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Unsung Forum » Cope vs. The Clash |
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Toni Torino 2299 posts |
Dec 15, 2009, 17:51
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Mebbe he's still pissed off at getting the lurgy and having to cancel the RFH gig...
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Moon Cat 9577 posts |
Edited Dec 15, 2009, 17:57
Dec 15, 2009, 17:56
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Lord Lucan wrote: goes for The Manic Street Preachers whose only difference is the willingness to use make-up. At last it's OK to say that The Clash say nothing to me about my life. The Clash passed me by too. I was probably too young at the time to 'get' them and I've never been that bothered since. I like the odd song, but I was always put off by tthe stuff that Cope alludes to in his rant - the dogma behind a lot of the stance. Same goes for a lot of punk stuff to me. No problem with the music, but to my eyes (and ears), for a movement that appeared to have freedom and system-smashing at its core, it seemed to replace the rules it was supposedly breaking with its own set of rules and regulations pretty quickly. And The Clash kind of exemplified that for me, perhaps because they were so 'visible'. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, (just not as good a guitarist maybe). I did/do like the Manics though, although they definitely lost their way for a long time. In fact, I would say, as a band that, at least initially, employed all the sloganeering strategies one might accuse the Clash of, they were also extremeley honest in their ambitions. They DID want to sell shit loads of records and play stadiums from the outset. AND, and this is a very big AND for me - they spoke in musical terms that I found appealing and very honest. They pointed out that loads of working class, disaffected people weren't necessarily listening to punk, or Billy Bragg or anything like that. They were listening to rock - unfashionable and anathema to the then NME/music media image of 'angry youth' - and that was the language they wanted to communicate in because it was their language. The chose it in the face of ridicule and made it work for them because it was what they actually liked as opposed as what they were 'supposed' to like. Of course, the make-up helped too.
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Lawrence 9547 posts |
Dec 15, 2009, 18:55
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Yeah, and Ritchie Edwards was an interesting, if troubled and self-destructive, persona...
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Moon Cat 9577 posts |
Edited Dec 15, 2009, 20:13
Dec 15, 2009, 20:11
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dodge one wrote: You make my point about having lived through the period, for me. Clapton and the like, and many others too, are what i grew up with and resonate to. I have all the ephemera from the era as reminders. I wouldn't trade them for anyone's mountain of pirated/burned cd's. Just to throw my thruppeny bit in, the reason I really never 'got' Clapton ( the odd song, sure) above and beyond his contemporaries, nor anyone else for that matter can best be summed up when I watched the Cream reunion gigs at the Albert Hall on telly a couple of years ago. Jack Bruce came on in leather keks and a paisley shirt and Ginger Baker STILL looks like a alki-tramp in T shirt and jeans. Ok, so far so possibly a bit silly. But, bless their hearts, they were LIVING it for themselves and for the crowd. Giving it something! Clapton wanders on and he is the very living epitome of a geography supply teacher. Now you may say he was simply being mature and dignified, and maybe that works for his solo stuff. But he coulda...he coulda....just for once....you know....LET FUCKING GO a bit! Let's face it, he even called one of his albums 'Journeyman' so points for some kind of self awareness, but I personally find it frustrating to see/hear his talent and think just how far out there he could go if he wanted to but he just doesn't. Smetimes Floyd get me like that too. And yes, yes, yes, perhaps I'm at risk of wanting cliche. And yes, ultimately, it's the music that counts (man!). But, watching and hearing EC perpetually inhabit this MOR hinterland when he could've blazed a trail so bright (perhaps he couldnt?!) is so unrewarding I could never love him as an artist. He bores me. I like lots of AOR stuff and he still bores me because he shouldn't. Not flash enough, not raw enough. He pays the Blues except its The Beiges.
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IanB 6761 posts |
Edited Dec 15, 2009, 21:09
Dec 15, 2009, 20:41
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I know what you mean. It all comes across as a bit controlled but in truth he has been playing that way at very least since Ocean Boulevard. He has played like that for more of his career than not. At the time it seemed to be a case of throwing off his own Guitar Hero myth (possbily as a strategy / road out of addiction) but in the 80s and 90s I think he may have made a concerted decision to leave the widdly-hyper-drive-and-gurning field wide open for the likes of Gary Moore and to become a Serious Artist. He started wearing seriously professional looking and expensive suits on stage the same time that the record company offices started being staffed with actual suits rather than metaphorical ones. So go figure. And all in all I don't think he could be assed with the bear pit competetiveness of the blues guitar speed queens so he went for the De Burgh / Rea singer songwriter thing and, to be fair, it went pretty well for him. Also the 80s blues guys played faster and longer than he ever did. Faster and longer being the popular benchmark for Guitar Heroism. So why would you put yourself in the position of competing with that. It's like running a race against guys fifteen or twenty years younger than you who are all on steroids. Why bother? And look what happened to Robert Palmer, Phil Collins, Steve Winwood and John Martyn in the same era. They all did the suit thing with the sleeves rolled past the elbows. The people running their labels dressed more or less the same way. They were all on the same page and looking to get paid. It's a Badoit-at-the-lunch-table-and-no-booze-on-show vibe. The era when rock tried to go respectable. Wanting to get paid properly after 20 years in the business is not a sin in itself but I think the likes of Clapton and Gilmour carry a deep insecurity that all said and done rock music is a bollocks art form. So they default to appealing to people of conventional taste and discernment. A lot of jazzers went the same way but when Clapton sticks to slow blues, mid tempo grooves and ballads he is pretty effective. I'd love to hear him play behind someone like say Erykah Badu. There seems to be a similar but much more cynical thing going on with DG. Especially the godwawful lyrics on the post Final Cut Floyd material. It's like he couldn't be bothered to make it in any way meaningful so hey, lets have a dirge with some psycho babble bilge and throw in a solo like the one of the ones on Wish You Were Here. It's a simulcra of Floyd in their hey day and you hope no one will notice. Not that Rog is much better these days but I believe that he believes in things that matter and means every word. The dross Gilmour let through the ediorial filter on Division Bell is just unbelievable. And that he let his wife put those words into his mouth even worse. Rick Wright wrote the only half decent Floyd song after Comfortably Numb but no one was keeping score otherwise they would have had him write the whole bloody thing. Had they not been intent on keeping the publishing in the family!
