sorry, he did have a couple cool licks(I love his solo on "Width of a Circle"), but Mick Ronson is not that good of a guitarist. He was the right man for the job on Ziggy and the Man who sold the world, but if some folks on here are going to call Bolan a one trick pony, you gotta call Mick one also...
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
Mick Ronson, batches!!!
sorry, he did have a couple cool licks(I love his solo on "Width of a Circle"), but Mick Ronson is not that good of a guitarist. He was the right man for the job on Ziggy and the Man who sold the world, but if some folks on here are going to call Bolan a one trick pony, you gotta call Mick one also...
Maybe so, particularly if you listen to him back to back with Jeff Beck, whom he bit shamelessly, but Mick Ronson's unsung strength as it related to Bowie was as an arranger. Pretty much all the arrangements on Lou Reed's "Transformer" were by him, to the extent that he ended up with a co-producer credit (IIRC), and it's been said that similar contributions to Bowie's own records have been played down somewhat, but I dunno how true that is.
sorry, he did have a couple cool licks(I love his solo on "Width of a Circle"), but Mick Ronson is not that good of a guitarist. He was the right man for the job on Ziggy and the Man who sold the world, but if some folks on here are going to call Bolan a one trick pony, you gotta call Mick one also...
Maybe so, particularly if you listen to him back to back with Jeff Beck, whom he bit shamelessly, but Mick Ronson's unsung strength as it related to Bowie was as an arranger. Pretty much all the arrangements on Lou Reed's "Transformer" were by him, to the extent that he ended up with a co-producer credit (IIRC), and it's been said that similar contributions to Bowie's own records have been played down somewhat, but I dunno how true that is.
I did not know that. Makes sense though, Bowies best rock records are the ones with Ronson...so it is probably true he had a big hand in the arranging.
but if some folks on here are going to call Bolan a one trick pony, you gotta call Mick one also...
as I was saying man, I am OBSESSED with T-Rex, there are few other artists who I will literally buy anything and everything by... all I was saying was that once Visconti found the perfect sound for Bolan (the heavily-reverbed rockabilly boogie) he was content to let the rest of his career ride on that alone, and it didn't end up working out for him...
sorry, he did have a couple cool licks(I love his solo on "Width of a Circle"), but Mick Ronson is not that good of a guitarist. He was the right man for the job on Ziggy and the Man who sold the world, but if some folks on here are going to call Bolan a one trick pony, you gotta call Mick one also...
i was ready to go with bolan, even over play on car ads hasn't chilled the vibe + he has that live fast die young thing going but i forgot about ronson & eno damn bowie by a hair low & pin ups are crucial
as much as i love bolan and t.rex it's bowie by a landslide. marc bolan peaked with "slider" and "electric warrior" and sure there were moments before and after but really, outside of those two records he's marginal.
bowie was solid for at least 15 years and at times he was truly groundbreaking.
granted, bowie owed bolan for a lot of his success during the Ziggy eray, but genius always steals, and besides, "Ziggy" really one-upped bolan. one of bowie's true talents is his ability to collaborate with the right people and to really be prescient when it comes to whatever style of rock will be popular in a year or two or twenty.
sorry, he did have a couple cool licks(I love his solo on "Width of a Circle"), but Mick Ronson is not that good of a guitarist. He was the right man for the job on Ziggy and the Man who sold the world, but if some folks on here are going to call Bolan a one trick pony, you gotta call Mick one also...
Maybe so, particularly if you listen to him back to back with Jeff Beck, whom he bit shamelessly, but Mick Ronson's unsung strength as it related to Bowie was as an arranger. Pretty much all the arrangements on Lou Reed's "Transformer" were by him, to the extent that he ended up with a co-producer credit (IIRC), and it's been said that similar contributions to Bowie's own records have been played down somewhat, but I dunno how true that is.
honestly, mick ronson is a GREAT guitarist... his guitar parts are tasteful as fuck and he has the ability to make Bowie and Lou Reeds 4 chords songs sound EPIC... imagine "Vicious" by Lou Reed without all Ronson's guitar licks... in addition he's a great piano player, that's him on "satellite of love"... he's one of the best arrangers of pure rock and roll. and his tone alone qualifies him for rock goad status, his usage of a wah wah pedal strictly for tone, as opposed for "wah wah" sound (he's play with the pedal halfway depressed and just leave it there) was a genius move... i don't hear that much beck in ronson, he's more of an inside player, and less bluesy... too me, the only guitar player i hear in ronson is brian may from queen...
as for bowie vs. bolan, it's no contest, bowie all the way... bolan was a TWO trick pony (cosmic folk and post-psych rockabilly), wheras Bowie could hit to all fields... fuck, i played out "ashes to ashes" last night... Bowie beat Bolan at his own game with shit like "jean genie", "diamond dogs", "velvet goldmine", and then moved on... to Philly Soul, disco, motorik, synthe pop, etc...
dude got so funky, james brown stole his song!
wheras Bolan's attepts to move beyond his established style in 76-77 were pretty bad... by bolan's death, bowie had done all of the above styles, (albums ranging from "Young Americans" to "Low") and bolan was treading water... never underestimate how important Tony Visconti was to the whole T Rex sound... i've read interviews with him and it sounds like Bolan was like an idiot savant who really needed guidance in the studio... which may have been the case with Bowie too, but at least Bowie was smart enough to move from Ronson to Gamble/Huff to Eno...
and speaking of stealing, Bolan stole from Syd Barrett!!!!
