Ringo Starr was and is a bonafide talent behind the kit. He is not innovative nor is he a boundary-breaker. He simply provided a steady non-intrusive beat to some of the greatest music ever composed. His meter, like Charlie Watts, is impeccable. He standardized the double-snare hit. Not a genius, but a highly bondafide talent.
technical ability doesnt make a great guitarist (though it doesnt hurt). yes, serious jazz dudes would run circles around him, but billy doesnt play jazz to begin with. im sure any of them would have been just as akward sitting in w/ the pumpkins. yes, you can do lots of manipulating/splicing/editing in the studio (thats my life story), but i dont think that billy was splicing together his solos. having seen them live i can attest to his guitar virtouso-ness. i cant believe im defending this cheese-dick!
I used Billy to demonstrate the difference between technical ability and creative composition. You just agreed with me that he is not that technically gifted. He isn't. He is extremely juvenile when it comes to the difficulty of his solos. I am a guitarist, I can tell you his stuff is not hard to play. I am not knocking Billy Corgan. I am also not knocking Ringo. My point was that you don't have to have technical brilliance to be a brilliant musician. My previous conclusion was that it is better to be a creative and competent musician than it is to be a technical musician. Quote from above : "Composition is the most important thing for musicians." Composition is not only the act of songwriting but the creation of guitar riffs and drum fills and bass lines. BC is a genius at composition, and Ringo was wonderful at finding exactly what syncopation would complement John and Paul's melodies. It seems you are agreeing with me, but want to tell me that BC's solos on Gish were something special. They were special from a composition standpoint, but they were really just Billy, and James Iha, running riffs and licks over each other in the studio. A good example of the difference between BC and Hendrix would be the intro to "Today". Jimi would never have opened a song with a lick that could be imitated by guitarist in their first hour of play.
no i didnt. i never said i didnt think that he was technically gifted. you be all misquotin' and misrepresentin' yo. i dont have an opinion on that one way or the other. maybe he can play a mean flaminco guitar, but we just never know. smashing pumpkins were a ROCK band which, unless you are steely dan or mr. bungle doesnt have much to with technical abiliity. i agree 100% with that... i dont want to tell you that billy's solos were "something special". the thing i initially took exception to was your comment regarding billy as a "complete crap" guitarist. his solos are far from special, but they are nowhere near complete crap. billy could shred on the guitar as good as or better than any other early 90's alterna-rock hero. and your last statement shows that you dont really know that much about the pumpkins. all the guitar and bass parts of gish and siamese dream were played entirely by billy. iha and darcy could barely play their instruments when they joined the band. you make that sound like its a bad thing. what do you think that guys like miles davis and all those bad muthas that he worked with, or bird and dizzy were doing when they were in the studio. they were running licks over each other. now im not going to compare any rock musican to the above, but just cause its rock doesnt make it less valid. again, just to clairfy-i am no fan of billy or anything that the pumpkins did beyond siamese dream. when gish came out i was blown away, but with each successive album they became more watered down and radio-friendly. unfortuantely, the smashing pumpkins that i will always remember is the version with billy wearing his silver pants, zero shirt, black cape and eyeliner. he is a joke and i cant believe i have to defend him. gish rocks though!
I like the comparison to Charlie Watts. He has been the perfect drummer for the Stones and I have a hard time imagining them without him all these years. I feel the same way about Ringo. Like many have said, he was perfect for the Beatles and very underrated.
you seem to be contradicting yourself with these statements. first you say that technical brilliance is not as important and creativity and feel, than you go on to criticize "today" because it had that really easy melody line that anyone could play. like it or not, that is a catchy little melody and it worked well for that cheesy-ass overplayed song.
Not a huge Ringo fan. And I lost major interest in the Beatles after they "retired" to the recording studio to do drugs and recording gimmicks but... Didn't McCartney (with the help/assitance of George Martin) go back into the studio after everyone had gone home to overdub (some/many) of the drum tracks?
jo, you kill me. You just can't get over that cape, can you? Ringo and Watts have a lot in common. Both of those guys sacrificed individual glory for the sake of "the song". They didn't have to crash every downbeat or play a hot fill every 4 bars. They did just what the song called for and nothing more. They were both very musical drummers. I read an invterview with Mick Jagger back when the Stones "reunited". He said that before he went solo, he had never played with any drummer besides Charlie Watts. He said he was never comfortable musically without him and that was one of the reasons he decided to get back together (I mean besides the $$) with them. That...is the sign of a good musician/drummer (in that order).
HA HA- no i cant. the billy with a cape era is a far cry from the band that they started out as. what he turned the pumpkins into is an unforgivable crime against humanity.
