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Re: (TV) Young's vs Verlaine's playing/styles/Ms Secret X please weigh- inon Young/Flash Light vs 1st solo record



WHAT?
when in god's name was the review writ?

i mean, nuttin against the stone roses (weren't there a
coupla cool singles off the 1st record?), but jesus...
you've got neil young, stephen stills (probably at his
writing prime) & richie furay (yeah, i know...poco, but
screw that...his springfield work's really good)
experimenting with all kinds of cross-pollination
music-wise...
what were the stone roses but 4 or 5 pretty 3/4wits churning
out unimaginative guitar pop?
they were like the 80s blur, weren't they? (probably
better).
yikes...christgau....

bedwellm@WellsFargo.COM wrote:
> 
> I have to check out Buffalo Springfield. I think Robert Christgau compared
> the Stone Roses to them. What gives?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Micah
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: eric s gregory [mailto:esgregory@uswest.net]
> Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 11:49 AM
> To: tv@obbard.com
> Subject: Re: (TV) Young's vs Verlaine's playing/styles/Ms Secret X
> please weigh- inon Young/Flash Light vs 1st solo record
> 
> hear hear....i dig young's primal ooze solos ("everybody
> knows this is nowhere"), but verlaine's stuff is meaty &
> ascendent/transcendent...young's guitar work is too often
> deep in the mire (tho that's sometimes what i wanna
> hear/where i wanna be).
> add to the fact that verlaine's a superior writer...
> i really truly absolutely (pls pay attention here anyone who
> wants to call me anti-neil) "everybody knows," "zuma,"
> "tonight's the night," & tracks from many other records, but
> to my ears, he's been making virtually the same half-cocked
> album for many many many many years (decades??) now.
> buffalo springfield were AMAZING.
> 
> aside: the rhythm guitar on the early neil & crazy horse
> recs is mind-blowing...so hypnotic!!!
> 
> "Casey, Leo J" wrote:
> >
> > At the risk of sounding like I'm bashing Neil Young and starting a
> brouhaha----I'm not, I like "Zuma", "On the Beach", "American Stars and
> Bars" ('It's a cold bowl of chili when love let's you down.'), and other of
> his records---it has always amazed me how many people think that Young's and
> Verlaine's guitar playing are very similar.  (Over the years I have never
> read anywhere in my fanatical/voluminous collection of Television/Verlaine
> articles, where  Verlaine talks about Neil Young as a guitar influence (or
> even mentions Young, even when the interviewer brings up Young's name), and
> I'm not sure, but I'd guess there's a chance Neil doesn't know Verlaine even
> exists.
> >
> > Verlaine in the rare instances where he even discusses guitar
> influences(?)--maybe guitar favorites/influences is a more accurate
> phrase---usually has mentioned people like Keith Richards, Garage bands of
> the Nuggets era (e.g., The Chocolate Watchband), the Kinks' Dave Davies, the
> Yardbirds, the Byrds, Mike Bloomfield, John Lee Hooker(!), and jazz people
> such as: Coltrane, Ayler, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy, and
> Ornette Coleman---and finally classical guys like Pablo Casals and Sibelius
> >
> > I find Verlaine's playing much more improvisational and cerebral, whereas
> Neil's solos--- although quite good---are very similar to one another
> sonically and in structure---and even at times repetitive---at least to me.
> (Yikes!  I can actually hear the beginning clatter of MMlist members'
> fingers as they furiously type at their keyboards to tell me I'm a fool
> who's got lousy ears. Just remember I like Neil; it's just that, in my
> humble opinion, his guitar playing is not in the same league as
> Verlaine's--but then nobody else is either.)
> >
> > Ms Secret X, can you give the us any info on whether Neil influenced Tom's
> playing, and/or Tom's opinion of Young's guitar  playing?
> >
> > Those of you who detest music critics especially those you describe
> Verlaine's playing as a hybrid of Keith Richards and Coltrane, read on at
> your own peril.
> >
> > Stephen Holden, The New York Times:
> >
> > "Tom Verlaine has matured into one of rock music's very finest guitarists
> by steering a course that is only distantly related to the virtuosic blues
> oriented tradition of the rock mainstream. Mr. Verlaine's surreal dream
> songs, with their hypnotic, repetitive phrases usually set in minor keys,
> are essentially rock tone poems, in which the implications of his stark
> surreal lyrics are elaborated in majestic, exquisitely colored guitar solos.
> This stark solitary lyricism is not likely ever to earn a mass audience, and
> it's power has never fully been captured on record, because Mr. Verlaine's
> albums emphasize the raw strangulated singing voice ... The group's chunky,
> visceral arrangements, with their martial rhythms and passionate guitar
> tanglings between Mr. Verlaine and Mr. Ripp, reminded one at times of Neil
> Young and Crazy Horse, but the arrangements had a grander sense of structure
> and a more precise articulation. Mr. Verlaine and his band may very well be
> the most accomp!
> li!
> sh!
> > !
> > ed guitar-oriented rock quartet in America today."
> >
> > Although I love Flash Light, I would second Phillip's recent preference
> for Verlaine's 1st solo record over Flash Light (and for me Dreamtime is
> second):
> >
> > "Verlaine's solos have always been prolonged teases, indefinitely
> postponing resolution, taking daring circular detours and abruptly changing
> direction, avoiding the note you're waiting for. The beautiful solos on
> 'Last Night' seem to rise and fall simultaneously, a tight maze of dead ends
> miraculously transcended, like Coltrane's unaccompanied sax excursion on the
> Selflessness live version of 'I Want To Talk About You' with its devastating
> barrage of false endings. The 'Breakin' in My Heart' solo is equally static,
> riding Verlaine's best groove since 'Marquee Moon', gradually adding notes
> to the same riff without going anywhere-another Coltrane dynamic. On the
> same song, and also on 'Red Leaves' and 'Kingdom Come', . . .Verlaine
> introduces a new guitar hook on the final choruses, pushing near-perfect
> cuts a step further." (John Piccarella, 'Tom Verlaine Wakes Up Dreaming',
> The Village Voice)
> >
> > And last but not least:  Jon Pareles, 'Where the Wild Things Are', The
> Village Voice:
> >
> > "He's one of a handful of players who can still hear the electric guitar
> as a fantasy instrument, a dream: a guitar that can hit harder and sustain
> longer than any acoustic version bound by physical laws. Most guitarists who
> reach a certain level of agility use the fretboard like a keyboard,
> forgetting the visceral, while the best noisy plunkers-Keith Richards, for
> instance-have no use for lyricism. But Verlaine's dreamscapes demand both
> extremes: when things get too ethereal, he digs in blues licks like pitons
> sharpened with John Cipollina's trebly vibrato; if the bottom gets too
> gritty, he floats a time-stopper out of Miles Davis. Verlaine is no guitar
> hero-just the opposite. Instead of redoubling the bass riff for maximum
> impact, he'll play a counterpoint; when a chord progression threatens too
> tidy a conclusion, he'll shift into modal scales (Dorian instead of minor,
> Mixolydian instead of major) that dissipate the momentum. And when he does
> build a crescendo, as he doe!
> s !
> in!
> > !
> >  'There's a Reason' on Dreamtime, he can toss off a sequence that, for its
> lift and sculptural proportions, might as well be spun-steel bridge cable."
> >
> >         Leo, the Pack-rat
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Greg Grant [mailto:GGrant@scdhb.sk.ca]
> > Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 11:43 AM
> > To: tv@obbard.com
> > Subject: RE: (TV) On the Beach
> >
> > On the Beach is pretty good but I'm not into Marky Mark ;-)
> >
> > Greg
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: tv-owner@obbard.com [mailto:tv-owner@obbard.com]On Behalf Of Billy
> > Ancell
> > I promise this is the last on Neil
> >
> > Anybody out there into On the Beach? MM and this have
> > to be my two favourite records.
> >
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