Gabrielle
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Posts posted by Gabrielle
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Powell: I got a phone call from Jimmy Page, asking if Hipgnosis was interested in designing a cover for Houses of The Holy
I agreed, and asked to hear the music and see the lyrics. He said, "No, just turn up in a few weeks with some ideas."'The Dark Side of the Moon' sold 65 million copies. A billion people have probably seen that image.
When we showed up, Storm and I basically just had a sketch on a napkin. That’s how we did things in those days. Not very high-tech.
The sketch was from an idea that came from science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s novel At Childhood’s End. At the end of the book,
all the kids in the world go up into space in an enormous column of gold fire. I drew that on a napkin and Jimmy Page loved the idea.
Then Robert Plant suggested we find some "interesting rocks," and I said, "How about we go to the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland?"
They gave us carte blanche to shoot there for as long as we wanted, even though it would be expensive. At that time,
bands had all the creative power—more power than record companies.We went with a family—three adults, two kids, up on the rocks—and it poured rain for five days. It was absolutely miserable.
I needed to make this cover extraordinary, but there was no chance of sunshine. The photos we took were in black and white,
in the pouring rain. Each album cover had a totally unique design process.Finally, I decided to cut each individual child out from the various black and white photographs and created a montage.
I hand-tinted it in bright orange and gold and red, rich colors, with 11 gorgeous children running up these octagonal rocks.The image is completely made up. That’s the cover you buy in record stores. I put the original black-and-white photos in this book
because no one's ever seen them before. I’ll always remember when I showed the final cover to Jimmy Page in the parking lot of a train station
in England as he was returning home from tour. I opened up the car trunk, and there was the artwork.
He said, "That looks incredible—that thing will gather a crowd." Within 10 minutes, 200 people were gathered round, looking in the car trunk
and at Jimmy Page, dressed in all his finery with long hair and a lot of jewelry. -
So does it bother you that the conventional wisdom is that your alleged heroin addiction impacted your ability to produce In Through the Out Door? The way that story is always presented is that John Paul Jones and Robert Plant took over the completion of that album [recorded in 1978] because you were heavily involved with drugs.
If anyone wants to say that, the first thing you have to ask them is, "Were you there at the time?" The second thing to take on board is the fact that I am the producer of In Through the Out Door. That's what I did. It's right there in black and white. If there were controversy over this, if John Paul Jones or Robert Plant had done what you're implying, wouldn't they have wanted to be listed as the producers of the album? So let's just forget all that.
In the Evening, Carouselambra, I'm Gonna Crawl, Fool in the Rain and Hot Dog that makes 5 out of 7 songs. It doesn't equal 10% to me.
I've read When Giants Walked the Earth, and many other books and interviews. The album is driven by keyboards = JPJ, vocals doesn't stand out like on sme previous records. Why 'Robert's solo album' and not John Paul Jones's? He was more responsible for ITTOD sound than Plant. (I still won't say this was someone's solo album). Jimmy and Bonzo were in studio 'In the Evening'. Even if you think that production wasn't top notch it was part of Jimmy's contribution to this album.
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I never thought that ITTOD was anything more than a Robert Plant solo record, I think Zep stalled after Physical Graffiti, maybe the double disc was an out as it could have been a single lp; Presence could have had the overflow and been a much better record.
I don't get 'Robert Plant solo record'. He have done what he was supposed to do, wrote lyrics, like on LZ II, III,IV,HOTH,PG and Presence, does this make those record his solo?
I don't think so. Robert wasn't writing music nor dictating musical direction of the band. Jimmy Page played and produced this record, have he played on and produced any RP solo record (except couple of tracks on N&Z)? Did Bonzo play drums on any RP solo record? Did JPJ wrote any songs for RP? It wasn't solo record, it was bands effort, some members might have had smaller influence than others but still, if they didn't like the songs, they wouldn't put them out.
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wow, I've never seen/heard it... and I thought that Kashmir was bad.
They must have rehearsed this before show, just... nobody will persuade me this sounds good.
I don't think that remastered C/P will come in near future (depending on definition of 'near'). Whitesnake just done Purple Album so David will probably promote this and tour until december and then they plan new all original album in 2016 followed by tour so maybe after that? Releasing new album along with re-releasing C/P could steal attention from the newer one. -
It's one side of the story, John's side:
"Me and David, we wrote the songs between us, We went to France, wrote the songs, then took the whole thing over to Los Angeles, which is where we found Aynsley Dunbar, the drummer. We started recording up in Vancouver with Mike Stone at Little Mountain Studios, and as the closing part of the drum stuff was getting finished, Aynsley comes to me and says he's been fired. I thought that was kind of strange, because David hadn't really talked to any of the band members about it. We couldn't really figure it out. So Neil Murray, the bassist finished up his parts, and he got fired. This is over a period of months. And then, I was just wrapping up guitars, Mike Stone phoned up his office and he found out that he'd been fired."Sykes, needless to say, freaked. Fearing that he was on the losing end of a game of musical chairs, he tried calling Coverdale, who was in Los Angeles. But the singer neither answered the phone nor returned calls. Desperate, Sykes called John Kalodner, the Geffen Records executive in charge of the project.
