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Endearingly laid back

Geir Myklebust reprints in his blog a heartfelt eulogy to Tommy Bolin penned by Geoff Barton for the December 11, 1976, issue of Sounds.

HEARD ABOUT Tommy’s death last Sunday morning. The news hit hard and low.
I hadn’t known him particularly well, but there was always — shall always be — a place for his music in my heart. In fact, I had received a copy of his latest album, his finest work to date, ‘Private Eyes’, in mid-week and had been playing it more or less continually for several days.
First met Tommy in the Swiss Cottage Holiday Inn in September 1975. He’d just joined Deep Purple and at the time his enthusiasm for his new-found gig was running hand-in-hand with his keenness to complete a solo project, eventually to emerge as the LP ‘Teaser’ on Nemperor records.
Endearingly laid back, intelligent and softly spoken, my interview with him went well and I count it amongst my most enjoyable.

Read more in My Things — Music history for those who are able to read.



34 Comments to “Endearingly laid back”:

  1. 1
    Gregster says:

    Yo,

    Good article, not too long, & to-the-point.

    RIP Tommy Bolin !

    Peace !

  2. 2
    Uwe Hornung says:

    Nitpicker’s comment (those darn Besserwisser Krauts!), Cobham’s Spectrum preceded Tommy joining the Gang. In fact Jim Fox (drummer and then band leader) had initial doubts when he heard that album and mentioned to Tommy on the phone: “We’re actually looking for a hard rock player …”, to which Tommy gleefully said “No problem, I can do hard rock too!” And he sure did, Bang, his debut with the Gang, was a cracker of an inspired album (Miami, the follow-up, paled in comparison and had none of the energy and ebullience).

    The quick demise of Mk IV following that fateful 1976 UK Tour is still somewhat of a mystery to me. Ok, so Bolin plays crap on those (very few) dates (and has an impatient, spoiled & belligerent audience), but he had toured the Pacific Region and the US of A before and there he did mostly well (if not entirely consistent); even with an impaired arm the Japanese had loved him and the Australian Tour had been a resounding success too.

    Moreover, by 1976, the UK was no longer DP’s major future market and the advent of Punk was flying into their face as an arena rock band with substantial US success in any case. They could have done financially satisfying US Tours like Foghat (who amounted to nothing in the UK or Europe, but were arena kings of the Midwest) for several years longer. They would not have lost Europe as a market, certainly not Germany. We loved Ritchie, ja schon, but that American kid was a sight to see too. (Hell, we even stuck with Uriah Heep after David Byron was dismissed, Lawton-era Heep had some of the best sales of the group in Germany.)

    Still, Paicey, Lordy and DC decided to throw all that away for an uncertain future that basically saw them for almost a decade in commercially so-so doldrums (compared to their commercial reign as Purple members). Strange. I don’t think Peter Grant or Don Arden would have let that happen. They would have knocked the band into shape and if it had meant sending Tommy and Glenn into rehab at gunpoint.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXhf30MEL9c

    Coverdale, Lord and Paice must at this point have been really exhausted, washed-out and I guess saturated to give all that up.

  3. 3
    Uwe Hornung says:

    I remember reading in the papers about his death (which in hindsight was in part due to dereliction of duty/loss of common sense of his closest circle who were hesitant to bring him to an emergency room earlier where he could have been saved – but make no mistake, Tommy had been riding the razor’s edge with his lifestyle for years). After the Purple split a few months before, that was the – literal – death knell to any hopes that Mk IV might give it another try (I was still hoping for that back then, I did not expect Ritchie to return to Purple anytime soon, you could tell he liked having things his way with Rainbow).

    It was sad and wasteful because I thought Private Eyes such a strong album, more cohesive and with a better production sound than the thoroughly eclectic, but looking-for-a-common-thread collection of songs that was the Teaser album. In my mind, I saw a chance of Tommy doing a Peter Frampton-like career. He had the looks, the songwriting skills (his music was inoffensive to a potentially wider audience without being banal, I’ve never met anyone who did not like Private Eyes after hearing it even if they had no idea who Tommy was) and an endearing, intimate voice.

