HW: Recent v Old/Poll

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Wed, Dec 15, 1999 at 12:14:52PM -0800, Doug Pearson wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Dec 1999 14:54:11 +0000, Jonathan Jarrett
> <jjarrett at CHIARK.GREENEND.ORG.UK> wrote:
>
> >        And Doug, you're entitled to your view of course, but Steve
> >Swindells? The man responsible for the *inspired* keyboard parts on
> >`Valium 10' and `British Tribal Music'? This must surely be some new use
> >of the word "talent" of which I was not previously aware...
>
> I don't think it's really fair to assess someone's talent based on what
> were outtakes (there's a reason why that stuff wasn't released at the
> time!).  I was thinking more of Swindell's performance on 'Hawklords/25
> Years On' (very nicely arranged/orchestrated which made him an acceptable
> replacement for Simon House even if he's no Simon) and the Hawklords live
> album (great energy and jamming!).  And I think the keyboard playing on
> "Valium Ten" is as good as anything Harvey played with the band (and even
> the keyboard playing on "British Tribal Music" is still better than
> anything Keith Hale did with the band, but that's not saying much).  But
> it's tough to judge someone who was in the band for only one studio album ...

        Yes - and then, on the other hand, I had assumed that the
keyboard parts on _25 Years On_ were written by Brock and Calvert, in the
same way as I had assumed the reason Martin Griffin is so good on that
album is because he was being told what to play. But I agree that Steve
shows up better on _Hawklords Live_. Also, see below (two paras.).

> I recently heard a recording of the Maximum Effect's (Steve Pond, Fred &
> Mick Stupp post-ICU, pre-Krankschaft/Calvert) last show that is incredible.
>  The band's playing at breakneck speed, so Fred winds up sounding like
> Jerry Lee Lewis playing Simon House's keyboard parts while jacked up on
> speed.  He's playing lead keyboard (Steve plays mostly rhythm guitar parts)
> AND singing most of the lead vocals.  I wish I could do all that at once.

        Blimey. Is _this_ on record, or is this a bootleg? First I've
knowingly heard of this band...

> >I'll rank Tim Blake close behind
> >Simon and Harvey not long after till someone convinces me otherwise.
>
> Tim's a great *synth* player (possibly even better than Del Dettmar,
> although that's a tough call), but not an exceptional keyboardist IMO.  But
> purely as *keyboard* players, I'd put Steve, Harvey, Fred & Tim all at the
> same "order of magnitude" below Simon ...

        Ah, I see! I was more sort of lumping the two concepts together.
To my mind an HW keyboardist has to swoosh more than play the old joanna,
which is why I rate Harvey so highly, and also Tim; they really add
something to the sound but it is, admittedly, synths. In terms of actual
keyboard ability I haven't ever really bothered to assess Steve, but he
still seems to me to have something of an affectation for what Zappa
called "redundant piano triplets"... But if you're rating 'em that way
then you have much more of the right of it than I, certainly. Yours,
                                                                     Jon
--
 /______________________________________________________________________\
 |                Jon Jarrett, Pembroke College, Cambridge              |
 |         (01223 741219)        jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk        |
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 |"Find the microwave and you shall find the bison!" Clare Boothby(1997)|
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