Siouxsie & the Banshees (feat. Robert Smith)

Started by Ulrich, July 15, 2015, 10:49:23

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 11 Guests are viewing this topic.

SueC


A question for any guitar enthusiasts out there.  Why is RS playing in the opposite position to the standard one on the fingerboard - top-down, rather than wrapping the hand around bottom-up?  I've actually never seen that before, and anyway, I reference everything back to violin, so maybe this is a guitar option?

Kinda reminded me of this clip:


...although Mozart was being a clever-pants, and I think what I'm querying has a different reason.
SueC is time travelling

piggymirror

Quote from: SueC on April 03, 2020, 02:21:06

A question for any guitar enthusiasts out there.  Why is RS playing in the opposite position to the standard one on the fingerboard - top-down, rather than wrapping the hand around bottom-up?  I've actually never seen that before, and anyway, I reference everything back to violin, so maybe this is a guitar option?

I have seen that before. I think it was Jimmy Page.

What I don't know is if the Banshees are mimicking, I'd say yes, which could explain.
Robert's very obvious when he's lip-syncing, but this time he's not singing, so...
However, the video for Slowdive shows him toying with a violin, so...
And then there's Primary, Lullaby, and other videos...

BiscuityBoyle

Quote from: piggymirror on April 03, 2020, 04:04:18Robert's very obvious when he's lip-syncing, but this time he's not singing, so...
However, the video for Slowdive shows him toying with a violin, so...

Such a cute clip!



If I had to guess, I'd say he refused to hold the guitar in that one cause he didn't play on the recorded track. Or simply because the idea of him with a violin is funnier...

BiscuityBoyle

On the subject of the Banshees, never understood how this song WASN'T a worldwide smash hit


Though it even isn't my favorite track from the McKay/Morris era, that would have to be Metal Postcard


SueC

Quote from: BiscuityBoyle on April 03, 2020, 12:20:19Such a cute clip!


If I had to guess, I'd say he refused to hold the guitar in that one cause he didn't play on the recorded track. Or simply because the idea of him with a violin is funnier...

Are they all miming?  There's violin in the background, and I was trying to figure out from the way RS was doing his miming whether he'd ever had basic lessons on the thing.  You can usually tell by what people do with their right arm when they play "air violin" - people who have never been taught how to hold a bow properly will just ad-lib, while people who do know how to hold a bow will automatically touch their ring finger with their thumb and wrap the rest of their fingers loosely around the phantom bow.  Unfortunately this video is too blurry for me to see that detail...

OMG, neither of us miss all that bloody miming that went on, on a lot of popular music shows in the 80s when bands were supposedly playing live... stupid bloody policy... :evil:
SueC is time travelling

piggymirror

Quote from: piggymirror on April 03, 2020, 04:04:18However, the video for Slowdive shows him toying with a violin, so...

On the videoclip for Slowdive, the guitarist is John McGeoch, not Robert.

However, Robert does appear on the (I think) official videoclip for Il Est Né Le Divin Enfant, as the band never recorded a videoclip for Melt!, although there are several live appearances of that song.

Btw, A Kiss In The Dreamhouse is definitely one of my top favourite albums of the Banshees.

BiscuityBoyle

Quote from: piggymirror on April 03, 2020, 15:23:37Robert does appear on the (I think) official videoclip for Il Est Né Le Divin Enfant

I love this one so much.


They look like a goth marching band from the special school, which is to say adorable. Sioux sings phonetically, Severin tries to look cool while pretending to play a trumpet, Robert looks like banging the cymbals might be too tall an ask from someone with/in his condition.

BiscuityBoyle

Generally speaking, I think it's difficult to overestimate the impact being in the Banshees had on Robert. He broadened his songwriting palette, became a more confident live performer and a more interesting artist. A song like The Hanging Garden, one of his finest, sees him try to replicate Budgie's virtuosity with the aid of a drum machine; by this point it was clear that Lol's days as a drummer were numbered, as he could no longer satisfy Robert's musical ambitions.

