmegen concert with Robin Trower, Jack Bruce and Gary Husband. I almost couldn't find it, but was relieved to find it again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GrALCfxrSo
-
Back to the topic, Cream who you say? Totally irrelevant for what came after: How could a vocal line be farther removed from anything this Jack Whatchamacallit did? :mrgreen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXTopchIrNY