Phil Lynott - 25 years ago

[nofi]

all i know about thin lizzy was what little was played on the radio. seamed pleasant enough.

[gearHed289]

Phil was, and still is a huge inspiration to me. A genuine badass whose songwriting had a depth that could easily be overlooked. I love his singing and have tried to emulate him since I was in my teens. "Still in Love With You" is a gorgeous song. Certainly not a bad bass player either. RIP...

[uwe]

Like you've never heard him, Rob:




I will weigh my words carefully here as I like Thin Lizzy as much as Led Zeppelin.

1. Phyl Lynott: Higher than standard hard rock lyricist, one-of-a-kind voice, unorthodox songwriter for hard rock (just look at the chords of even a hit like The Boys are back ...). As a bassist I find him utalitarian, but that is alright, he had other jobs to do fronting Thin Lizzy. Which doesn't keep me from sometimes fiddling the riffs of TBABIT or Dancing in the Moonlight. And his bass run on this here is a work of genius even though Thunder & Lightning, "that Sykes album", rates low with Lizzy enthusiasts, I know.



Thin Lizzy performing without him is like four guys getting together and calling themselves The Beatles. He was that band and the band was him, I always found that in contrast he sounded homeless with Grand Slam.

2. The band: Uneven. I know Wishbone Ash too well to be impressed by Lizzy's twin guitaring (they have themselves credited Wishbone Ash with being their inspiration), with Lizzy I thought the guitar lines always a little too sweet and naive.  Eric Bell was an artist with true feel, Gary Moore obnoxious (as he always is), Scott Gorham utalitarian but great-looking, Robbo authentic and with grit, Snowy White underrated and (too) tasteful and young John Sykes a puppy pissing erverywhere, but in honest enthusiasm. I saw Lizzy at a German open air - it was their last gig (ironically with Motorhead with Robbo playing before them) I believe, except for Sykes' Über-enthusiam they were a shambles by then. Robbo - totally ill at ease with his new band Motorhead himself - even jammed at the end with them IIRC, but it was depressive and the audience listless.

3. The albums: Ill-served by production no matter what producer they got. They either never had the right budget or they were difficult to capture (studio discipline wasn't great with them I've read) in the studio. Live and Dangerous is their best studio album really ...   (what a nasty jab ...  , Rob, scramble to the rescue    and splutter right now that "LaD" "wasn't any more doctored than a lot of seventies "live" albums", to which I say, "well, it was a lot more doctored than the first Grand Funk Railroad one, Made in Japan or Rockin' the Fillmore!"). I wonder what someone like Bob Ezrin could have done with them (Tony Visconti attempted a larger than life production with Bad reputation, but he's not really a hard rock producer, never mind his lovely production work for non-hard rockers like Bolan and Bowie) or someone who can get a real good live sound in the studio such as Martin Birch.

4. The Baby Face recordings Lynott did with Blackmore and Ian Paice circa 1972 (Blackmore wanted a threepiece after Gillan announced his departure from DP Mk II and saw Lynott as his "bassist with the voice and image of Hendrix", this has nothing to do with the Funky Junction Deep Purple tribute album starring members of Thin Lizzy) are unreleased to this day and probably among rock's bestkept secrets. Not even bootlegs have crept out, yet demo recordings were made at the time. Anyone got a copy here?   I'll pay a competetive price.

Uwe

[Basvarken]

Like you've never heard him, Rob:

Uwe I'm a HUGE fan in case you hadn't figured that out yet 
I own everything that has ever been officially released (except for that reunion cabaret with Sykes of course). And I think I own every recording that made it to the Napster/Limewire/Piratebay. Up to the crappiest sounding demo recordings Philip made at home.

[uwe]

I dare not ask: Also the Baby Face stuff? 

[eb2]

I was a pretty big fan of them, back in the day.  As a result, I wasn't that surprised when he died.  After Live And Dangerous (not as badly doctored as Cheap Trick at Budokan as that had different guitar solos on the cassette version vs the LP!!!!) they lost a lot of steam.  Black Rose was decent.  By the time Chinatown came out they were pandering to the new metal dinks, the band was a revolving door, and the lp was pretty crummy.  Then there was the the aborted band with Roy Wood, and the smack addiction was fairly public.  The last bright spot was Merry Jingle.

