Gene Simmons: Rock Is Finally Dead

[uwe]

I never thought of it that way, but you're right! Very perceptive.

Still waiting for your BadCo album faves though!

[nofi]

rock has been dead musically for decades. have not heard anything truly original in years and i am constantly looking. there is only so much you can do with bass, drums, guitar and keyboards. is this where someone posts a pic with a rockin' oboe? or another blackmore oddity? my 2 cents.

[uwe]

Fair point, but then classical music is dead too. 12 notes (and not all possible combinations of them are pleasant to the human ear), an orchestra set up, you might have more options than with a four- or five-piece rock band, but you hit the wall eventually.

"Truly original" is of course a high standard. I guess The Beatles, Hendrix and Frank Zappa pass that test, but even in the seventies there was very little "truly original", much was just refinement of previous ideas. Don't laugh, but I thought The Police sounded like something else when they arrived on the market in the late seventies, that mix of reggae, Summer's weird chording, Sting's sparse, but dominant bass playing, the overzealous drumming, the falsetto vocals, it sounded quite new.  But I also remember how they were derided as "white man's reggae played by prog has-beens" in some quarters.

And for the avoidance of doubt: I never bestowed "true originality" on Deep Purple, they forged their own sound by doggedly hanging on to that Strat/Hammond twin riff attack, whether it was en vogue or not, plus were unafraid of long improvisations and unafraid to swing rather than plod, but the ingredients of their music were always plain to find with their predecessors or even contemporaries.

[lowend1]

I never thought of it that way, but you're right! Very perceptive.

Still waiting for your BadCo album faves though!

Sorry about that. I got distracted by the original subject of the thread vis a vi Gene...
Straight Shooter is my favorite, although one can't deny the impact of the first album. On SS, Rodgers sounds more raw - and more like he did with Free. Likewise, Mick Ralphs' leadwork kind of sets a standard for me, in terms of tone. Some of that stuff still sends chills up my spine, whereas the first LP is a little more subdued. SS is the reason Ralphs is my favorite guitarist, followed by Leslie West, whose influence on MR was palpable. Run With The Pack was a very good album, as was Burnin' Sky, but neither really approached the urgency of the first two. Desolation Angels had some very bright spots but it was clear that there was a downward trend. Electricland? Let us not speak of it. Paul Rodgers is my favorite vocalist, followed by Lou Gramm, so it is no surprise that I liked the Brian Howe version of the band with regard to new songs, but Howe was ill-suited for singing Rodgers' material. There are some great original B-sides on the BadCo Anthology, along with a couple of credible "new" songs.

BTW, IIRC, Rod Price played in standard tuning with Foghat...

[uwe]

"Some of that stuff still sends chills up my spine, whereas the first LP is a little more subdued."

That is a perfectly apt way of putting it. Straight Shooter is looser and more confident. Good Lovin' Gone Bad was a chest-beating entrance.

[Basvarken]

Without smoke bombs, make up, big mouth comments, just a very melodic and contrapunctual, even motownish bass line.

He obviously never learned to play anything remotely Motownish until recently   

[patman]

I always liked how drums and bass locked in on Bad Co. albums...right in the pocket

[Highlander]

Saw them at Earls Court circa '77... simply quite stunning...

[Dave W]

Objection!

...

Point 2: Conjecture! You don't know what's going on in Herr Simmons' mind when he plays. True, he has always downplayed the musician in him (leaving that role to "artsy" bleeding heart musician Paul Stanley), but that is just because of his act as Mr Nasty with the inconvenient truths/soundbite chef in Kiss. The truth is: If he disliked playing bass and performing, he could have stopped doing both long ago and just live off the royalties of Rock'n'Roll All Night. What makes you think that he is not enjoying himself here?

...

Maybe, just maybe he likes all  five: bass playing, making loads of money, sex, putting on make up and putting you off! 

Objection? Are you an attorney or something? 

Of course it's conjecture, we can't look into anyone else's mind, but you can know someone by his actions. And to me, his actions are motivated only by money and more money. Sure, he could have retired, but that would mean he wouldn't be putting himself out there to make more money.