    While I understand that Jeff Beck and him rated each other as guitarists (and Spectrum admittedly coaxed Jeff Beck into disbanding BBA and recording Blow By Blow only a year after the Cobham album),

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK14So3O5_k

    I was not entirely sure whether pairing the Tommy Bolin Band with Jeff Beck for a lengthy tour was a good idea. A few gigs opening for Frampton or Fleetwood Mac (or a similar mainstream act) would have done a hell of a lot more for Tommy’s solo career. Jeff Beck was niche already back then (not a knock, he defiantly chose to be niche).

    Leland Sklar (a lovely man and brilliant bassist who played on Spectrum and a myriad other well-known albums of e.g. Phil Collins and Toto) reminisces Tommy at 11:38. He knew Tommy from even before the Cobham sessions.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1Z4ux1y1b8

    Stratus (the song off Spectrum featuring Tommy) has meanwhile become a staple number for rock and fusion guitarists of any ilk:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCE53WXJ1sY

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6WAatVwDzM

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoD8h3-mTP0

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PevdetZIS1E

    Tommy did it first. See, there’s more to the DP musical universe than just Smoke On The Water!

  4. 4
    MacGregor says:

    I am not sure about the so called ‘successful’ Australian tour for MK IV Uwe. There were many very disappointed Purple fans from my memory of certain articles & feed back from back in those dim, distant & dark days. DP as we know were in Oz earlier that year for the silly Sunbury festival appearance. Many fans were not up on the fact that Blackmore was not still in DP a little later on that year when the band did return. Articles in the press moved much slower here in Oz as I have stated before. As soon as fans heard DP were touring they just bought tickets by the truck load. Well not that much as the venues they played were at were not that big at the time. It could be garnered a ‘success’ in regards to tickets sold for the venues perhaps. Anyway you may have some reviews that I haven’t read or band member quotes perhaps pertaining to a different scenario. In regards to Lord, Paice & Coverdale moving on that was inevitable well before the band finished. Nothing would have convinced Lord & Paice to continue dragging that band around anymore. I doubt that Peter Grant would have continued along those lines, much too astute & Don Arden, well I suppose he could have had his minders break a few legs or something to convince certain people to continue, as was his trait from what we have read over the years. Maybe I am over exaggerating it a little, but by that stage of DP it was a drama of all proportions, falling off the world stage into an abyss. Heroin & cocaine tend to do that. Cheers.

  5. 5
    Gregster says:

    Yo,

    It’s obvious that when you have acquired 2 x drug-addicts in your band, that operate from either end of the spectrum ( Uppers ( cocaine ) & Downers ( heroine )), & drug-use becomes more important than the shows, that there’s no choice left but to disband.

    Jon Lord expressed this in “Phoenix Rising”, in that the band was too inconsistent in its performances, & left them no choice but to call-it-a-day, since poor performances reflected on the stable members too.

    There were some amazing performances however too !

    One only has to listen to “Last Concert in Japan” to understand what a shyte show was all about, & this release is testament to JL, IP & DC’s decision, & should clear-out any doubts why the end came about. That’s why imo this album was officially released, to point out what a shyte show sounded like, & closure.

    Yes we regretfully lost Tommy, & Glenn has had a fruitful career & learned much, but hasn’t worked again with any of the above…

    You’d be p*ssed too.

    Peace !

  6. 6
    Uwe Hornung says:

    You guys act as if DP in the mid-70ies was the only band were some members had drug abuse issues. Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt of Status Quo snorted half of South America up their noses – Rossi doesn’t have a septum anymore because of it, Parfitt drew a heart condition. Hensley in Heep was a cokehead, Thain a heroin addict and Byron a raging alcoholic as was John Wetton (recurringly) for most of his career. And what about Keith Richards then, he was walking death in the 70ies? Even “straight” Charlie Watts was a heroin user in the 80ies for a while. The Eagles, Elton John, Aerosmith and Fleetwood Mac, all dusty with Colombian produce and/or heroin users (Aerosmith), Alice Cooper’s “40 cans of Bud a day” and his membership cards in various dry-out clinics? Patti Smith was shooting up heroin in the 70ies before her gigs, even at the Europe-wide televised Rockpalast one where the moderators found her needling her feet backstage prior to the concert (her performance suffered badly, take a look at some clips of it).

