Posts by foxfeeder

  • What movie have you watched?

    Saw this in the cinema when it came out, they were given prototype mk 2 Ford Granada's during filming as it wasn't out during shooting, but was when the film was released. Seem to remember seeing (a lot of) Lynda Bellingham in it too!

  • It

    Quote from Squonk

    I didn't know It was the last song. But there is a get-out clause here in the hidden track (remember them?). Example, Nirvana's Nevermind had one way after the final song, Something In The Way. So you would fast-forward on the CD player until it located it. FWIW the hidden track was rubbish though as I recall. :D

    Aren't they always rubbish? ;)

    There are other types too, David Gray's White Ladder has a hidden track BEFORE the first track, which some CD players (my Nad C521 BEE) will play but others, like my 1985 Philips CD104, can't see.

  • Songs I'm Afraid to Admit I Don't Like

    Quote from PhillyBoy

    I’m not! As Fabrizio has said, Steve never could write a decent chorus. Mike Rutherford was right. Steve’s strength was as a guitarist not a songwriter.

    Since this one has been cropping up from time to time, I feel I have to challenge it. So he can't write a decent chorus? Compared to what exactly? Supper's Ready? The Musical Box? The Fountain of Salmacis? Perhaps I should cast the net a little wider: Bohemian Rhapsody?


    For a start, probably about a third of Steve's output is instrumental, so that can be discounted, but let's take a popular song of his, like Every Day. Is that so much worse than Paperback Writer, for example?


    It was Fabrizio who first raised this point back on the old forum, and I'm sure (really, REALLY sure!) he'll pop along to explain his logic :) but it seems to me others are merely using it as a whipping post to denigrate Steve with reference to their particular Genesis hero. Fine, but let's not pretend others aren't also capable of turning out similar things. Shock the Monkey, for example, a chorus that could render my stereo at risk!

  • Songs I'm Afraid to Admit I Don't Like

    Quote from Backdrifter

    I think we need to be careful not to swallow everything the media have fed us over the years. The notion of punk or any type of music "coming along to shake things up" or to intentionally be rebellious is entirely a media invention. I also disagree punk or grunge had no musical substance and have to question what seems to me the completely subjective notion of 'musical substance' and what exactly that means!


    Picking up on other comments above: I hadn't heard Rushent's carpentry comment before, but agree with him; and I find myself wondering if there is anyone who actually gives a damn what genre charts exist!

    No, punk didn't come along to shake things up. It came along because people (exploiters, really) like Malcolm McLaren wanted to use them to get rich. They succeeded, and used the media to their own ends. As for whether anyone cares what genre charts exist: I guess they do, or they wouldn't. Chart compilers aren't doing it to pass the hours away.

  • Songs I'm Afraid to Admit I Don't Like

    Quote from Blacksword

    I think niether punk or synth pop were vacuous. They had their place like prog rock did, and some good bands came out of those eras IMO. Ok, prog enjoyed a longer golden period, but all three genres are in a similar position now, on the fringes of musical interest but still pulling loyal cult followings. The three forms of music were about breaking rules.

    There is absolutely nothing about synth pop that requires rule breaking. Synths are musical instruments, and provided they are played by proper musicians, can stick to, or disregard the rules as required. Don't get me wrong, I like, and liked, a lot of synth pop, Alphaville (who embraced guitars by the second album), A-ha, who did from day one, Soft Cell, whose singer moved on, and Rosemarie Precht aka Cosa Rosa, who again, took guitars on board by album 2, improving her sound immensely. Human League, ABC and Heaven 17 are among those I find tedious, and Human League's producer Martin Rushent came out with that famous comment: "It doesn't make you a better carpenter because you can knock nails in with your hand". It does, of course!


    Punk was a different kettle of fish. Most of them didn't know the rules, many didn't even know there WERE rules! I remember the first time I heard "Anarchy in the UK", my thoughts were "Someone doing a Jasper Carrott "Funky Moped" impression over a bad Eddie Cochrane cover. I stick by that! :)


    There's currently a prog chart in the UK. Punk and Synth? Not yet!

  • Songs I'm Afraid to Admit I Don't Like

    Quote from Gabble Ratchet

    Oh, I’d class Steve as a hired gun too, for the reasons stated previously. But he’s a white hatted gunslinger who knows the value of restraint and gets my vote over a black hatted shredder any day.

    As for synths and guitars, of course they’ve always co-existed, but there was a moment in the UK in the 80s when pure synth bands ruled the airwaves. They signalled the future and it was Gary Numan’s bleak synthetic drones that caught Mike’s attention enough to re-focus his songwriting.

    Literally speechless re the Steve comment. Nonsense.


    There was a moment when Punk ruled the airwaves too. Thankfully, both were dead-end moments, and ended quickly, when the public saw how vacuous they were.

  • Songs I'm Afraid to Admit I Don't Like

    Quote from StillCan'tDance

    While I agree that the Genesis of the early days was not really a guitarist's band, once Steve left Mike's more direct approach seemed to be given greater visibility. Deep In The Motherlode, Misunderstanding, Abacab, Like It Or Not, Home By The Sea, I Can't Dance and Driving The Last Spike all had celebrated guitar parts.

    Which, except for abacab, (and even that is adequate, nothing more) presumably ended up on the cutting room floor! ;)

  • Songs I'm Afraid to Admit I Don't Like

    Quote from Gabble Ratchet

    Fabrizio’s comments above are both insightful and accurate. The band’s romantic tryst with the synth intensified in the 80s. This was the age of the New Romantics. A foreign skin was now caught in the band’s satin bedspread causing the headboard to rattle with a new-found attachment and, sadly, a lead-guitarist was no longer welcome.

    Mike even confessed that ‘Man of our Times’ was his attempt to sound like Gary Numan, the verses of which certainly capture that rhythmic robotic pulse that Numan made his own.

    Mike, says that Steve’s strength was as a guitarist rather than a songwriter; a point echoed by someone on this forum who said that Steve never could write a decent chorus. All too true in my opinion and in this sense, the description of Steve being a hired gun is an apt one. But in times of peace and synth who needs a hired gun? Genesis certainly felt they didn’t. Steve’s strengths were in swooping and soaring through the music and his contribution would be forever acknowledged like that of an angel with grandiose wings yet whose wings were nevertheless lifted in that posture usually adopted for tombstones.

    Except the "hired gun" comment was a reference to Daryl! Lots of bands in the 80's had a synth sound and a good guitarist, nothing prevents them working together. As for Mike criticizing other's songwriting, it seems a bit ironic given his leaning on others to co-write so much M&M stuff.

  • Favourite TV shows ?

    Quote from CountingOutTime

    My Mom, being a Brit ex-patriot, loved Coronation Street. Eastenders was televised here in the states. We watched that too.


    Other great shows that made it here were Ballykissangel, Poirot, Inspector Morse, Fawlty Towers, Benny Hill, Jonathan Creek, Father Ted, As Time Goes By, Doc Martin, Downton Abbey, Cracker, Monarch Of The Glen.


    We LOVE them all!! :):thumbup:

    IMO, Fawlty Towers was the comedy of the 70's, and Father Ted (same initials 8)) the comedy of the 90's. So, I hear you ask (I have very good hearing) what was it in the 80's? Red Dwarf, a sci-fi comedy that maybe overstayed it's welcome, but when it was good, it was very good. Ignore the US remake, it sucks, apparently, you need the original. And for the Noughties, and still going strong, Not Going Out, a sitcom by UK comedian Lee Mack, can't say if it would travel well, though.