Hmm, i think this is awesome too:




It is fast, it is angry, Tom's voice still sounds great, etc, etc, etc. It may be the same song, but it is a song that i enjoy, and it is a song that they wrote. They aren't copying anybody. This is them, doing their sound. They do not sound like a bunch of old geezers to me at all.

As long as they can bring the energy to their recordings, i say more power to them.

The idea that Slayer might still be touring like the Rolling Stones, and still be recording albums into their fifties and sixties is totally sweet IMO. That is crazy longevity for a band playing any type of extreme metal/thrash. I mean, i am not going to be in line to purchase any $80+ concert tickets from them, but if they can get it, and they can continue to do it, i totally support it.

While we are roughly on the subject, how do you feel about Gene Hoglan? Deathklok?

Again, i would ask, in your opinion, what do you think they should do instead?

Deathklok is awesumz.

I like Hoglan's drumming a lot as you might expect. He's sort of the hired gun type I guess. So he's playing with Dethklok, which you might rightfully suspect I despise.... but that's just part of the game.

I think I hold the hired gun type of musician and an entire band in different categories, when it comes to playing things primarily to pay the bills.

What they should do as in Slayer? Hmm... well, in the nineties and early half of the 2000s they seemed to kind of branch off into some new sounds and experiment, which is cool. It isn't static. I mean it seems like now they just want to cop some of the rough edge they had in the eighties and release that over and over...

How is Hoglan, as the hired gun, any different? He is doing what it takes to provide himself with a paycheck.

Dood. You are literally saying that a guy who has sold his soul to the fucking Cartoon Network, is somehow more "pure" in his intentions than a band who has hardly bowed at all to what anyone has ever said they should do, like ever?

That shit is crazy talk, son.

If that really is your outlook, then i suppose it would be best, for you, to start considering Slayer, to be a band of hired guns. Lombardo sure as fuck is one. Yeah, they are a band of hired guns, who has been hired to cover their own music. IMO, the distinction that you are trying to make is kind of ridiculous.

Do you think Motorhead is also a band of cashgrab opportunists? That maybe Lemmy should have made more of an effort to branch out into jazz fusion or something back in the nineties? Maybe he should try some cleaner vocals? Soul music style backup singers?

I like Deathclock better than Slayer.

There, I said it.

Dethklok, n00b

Well, I did say that I hold individual musicians and an entire band in different categories. An entire band sort of stands for something. Or it does to me, at least. What do Slayer stand for now? They used to be faster, eviller, louder, MORE... now they're pay the mortgage, send the kids to private school. Nothing as exciting as what they did in the eighties, that's for sure.

If Motorhead were relevant enough to me for me to listen to them sure, I'd feel the same way. Do I give a fuck about AC DC? No, not really at all. Nor Cannibal Corpse. These bands just do the same thing over and over because it pays. And that's not the same as an individual musician who gets hired to fill a hole in a band.

The intent or lack thereof doesn't matter to me if I like the end result.

I was never a big Slayer fan to begin with. Like I said, "greatest hits" band for me. I like them in small doses when I'm in the mood, but I wouldn't go around listening to them constantly, and I've heard what of theirs there is to hear, at least up through God Hates Us All.

Also, that being said, they had some stuff on God Hates Us All I liked. I'm not a big fan, but they'll generally have a couple songs I dig when they release something. I don't expect to like the whole album.

And i am just saying that holding individuals and bands to different standards is arbitrary and ridiculous.

Personally, i hold hired guns in lesser regard to folks who do their own thing, yes even folks who do their own thing that i don't like. A hired gun has chosen to give up some aspect of creative control. He has chosen to be an employee of, before a collaborator with, the actual creative force in the equation, i.e., the actual artist.

There will always be in my mind, two groups that have similar appearance on a superficial level: those more skilled, and those more talented. Also in my mind, the mostly talented will always rank higher than the mostly skilled, even though the skilled can get pretty far with their dexterity. When pressed, the mostly skilled fall short. They aren't, after all designed to create, so much as to reproduce, and reproduce well.

It is this balance between skill and talent that makes up the creative. Some folks are blessed with tons of both, but again, when it all comes down to it, they are rare, and in fact, generally, musicians are going to fall more into one category than the other.

To me, a person who has decided to focus almost all of their energies into hired gun status, has also made a definite choice, that they either are, or wish to be, more the skill than the talent in the equation. Really, they have decided to let someone with talent, tell them what to do.