"I'd realized that everybody who's finished up their job is history, so I said to John: 'Look, I'm kind of wondering what's going on. I can't get ahold of David, and I'm starting to wonder if I've been fired.' And he said, 'Well, it's kind of looking that way.'
My option was to quit right then and not finish the guitars, but obviously that would mean he'd get someone else in to do guitars - and I didn't want that to happen, seeing as I'd written most of it with him. So I finished up the guitar leads". Sykes found out where Coverdale was mixing the album and flew out for a final confrontation. "I went into the studio and caught him, and it got into a little bit of a shouting match, one thing led to another, and he wound up locking himself in his car, shrugging his hands like 'It wasn't my choice.' Then he just drove off."
And from different interview:
Whitesnake. Can I swear in front of you John?…..David Coverdale.
Oh yeah. I don't think anything which way on it. (laughs) That's so old, almost like a lifetime ago.
1987 is such a phenomenal album.
Well, its funny people still till this day come up to me and ask me when I'm going to get back with Whitesnake. When are we going to see you and David together? I have.
Although we did some great work together and everything else he kinda has to get off his high horse a bit if we are ever going to work together again.
There are two things that I have read in interview that David has said I'll run past you to see what you think. The first was 'You and him recreated rock history inside 5 day when you wrote this album, recreated the hard rock sound."
I think it might have been longer that 5 days but I think he might be right. You know when that album came out I think it definitely made a few people sit up and listen. But the thing is I just can't understand why he killed it so quickly. I think one of the reasons people sort of got disappointed by the Whitesanke band, is that 9 times out of 10 when people buy a record they want to see the people that played on the product perform the product. Not David Coverdale the voice and then a backing band form the local bar or pub. They want to see the real deal. He sort of robbed people of that opportunity and I think it's a real shame.
There was such a great line up on there.
I think it was very short sighted of him to do that, although he probably made a killing to start with.
In the long run I think it's probably hurt the whole thing.
Who or what got in his ear and convinced him that he needed a new band?
I can't really say cause I don't really know.
I mean if it had been just one person, fired me or just one of the band member's cause they'd had a little tiff or tizzy or something you could understand it. But he fired everybody. The drummer, bass, me, the producer. It was like he was just cleaning shop and the only reason I could imagine that would be for is so he could have a lot more control of things, certainly in the financial department.
I mean the record that followed that he even stiffed his guitarist Vandenberg to bring in Steve Vai.
Well the thing is if he needs a blues based guitar player - he's not a blues player.
The record was ok but it didn't suit the whole feel of his voice at all.
It was almost like it wasn't believable anymore. It was like these semi rock/pop songs.
There wasn't really a whole lot of depth to it I felt.
I don't think any of his records match that sound, because of the guitar sound, the rhythm section.
Well actually David's just used my bass player on his record, Marco Mendoza.
I was going to ask you about that. Did you feel betrayed by Marco?
Well I wasn't too pleased about it and I did give him a good chewing up about it.
I know Marco has to make a living. He said to me it was basically just a cheque to him, which is fair enough. It's just a session to me. Initially I felt a bit betrayed by him but after talking to him he has assured me it was only money to him. I've got to be a big enough man to take it and get on with things.
The other thing that Coverdale said and for me this just sums him up. ' You and Robert Plant should go off and form a band called the Anti Christ's.'
Me and Robert Plant?!! The Anti Christ's?!
Hahahaha!! Him and Plant aren't real good buddies.
Dearie me, he's still all upset.
This is about 5 years ago.
I did talk to Robert once. Later I got a call from one of his personal assistants to go check out his show. I went down and met with him briefly but nothing ever came of it.
That makes me laugh. Anti Christ's, not a bad idea.
David may have felt a bit threatened by Robert, with all his years in the business. With me, I pretty much say what's on my mind. Especially when it comes to creative things. Sometimes it like you just say your thing, not a big deal. But if somebody constantly want you to kiss their arse and you don't do that. It becomes something some people can' t handle too much. I'm just not an arse kisser. -
One can mask insecurities with a pose for some time but 45 years? He have a big ego. He named his band Whitesnake for gods sake and joked that
"if I was from Africa it would be Blacksnake"... It's beyond corny, who would like to be in a band named after lead singers dick? Not me.
-Hey what are you up to? -Oh hey, I'm playing with David Coverdale's Whitesnake -...
What abut all those band members replacements? Immediately after any band member grow any ego (or David finds new puppet) they are kicked out. John Sykes (Thin Lizzy) who co-wrote their biggest album 1987 got kicked out by phone couple days before the tour started, along with bassist, drummer and producer, without any warning. Same with Vivian Campbell, who wrote Dio's biggest songs. It's always about David. In his mind, people he worked with should forever be grateful that he gave them career but he can treat them as session players, whom he owe nothing to. That is not very professional in my book.