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dodge one 1242 posts |
Dec 15, 2009, 20:41
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Sorry Moonie...it sounds like another boring re-hash of cliched jibes and bashes at Clappers....Heard them all before. Mostly from your side of the pond. Mostly from people that can't possibly be old enough to have lived through Claptons heyday. People that i respect far more than any opinions i'm going to read here, admire Eric very much. BB KING, JJ CALE, DELANEY BRAMBLETT, LEON RUSSELL, GEORGE HARRISON, JOHN LENNON, PETER GREEN, JEFF BECK, JIMMY PAGE, JOHN MAYALL, MICK TAYLOR, .......shit, i could go on into the hundreds here.... ALL as one unanimous voice would disagree, emphatically , with some of the lame assesments of ERICS career that have been posted in this thread. Of course, all those guys above, and HUNDREDs of associated sattelite musicains are just a bunch of irrelevent anachronisms. They can't possibly be right, can they? Bunch of non-kraut-rocking doosh-bags. Man..... For what it's worth, i own the Cream reunion DVD set. I actually 'bought' them too. I thought Eric and Co. were just fine, and exactly what i expected from a Cream show as presented by guys in there 60's. Did you notice Jack Bruce's wrists Cramping, trying to wrangle those old incredible bass lines? What? Eric didn't play with his teeth? Or grow his 67 era Afro back? Ginger not 'Toad'ing it up enough? WHAT? Anyhow...Eric is fine with me. Do you actualy own 'Journeyman' Moonie? I do. On L.P.. It's actually a very fine record. I remember buying it at the same time i bought 'One Night of Sin' by Joe Cocker....another "BORING" old doosh-bag.
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Moon Cat 9577 posts |
Dec 15, 2009, 20:45
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And I think they (The Manics) were far more cognizant of the dangers of espousing the virtures of 'keepin' it real' over supposed 'artifice' than the Clash could manage. They had a better grip on the contradictions inherent in the whole 'real' myth in rock n roll, although they did have at least another decade in which to observe and absorb these contradictions in their favour.
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Moon Cat 9577 posts |
Edited Dec 15, 2009, 21:03
Dec 15, 2009, 20:55
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Well, we shall have to agree to differ Dodge and that is the way of things. Let's face it, you ain't gonna go back to your EC albums and go "Holy shit! What was I thinking?" after a debate like this are you. I appreciate (and admire) your stance, but I can't help it - it's instinct over analysis in this case. I like and admire may of the artists you list (J Page is a major x 10 hero of mine) but the fact remains that if I watch footage of, let's say, Peter Green or Page or Beck, I get...something...it moves me. I just don't get that with EC and it's not me succumbing to some critial status quo (I love KISS for goodness sake. Cred is not and has never been an issue!), I just feel unmoved and not bothered. For the record. A friend of mine used to play me EC's stuff, including Journeyman and that one Phil Collins produced with Behind The Mask (Behindthe sun?) on it. Just left me in cold custard land I'm afraid. And I don't care if Jack Bruce's hands fell off watching the Cream thing - he was going for it. It seemed he and Ginger were in CREAM! EC was....just there IMO. But more power to your EC elbow.
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Dog 3000 4611 posts |
Dec 15, 2009, 20:59
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I don't like the Clash, or Stones, or Clapton much. Boring mainstream posturing as "radical/exotic" on a TV advertising lowest-common-denominator level (and all 3 have had their songs used as TV jingles naturally.) Next topic!
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dodge one 1242 posts |
Dec 15, 2009, 21:06
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I'm OK with that Moonie. Eric, amongst many others, is part of MY scene. I admire him very much for pioneering blues/rock guitar. And taking it into previously unknown territory. ANY band or artist, is extermely lucky to have a 10 year stretch that defines them forever. Clapton did that in spades from 64-74. Thousands of guitarists learned there licks from him. He just does what he does. And does it very well.
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