Robert was best friends with Severin for a couple of years around the time of The Glove; and it was pretty much inevitable that he would get introduced to a great deal of avant-garde art, from French surrealism to German expressionist cinema to American minimalist composers, because that's what Severin was into.

The Banshees were way ahead of the curve in integrating elements of psychedelia into the postpunk musical landscape. While Robert grew up listening to Hendrix and Beefheart and the early Pink Floyd, I doubt something like as Give Me It or Snakepit would've been possible without them leading the way. If one is interested in Robert at his most experimental and creative, I would recommend to immerse oneself in the early Banshees (The Scream to A Kiss in the Dreamhouse), because that's the juices he was cooking in.

Ulrich

Quote from: BiscuityBoyle on April 04, 2020, 14:35:20A song like The Hanging Garden, one of his finest, sees him try to replicate Budgie's virtuosity with the aid of a drum machine; by this point it was clear that Lol's days as a drummer were numbered, as he could no longer satisfy Robert's musical ambitions.

Is there any proof to his rather unpleasant rumour? According to Lol's memoir, he played all the drums on this album. (Later, both he and RS spoke about him moving to the keys.)

Not the best sound, but you can see/hear it's Lol who drums:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ANXID6q6EQ
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

BiscuityBoyle

Quote from: Ulrich on April 09, 2020, 17:16:48Is there any proof to his rather unpleasant rumour?

I'm 99% sure I've read it in one of Robert's interviews. They clearly did something with the drums there, it sounds very different from Lol's usual tippy-tappy stylings, including in this anemic, underwhelming live performance...

Ulrich

Well, the sound is thin on that video (recorded around the time the album was finished), but it proves that Lol can handle the beat(s).

Of course, in a recording studio, they were able to experiment with drum sounds.
In his book, Lol describes the process:
Quote"The drum sound was obtained by putting the kit in the large recording room and removing all the acoustic shields, so there was an immense natural reverb."
(Read the book, everyone, if you haven't already.)
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

BiscuityBoyle

QuoteWell, the sound is thin on that video (recorded around the time the album was finished), but it proves that Lol can handle the beat(s).

Yep, so it would appear (it was the following single that finally proved too much). I'll try to find that Robert interview. Anyway, my main point was that in the studio version of the song the inspiration for the drum sound was Budgie.

Ulrich

Quote from: BiscuityBoyle on April 09, 2020, 19:07:30... in the studio version of the song the inspiration for the drum sound was Budgie.

Yeah, that does indeed sound logical...
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

BiscuityBoyle

In a way, I understand the loathing for Robert in quarters of the SATB fandom: his two brief tenures in the band bookended their once-in-a-lifetime purple patch of Kaleidoscope, Juju and A Kiss in the Dreamhouse. The day when McGeoch was gone and Robert was recruited really marked the beginning of the end of their golden age, except obviously none of that was Robert's fault. The real culprit was Father Time, the unfortunate fact that nothing lasts forever.

piggymirror

Quote from: BiscuityBoyle on April 29, 2020, 21:18:40In a way, I understand the loathing for Robert in quarters of the SATB fandom: his two brief tenures in the band bookended their once-in-a-lifetime purple patch of Kaleidoscope, Juju and A Kiss in the Dreamhouse. The day when McGeoch was gone and Robert was recruited really marked the beginning of the end of their golden age, except obviously none of that was Robert's fault. The real culprit was Father Time, the unfortunate fact that nothing lasts forever.

Okay. Now you go tell the pro-Boris Williams brigade, hahahaaaa (it's the same story).

My personal Banshees favourite album tends to be Tinderbox. If I had to choose one, that is.
I wouldn't be able to put my finger on what exactly it is, but that record's got something that's amazing.
Actually there are many Banshees fans who call it their favourite, and I can see why.
 
I've always liked to compare it to Disintegration. I don't know why, but I get that feeling.
Not from the lyrics, but from the music.