when van morrison was amazing (1 Viewer)

[righteous harmony]

there is no such thing as an amazing sax solo

dude... when did you last see lost boys?!

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[mark]

a buddy of mine spent a good bit of time working with him re-mixing old live tapes in windmilll lane a few years back. says he's a cast iron prick.

he had his great moments though, and i do like AW a lot.

and i concur with dudleyh, the sax is rarely a good noise.

 

[Pantone247]

turns out the drummer in that clip I posted went on to drum in Mike and Mechanics... um... strange... He also came up with the concept for Live At Abby Road which is pretty cool

I'm sort of obsessed, it sounds like he's playing 16ths on the hats but clearly isn't, is it some sort of one handed shuffle (fnar) he's doing on the hats? Stupid YouTube file compression pretty much blurs the high end...

 

[Unclealo]

I love that album TB sheets. Van = total knob though

 

[oh shit]

I'm sort of obsessed, it sounds like he's playing 16ths on the hats but clearly isn't, is it some sort of one handed shuffle (fnar) he's doing on the hats? Stupid YouTube file compression pretty much blurs the high end...

i'm 90% sure that he is playing 16th notes on the hats, using one hand with a double stroke each time. that gives the accent on the first stroke, when he brings his whole arm down, while the second hit is a rebound and less forceful, so makes it sound sorta like a shuffle. incredible technique. they don't play drums like that no more.

 

[oh shit]

actually that's only on the double time bit... looks like he's alternating... sometimes he's doin three 16ths in succession then just hitting the snare on the beat, other times he's playin a paradiddle with the snare and hats so that the middle hit of the three 16ths between beats is played with the left... kinda like
1RRR2RRR3RLR4RLR1

why didn't i ever get proper drum lessons

 

[hugh]

actually that's only on the double time bit... looks like he's alternating... sometimes he's doin three 16ths in succession then just hitting the snare on the beat, other times he's playin a paradiddle with the snare and hats so that the middle hit of the three 16ths between beats is played with the left... kinda like
1RRR2RRR3RLR4RLR1

why didn't i ever get proper drum lessons

Hey, explain to me what a paradiddle is could you? I have this idea it's basically a triplet. Is that right?

 

[oh shit]

there are paradiddles in triplet time but the basic thing about a paradiddle is that you alternate between single and double strokes. the basic paradiddle is in 4/4

LRLL/RLRR/LRLL/RLRR

inverted paradiddle:
LRRL/RLLR/LRRL/RLLR

edit: in triplet time the hand strokes remain the same but the accent falls on every third note:

LRLL/RLRR/LRLL/RLRR

 

[Oggy Pip]

Inverted paradiddles? Who knew drumming could be so funny.

 

[Jill Hives]

Astral Weeks is in my top ten favorite albums of all time. Prick or not, the man is a genius. As for sax solos, there have been a few good ones... Born to Run.

 

[Pantone247]

i'm 90% sure that he is playing 16th notes on the hats, using one hand with a double stroke each time. that gives the accent on the first stroke, when he brings his whole arm down, while the second hit is a rebound and less forceful, so makes it sound sorta like a shuffle. incredible technique. they don't play drums like that no more.

god bless you oh shit!

it's amazing, I have to sit down and try this stuff out, though I've tried doing to that jazz shuffle stuff on the ride before and I'm generally awful at it.

his technique is amazing, he seems to keep the hats a little ahead of the kick and snare too to give it a bit of swing, even during the double time verse... considering it's just him, bass and keys they get an amazing groove going.

 

[Pantone247]

while we're drum geeking out here I was interested to see that his left hand is using a classic/jazz grip on the stick and is basically sitting on his left leg (or his left fore-arm is) and moving it a tiny ammount, it's all just in the lifting of the wrist and gets a great sound, lots of little skittery accents on the first verse. Like Oh Shit said, folks don't drum like that anymore

 

[CinnamonBoy]

Van will probably send me to prison for it but this is an AMAZING live album from 1973, probably recorded with a view to being 1974s It's Too Late to Stop Now but this has a completely different tracklist. Sweet Thing and I've Been Working are sublime. Actually, it all is.

http://boxstr.com/files/5149866_70fgi/Van Morrison - An Irishman In LA.zip

 

[Cryptid]

Re the saxaphones in rock music, The Morphine albums Cure For Pain and Good are brilliant sax-centric albums. My favorite song is Candy, which I can't find anywhere, but there's lots of others here.. http://elbo.ws/tracks/morphine/. Info about morphine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphine_(band)

Also quite partial to the sax bit in Decomposing Trees by Galaxie 500 and Van's Did Ye Get Healed.

I bought a bamboo sax in a market in Grenwich, London there a couple of years ago. It's fun and easy to carry around. Not nearly as cool as a proper one though and has a much softer sound.

I quite like the Inarticulate Speech of The Heart by Van, but he has some really bad albums too, especially anything from the last 20 years. Astral Weeks and the one with Into The Mystic quite good too. He should have gone and lived in a cave after that.

 

[Jill Hives]

Astral Weeks is in my top 5 favorite albums of all time. I would have killed to be in California a few months ago to hear it live. Does he even play here anymore?

 

[shitepipe]

Astral Weeks is in my top 5 favorite albums of all time. I would have killed to be in California a few months ago to hear it live. Does he even play here anymore?

he did the album in London last week. The review in the Observer said it was better than the original. Hmmmm....

 

[Cryptid]

I saw him live once at a festival and he played a load of stuff off Hymns To The Silence or some album like that and it wasn't great. But Astral Weeks would be cool. His voice is more or less intact, a bit barky maybe. He would make a packet if he played in Dublin, ala Cohen or Tom Waits.

Moondance is the album with Into De Mystic. Has Crazy Love and It Stoned Me. And Moondance of course.

 

[Jill Hives]

he did the album in London last week. The review in the Observer said it was better than the original. Hmmmm....

Damn, do I dare ask how much those tickets were? I bet it was amazing.

 

[snakybus]

I bet it was not. I bet it was the opposite. I bet it was like a blind old walrus trying to mate with a rock covered in periwinkles.

 

[Franco]

A mate went over to the London gig and said it was deadly.