    None of these bands folded in a time span as short as DP did. I’m not advocating drug use, but in the right environment with access to high quality product, a cocaine or heroin addict can remain operable for quite some time (not everyone though, some people are better at it than others). When heroin users die, it’s mostly from accidental overdoses because of varying quality of the obtained drug product or because of bad hygiene. Pure heroin of consistent quality administered in a clean environment in sparing doses takes a very long time to kill you, it’s just addictive as hell and gradually ruins your life as the next high becomes the center of everything.

    I remain unconvinced of “the drugs did it!”-argument.

  7. 7
    stoffer says:

    @5 Exactly!! Jon and Paicey were burnt out and tired of the players drug habits, and I think many fans were too. The breakup led to some interesting music until the reunion. Tommy’s 2 albums are still played start to finish often, they are so good!! Glenn is Glen, no one can deny his talent or work ethic although I’m not a huge fan except for Trapeze and Purple he is way more than just a survivor. It was so sad about Tommy, I remember hearing the news but hardly surprised (we had tickets for a show on the tour that we didn’t use).

  8. 8
    Gregster says:

    @6…Uwe said qt.”I remain unconvinced of “the drugs did it”!-argument”…

    That’s Ok, none of us were there living-the-moment…But certainly through the 1990’s, in Australia, the more exotic drugs took precedent over a “little-bit-of-smoko”, & people & lifestyles changed dramatically. Scary stuff to live through, yet alone watch friends & band-members lose-it-all-together.

    I agree that some people manage quite well with their personal habits, & remain reasonably professional their whole lives, without affecting others around them, but that’s usually when finances & habits are relatively secure.. eg.The drugs are always available, & can be paid for. (Look out however when there’s no drugs to buy, or money to buy them with)…

    Anyhow, Jon Lord sums it up beautifully when he stated that “When a person buys a ticket to a show, that’s a contract between you & that person, that you’re going to be able to deliver a top performance on the night”…

    By contrast, Glenn might reply “Wasn’t it usual to be sniffing cocaine of strippers asses in every board meeting that you went to all around the world ??? Wasn’t everyone doing it ??? It was the normal thing to do wasn’t it ???”…

    And Glenn to his credit also admits to getting a key to Tommy’s hotel-room one time, to search-the-place-out for coke, since he could sense there was some around, & stealing a little-bit, only to have his minder return what was left later after feeling guilty for the theft…

    And when you throw in a “dodgy dude” who flew around the world with the band, with a guitar-case full of cocaine, it paints a less-than-happy work environment for some…

    The evidence begins to stack-up that after-hour-indulgences became the reason for waking-up out-of-bed for some of the band members, & you can’t get any sense from people that have dived-in-too-deep, & living-the-life 24/7/365…And Glenn freely admits that cocaine became his mistress. It’s all revealed here in Phoenix Rising, which is a great show imo…Only silly simple mathematics is needed for conclusions…And no one even told Glenn that the band had broken-up since he found that out by chance at IP’s wedding…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHrz2Tc7ZaU

    I would say that the lack of acceptance of some fans of Tommy joining the band possibly led to more drug use & alienation, & hence, poor performances due to the abuse thrown at him. Rather than fighting back with a stellar guitar prowess, the crowd & rotten tomatoes got the better of him.

    Even Roger Glover said years later in 1993 after the RB water incident, that playing out on stage can be the worst place in the world to be if you don’t want to be up there.

    Peace !

  9. 9
    Max says:

    Am I the only one around who thinks Last Concert In Japan is quite enjoyable? When the whole show was finalley released on a double cd years later I rushed out to get it (and not just for the coaster that came with it…) and have listened to it time and again ever since. It has great moments, especially David singing Soldier Of Fortune (way too short of course) just with Jon’s hammond backing him and You Keep On Moving move me big time where Wild Dogs is easily one of Purple’s best moments ever captured on tape. Period.

