Phil Collins - "I am no longer retired."

[DieselDaisy]

''Phew, glad I got that released in time'' (Pete)

Len, you know you should respect Phil a bit more here as he provided the best defense of Ringo's drumming ever, the oft-quoted one about the drum fills in A Day In The Life. You always see these wankers criticise Ringo's drumming and Phil's quotation is a handy defense. Plus he was in A Hard Day's Night.

Edited November 4, 2015 by DieselDaisy

[Len Cnut]

''Phew, glad I got that released in time'' (Pete)

Len, you know you should respect Phil a bit more here as he provided the best defense of Ringo's drumming ever, the oft-quoted one about the drum fills in A Day In The Life. You always see these wankers criticise Ringo's drumming and Phil's quotation is a handy defense. Plus he was in A Hard Day's Night.

I dont need Phil Collinses help to defend Ringo, I've always thought he was fantastic, with a very unique drumming style, he's a left handed drummer that plays right handed kits so the drumming sounds a wonderful sort of off-kilter, Ringo is unique as fuck, a lot of Beatles covers sound really off because people cant nail his drumming, without it their songs, though still amazing, lose a lot of the character of the original recordings, same with Lennons rhythm playing actually, which is massively underrated. If The Beatles were perfection as i maintain then each element is as important as the other.

It's like the people who say Charlie Watts is just boom tat, boom tat, they want their fuckin' heads examining.

Edited November 4, 2015 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

Yes but are you a drummer. Even the greatest hater of all things Phil Collins has to concede that he knows a thing or two about drumming, and therefore his description carries some validity.

PS

I know Halloween is a bit late but this is my Halloween present for you,

https://youtu.be/BVaDKShJd8U?t=265

[Len Cnut]

Yeah he drums well, just never to songs I like and yknow theres a school of thought that says his drum sound and the recording of it and indeed the big popular pop drum sound of the 80s was very much influenced and appropriated from Public Image Limited. Albums like Flowers of Romance pioneered those recording techniques and drum sounds, if not exactly the rhythms.

[dalsh327]

Fodderstompf.com: I once head John say in an interview that Phil Collins had stolen the PiL drum sound! Apparently, after hearing the drum sound on 'Flowers' Collins requested the same engineer that PiL used and set up the drums exactly the same! Is this true? Was it you!

Nick Launay - Yes, this is true, and it was me. John is correct but there is a bit more to it. I learnt how to get that "kind" of drum sound by watching Hugh Padgham record in the same Stone Room at the Townhouse. Hugh recorded Peter Gabriel's 3rd album and if you listen to a song called 'Intruder' you will hear what I'm talking about. When It came to doing the PiL album I used similar methods to achieve a similar sound. During the making of the 'Flowers of Romance' I bumped into Phil Collins in the corridor of the Townhouse, I had worked as an assistant on his first LP, and he was very inquisitive about how I was surviving working with the evil Johnny Rotten! I told him John was a top class geeza, and promised to introduce them if he was keen.

Later that day me and John went to the Townhouse canteen to eat boiled cabbage and mash, and in walked Phil so I introduced them. Much to all our surprise they got on like a house on fire! Anyway back to the drum story... Much later Phil was producing a Chris Bailey (of Earth Wind and Fire) album, and he wanted THAT drum sound, but Hugh was off working with the Police. Phil had by then heard snippets of the PiL album. So, the day we were in mastering the 'Flowers' single remix at the Townhouse cutting rooms next door, I got a call from Phil saying HELP! So I went in for an hour or so and dialed it up!

[DR DOOM]

Fodderstompf.com: I once head John say in an interview that Phil Collins had stolen the PiL drum sound! Apparently, after hearing the drum sound on 'Flowers' Collins requested the same engineer that PiL used and set up the drums exactly the same! Is this true? Was it you!

Nick Launay - Yes, this is true, and it was me. John is correct but there is a bit more to it. I learnt how to get that "kind" of drum sound by watching Hugh Padgham record in the same Stone Room at the Townhouse. Hugh recorded Peter Gabriel's 3rd album and if you listen to a song called 'Intruder' you will hear what I'm talking about. When It came to doing the PiL album I used similar methods to achieve a similar sound. During the making of the 'Flowers of Romance' I bumped into Phil Collins in the corridor of the Townhouse, I had worked as an assistant on his first LP, and he was very inquisitive about how I was surviving working with the evil Johnny Rotten! I told him John was a top class geeza, and promised to introduce them if he was keen.

