FavouriteTipple
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Posts posted by FavouriteTipple
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Last word from me on this subject. One ought to seriously question the validity and the editorial agenda of any media, or indeed any system of thinking, which makes or alludes to the subjects being "unscientific or unsophisticated", as this is the insidious process which dehumanises certain people, ignores or belittles their cultural heritage, and gives licence to others to assume superiority and dominate. History and our current world is full of such examples. For fun, here's a list of Scottish scientists as reference to their backwardness as a people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scottish_scientists
Returning to this thread, someone's home has burned down, which is an awful material fact. Nothing to do with the paranormal or supernatural, unless one believes certain trashy television shows or hysterical tabloid media, or even vengeful belief systems. Then again, science is slowly realising all sorts of things that lie beyond the spectrum of the human eye, mind and spirit. But that's another story...
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Mildly interesting
The very human habit of venerating the residences of and places associated with celebrated people is fairly well-established at this point in history. Jimi Hendrix's London flat is now a museum. James Joyce's Martello Tower home in Dublin is a museum. Sam Wanamaker rebuilt Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Lincoln's birthplace is a National Historic Park. The list goes on.
As for your high-faluting suppositions about symptoms of psychosis, England (Boleskine is in Scotland btw), the U.K. or indeed any other part of the world that you have not yet visited, sir, well, your trolling, culturally-biased statement speaks for itself. Good day to you.
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Folks, here's the most comprehensive article about the house fire I've found. Very sad.
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/inverness/788749/fire-nightmare-before-christmas/
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Can you post recent pictures if you live just up the road? Can you please post updates, such as if they bulldoze the remainder of the house? Please keep us informed since you have an insider view, I would be interested to know. Thanks.
Hello - I haven't yet visited the site but intend to during our short daylight hours. It is, however, very difficult to get a full photo of Boleskine House without trespassing, which is not my intention to do. You can only partially see the house from the entrance gate and the road, which is part of the whole point of the design, I guess.
Here's a link to a short video clip of the fire, which look like it was filmed along the hillside, which means the person filming had to leave the narrow road and climb up through trees and bushes to get the shot (technically trespassing).
And here's another local press report on same. Note the mean-spirited comment below it - very typical of certain self-righteous nincompoops on this earth.
I'll post any decent pix of the house if and when I get them.
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Writing as someone who lives up the road from Boleskine House, word on the street - and bear in mind this is a rural area so news travels fast without getting too distorted - is that the very private house owners were, thankfully, not in the house when the fire broke out. The news was greeted with sadness and shock by many local people, especially in the music and arts communities.
The other thing that has been supposed by my local friends is that they would not be surprised that the house could have been arsoned by some of the more staunch and vehement Protestant church members who still hold sway and power up here. Unlikely, perhaps, but given the dark, hateful and sectarian history of certain churches up here, it's not impossible that arson is a cause. Unforgiving, sanctimonious, fire and brimstone-spouting, women-hating, bible-bashing bigots are capable of anything. [I am internet, hear me theorize!].
I look forward to hearing that a more rational cause is pinpointed, because there is a lot of nonsense (albeit spooky fun nonsense) spouted about the whole Boleskine/Crowley affair, mostly by people who don't know what they're talking about, and with too much time on their hands (unlike us fine, procreative folk on forums such as this, ahem!).
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A most excellent thread, thanks to OP for starting and Mr Hudson for his ALS cover, which is mightily fab. Not often we get in-depth discussion about technique and drum tuning (the latter is a dark art which took me years to learn).
As mostly rock-style drummer meself (say that in a Dublin accent), Bonzo has been a huge influence. Other 60s/70s rock drummers have their influence too, such as the Stones' Charlie Watts, The Doors' John Densmore and Queen's Roger Taylor. But even they would agree, I'm sure that John Bonham was the greatest rock drummer (certainly Roger Taylor, though perhaps not Charlie Watts, who was more jazz-influenced). Not wishing to repeat what has already been said above, here are a couple of thoughts about his style.