  10. 10
    Uwe Hornung says:

    When Purple folded in 1976, all statements, press releases, articles and interviews only ever so faintly alluded to the possibility that drugs might have something to do with it. Jon said he had grown tired of DP‘s touring schedule and that “things were never the same without Ritchie”. Ian Paice said in the NME that “part of Mk IV‘s failure was Glenn‘s refusal to accept that Purple were a white rock’n’roll band and not a black funk band S he would have liked to have had it“. DC said he got tired of the “self-indulgent solo spots”, “Glenn‘s bloody Georgia On My Mind” and that he “no longer wanted to scream his balls off“. Jon hinted that „it‘s easy to think you‘re ‘The Ultimate’ (a dig against one of Tommy’s captioned T-shirts) if you‘re filled to the hilt with drugs”, but also pointed to DC‘s love for a drink which had the latter retaliate in kind with mentioning “Jon‘s cognac consumption I don‘t want to talk about here“. Jon and Ian made vague statements about David’s and Glenn’s sibling rivalry on who sings what where. Tommy‘s Budokan arm impairment was explained away with him “falling asleep on his arm and pinching a nerve”.

    The public blurb back then was essentially that everyone had grown tired of each other, Tommy had failed before UK audiences and that Glenn really wanted to do something different. Interestingly enough, I don‘t remember Glenn or Tommy making any statements at the time, neither Jon, nor Paicey nor DC told them about their resolution, Glenn only found out when DC told him at Jon‘s wedding with Glenn‘s former girlfriend Vickie. Tommy was totally clueless, divulging in a promo interview for Private Eyes at one point that “they haven’t called me since the tour finished, somehow I think that if you care about people you do that, but I haven’t heard anything from them about the next album”.

  11. 11
    Uwe Hornung says:

    You’re not alone Max, I’m one of those weird people who prefer Last Concert in Japan to Made in Europe! MiE is a depressive, professional, but cold live album to me as you can hear Ritchie’s introverted alienation from the band throughout, he’s basically playing only for himself anymore. Last Concert features a hampered Tommy, true, but it’s a spirited performance against all odds – the band trying hard to make it work, soldiering on. OK, some of the editing is dodgy. But the album is worth having for the Purple version of Wild Dogs alone.

    I mail-ordered it from England back in the day, it wasn’t released in Germany in 1977 yet – in the UK it was available as a Japanese import. I saw an advert in the NME, brought my Deutsche Mark allowance to the bank, exchanged it for Pound Sterling + added another 10 Pounds or so for second-guessed shipping costs and sent the cash with a handwritten letter to the record shop in London – no PayPal or credit card back then! – hoping valiantly for the best. Everyone – including my parents – told me what a silly idea that was and that I would never get anything in return.

    But you know the Brits, they’re nice + decent people with a sense of fair play. A few weeks later, a makeshift cardboard package arrived and there it was! I was overjoyed! I will never be able to prove this, of course, but I’m adamant that in the Spring of 1977 I was the first German to hold that album in his grubby little hands, jawohl! I played it to death and received adulation and jealousy galore from other Purple nerds (who all loved it), while MiE hardly got a spin, that always made me feel depressive. I very much prefer the Kilburn recording from the 1974 tour that had the notorious ‘Rick Emerson’ guesting on keyboards. ; – )

    These days, I can listen to MiE for everyone else’s performance BUT Blackmore’s. He still sounds disinterested to me. And Glenn attempts to compensate by overplaying on You Fool No One even more than usual!

  12. 12
    Leslie S Hedger says:

    I also like last concert in Japan Max. The entire show, released as Live in Tokyo is not a bad show IMHO. Lord and Paice more than make up for Tommy’s less than stellar playing.

  13. 13
    MacGregor says:

    No we are not talking as if DP MK IV was the ‘only’ band with drug problems. It is that that lineup is being talked about here at present for different reasons, plus DP were not really a drug band as such, so I suppose it stands out a bit more than it does with with other acts.. If we start talking about all & sundry & their issues this web site would crash due to a plethora of massive comments from everyone & anyone about everyone else. Something like that. Seriously though it is what it is with DP MK IV plain & simple, they Bolin & Hughes screwed the band, it is called karma the band being ‘pulled from under them’, well that is one way of looking at it. In regards to other rockers self indulgence, Gary Thain was a walking overdose if ever there was one. Just have a look at images from the 1974 era of Uriah Heep before his unfortunate electrocution on stage. He never made it back (they did try rehearsing apparently in the new year of 1975) & the heroin would have been a bigger issue no doubt. Some say (the band) that it was complications from the trauma of the stage incident, me thinks not as others do, he was a goner already & heading exactly were Bolin ended up. The scourge of the needle. Isn’t that what Dio sings about in The Gates of Babylon, “sleep with the devil & then you will pay, sleep with the devil the devil will take you away’. Cheers.