Later that day me and John went to the Townhouse canteen to eat boiled cabbage and mash, and in walked Phil so I introduced them. Much to all our surprise they got on like a house on fire! Anyway back to the drum story... Much later Phil was producing a Chris Bailey (of Earth Wind and Fire) album, and he wanted THAT drum sound, but Hugh was off working with the Police. Phil had by then heard snippets of the PiL album. So, the day we were in mastering the 'Flowers' single remix at the Townhouse cutting rooms next door, I got a call from Phil saying HELP! So I went in for an hour or so and dialed it up!

You're one of the best posters dude, you know your music

As you may have read earlier, I mentioned that Phil deserves respect for his work on Peter Gabriel III/Melt alone.

[Len Cnut]

Fodderstompf.com: I once head John say in an interview that Phil Collins had stolen the PiL drum sound! Apparently, after hearing the drum sound on 'Flowers' Collins requested the same engineer that PiL used and set up the drums exactly the same! Is this true? Was it you!

Nick Launay - Yes, this is true, and it was me. John is correct but there is a bit more to it. I learnt how to get that "kind" of drum sound by watching Hugh Padgham record in the same Stone Room at the Townhouse. Hugh recorded Peter Gabriel's 3rd album and if you listen to a song called 'Intruder' you will hear what I'm talking about. When It came to doing the PiL album I used similar methods to achieve a similar sound. During the making of the 'Flowers of Romance' I bumped into Phil Collins in the corridor of the Townhouse, I had worked as an assistant on his first LP, and he was very inquisitive about how I was surviving working with the evil Johnny Rotten! I told him John was a top class geeza, and promised to introduce them if he was keen.

Later that day me and John went to the Townhouse canteen to eat boiled cabbage and mash, and in walked Phil so I introduced them. Much to all our surprise they got on like a house on fire! Anyway back to the drum story... Much later Phil was producing a Chris Bailey (of Earth Wind and Fire) album, and he wanted THAT drum sound, but Hugh was off working with the Police. Phil had by then heard snippets of the PiL album. So, the day we were in mastering the 'Flowers' single remix at the Townhouse cutting rooms next door, I got a call from Phil saying HELP! So I went in for an hour or so and dialed it up!

You're one of the best posters dude, you know your music

Oi, i fuckin' brought it up! He googled that, i got it off of memory!

Edited November 5, 2015 by Len B'stard

[DR DOOM]

Oi, i fuckin' brought it up! He googled that, i got it off of memory!

Oh, I assumed you already knew that you knew I thought you are one of the best posters and kind of know your music (acknowledge Black Sabbath discography 1970-1978 and we are cool )

Respect though, I post from memory too, for what it's worth...got to justify all that $$$ I spent on rock mags back in the day somehow I guess.

edit: you must also denounce the Pistols as 95% unlistenable bollocks

Edited November 5, 2015 by DR DOOM

[Len Cnut]

Oi, i fuckin' brought it up! He googled that, i got it off of memory!

Oh, I assumed you already knew that you knew I thought you are one of the best posters and kind of know your music (acknowledge Black Sabbath discography 1970-1978 and we are cool )

Respect though, I post from memory too, for what it's worth...got to justify all that $$$ I spent on rock mags back in the day somehow I guess.

edit: you must also denounce the Pistols as 95% unlistenable bollocks

My liking for Pistols goes beyond music, it's to do with identity. I mean of course, musically they were the dogs bollocks, best album i ever fuckin' heard, the most stunned I've been by an album...but more than anything it's cuz like...I just didn't think people like that could make music, i thought people that made music were like...they fell from the sky or something, i didn't think horrible spotty working class yobbos were allowed to make music, i thought we just had to work 6 days a week 9 to 6 til we're pensioned off and we die. The Pistols were like...they could've been my mates, lads i know, they were like...local wallys that still acted and spoke and had the interests and inclinations of local wallys. Nothing to me will ever compare to The Pistols, nothing. It's something to do with growing up thinking you and people from your station in life are worthless...and then being shown that you're not...or not completely anyway.

[DR DOOM]

My liking for Pistols goes beyond music, it's to do with identity. I mean of course, musically they were the dogs bollocks, best album i ever fuckin' heard, the most stunned I've been by an album...but more than anything it's cuz like...I just didn't think people like that could make music, i thought people that made music were like...they fell from the sky or something, i didn't think horrible spotty working class yobbos were allowed to make music, i thought we just had to work 6 days a week 9 to 6 til we're pensioned off and we die. The Pistols were like...they could've been my mates, lads i know, they were like...local wallys that still acted and spoke and had the interests and inclinations of local wallys. Nothing to me will ever compare to The Pistols, nothing. It's something to do with growing up thinking you and people from your station in life are worthless...and then being shown that you're not...or not completely anyway.