He did look cool, and I almost bought a mirrored P-bass pickguard when I was in high school!  I just didn't have a P-bass to stick it on.  I was trying to plan ahead.

[uwe]

Lol, Live At Budokan didn't even sound live and certainly not like Budokan which has pretty good acoustics as can be witnessed on many seventies recordings after it became the place to go in the seventies for live recordings. It sounded like a Cheap Trick studio recording with Japanese girls screaming and wetting their knickers played from a cassette player in a huge hall and recorded from far away on bad equipment with strangely billowing acoustics. Or maybe the pressing of my then girlfriend was just horrific. Oil crisis you know and such.

You can get a good sound at Budokan if you try:




I hasten to add: This is still connected to Phil's thread as it features Mark Nauseef (occasional Lizzy drummer and Lynott backing band compatriot) on drums (and John Gustafson on phaser/chorus, errm, WAL bass!).

[Basvarken]

I know Wishbone Ash too well to be impressed by Lizzy's twin guitaring

To me Wishbone Ash is boring stuff. I was just never moved by them.
I saw them at Arrow Rock Festival when we were opening act. And was in awe about their professionalism. But the music just doesn't do it for me.

Eric Bell was an artist with true feel, Gary Moore obnoxious (as he always is), Scott Gorham utalitarian but great-looking, Robbo authentic and with grit, Snowy White underrated and (too) tasteful and young John Sykes a puppy pissing erverywhere, but in honest enthusiasm

Agreed on most accounts. Except maybe the remarks about Snowy White. I don't think he's underrated. He's dead boring  

The albums: Ill-served by production no matter what producer they got.

I actually like the production on Fighting, Nightlife, Johnny The Fox.
Never really liked the production of Chinatown and Thunder and Lightning though.

Live and Dangerous is their best studio album really

Yep. And totally unneccesary. Have you ever heard the King Biscuit recordings? They were broadcasted live and they are the original undoctored recordings.
Apart from a few off key backing vocals the band is perfect. I wonder why they decided to do overdubs.
I know that Robbo told me he refused to do overdubs. He said it would have been ridiculous.
Do yourself a favor Uwe; Buy the Peel Sessions CD. Here you hear honest reocrdings/production that capture the band's magic throughout the years when they visited John Peel's show.

I dare not ask: Also the Baby Face stuff?

No, I'm afraid I don't have those. Have they emerged from the vaults yet?



Little story:

I never saw Phil live. When the band played their last gig in Holland, my parents wouldn't let me go to Nijmegen to see the concert 'cause they thought I was too young (I was 13)
When I went to see Gary Moore four years later (on October 16, 1985) there was a rumor that Phil Lynott might come an join him cause they had the "Out In the Fields" hit at that time. But Phil never showed up. That was a close as I got to seeing Phil live. A month and a half later he was dead...

In 1995 I went to Dublin for a pilgrimage. I visited Philip's grave. Went to White Horses where Philomena lives. Went to Leighlin Road in Crumlin where he grew up. Met his uncle Peter, who let me in and offered us a cup of tea. I told him about my pilgrimage and that I was on a quest to find the poetry book that was published by Philip in the early seventies. I had been to every book shop and antiquarian booktrade in Dublin in vain. He went upstairs and after two minutes he came down with a copy of this book. I thought he only wanted to show it to me and I was excited to hold it for a moment. Wow.
But he insisted that I kept it. Now how cool is that?

A few years later when I was in the band Bittermoon, we were preparing a tour with Rob Lamothe. Lamothe used to be the lead singer of Riverdogs and we were big fans.
We contacted him if he would like to do some guest performances on our album. Which he did. That was a beautiful experience. And we became friends and we toured together.
So while preparing for the tour -and getting all the dates right- I received an email from Brian Robertson's management if we would mind Robbo joining in on the tour? Robbo was a huge fan of Rob Lamothe and he would like to make music with him.
I was over the moon! The guy that played the most beautiful solo in rock history (Live and Dangerous "Still In Love With You" first solo) was going to play with us??

So Robbo came over to Arnhem. I won't go into all the details, but we learned a bit of Rock n Roll life style from Robbo
The man has an incredible sense of humor. We did good gigs and we did bad gigs...