1. Snare rim/skin hit technique: This one is important. Bonzo would habitually hit the rim of the snare drum when he hit the snare skin. Bottom of the stick (above the hand) hits the rim while the tip hits the skin. It's a tricky angle to get every beat, because you need to have your wrist at the right angle. What it does is make the whole drum shell explode with sound as you hit the snare skin as well. I think he tended to do this on the toms as well. The other band members repeatedly comment on how loud Bonzo was. This snare rim/skin technique was, I believe, one of the reasons why so few drummers can replicate his signature sound - the actual volume was at a level which recorded differently; the drum and skin would reverberate differently and have a different attack, sustain and decay to any other drummer's style. It also explains the differing snare sound he could get on songs like The Wanton Song, as in alternating between doing a rim/skin hit and a normal skin hit. But of course, being Bonzo, you can never foretell when he'd do this, because as the other bandmembers often said, it's what he did and what he didn't do which made him so unique.
2. Drum rolls & fills. Further to Mr Hudson's astute observations about Bonzo stick techniques, his drum rolls are uncanny, as he pointed out in ALS. They're like press rolls, which John Densmore liked to do on Doors songs like Wild Child and their live version of Who Do You Love (I think Elvin Jones was a big influence on Densmore). Further examples can be found on In My Time of Dying studio version and the 1977 versions of No Quarter (you can hear Dave Grohl copying that snare-tom-snare-tom fast roll on Queens of the Stone Age's No One Knows, during the instrumental crescendo).
I find one of the most illustrative examples of Bonzo's stick technique is on the outro build-up of the DVD Knebworth version of In The Evening, where he delivers a bunch of unique fills which display absolute control, creativity and sheer bloody brilliance. Note the fast single-stroke roll that goes from fast to slow. What makes Bonzo even more amazeballs is how his fills, no matter where he started or finished them, never (or very rarely) went out of time, and rarely were repeated in the same sequence (the end of studio version of In My Time Of Dying also has a great run of different fills - from "And I see them in the streets..." to "I just wanted to have some fun..."). The finale of In The Light is another example of inventive fills and flourishes.
Finally, as mentioned above, Bonzo didn't just hit the snare on the 3rd beat (in 4/4 time). He had lots of little things going on, almost imperceptible, but it all added up to his overall sound. In the 1990 MTV documentary, John Paul Jones sums it up, saying that Bonzo had all these subtle colours going on, and that this is why so many other drummers trying to copy Bonzo never got it right. "It's all BOOM-BASH-BOOM-BASH", I recall him saying as he waved his arms about stiffly.
3. Kick (bass) drum technique. This is quite widely-known. The story goes that Bonzo was a big fan of bands like Vanilla Fudge, and would copy their drummer's kick drum style. Problem was, Bonzo didn't know at the time (1967/68) that Carmine Appice used two kick drums for his fast kick drum triplets, quadruplets and rhythms. So he copied those fast beats on only *one* kick drum. Numerous examples: Good Times Bad Times, Trampled Underfoot, For Your Life.
Further to his kick drum technique, Bonzo had two drum heads on his kick drum, which was common in the 1970s but is quite rare nowadays. This gave his kick drum a woofy, woolly sound which could hammer hard when he wanted but also allow softer beats to fill the rest of the bar. It's similar to his stick technique. This is at odds with the dry thuddy kick drum sound which tends to be more popular for rock and metal drummers. Yes, this is louder for a single note, but you sacrifice subtlety and ability to vary the loudness. I'd find Primus' Tim Alexander to be a good example of someone who uses the drier kick drum sound with imagination and variation.
Finally, a point about the OP's observation about Bonzo's apparent concentration during the DVD clip of Trampled Under Foot: the 04:36 mark that you reference is actually a shot stolen from Moby Dick! Nearly of all the close-ups of Bonzo on Disc Two of DVD are taken from his drum solo, and edited into the footage to give the impression that it's from the track you're hearing. Standard live music video editing using a limited source of footage. If you look closely at these shots you can see his hi-hats bopping up and down which is what he did during Moby Dick. Also, the lighting colours and tones often differ from the actual track being played.
That's all from me for now. Hope this adds to the discussion.
Boleskine
in News
Posted
Good to hear it wasn't arson.
BBC report on same: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-35290939
Local paper report: http://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/News/Historic-Loch-Ness-house-fire-not-thought-to-be-deliberate-12012016.htm