All that and only 3 halfway decent songs!

Just kidding, I totally understand.

[dalsh327]

I googled the quote but I knew that album was out before Flowers of Romance, I just didn't know there was a direct connection. That's one of my favorite albums though, it also caused Kate Bush to use those same drum sounds, but she was on that album,but she liked PiL and we know Lydon's a big fan of hers. Just an incredible run as far as Peter went at the time, and cool that Phil was a part of it, showed that he was probably the only guy in Genesis Peter was still getting along with (and maybe Steve Hackett).

Ozzy drove Sharon crazy with playing Face Value over and over that she'd try to get rid of it but he'd get another copy, he had no idea how many replacement copies he bought, but it was a lot.

[Len Cnut]

I was only mucking about Dalshie, i didn't tell the full story with my comment but you did There was rumours that Nick and John were gonna work together again a couple of years before THis Is Pil came out.

I do get the feeling that a lot of people think i pull some of this stuff out of my arse when talking about PiL and the scope of their influence and importance though.

Edited November 5, 2015 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

The Pistols tell you that if the working class persevere they too can end up in butter commercials!

[Len Cnut]

The Pistols tell you that if the working class persevere they too can end up in butter commercials!

I'll take it over a living in a storefront on the Benwell Road, getting meningitis from water with rats piss in it and having to hold the arse of your trousers together with safety pins.

[DieselDaisy]

Why would any sort of class, least of all the British working class, wish to imitate The Sex Pistols, a band of no discernible talent (except perhaps Steve Jones)? Oh look at us, cool, 'the Queen is a fascist'. I can kill my girlfriend and OD. Then sell my butter! I recall a particularly disgusting Lydon anecdote involving a dinner party, human excrement and a handkerchief - it was not just Sid - or even GG Allin - who were fuck ups.

[Len Cnut]

Why would any sort of class, least of all the British working class, wish to imitate The Sex Pistols, a band of no discernible talent (except perhaps Steve Jones)? Oh look at us, cool, 'the Queen is a fascist'. I can kill my girlfriend and OD. Then sell my butter! I recall a particularly disgusting Lydon anecdote involving a dinner party, human excrement and a handkerchief - it was not just Sid - or even GG Allin - who were fuck ups.

There's no point pointing our how useless and worthless and disgusting they were because my opinion factors all that in, thats the point, it's the no-hopers, the ones no one cares about, by hook or by crook, they made a mark on their times and their culture. Holding them up to whatever standards you are doing, or pointing out their failings, of which there are many, is kind of pointless because all that is taken for granted about them from the get-go.

The fact that you or some bloke down the street or thousands upon thousands of people think they are/were a bunch of wasters just makes what they did all the more special. Thats the whole point, they could've been the people in the dole queue, its the first and only time a particular social experience that i can identify with was put out there and represented...and they really stood up for themselves and put a marker down.

They were the scum of the streets, there was nothing cool about them, nothing slick about them, they weren't some sexy Mick Jagger or genius art school Lennon, they were none of that, Sid Vicious was a total div, a gangly awkward little silly boy...but THATS the point, he was people i knew, you couldn't have had me or my mates aged 19, stuck a microphone in our faces and interviewed us and gotten any better than the same silliness you got from Sid Vicious, making fart noises and tittering, slagging everybody off, including themselves, taking the piss out of everything and not taking anything seriously.

So like...you can have your Stones and your Cream and your Led Zeppelin and Queen and all these big bad hyper intelligent types, pontificating on telly about bringing ballet to the masses or going on World In Action talking about youth movements and crap...but to me all that stuffs not very real...but Sid Vicious talking a load of bollocks is

It's like supporting the third division football team, they're shit and they lose every week but they're YOUR team and they represent your thing and they mean as much as a Man Utd or an Arsenal do to their supporters. No, scratch that, they're the 3rd division team that went on to win the European Cup once in 1977

It's very difficult to explain to someone without their working from the stand point of an absolute lack of self esteem and self regard, which is sort of what you're like in your early to mid to late teens...or i was anyway. They were real, they were human, they spat and blew their noses and got things wrong and say divvy stuff sometimes and stumbled and couldn't dance, they smoked horrible fags and drank brown ale and...scratched themselves

I don't want Mick Jagger, i don't want fairy stories from Led Zeppelin, i don't want ballet, i don't want goblins and dragons and 20 minute solos, i want snotty little herberts with an attitude problem for no good reason that tell it as they see it and don't mince words and are just up for a laugh.