A few years later Robbo and Floor and I met again in Dublin at the Vibe (remembrance concert that is held every year). He introduced us to Philomena. She's an incredible lady. Very gentle, warm hearted person who has time for every single fan of her son. She is amazing.

After the concert Robbo asked us if we'd like to come join him to Brian Downey's 50th birthday party. We weren't invited by Brain Downey, so we were a bit reluctant. But Robbo insisted. So we drove to this big hall were the party was. Filled with friends and family... We congratulated Brian Downey. He welcomed us, invited us to have a drink and we watched him play with his mate Brush Shields (Brush is the guy that gave Philip his first bass lessons).
So there I was drinking a beer, sitting next to Robbo watching Brain Downey play the drums at his birthday party.  
That sort of made up for the disappointment of never seeing Thin Lizzy -with Phil Lynott- live.

[Hornisse]

Mr. Lynott may not have been the best player but he really did just learn the instrument right before they recorded their first LP in 1971.  I once read that he'd stopped using the Precision bass because Ibanez started giving him basses and Fender never did.  I still think it would be cool to do a Lynott signature P bass.  He used Ibanez Roadster basses and the Roland bass towards the end.

[uwe]

That's a good story, Rob, well-recounted.

I'll buy the Peel Sessions, promise!

[Pekka]

This is still connected to Phil's thread as it features Mark Nauseef (occasional Lizzy drummer and Lynott backing band compatriot) on drums

This reminded me of my conspiracy theory about who's playing on Lizzy's "Sarah". I've read it's only Moore playing guitars and I'm willing to think it's Nauseef on drums instead of Downey. It sounds like him and the original vinyl liner notes have the following after Jimmy Bain's credit of playing bass on "With Love":

Mark Nauseef: Sarah thanks you anyway

Another point is that the track was supposed to go on a Lynott's solo album.

The other song which definitely have Nauseef on drums (despite what the box set credits say, they are shabby anyway) is this:


Another Lynott solo album outtake.

[uwe]

Definitely Nauseef. Downey is a fine swinging drummer with a knack for smooth shuffles but this would be beyond him.

This will get me lynched here, but I love Nauseef's drumming. It is exhuberant, jazzy, but not cold, spirited and very musical. And though he is so overtly busy, he's an easy drummer to play along with as a bassit and still get heard as his playing with Gustafson in IGB amply proves:






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5hAn11X5Rw&feature=related

Prog fusion stadium rock - can it get any worse really?

We need an expert opinion: Ter, say something about Mark Nauseef's drumming!

[Pekka]

Definitely Nauseef. Downey is a fine swinging drummer with a knack for smooth shuffles but this would be beyond him.

Also, the drum sound is like on "Gino" from the "Philip Lynott Album".

This will get me lynched here, but I love Nauseef's drumming![/b]

I will not be amongs the mob putting you away.

Uwe, have you heard the album by Information? It was a band featuring Nauseef, Joachim Kühn and George Kochbeck, recorded around the same time with Nauseef's first solo "Personal Note" to which Kühn and Kochbeck contributed a lot. It's not as strange but almost. The songs with vocals sound a bit like The Police (Kochbeck sounds like a struggling Sting) with the songwriting done by Copeland and Summers combined and there's no guitars. Kühn plays distorted synths and synthleads without sounding like Jan Hammer and Kochbeck does the same with the Moog bass. Nauseef is of course all over the place. It's on RCA label, I got mine from eBay Germany.

Nauseef's album with Miroslav Tadic ("The Snake Music") is very recommended, features Jack Bruce also.

[uwe]

I actually heard a couple of tracks at the time when it came out, Kühn was all the rage in German jazz rock circles in the late seventies/early eighties and if Frankfurt was known for one thing in popular music then it was avantgarde jazz rock.

[Pekka]

I actually heard a couple of tracks at the time when it came out, Kühn was all the rage in German jazz rock circles in the late seventies/early eighties and if Frankfurt was known for one thing in popular music then it was avantgarde jazz rock.

Kühn is on a lot of Nauseef's CMP solo albums and there's also an album called "Let's Be Generous" featuring Kühn, Nauseef, Miroslav Tadic and bassist Tony Newton who some may remember from G-Force and, better still, from Tony Williams' excellent "Believe It". "Let's Be Generous and Really Out There" would have been a better title if you ask me.