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!

Hmm, The only one I can kind of agree with is Frusciante. His solo stuff is better then anything the chilis have done in my opinion, but not alot of people listen to it and he would have even less exposure still if it wasn't for his day job, and I expect being in probably the worlds biggest rock band is quite fun as far as day jobs go

I'm a huge Wilco fan so im biased but no one is being carried in that band (especially the current line up) they are all giant talents

and lets not forget no matter how good a lead guitarist you are, you're always gonna need good songs to play eg. Coxon/Albarn, Greenwood/Yorke

Craig Scanlan of The Fall.

the epitome of this is FRANK ZAPPA

Eno is the first that came to mind.

did someone here said yes suck? fuck man...

rick wakeman also played in the strawbs and did session work with black sabbath. i'm still very afraid to listen to any of his solo stuff, i truly am scared shitless.

i would say greg ginn, but black flag had other amazing players too. this question is too hard for me to answer.

No, I wouldn't go so far as to say "Yes sucks", just much of their worse excesses (but on the other hand and to the other extreme also their most commercial endeavors, Big Generator anybody?) I really like the first two albums, which were psych rather than "art-rock" records, and actually The Yes Album is still great, and Fragile has it's moments if starting to get over indulgent and certainly way overplayed. I just don't see any defense for Topographical Oceans though, nor Relayer, Tormanto, etc., etc. (not even to get into the most recent reunions).

And I was straight up that I think my tastes are subjective to begin with. I prefer less is more, and Wakeman has done it really well for other artists. What he's famous for in Yes is the keyboard equivalent of wankiness though. And yeah, a great deal of his solo catalog is even more of the same, in fact worse, since he's free from the "song" strictures of the prog rock group...

James Iha?

I have no idea.

i was kinda kidding man, i know nobody likes yes. at least you really show appreciation.

i'm yet to venture to the yes album and back but i'm kinda familiar with them, and out of the ones i heard, my favorite is fragile. i noticed that yes were a lot better live than in the studio, they always tried to super polish everything and multitrack as much as possible, i love "close to the edge" live but find the studio version just ok, same with relayer, too smooth but life i love all three songs. weird. but i'm not saying this so you should like them, just i don't know, making conversation...no, actually, to show you that even thought i love them, i know what you mean.

but i agree, not only wakeman, but all of them could fare really well playing less.

I'm not ashamed to admit that in the days before punk rock existed in the suburban NW (it seems weird, but there's a reason that Queensryche were the first band to come out of my homeground and why even years later the underground bands were all so versed in Zeppelin, and it's the fact that the local radio stations in the '80s never once admited that the Ramones had ever existed!) I listened to quite a lot of Yes (and for that matter Rush, and even worse, Triumph). Of the music that I had been allowed to know existed in the world, art rock was the most appealing to me because it was rock with at least somewhat artistic goals (i.e. pretentions). I also listened to my share of metal because of the power.

Then one day I was randomly twisting the radio dial and I caught the tail end of "She's in a Bad Mood" on the local college station. In those thirty seconds my life was completely changed. Here was music that was artier than anything Yes had ever dreamed of and with more power than any metal band I had ever heard! What's more it wasn't cheesy, wasn't overproduced, and even the dj who came on to announce it afterward sounded like she was from another, much more interesting, planet. In a total epiphany I realized that there was a whole world of possibilities and sounds that AOR radio had been completely hiding from me, and I was never going back.

So I still have a nostalgic soft spot for the geeky 17 year old that was listening to Yes when that happened. Through my much more informed musical ears today, I can still admit that The Yes Album (which is actually pre-Wakeman when you come down to it) is a decent record that isn't light years away from Tortoise in terms of theory and minus Anderson's vocals (which are much less elfy on that one than later) sound. I'm glad Sonic Youth are arty and not just noisy and powerful, and that this made them palatable to my teen art-rock geek ears.

Well, Frusciante quit Chili Peppers finally.. I know this is late but yeah.

I think my vote for this is probably THE FATAL FLYING GUILLOTTENS's guitar player, who is one of the most talented, unique, and awesome guitarists ever, but the rest of the band sounds kinda like kinda poor Jesus Lizard wannabe and the singer is terrible, leaving his mouth open way too long after every word is spoken.

Alan Wilder of Depeche Mode.

Avey Tare of Animal Collective, whose solo stuff is better than every other AC-related project combined.

SlipKnot's drummer.

3rd or 4th-ing Nick Zinner, thirding Nels Cline. Other than that I dunno. Those were the ones that came to mind looking at the thread title.

(PS How can you say Tweedy's better than Wilco are good, considering he IS Wilco? That'd be like saying Trent Reznor is better than Nine Inch Nails. Same damn thing!)

Oh yes

Morrissey was too talented for The Smiths, which he proved when he went solo.

Haha KiS, funniest thing you've ever posted.

What did the other members do when Morrissey left the band? Practically fuck all because they didn't have the talent to continue without him. The most talented of the three, Johnny Marr, did nothing but prostitute his half-decent guitar playing to other bands.

Morrissey's solo work ranges from terrible to terribly mediocre. Marr -- by far and away one of the greatest guitarists to ever live -- never did anything after the Smiths ended, but he was The Smiths (he ended the band, not Morrissey), so why does it matter? He'd already done that band, made his mark, and that was that.