musicians more talented than the bands they play in are good...
 

this is kinda inspired by johnny greenwood's talent wasted in radiohead thread, which i dont agree with at all.

on that note; it made me think of some musicians who are better than the bands they are in. heres some i thought of:

graham coxon of blur-blurs a pretty good band, coxon is an off the charts ridiculously amazing guitar player.

john frusciante of rhcp-why the fuck would a guy with his talent and awesome taste in music waste his time in a shit band like that? of yeah, millions of dollars.

omar rodriguez lopez of mars volta-see above.

brian chase of yeah yeah yeahs-fans of the band might diasgree with this, but ive always admired chase's drumming but found it to be out of place within the bands simplistic music, i think hes capable or some really wild beats.


im actually kinda drawing a blank right now, i was thinkin of tons before, right now all i got is these really obvious pics. anyone else got someone?

sorry batreleaser, but this is the first post i don't agree with you one bit, except with the jonny greenwood bit.

To me, the most interesting thing about Yeah Yeah Yeahs is Nick's guitar playing. It's RIDICULOUSLY simple; I mean, one string riffs and stuff, but it's actually pretty interesting usually... So, I dunno, I hate most of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs music, but the musicians in it are interesting. I've said that 3 times.

The Seconds is a good band...

In Mayhem's early days, Hellhammer far surpassed his bandmates. I still love the records, but he was obviously way out ahead of those guys.

im surprised no one agrees with the grham coxon one. blurs had some great songs and a couple real good ablums, especially 13 and s/t, but i think coxon is one of the best guitarist of the 90's. just really mindblowing riffs. his guitar playing is to me what takes blur out of the realm of regular ol' britpop into something way more interesting.

his solo stuff is nuts too.

graham coxon was just imitating the lou reed/thurston moore skronk soloing shit, really; not that original.

seriously, 9 out of ten times when i listen to the guitar in blur, i think it's spiral stairs or malkmus playing.

and hellhammer, he's basically norway's best drummer besides paal nilssen-love. i mean, he plays in all norwegian bm records, basically.

I seriously can't think of a single one.

Maybe Mick Taylor, regarding guitar playing talent, when he was with the Stones. He was clearly the virtuoso compared to Keith.

ok, i'll contribute:

don bolles in the germs, he was such an unstoppable drummer, so fast yet dextreous for a punk band. pat smear obviously had his shit together but the guy was not a musician, could play yes' "roundabout" note for note yet couldn't play an open a chord if his life depended on it.

You ought to hear Coxon's solo stuff, without Blur, and prepare to cover your ears because of its awfulness.

I agree that John Frusciante is a good guitarist and is capable of making records that are a billion times more interesting than RHCP.

This type of thing is incredibly subjective.

However, who pops into my mind is Rick Wakeman. I've always found the stuff he did on Hunky Dory and Space Oddity for Bowie to be amazingly good, as well as his playing on Lou Reed's first solo album too, while the stuff he's famous for in Yes is usually painful to listen to.

But then the more complicated playing is on the Yes records (particularly the worst ones like Topographic Oceans) and is most bombastic solo albums, while the session stuff he did for Reed, Bowie, et al. is often much more simplistic. So I like less is more, but I don't know that it's any kind of measure of "talent".

Everyneurotic, your description of pat smear was hilarious and reminded me of me in a way.

I can play a good deal of King Crimson type stuff but I only know one scale (minor double harmonic) and probably could play an chords for you that weren't open or power or barre chords.

Probably couldn't*.

For some reason it wouldn't go to the "edit post" screen.

I'll have to say the bass player from Limp Bizkit (he is actually a pretty good player)



not that I like Limp Bizkit mind you.

stuart copeland
nick zinner
bass player from fine young cannibals
lou barlow

Wakeman also turned in a fairly impressive Top Gear run time recently.


No way, Pauly. Stewart is world-class, yes, but so are Gordon and Andy.

My answer: Nels Cline who is relegated to a usually limited supporting role in Wilco. And yeah, it's not the first time I've mentioned it.

Good one.

yeah, the last wilco record was laughably awful. i thought a ghost is born was brilliant though, better than yankee hotel...

Wilco have always been awful.

can we add jeff tweedy into this then as well.. and point taken atari but im not a major lover of the polices later stuff. copeland is one of the greatest drummers ever tho!