Which is totally a tangent, but which is somewhat related to the discussion also. Slayer invented what they do. They own it. Their ethos is not one of exploration. They found their favorite sounds, and they made them, and now they continue to make them. It isn't high art. I see it as more like say, Warhol. 30% inspired, 70% well sold.





Anyhow, I would love to hear what you would consider a band that has done this "right" by your judgment, over a period of thirty years. Slayer already busted metal apart once. Are you really demanding that they be able to do that again, or if they can't then they should what, quit?





Also, you don't like Motorhead or AC/DC?!



GTFO.

I don't like AC/DC after two or three songs ...

Most of the bands I like haven't been around long enough to provide an example of "doing it right" for an extended period of time.

Except Weezer, of course.

Mm... on your tangent though, a lot of those types of 'skill' musicians do display a great deal of creativity. Not necessarily within the scope of creating a certain sound or writing a new kind of song or whatever, but in the details of their playing. This isn't a universal thing but it is the case with a lot of them, that not only are they damn good but their playing is unique and therefore desirable. Gene Hoglan for example... no one has or will play like he has on a lot of his classic recordings. Vinnie Colaiuta's drumming is from another planet but he gets all the gigs. I'd list guitarists too but I was just drumming right now so my mind is pretty well set in that gear at the moment.

So maybe that would shine a light on why I can consider the hired gun so highly... because they can and do have their own creativity... a very specific and if they are successful, desirable one.

Meanwhile I can't stand bands who do the same shit over and over to pay those bills, and act like it isn't happening. It's true that it's hard to think of any examples of decades-old bands that haven't ditched their credibility... it isn't very common. I suppose you have to stoop a whole bunch to stay 'relevant' (arghgh).

King Crimson is one band I can think of that is still keeping it real.

Hm... KMFDM definitely aren't, but the thing is they aren't going to insult their fans' intelligence by pretending they still give a shit about their credibility. They even write songs about it.





I think if I listen to like new Slayer or new Metallica or something, I feel like I'm being taken for a fool. Because they are putting up a front, like "we are still TEH KICKASS~! Buy this." But no, they really aren't, and I'm not that gullible.



PS:



3:15 is an extremely creative fill... Vinnie Colaiuta on a really boring drum session, bringing creativity to the job.

Damn you guys.

That drum fill is four seconds long. And it is still in a shitty song that no one is going to care about, save perhaps Mr. Colaiuta, because, well, he got paid for it. That is like if i paint a Michelangelo style masterpiece on the side of a building, but i just paint the whole thing in the same shade of white paint, because, well, i was hired to paint the house white. But i did it SO WELL.

If you really think that that is an acceptable trade-off compared to completely revolutionizing a genre and say, inspiring millions of kids to buy double kick pedals so they can *try* to learn how to play as fast as Angel Of Death, well...

We definitely disagree.

Hired guns are technicians. They may have their own sound, but that doesn't mean that they can be considered on equal footing with the actual creative forces behind the recordings they work on. They are just foot soldiers.

I posted the clip with the intent of demonstrating that there is creativity in session musicianing, even in the lamest of settings. I'm not trying to say that it compares to bands that have changed their genre. Just that you shouldn't deny that there IS something there.

















PS: KURT COBIN BAST GHETAR EVAR

Oh man.
Shit's going down.

I love Kurt Cobain. Nirvana was a key pillar on which my highschool musical experience was built.

Anyhow, i am not at all denying that there is creativity in session musicians. What i am saying is that those musicians choose to focus on less creative aspects of musicmaking, ON PURPOSE, and i think that is pretty weak.

And, i also think that it is creatively lazier even than doing what Slayer does, i.e. building something from the ground up, and then replicating it ad infinitum. Because Slayer had to build it, first. And the hired gun, opts out of that role.

Mmmh. Well like I said from the start... I really do appreciate the stuff they originally did, that stuff with which they built what they do from the ground up.

It's their insistence on selling us the same imitation of it over and over to this day, even though their hearts are not in the same place anymore, that offends my sensibilities.

Um.
Yeah.





















EELS.

Eels!

Also, this thread has proven to be an interesting read.

Geoff is right about King Crimson. To release something like The Power To Believe over three decades into one's career is quite exceptional.

...and KMFDM have had their collective tongue planted firmly in cheek for ages. Which I think is great. The almost hip-hop style boasting and self-referencing have been part of their schtick for a good long time. I think that's fantastic, especially in a genre where everyone is (stereotypically) absolutely dead serious, all the time. I've always appreciated their ability to interject humor into what they do. Industrial music isn't exactly known for lighthearted fun.