He's not about music. Never has been, never will.

[westen44]

I'll agree that greed can be a bad thing and, in my opinion, is one of the worst things I see out there.  I'm speaking in general terms.  But wanting to play for money isn't necessarily a bad thing, if not taken to the extreme.  (I was going to provide examples of some musicians who I think might have been more motivated if they had been paid more, but decided against it.)

[amptech]

He's not about music. Never has been, never will.

Hurumph to that - It's not long ago I heard him say in a tv-interview that it did'nt really matter who played on stage, as long as they used the KISS brand and songs. Anyone could be hired for the job. I think it vas a response to a question about why they put ace makeup on
the guitar player that replaced him.

[amptech]

Next tour they will have Carol Kaye on bass with gene makeup, noone will notice

[Basvarken]

Next tour they will have Carol Kaye on bass with gene makeup, noone will notice

[westen44]

I'm not a KISS fan, never have been.  Yet I feel all this Gene Simmons bashing is missing the whole point.  The subject (I thought) was about the state of rock music.  I guess not.  I can't think of a single artist out there who doesn't have foibles.  Even now I'm mulling over some unpleasant things I've just found out about one of my greatest musical heroes.  It's disappointing, but life goes on.  If everybody starts bashing all imperfections that are found everywhere, we might as well start engaging in self-flagellation if thoroughness is the goal. I feel the point that Gene Simmons was trying to make was valid.  Certainly, I haven't seen anyone anywhere even come close to refuting it.  But kill the messenger. 

[uwe]

He obviously never learned to play anything remotely Motownish until recently   

Cheap, cheap, cheap shot! If you had Chris Squire, Geddy Lee and Steve Harris in the same situation, none of them would do a better job than Herr Simmons in that vid. Why? Because it's not their style and none of them has ever seriously played music that requires (or invites) a bubbly bass line like that. That said, Gene works at it and towards the end gets close. I doubt that I would have done better (much more likely: worse) because I don't play bubbly bass lines very often either, it's not that I rehearse to Jamiroquai CDs all day!

And his own caustic and self-deprecating comments about anybody being able to take his place within Kiss: Gene knows he's putting on an act for the Kiss audience and that no one is in those arenas because they want to hear his style of bass playing. That is just being realistic: If you wear leather bat wings and dragon heads as boots, people don't come to you for your bass playing. With Kiss, the image and spectacle will eternally dwarf whatever musical merits there are. That is the Faustian pact they signed when they mapped their career.

But what surprises me is that here in a forum full of bassists with ears the conventional wisdom that someone dressed up like Gene on stage and mouthing off like Gene in interviews can somehow not play bass is simply assumed to be fact without anybody actually giving his playing a listen. I've said it again and again: If anything, he plays more than your average bass player plays (or needs to play) in a hard rock setting. His style is firmly entrenched in sixties bass playing to the point of being old-fashioned (even in the seventies) for all its overt rock'n'roll bass licks. By today's (lamentable) standards he overplayed on much of Kiss' seventies output, way too busy (which - together with Peter Criss' swinging drumming - explains why the Kiss rhythm section never really sounded bludgeoning in the seventies). The "root note disease" grabbed a hold of him following Kiss taking off the make-up (he blamed producers for asking him to deliver AC/DC type bass playing), but in the nineties he returned more to his former style.

He really, really should pay me for how often I take a stand for him here and I'm not even a fan of his band. But in a whimsical mood I bought all of Kiss' studio product (what I didn't already have) comparatively recently (dutifully on CD, thereby supporting the Simmons and Stanley endangered estates) and listened to Kiss for days in the car. What struck me was that he is one of the few hard rock bassists who plays overtly behind the beat throughout (it's probably not even conscious with him and at the same time the reason why his bass playing never sounds elegant). And that also explains why his covering of Ms Kaye's bass licks is pretty much doomed to failure as she had a penchant for playing (beautifully) ahead of the beat. Simmons' sluggish feel takes all of the "boppiness" out of it. You should hear me when I - being an ahead of the beat player - attempt to do a Robbie Shakespeare bass run. Or perhaps you better shouldn't!