Posts by Schrottrocker

  • The Thread Of Complete Randomness

    You guys just reminded me of when I was a 9-year-old boy (or 8 years), I took 4 chewing gums in my mouth to make it one humongous one. I used it for a week, I would take it out and store it in a bowl with a lid on to put it back in my mouth later on. Don't ask me why I did this, thinking back now it feels pretty disgusting. 8o

  • The Thread Of Complete Randomness

    Funny, I've been thinking about this only a few days ago.


    Week starts on Monday, all our calendars show the week with Monday as the first day on the left and Sunday as the final day on the right side. Back in my school days, some elderly teachers said Sunday used to be the first day and this was only changed to Monday by "the industry", also they claimed this change hasn't been "too long ago". When I asked my parents they said this is "quite a time back in the past". I never found out when they officially changed it.

    Anyways, my US-American ex-fiancée said their week starts with Sunday. When I asked her what she calls weekend then she said Saturday and Sunday. I was confused: Sunday is the first and last day of the week at once? She said she never thought about that...

    Now I still wonder what Americans would refer to as starting point of "next week".

  • 25 years ago today: GENESIS release their last studio album ""Calling All Stations"

    A good album with weaknesses and a stepchild in their discography. It opened a new chapter of Genesis and left a huge question mark of what might have been. It suffers from being the first (and only) of a new personel constellation. Mike, Tony and Phil had been a working entity since Nursery Cryme, on CAS Tony and Mike had to find a new working mode and Ray had hardly a chance to give input. The songs were mostly written before they even had a singer. The drummers were doing session work and could not give their own input either. It all screams for a second album, it's a shame CAS never got a successor.


    One of the interesting aspects of this album is its darkness. Neither Tony's solo albums nor the Mechanics stuff has ever been so dark.

  • Tracks where Tony Banks plays guitar

    Tony definitely plays rhythm guitar in Patricia since it is a demo recording with Ant on lead guitar and Mike on bass.


    He must have played here and there on Trespass, I can't spot his parts for sure though - possibly on White Mountain and/or Stagnation and/or Dusk. I am unsure about either of these since all of them had predominantly both Ant and Mike on 12-strings and they were a team that did not need a third guitarist.


    His guitar playing on Happy The Man is quite obvious, there are three very distinct guitar parts: Mike begins strumming the 12-string, Steve adds his individual notes on the 6-string, then Tony joins with straight strumming on the other 12-string. Also, this song is well-known to be one of the rare Genesis songs without any keyboards.


    Same goes for Harlequin, another song without any keyboards - except for that one "vibraphone" note from the mellotron (I bet this wasn't Tony's idea, maybe Steve's?) - instead Mike, Steve and Tony all play guitars.


    Pretty sure Tony is a third guitarist in the first half of The Musical Box as well since there's no keyboards present before the rock guitar solo starts. Steve can easily be spotted as he plays the 6-string, which again leaves Mike and Tony on 12-strings.


    Same goes for Lover's Leap (beginning of Supper's Ready).


    Some claim they hear Tony adding a third guitar in the beginning of Moonlit Knight, before Tony plays the piano; I am unable to to make out a third guitar beside Steve and Mike though.


    I am not sure about the 'reverend' section of Epping Forest, it does not contain any keyboards, either way Tony was silent on this entire section (a rarity for any Genesis song), or he contributed 12-string guitar along with Mike.


    The beginning of Cinema Show, before the first Tiresias chorus, clearly has three 12-string guitars, with Mike soloing the intro, then joined by Steve and Tony.


    Throughout the Lamb album, I am doubting Tony contributed any guitar parts, I can't spot any, on the other hand this album is filled up with keyboards.


    Entangled is another classic guitar trio of Steve, Mike and Tony.


    It might be interesting to check live footage of all these songs. In most or all of the above, Tony played his guitar parts live too, some videos confirm this clearly.


    I am not sure if there's any more guitar parts by Tony from this point on. Wind and Wuthering might still contain some of his guitar parts but I can't make out any for sure.

    Throughout the entire trio era, all the guitar work was left to Mike, up until Ray joined and brought in his rhythm guitar playing for live unplugged versions. Tony joined on acoustic guitar in the Lover's Leap version from this era and for some other songs, pretty positive on Follow Me Follow You too since the acoustic versions has no keyboards at all. Also, there's a nice unplugged version of Not About Us and I guess it also had Mike, Ray and Tony all on acoustic guitars.

  • Cheesiest song of all time?

    "Cheesy" doesn't really translate into my native language so it's hard to grasp the concept of an attribute everybody seems to have a different idea of. I have seen people bashing 80's music in general as "cheesy", I can't get behind how someone could brush off an entire decade with tons of music this way, regarded this someone took some efforts of actually listening to the kind of music they disapprove of.


    Anyways, provided we are talking of syrupy, over-produced, pretentious commercial pop music dealing with a serious topic... Mike and The Mechanics' "The Living Years" has to be my choice. I do understand the serious real-life context behind this song, I do too understand the message of comfort and "you're not alone" for all people who love this song. I still can't get over what a shallow kitschy song it is.

  • What's Your Weather Like?

    Quote from CountingOutTime

    I remember my Dad, after spending some time in Germany, coming home and telling us how he laughed when seeing what they call a freeway exit..."ausfahrt." 😄

    Yea. An English teacher at my old school told my about this. All the Native English speaking visitors had a good laugh at a normal everyday word. In return, I could teach you something about what Johnny Depp's last name means to every German...

    About the weather, well it's still hot but the dry Eastern wind makes it bearable for once since it's less humid than usual. That's as far as the good side goes - we are having the driest summer since forever. Not a single drop of rain. Fields are yellow. Smoking and camp fires in forests have been prohibited to prevent wild fires. This is nothing like what a normal summer used to be here. Strange new climate.