13 Questionable Bands

[Basvarken]

I've always liked the Seventh Star album. Wasn't that supposed to be a Tony Iommi solo album, but the record company decided to put it out under the Black Sabbath name?
By the way; Glenn Hughes looks like Robert Palmer with a (huge) mullet in that video 

Love the Eternal Idol album too. Even if Tony Martin copied every single syllable from Ray Gillen.

[westen44]

New Tony Iommi interview from Gibson TV.

[uwe]

"I've always liked the Seventh Star album. Wasn't that supposed to be a Tony Iommi solo album, but the record company decided to put it out under the Black Sabbath name?"

It was. Same thing with Born Again: Neither the Sabs nor Gillan wanted it out under the Black Sabbath moniker for fear of critics and fan backlash (with all the baggage attached to Black Sabbath), but management - keen to fill the halls for a US tour - and record company were adamant. That said, if they had gone out as Butler, Gillan, Iommi & Ward, people would have still nicknamed them "Deep Sabbath" or "Black Purple". 

[westen44]

Jazz and Black Sabbath.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/black-sabbath-jazz-swing-influence-bill-ward-948231/

[uwe]

Bill Ward was never a woodchopper, he wasn't even a heavy metal drummer, he had loads of swing and I always thought that contrasted nicely with Iommi's and Butler's molten lava groove. All drummers that followed Ward in Black Sabbath lacked that quality. He was to Sabbath what Peter Criss was to Kiss.

[westen44]

Bill Ward was never a woodchopper, he wasn't even a heavy metal drummer, he had loads of swing and I always thought that contrasted nicely with Iommi's and Butler's molten lava groove. All drummers that followed Ward in Black Sabbath lacked that quality. He was to Sabbath what Peter Criss was to Kiss.

I'm wondering if "If 6 was 9" really inspired "War Pigs" as I had been led to believe from this video (13:20--13:48) or if it's just because Mitch Mitchell and Bill Ward both had a jazz background.  Or maybe it's just a coincidence.  I'm thinking it was probably just coincidental the more I think about it. Overall, the songs don't seem very much alike to me.

[uwe]

If you ask me, then Bonham's drumming with Led Zep became more of a blueprint for hard rock and heavy metal than anything Bill Ward or for that matter Ian Paice (just two heavy rock drummers I prefer to Bonham) ever did. From a certain point onward, swing went out of fashion with harder music. I sometimes think that a lot of hard rock drummers today sound like only John Bonham and Phil Rudd ever existed as role models.

[Basvarken]

Another rock drummer that has a great swing in his playing is Brian Downey of Thin Lizzy.
I prefer him over Ward or Paice (and Bonham or Rudd) actually.

[gearHed289]

Mitchell, Ward, Paice, Bonham, and yes, Criss all had that cool, old school swing. There weren't really any "rock" drummers to use as role models when those guys were coming up, so they looked to jazz guys. Amps got bigger and louder, and drummers started hitting harder. BOOM!

[uwe]

Another rock drummer that has a great swing in his playing is Brian Downey of Thin Lizzy.
I prefer him over Ward or Paice (and Bonham or Rudd) actually.

The Holländer is waving his Lizzy flag again! Downey had a fluent groove, but he was a bit lazy on the bass drum - or let's put it this way: Lizzy's music didn't require him to play more. I like some intricacy in bass drum work - sort of what Simon Phillips does/did, yet in my ears he is still firmly rock. That seems to be a dying art these days too, it's either boom-buff simplistic or machine gun sixteenths on a double bass drum. You hardly ever hear someone play a rhythmic bass drum figure on a double bass drum using both of them left-right-left-right.

[Basvarken]

I'll just leave this here 

[uwe]

When did Lon Chaney jr join Lizzy?



With all due respect for Downey (whose work deserved better representation than this particular vid), but that is exactly the mindless, unimaginative double bass drum playing I do not like. Cozy Powell played like that too (but was more heavy-handed than Downey), I meant something like this here, the bass drum just by itself is music, hear what a young Simon Phillips does at 2.17:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQVp-5uFEY&list=PLPf69IGxwfBGazHlXxbLx6nPdjpRI22Qh&index=6

Or like this:



Or - with a Thin Lizzy connection as I'm sure you are aware - this here:



It doesn't have to be hugely technical or complex, I'm also fine with "simpler, but a little unorthodox":



You don't hear that type of bass drum drumming anymore (in rock at least), and I deplore that. I always end up asking our drummers to be "a bit more active" and "less lazy" in their bass drum work and they look at me open-eyed.  I blame Bonham and Rudd for that. Ginger Baker lost the battle.

[Basvarken]

 

Just to bore Uwe some more

[gweimer]

Just to bore Uwe some more

One of my favorite Thin Lizzy songs.  My first band covered this.  Concrete Blond also covered it.

[uwe]

Not bored at all, lieber Rob, live vids of Thin Lizzy are always of revelatory nature to me, intriguingly so: often rough-sounding and sloppy, Lynott singing flat, as you would imagine a bunch of wasted and jaded drug addicts playing. And remember: I saw their last - shambolic - gig in Nürnberg as an audience member. Worst performance of professional recording and performing artists I ever witnessed. 

Too bad when Tony Visconti isn't around to clean up  and rerecord your live act.

But to give Herr Downey, often the saving grace of this particular band whose performances would flutter like a wounded bird, credit where credit is due: His bass drum work on It's Only Money is more like it - much more creative than on that other track.