  14. 14
    Gregster says:

    @9…The footage shown in “Phoenix Rising” does make-up for anything heard that’s less-than-good on the album, as you see what was going on, & it’s quite reasonable…Tommy does quite well, even if his arm isn’t working as well as possible. And there’s no doubting that the band has the set nailed.

    But there are other stellar performances to choose from, so it’s odd that this show was chosen as an official representative Mk-IV show…It would have been better to leave it as a local release only perhaps.

    Mk-IV were a force to reckon with when on fire, but the fire wasn’t focused enough it seems, & its fuel contributed to its early demise perhaps…A couple of more albums to bring us into the 1980’s would have been awesome.

    It’s always a good thing to listen to CTTB, as it’s a superb album, regardless of what didn’t happen down-the-road.

    @5…Well said !

    Peace !

  15. 15
    Max says:

    @10

    Well apparently DC did not get tired of solospots where MM would play “the instrument of the devil” for ages (someone was said to have made it to the loo twice during that) or CP thundering away to the tape he had already used in Rainbow … where it had made at least just a bit of sense – but as part of a show by a blues-rock-outfit with a bit of boogie and soul trhown in? Ah and JL did another solo spot and The Bomber as well – so you could savely say you paid DC for less than an hour. When it comes to screaming his balls of and “take the money and run”… which he got tired of … well say no more!

  16. 16
    Uwe Hornung says:

    “Gregster says:

    @9… The footage …

    @5…Well said !

    Peace !”

    Ok, it has finally happened, Gregster (or both of them) has/have begun reveling in his/their own posts [@5 is also him/them], time to call the funny farm! It’s what a solitary outpost existence in the forlorn bush does to you eventually. To quote the great Ian Hunter:

    https://a3.cdn.hhv.de/items/images/generated/475×475/00872/872667/3-ian-hunter-you-re-never-alone-with-a-schizophrenic.webp

  17. 17
    Uwe Hornung says:

    Max, at the early Whitesnake gigs I witnessed, when Jon and Ian had their solo spots, I’d sometimes close my eyes, lose myself in what I heard and imagine I was at a DP concert (I had never seen them in the 70ies). I lived for the solo spots of those two!!!

    Hell, I even went to a Gary Moore gig hoping for a drum solo from Little Ian (luckily there was one)!

    He hardly ever does them anymore today, I regret that and miss them. I’ve never ever been bored by an Ian Paice drum solo.

  18. 18
    Gregster says:

    LOL !!!…Uwe said…qt.”Ok, it has finally happened, Gregster (or both of them) has/have begun revealing in his/their own posts [@5 is also him/them], time to call the funny farm ! It’s what a solitary outpost existence in the forlorn bush does to you eventually”.

    Leiber Uwe, just because watching the little available footage of the “The Last Concert in Japan” is tolerable, when compared to listening to it on LP, & having at least 2 x people agree that heavy-drug-use helped the decision-making in the disbanding of one of DP’s finest Marks, does not indicate schizophrenia, or a person assuming 2 x roles & posting away as different identities lol…

    Have you not watched “Phoenix Rising” ??? Glenn says-so-himself, that he hardly believes that he survived the 1970’s, yet alone the 1980’s onwards. And says that that drugs ruled his life…

    There’s nothing to defend, since the defendant has admitted guilty-on-all-counts.

    I would encourage the visiting of ANY major hospital’s emergency ward on any Saturday night, or full-moon-evening, to see what too much substance abuse does to people, & how much sense you can get out of them…And some poor souls had to deal with Glenn & his bullshyte for 40-years or so…And some people here worship him…Schizo indeed lol !

    People using hard-core-drugs are generally pretty-messed-up, love to talk about themselves & their hardships endlessly, & should be generally avoided at all costs, where possible.

    Peace !

  19. 19
    Max says:

    Uwe, of course I did enjoy a solo from JL and IP too … in Ian’s case I still do now and then, he does some with Purpendicular.