The singlemost validating thing i ever heard about The Sex Pistols, the most validating thing, the thing that makes me wanna get in line behind em was Councillor Bernard Brooke Partridge and his comment that punk was:

'noisey prurient disgusting sleazy, all these groups would be vastly improved by sudden death, the worst currently are The Sex Pistols, they are the antithesis of human kind, they are incredibley nauseating, i think someone should dig a great hole and drop the whole lot down in, the whole world would be vastly improved by their total and utter non existence...it's not a question of an MI5 blacklist, i will do everything in my power to make sure they never perform in London again'.

That just makes my heart swell with pride It still blows my mind hearing that, it's the most validating thing ever, there is no greater validation of their existence out there, to get that reaction, in an official capacity, from a Councillor of London...wow....just brilliant in every way. All that for making music, playing songs. To be discussed in parliament under the traitors and treason act...for speaking their minds basically?

So, y'know, these useless thickos with nothing of any value to say that are no good for nothing must've got something right, to find themselves being shut down like that for making songs. Like John himself said, 'naive and stupid and all that but hello, too accurate for the establishment to tolerate'.

So, in being the uncool useless worthless yobbos with nothing to say, somehow they came off the coolest, the most potent and purposeful out there in the statement that they made by just being themselves. I think thats fantastic and they were fantastic and God bless em for being born. Love em. Love em to bits.

Edited November 5, 2015 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

True, Sid reminds me of chavs from high school: same common looking gormless pasty face; same redundancy in cerebral matter. The only thing I like about the band is Jones' Chuck Berry-esque playing and sleazy guitar tone - that appeals to me. ''Pretty Vacant'' is The Pistols' finest hour by miles. ''Holiday In the Sun'' is decent - basically the singles. The rest, the album tracks, do not hold up very well. I do not like Led Zeppelin either. If it was 1975-6 I do not believe I would be listening to The Stones much either who were messing around with inflatable penises and putting out sub-par shit like It's Only Rock and Roll.

[Len Cnut]

True, Sid reminds me of chavs from high school: same common looking gormless pasty face; same redundancy in cerebral matter.

Well thats me all over minus the pasty

sub-par shit like It's Only Rock and Roll.

I think that song has brilliant lyrics, very astute observations regarding the relationship between the performer and the audience.

[DieselDaisy]

True, Sid reminds me of chavs from high school: same common looking gormless pasty face; same redundancy in cerebral matter.

Well thats me all over minus the pasty

sub-par shit like It's Only Rock and Roll.

I think that song has brilliant lyrics, very astute observations regarding the relationship between the performer and the audience.

Sid literally looks like the chavs in my school, facially. I have three or four in mind. There is something about a chav's face which is genetic, i.e. not cultural. There were probably chavs in Henry VIII's England, Sid's ancestors, ''belting buzzing'' when the monasteries went down.

The Stones are parodying themselves and their genre on that song. Rock N' Roll has now become a self-conscious genre with it: rock, by its own admittance, is now a revival movement and not a genuine force. The Stones - sorry, Jagger - were merely latching onto the glam rock thing; bands like T-Rex, Slade and Sweet were all coming out with these self-referencing party anthems in the mid-1970s with ''rock n' roll' in the title - perhaps a reaction to the pretensions of Zeppelin and the progressive bands?

Have you got the wonderfully named ''Spunk'' demos? I have them as a bonus disc and I am aware that there is this debate about them in Pistols circles, about them being superior than the actual album.

[dalsh327]

Punk started off more or less a gathering of Bowie & Mick Ronson fans, even though that's oversimplifying it. The Stones still sounded like the Stones, but you'd hear Elton, McCartney and Ringo doing some glam influenced stuff.

[DieselDaisy]

Punk seemed to start in two different eras and times, New York c.1973 (although you can go back earlier to the Velvet Underground) and England c.1976. I was watching a documentary on the Stones (called the Ron Wood Years - it is on Youtube incidentally) and it states that New York punk was different. Unlike British punk, American punk was solely an aesthetic movement, of garage rock values, 1950s 7'' mentality. It did not necessarily repudiate bands like the Stones, Zeppelin and The Beatles. Keith Richards in fact was a messiah figure to people like Patti Smith and Thunders, who both adopted the 'rooster' hairstyle as a consequence. In England punk was socio-political and saw itself as vehemently opposed to the aforementioned bands. It seems to have been more a serious thing in England, perhaps reflecting the social and economic malaise of 1970s Britain. In America it was more escapist.

