So, what have you been listening to lately?

[Dave W]

The sax is a redeeming feature - he sticks out like a sore thumb because he has a grasp of what to play. Rock journos loved that band in the day. Them and The Adverts:

He knows what to play b/c the sax part was created by the band's original sax player, Lora Logic.

IIRC Lora and Poly both became Hari Krishnas at some point.

[Dave W]

Cream performing "World of Pain" as part of the Danish movie "on a Saturday Night" The band was in Copenhagen, Denmark performing some shows before going to the US to record Wheels of Fire. They were paid 1000 pounds to stand in the cold Danish winter for a day.

[westen44]

There is also supposed to be a video of them playing "We're Going Wrong" in that movie.  I tried to find it, but it's blocked--at least in the U.S.  Why one song is available and the other blocked, I don't know. 

[wellREDman]

All just bashed to smithereens at break neck speed.

I think Neil Murray is (too much of) a sweet guy who does not want to speak badly about his late bandmate.
But I can't imagine he really enjoyed playing with Cozy Powell who left no room for any playful part whatsoever.

And you're right about Colin Hodgkinson. At that 1983 concert in Germany he had no clue what to do. The entire band was sloppy as hell.

read all that with great interest, I'm sure if I was to listen now I'd agree with you

, but 13 year old me, at his first real concert on the Slide it in Tour thought they were all just immense and amazing

[Basvarken]

read all that with great interest, I'm sure if I was to listen now I'd agree with you

, but 13 year old me, at his first real concert on the Slide it in Tour thought they were all just immense and amazing

Same goes for me, watching Cozy Powell with MSG when I was a 13 year old. I was impressed by his sheer energy.
But when I look at it now I really don't like his performance/manifestation (anymore).

[uwe]

That's interesting. With me, there was never a time when I liked Powell's drum style. I thought he was a handsome man and had a cool image, but I've always identified heavy-handed drumming with skill-less drumming (this will have the Bonham brigade up in arms, I know, but you all know by now that his drumming does nothing for me). I always found that Cozy Powell sounded like Mick Tucker, the likewise heavy-handed drummer of The Sweet.



I would even go as far as to say that Powell's drum style reminded me in sound and obnoxious simplicity of Glam Rock drums per se. Overly loud and heavy-handed drums were a key component of Glam Rock after all. When I heard that he was joining Rainbow I was flabbergasted, what is the Na Na Na guy doing with someone who played with Ian Paice before?



Now I do like like Glam Rock, but the drumming on those records isn't exactly Billy Cobham, is it?



And when Rainbow Rising came out, I found the drumming on it outright clumsy while everybody else seemed to love it.



"I'm like a freight train"-Cozy alright:



For me, the definition of good rock drumming is whether you match or better what Ian Paice does here. In my experience, not many drummers can:





Are you fast, inventive, elegant and can you swing? That is what determines a good rock drummer for me. Or let's just say "my taste of what good rock drumming should be", because I always feel I'm in a minority on this.

I'm an Ian Paice, Stewart Copeland, Simon Phillips, Mark Nauseef, Phil Collins, Les Binks, Michael Shrieve, Ginger Baker, Pick Withers, Jeff Porcaro, Peter Criss, Scott Travis, Chris Slade, Levon Helm, Ringo Starr, Bill Ward kind of guy, to name but a few, people that don't pound the music to death, yet still make you watch and listen. The "galley slave pounders" never really impressed me though it seems to me that come the 80ies their style of drumming had won out and became omnipresent. Possibly, I'm more a fan of percussionists than of pure drummers. And I dig it if there is something playful in their style that other people might consider "overdrumming". And if they do not just provide the foundation of the music, but also have the ability to "skip along with and sometimes even over it". A (s)light Jazz touch perhaps?

Cozy Powell's popularity as a drummer in various bands was largely based on the fact that people found his sheer energy exciting and physically stimulating when playing with him. He was a force of nature. But I don't think that anyone would have mistaken him as being a great technician on drums or a groove monster. Unless you find barbarians pounding at the gate groovy.

[westen44]

Cozy Powell notwithstanding, it's hard to be critical of a video with Jack Bruce playing in it.

[uwe]

Powell's hamfooted shuffle at a non-groove speed and Moore's obnoxious guitar CLAMORING FOR UTMOST ATTENTION WITH EVERY NOTE - yeah, Jack is the only non-guilty party here.

I love shuffles, but I like them to swing ...

[westen44]

The above video is blocked in the U.S.

Below is another version of "Killer" with Clem Clempson on guitar.  I've seen this one before and it may have been posted here at some point.

[uwe]

No comparison, Clempson is a much more nuanced and understated player than Moore. So understated (yet able), he did not get the job with Purple even though he played admirably well with them at auditions in 1975, but they needed a guitar hero/star ---> enter Tommy Bolin.

Clempson wanted to found a power trio (aptly named Strange Brew) together with Powell and Greg Ridley (of likewise Humble Pie) in 1975. The project never got beyond rehearsals, possibly also curtailed by Blackmore's offer to Powell to join Rainbow.

https://www.oocities.org/sunsetstrip/palladium/9932/clemc_pho.htm


I loved Clempson's work in the unfortunately shortlived Rough Diamond with ex-Heepster David Byron.



Moore could have learned something off him. Dynamics plus light & shade to name but two.

Cracker of a guitar solo.

[TBird1958]

Right now, this here..............

[uwe]

Throbbing eights on bass, choppy riffs on top and harmony guitars - what's not to like?!

[Basvarken]

@Uwe: Haha, nice to see we share the same opinion on both Cozy Powell and Gary Moore

[uwe]

In a way they were made for each other with their approach to their instruments, but they never got along. Powell didn't like to rehearse things to death, for Moore it was never enough. And when Moore became drum machine accuracy-obsessed in the late 80ies, he butted heads with Cozy Powell during the rehearsals for the After The War tour



which had Powell leave in a huff and the comment: Then why don't you get a friggin' drum machine to do it?! Chris Slade took over for the tour then.

Bob Daisley writes in his bio that he saw it coming having played with both Cozy in Rainbow and in Gary Moore's bands,"Cozy would always speed up and slow down as well as cut corners in his drum breaks, that made it exciting and challenging to play with him, but Gary was a perfectionist."

Moore's 80ies music hasn't aged well at all, it's extremely cringy to me, the synths, the guitar sound, the production, never mind his strained vocals (he was never ever a good singer, but just wanted to do it all). As were his ant-war songs - commendable as the subject was. All he ever was, was a technically accomplished and very intense guitarist - who would overstay his welcome like after 60 seconds in my ears ...

[Dave W]

Cruella de Ville, in a class by themselves - early - mid 80s band from Belfast, fronted by an American-born twin brother and sister