    But that DC said he got tired of solospots and tired of screaming and doin so for the money (The Purple Album remixed anyone?) was a bit funny me thought. And Cozy’s Tieffliegeralarm-performance was a little bit annoying in the context of the Wine-Women-and-song-attitude of the Snake.

    But who on earth would get bored by Ian Paice? With his touring band you get the chance to see him at work from a couple of feet away and it is very rewarding.

    And ah.. those stories from a time long gone by… I did send money in an envelope too … and I got what I asked for as well. And just the other day I showed IGB “Live at Budokan” to my boys, a double album a nice guy from a record store had gotten me from Australia (different sleeve, never seen that one ever since). And guess who I met at a concert just the other day? 45 years later? That guy from the record store …

    And oh the stories we could tell … and if this all blows up and goes to hell … and if you ever wonder why we ride this caroussell … we did it for the stories we could tell…

  20. 20
    Uwe Hornung says:

    But you (two?) lauded your own post @14, Gregster(s), in that you referred to your own previous comment with “@5…Well said !” But @5 stems from you!!! That’s why I wrote schizoid: Gregster Gregster. Go read it again. ; – )

    Sure I watched Phoenix Rising, but for some reason the footage from the Budokan gig (including the DP live performance of Wild Dogs which is today no longer available – no doubt a rights issue – and has been wiped from YouTube) was already shown on German TV in 1976/77. I saw it then. Mk IV was the first live footage I ever saw of any Purple line-up.

  21. 21
    Gregster says:

    @20…Ah…I see now, yes my error…I saw the name Stoffer, & directly below was @5 from post 7…I should have said @7…

    Minor glitch, plus it’s often difficult to keep-up here, where it’s often late in the evening, & sometimes the previous-days posts haven’t as yet appeared, so you flow as you can.

    It still doesn’t change the fact that regretfully, the MK-IV band was out-of-control, erratic in performances, & had promises broken, & some horrible incidences in Indonesia…The “goose was cooked” very-well-done until 1983-4.

    Peace !

  22. 22
    Stathis says:

    @19 Love the Jimmy Buffet reference 🙂

  23. 23
    MacGregor says:

    Solo spots at a rock concert, does that still occur these days? I have no doubt it does at times. It was the in thing back in the day. Drum solos were even on studio records back then, unthinkable today. Can you imagine a record company hearing that on an artists new record these days! In regards to Ian Paice or any other drummer doing a solo these days, it is only for some aficionados no doubt. His solo’s back in the day were great as certain other drummers were also, but for me it does get a little repetitive & sort of unnecessary to some extent. Neil Peart resurrected the drum solo magnificently during the 1980’s but after a decade or two I started to not be as interested there also. The same with lead guitarists & keyboardists. Lets not go there. What about bass guitarists. Chris Squire did a wonderful ‘solo’ excursion during a Yes concert. All be it with the drummer involved at times. Horses for courses again.I suppose it can give patrons a chance to get to the loo or the bar perhaps. Didn’t Ian Gillan use to got to the pub when Blackmore was cutting loose? I wonder if he did that when Ian Paice was soloing also? Now there is a thought. Cheers.

  24. 24
    Gregster says:

    Yo,

    A tune is a tune, & if a tune has a lengthy instrumental part as part of its being, so-be-it…Cd’s have around 80-minutes playback time built-in, so let the music roll-out as intended. And this could also show other comparable artists that the bar has been raised, & new form found.

    Better music from everyone is the final result imo.

    Part of the idea behind extended guitar & drum solos was that the rest of the band got a few minutes off to refresh themselves, whilst keeping the audience entertained. Plus the artist got to show-off some new skills acquired for up-&-coming musicians, which was / is a bonus.

    I’d rather solos through a concert than a shortened-set, or a concert with 2 x halves, & a 15-20-minute break…For sure it works well on DVD’s where the time is mostly edited away, but rushing into & out of a stadium mid-concert for a break isn’t my idea of fun. I’m sure that no facilities arrangement can cater for everyone in that limited time.

    Peace !

  25. 25
    Theo says:

    The biggest problem with DP has always been the management. It just was all about the money.
    Gillian’s departure, Blackmore’s. The drugs abuse.
    They should have given the band time recharge their batteries.

    With Grant or Arden they would have been the biggest band in the world.