[wasted]

But arent all bands made up of local wallys though?

The manics were known as "the village gays" in blackwood.

Suppose theres bands like Smashing Pumpkins ho go to music college.

But Phil isnt he just a normal geezer?

[Len Cnut]

But arent all bands made up of local wallys though?

True but i didn't mean wallys as in total prats, I'm talking about the underclass, I'm talking about the vast unwashed majority that this country despises...and those divisions were a lot more severe in the 70s. London was in such a bad state, it was borderline Dickensian in certain aspects in those days...and these were the lads that came up out of it, they weren't just a pack of queers or something, Lydon, despite being academically inclined, was on the Arsenal firm in them days, Cookie and Jonesy were on the Chelsea firm...Jonesy came from a fuckin' approved school, he was a borstal boy, he nicked cars and broke into peoples houses for a 'living', we're not talking about the slightly nerdy art types here (although Sid and John did go to art school...but in them days that was just a way that a bunch of malingerers could avoid getting a proper job, they were squatting at the time), we're talking like serious bottom rung on the ladder type people, i don't think there's ever, at least out of the British rock n rollers, been such a certified pack of wrong uns in a band before or since.

Sid literally looks like the chavs in my school, facially. I have three or four in mind. There is something about a chav's face which is genetic, i.e. not cultural. There were probably chavs in Henry VIII's England, Sid's ancestors, ''belting buzzing'' when the monasteries went down.

All those things about Sid are true but at the same time, comparing them to your average reebook classics and Fred Perry shirt type boy, Sid was a Bowie boy, a T Rex fanatic, you gotta give him some points for that compared to the other

Punk seemed to start in two different eras and times, New York c.1973 (although you can go back earlier to the Velvet Underground) and England c.1976. I was watching a documentary on the Stones (called the Ron Wood Years - it is on Youtube incidentally) and it states that New York punk was different. Unlike British punk, American punk was solely an aesthetic movement, of garage rock values, 1950s 7'' mentality. It did not necessarily repudiate bands like the Stones, Zeppelin and The Beatles. Keith Richards in fact was a messiah figure to people like Patti Smith and Thunders, who both adopted the 'rooster' hairstyle as a consequence. In England punk was socio-political and saw itself as vehemently opposed to the aforementioned bands. It seems to have been more a serious thing in England, perhaps reflecting the social and economic malaise of 1970s Britain. In America it was more escapist.

I don't think punk in New York had much to do with punk in England. Punk in New York, they were like obssessed with Rimbaud and poetry and they were big Kerouac fanatics, they were just like urban Warholian hippies more than anything. Art and symbolism and all that, what did the average lad or girl punk in them days give a fuck for any of that kinda stuff? Richard Hell thought he was some kind of Neal Cassady type figure, Patti Smith, again, just like...poetry and that, even Johnny Thunders as you mentioned and The Ramones, they were just into another aspect of the 50s and 60s, the pop bubblegum type stuff. The punks over here also had a foot in rock n roll but their field of influence in that regard was more towards Mott the Hoople and pub rock and all that kinda stuff.

They were a lot younger in England too, they were actually kids, like teenagers, Patti Smith, Richard Hell, The Ramones, they were a lot older and a lot more musically profficient. You gotta bear in mind though, with English punk, for the 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 good bands there were there was a LOT of fuckin' cack as well, just some fuckin' dire awful fuckin' music. It's all well and good saying 'all you need is 3 chords, wa-hey, music belongs to the people again!' but the fact is we ain't all fuckin' musical, this is something that needs historically noting with a bit more emphasis, if you wandered into your average punk gig in London in them days most of the bands playing were fuckin' pants.

The Stones are parodying themselves and their genre on that song

It kind of encapsulates the paradigm admirably though. It's kinda Malcolm McLareney really, in terms of what it's saying.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Len B'stard

[wasted]

i've started to like Dire Straits too. Brothers in Arms is pretty good album.

[dalsh327]

Phil's first two solo albums are going to be deluxe editions and out next year, I think Jason Bonham and Leland Sklar are doing one show but it might turn into more shows if things go well.