Crue news

[Dave W]

Mick Mars Claims Motley Crue Is Ripping Him Off in New Lawsuit

[gearHed289]

Sixx is a douche. I remember several years ago, someone from their production crew told me that Nikki could raise his hands in the air, and the "bass" would keep on playing. 

[Basvarken]

The whole band has always been an overrated bunch of junkies.

It must be really lucrative for John5 if he wants to waste his time/talent with them on tour.

[uwe]

Sixx is a douche. I remember several years ago, someone from their production crew told me that Nikki could raise his hands in the air, and the "bass" would keep on playing. 

He plays along to it, but he plays. Live, Sixx has a sub-octave synth bass running parallel to his bass lines, I've seen and heard it at a Crüe gig in Cologne in 2009 to which my then teenage son dragged me (in fairness: it was a good gig, the Crüe can entertain in a dumb, but feel-good way). His combined bass sound at that gig made Geezer Butler sound thin - it is MIGHTY - and it took me a while to realize that there was a deeper octave signal running underneath anything he played. Whether he triggers that with his own bass playing or whether it is sequenced with Lee's drumming, I don't know. Sixx himself is on record for saying that the Crüe have been using that sub-bass enhancement/track since the late 80ies. He has no issues admitting this. (I have yet to hear ZZ Top admit that they use tapes in their live performance on all the Eliminator era stuff.)

It was also clear at that gig I saw that the background vocals were all sampled - the background vocal capabilities of the Crüe guys wouldn't even allow them a job as a stage tech at a Beach Boys concert.

Finally, there is Mars: Already in 2009 he needed a contraption that supported him and helped him to even stand. His guitar playing seemed fine though, he's not a bad guitarist at all and often even quite tasteful if one may use that word in connection with a Crüe performance. But given how physical the band's live act is and how Mars' special arthritis condition keeps deteriorating, it couldn't go on forever like this. Similar to Judas Priest's Glenn Tipton and his Parkinson's Disease that has curtailed his ability to perform a full gig, it was a matter of when not if.

[OldManC]

Motley Crue would not exist without Mick Mars. Their financial backing and guidance/management came through Mick's connections, and his guitar playing (along with Tommy's drumming) is what made them musically interesting (it certainly wasn't Nikki's playing, even if he was a decent lyricist in that scene). Mick was also the coolest and nicest member of the band (not that that figured into them going anywhere, but it meant the world to at least two fans I know). Mick's being so much older than the others was a sticking point from the very beginning, but they couldn't dump him without dumping everything that came with him. He was far more integral to their initial success than most people outside the band ever knew.

[uwe]

Not my idea of fun to hear this all night on the in ear monitor - Mick seems to favor precision to hearing too much of his bandmates.  Though live, at the stage volume at which Mötley Crüe play, he will have more of the band bleed into his ear buds. Having the electronic snare on the one (and not the two and four) as he does on some tracks would still drive me nuts - someone should have told Mick that he's not playing with a funk band!  On other tracks, the emphasis is on the four (but not the two) giving standard time songs a half time metronome beat - strange.



Nothing wrong with his guitar playing by the way. Very precise, as if he was playing to a metronome! 

[gearHed289]

That was interesting. I would go nuts with that click blasting away the entire set. And no drums, bass, or vocals? Everyone has their preferences I guess. Guitar playing is solid.

[uwe]

Yeah, it makes you wonder. Playing to a bare bones click like that is hard work, not fun. But maybe that is how Mick meanwhile sees his day job from which they ill-advisedly fired him. If they were worried about live consistency, they could have simply added a rhythm guitarist and, uhum, kick-started Mick into his solos whenever needed. No one would have minded.

My guess is that they need that Barbarian click to trigger the backing vocals and all that accurately. By now, no one in the band even pretends to be singing those backing vox anymore and they don't sound like pure chick backing vox either. It can't be just the girls doing them.

Nikki is playing along to something and not just miming though.