  26. 26
    Gregster says:

    Yo,

    Nothing exceeds like excess, & some people like to start their shows a little different to most…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB0u2RTpQ3g

    Peace !

  27. 27
    Svante Axbacke says:

    @26: Ha ha! It takes guts to start a show with an 8 minute drum solo! What a brilliant way to force people to sit out a drum solo. 🙂

  28. 28
    MacGregor says:

    Two of the finest drummers in rock music. Chester Thompson is a more than capable progressive rock & fusion drummer. It is shame indeed about Phil Collins health issues & that he can no longer play the drums, let alone sit at a piano from what I have read. I had the chance to witness Genesis in 1986 but turned it down due to travel (again all the way to Sydney). Plus that era of Genesis left me cold for the commercial aspect of it & Phil being so popular also at the same time, it was not appealing to me as it could have or should have. It would have been great though to witness both those drummers in action, especially on a few older mid 70’s Genesis tracks. And Tony Banks & Phil Rutherford are wonderful musicians. Not to worry. We win some & we lose some. Cheers.

  29. 29
    max says:

    @ 20

    …same here. First time ever I saw DP in motion. And…ah… sitting by the TV set … holding a portable Phillips cassette-player with a little microsphone built in next to the TV speaker … praying noone who rush into the living room to rant about those long haired schreihälse …

  30. 30
    Rock Voorne says:

    “And some poor souls had to deal with Glenn & his bullshyte for 40-years or so…And some people here worship him…Schizo indeed lol !”

    A bit farstretching, imho.

    As far as I know that would involve the year 2015 or something like that.

    He turned the corner in 90-92 I think and understood had a relapse around the time he made ADDICTION in 1996.

    Schizo is psychiatric word often, like many other words from that field, used without a lot of thought.

    I dont think people worshipping ” people who were hard to work with, having been a pain in the ass”is psychotic.

    “Schizophrenia is one of several psychotic disorders.
    These are mental health disorders that include periods of psychosis.
    In addition to psychosis, schizophrenia may include other symptoms, such as:

    disorganized thinking
    difficulties in speech and movement
    changes in emotional responding, like flat affect”

    Worshipping is a big word, btw.

  31. 31
    Uwe Hornung says:

    OMG, I did not intend the word “schizophrenic” as a term for a serious psychological disorder, I was just poking fun at Gregster for accidentally self-referencing himself, hence my quote of Ian Hunter’s “you’re never alone with a schizophrenic”, which is obviously just a silly pun!

  32. 32
    Gregster says:

    @30…

    Hey Rock, apologies if I’ve made you ( or anyone ) upset, & was just stirring-the-pot a little with Herr Uwe, & sometimes what’s written / typed-out is not what’s intended, as discussions face-to-face often reveal…But this is all we have for the moment regarding communications here..

    I have vast respect for Mr.Hughes, & his decades long musical contributions / career, but it has its limit also. I suggest I reached that limit weeks ago actually, after listening to an extraordinary DP Mk-III performance at Graz get train-wrecked via the unwanted inclusion of “Georgia”…And sometimes I can’t simply laugh-it-off & say “what a *ucking idiot” like most other times…

    I like to think that I’ll remember Glenn differently, but you can’t edit out what’s on record, & sometimes it’s simply so disappointing to listen to, I get upset…My fault !

    Peace !

  33. 33
    Uwe Hornung says:

    It’s all my fault, RV!!! Sorry, het spijt me! I set Gregster off and put him on the wrong track – whenever he’s heard Glenn do ‘Georgia’ his mind blanks out.

    We’ll just let him applaud his own postings from now on and – adopting a hushed voice – act like nothing is wrong … As the great Kevin Coyne once sang: “Better to be mad than sad!”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qkB483E2uI

    (Coyne actually had personal psychiatric facility experience. He wasn’t making fun of people.)

  34. 34
    Gregster says:

    @33…

    LOL ! That clip reminded me a little of “Drastic Plastic” for some reason…And I must admit to thinking that you’d posted GH & Georgia, so I was armed & ready for further discussion, but alas, that discussion has to wait…

    Better to be mad than sad indeed…

    *And I’ve updated Audacity, so I may just be able to edit “Georgia” away for good from the Graz gig…Lots of mucking around involved however, we’ll see…Then it really will be something special indeed !

    Peace !

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