I refuse to base my judgement on a singer by how much their voice deteriorated because it's not really up to them, it depends on material they were singing, genes, how long the setlists were, how many gigs they played in a row, how often they got ill (and singers get ill all the time), surgeries etc. Glenn Hughes was never an angel, he was drug addict and alcoholic yet he still have a great voice. Why can everybody in band have fun except singer who should be sober, clean, non-smoker and go to bed before midnight? It's not really a fair expectation. What they sung shall forever be their achievement just as riffs or solos are to guitarists. But If you combine cliche, obnoxious lyrics, overtly-sexual stage presence, attitude towards bandmates, I can't get over all these to enjoy his voice. -
I've been listening to Black Country Communion a lot lately, especially live shows and it's a shame that they disbanded, great stuff.
There must have been something Coverdale did right because he wouldn't end up in Deep Purple otherwise and he was good enough,
he had big shoes to fill, but I can't judge him like post 1984 never happened. It's hard to believe how he changed musically and visually
during MTV era.
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Anyone can have a bad gig or even a string of bad gigs - Some context would be nice, like was he ill? Was this the end of a tour? Or was it the 5th night in a row? Or this simply one song that he can't sing because the range is way the fuck up in the sky?
Well, I've been reading Deep Purple message board (Whitesnake forum is so heavily moderated that you won't find one negative post about DC,
who used to write there), people there are more versed in DC and they were saying that Coverdale started being spotty live since 1997 and rarely good since 2006.
There were also some accusations of lip-syncing in 2008:
“David has always sung this way. His microphone has an extremely high input level, which makes it possible that the voice is still heard even from a huge distance.”
Yeah, sounds legit, there were supposedly some pre-recorded tracks (not only backing), people were throwing beers at him and wanted their money back.
I've watched some recent shows and they were atrocious, new songs and ballads sounded good but that's given. The only worse singers that come to my mind are:
1. David Lee Roth (who was never good singer but decent lyricist and good showman)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP7iJ8Kcicg
Since we are on LZ forum listen to 11:30 – 15:00
It’s an interview from 2013, David used Robert as example of singer who got fat and lost voice
(in opposite to him), then program host plays VH tune in which DLR sounds horrible.
2. Paul Stanley (who was good singer but bad lyricist and decent showman)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIz1Uescse8
during this show he says to Gene that it's easy song
There are singers around their age, who can still deliver a good show (Alice Cooper, Steven Tyler, Glenn Hughes, Paul Rodgers) but in my opinion David Coverdale
is not one of them. He is lucky that his young band can sing the choruses. I don't think that making C/P II would make any of them favour.
Expectations would be high and the result might not live up to them.
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I liked Coverdale for 3 weeks maybe, he certainly had exceptional voice but then I read interviews with him and watched coupe of live shows
and I absolutely hated his in-between songs banter, his posing and gestures.
I dare you to watch the whole thing.
He is barely singing, leaving it to audience and band, touching his crotch in suggestive way, biting his finger, drawing circle with his finger around
his nipple, wearing open shirt showing his man-boobs. His screams are weak, whole show is embarassing, looks like parody.
It’s hard for me to take this man seriously, He wrote some of the worst songs of 80s and 90s, lyrically he is one trick pony and it’s not even a good trick:
Love ain’t no stranger
Looking for love
Love an affection
Love and treat me right
Love don’t mean a thing
Love man
Love to keep me warm
Love will set you free
Keep on giving me love
I need love
Lay down your love
Give me all your love
Guilty of love
A fool in love
Ain’t no love In the heart of the city
All for love
All In the name of love
Lovehunter
Need your love so Bad
The deeper the love
The time is right for love
And songs like:
Slide it In
Slip Of The Tongue
Spit It Out
Kitten got Claws
Feeling Hot
Are utterly horrible
His songwriting ability is non-existing, you would have thought he gets better with time but no, his new songs sound the same, he sacrificed his blues roots
for money and fame, his band sounds plastic. In last interview he said, he's going to retire "Big Rock Stuff" because "You know, you can only tune ‘Still of the Night’ down so far” but it's the first time I've heard him being so humble, it was usually "The best is yet to come" or "I'm at my peak right now, i've never sounded better".
My allergy to DC have nothing to do with Robert Plant.
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She is one of the "kitchen girls" : https://www.facebook.com/emilyruddofficial
I like this video very much, now i'm going to listen to it 16 times in a row -
from @8:00
It's documentary about birmingham music scene featuring ex Band of Joy guitarist talking about Robert and Bonzo -
The Coverdale/Page album just celebrated it's 20th anniversary last week. You only toured together with Jimmy Page in Japan for this album. Did any of the shows ever get recorded? Is there a live album hiding somewhere in the vaults?
DC: No... we were offered an obscene amount of money to video and record, but JP wasn't interested... so... we didn't do it... We made all the decisions 50/50 and honoured each other's decisions without question... as it should be with partners... I have a TON of private video footage which hopefully will see the light of day sometime...
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