"Bolan used to hang around in our office and sit on the floor, strumming his guitar, flirting with our secretary, June, who, of course, he later married. He was a great Syd fan.[/b] I was quite fond of him. He was a big pain in the arse, of course, very full of himself. I always liked that thing where he called himself the Bolan child, this magical, mythical name. It was really from his doorbell in Ladbroke Grove. It had his name, and our secretarys surname, Child, so it read Bolan Child and fans used to think, wow, he is the Bolan Child!"
mick ronson is a GREAT guitarist... and his tone alone qualifies him for rock goad status, his usage of a wah wah pedal strictly for tone, as opposed for "wah wah" sound (he's play with the pedal halfway depressed and just leave it there) was a genius move...
the patented Zappa tone. by no means invented by ronson.
i agree ronson's main strength lies in his ability to fill in the gaps in the tracks and really take them over the top.
and dude really never got enough props for his arangements fo sho.
back to bolan though... i think the idot savante quote is perfect.
there was an article in guitar player with visconti where he talked alot about bolan' gear. he played a totally assed out yamaha accoustic and shitty solid state amps. Visconti even mentioned how dope his tone was and that he bought the EXACT same amp and he could never get it to sound like Bolan.
dude was one of those guys who got in the studio.. did a few lines, some tokes and then just let the tape roll. leaving it up to visconti to get the sounds down.
why no mention of John's Children? some prety nice freakbeat foolishness there... polar opposite to the tyranosaurus stuff.
Bowie on the other hand is pretty much the antithesis of spontaneous... everything is meticulously calculated and planned to the nth degree.. with the studio and the players being an integral part of his vision. the man was truely a genius when it came to picking the right people for the right job.
"Bolan used to hang around in our office and sit on the floor, strumming his guitar, flirting with our secretary, June, who, of course, he later married. He was a great Syd fan.[/b] I was quite fond of him. He was a big pain in the arse, of course, very full of himself. I always liked that thing where he called himself the Bolan child, this magical, mythical name. It was really from his doorbell in Ladbroke Grove. It had his name, and our secretarys surname, Child, so it read Bolan Child and fans used to think, wow, he is the Bolan Child!"
David Gilmour
Not saying Bolan wasn't a Syd fan but Bolan was well into his mystical wizard rock thing before David Gilmour was even in the band.
bowie didn't start getting bad until the early-to-mid-80s..."scary monsters" is a fantastic record and that is 1980.
word... can't front on "let's dance" either.. it's not "art", but it's catchy as hell...
hey, patrick poprock, yo i hear you run this joint! every time anyone mentions disco or boogie, it's called a "crazypoprock" record...
oh and re: syd and bolan, i know bolan had his wizard act before (or around the same time) as Gilmour joined Floyd (1968), but he didn't have the act before Syd was famous... like i said, before Syd, Bolan was just another mod... Bolan stole Syd's persona, for sure...
you listen to early T.Rex, and Pink Floyd songs like "Flaming" and esp. "The Gnone" sound like BIG influences... Bolan's one big genius move was taking the Stones "Jumnpin' Jack Flash" post-psychedelic blues/rock sound and streamlining it... it's hard to imagine Bang a Gong without "let it bleed" "beggars banquet" and "sticky fingers" ...
"For management Marc selected Blackhill Enterprises who also managed Pink Floyd. This was no coincidence as Marc was a big fan of Syd Barrett, the driving force behind Pink Floyd at the time. Marc acknowledged Syd as a key influence and once said that Syd was one of the few people that he considered to be a genius.[/b] And, typical of a characteristic that would become a common occurrence throughout his career, Marc couldn't resist drawing a comparison. What "The Pink Floyd do electrically," he declared, "we do acoustically.""
but what has Bowie done that truly original? He is a musical vulture, not saying he isnt good, I own everything up until "Heroes", but shit, the early 70s stuff bit Bolan and Reed big time, his trio of Low, Lodger, and Heroes bit Harmonia, Rother, and the like and as far as James Brown stealing from Bowie, Alomar wrote the riff and he was in both Bowies and Browns bands...Lennon wrote the words and vocal melody, so I guess Lennon was the one who was bit....Bowie is great, no doubt, but Bolan was more original and I believe, more talented at taking three chords and making memorable songs and anthems out of them.
for over 10 years, his finger was on the pulse of the cutting edge of music to an amazing extent. he had an almost erie ability to know whom to steal from and when.
This thread reminds me of something funny I read on the WIkipedia page for Bowie's The Prettiest Star.
"The track featured Marc Bolan on guitar, with whom Bowie would spend the next few years as a rival for the crown of the king of glam rock. Producer Tony Visconti, who brought the two aspiring pop stars together in the studio, recalled that the session went well until the end when Bolan's wife June remarked to Bowie, Marc is too good for you, to be playing on this record!"
Comments
sorry, he did have a couple cool licks(I love his solo on "Width of a Circle"), but Mick Ronson is not that good of a guitarist. He was the right man for the job on Ziggy and the Man who sold the world, but if some folks on here are going to call Bolan a one trick pony, you gotta call Mick one also...
Maybe so, particularly if you listen to him back to back with Jeff Beck, whom he bit shamelessly, but Mick Ronson's unsung strength as it related to Bowie was as an arranger. Pretty much all the arrangements on Lou Reed's "Transformer" were by him, to the extent that he ended up with a co-producer credit (IIRC), and it's been said that similar contributions to Bowie's own records have been played down somewhat, but I dunno how true that is.
I did not know that. Makes sense though, Bowies best rock records are the ones with Ronson...so it is probably true he had a big hand in the arranging.
as I was saying man, I am OBSESSED with T-Rex, there are few other artists who I will literally buy anything and everything by... all I was saying was that once Visconti found the perfect sound for Bolan (the heavily-reverbed rockabilly boogie) he was content to let the rest of his career ride on that alone, and it didn't end up working out for him...
ummm...did you not see his socks!?!?![/b]
i was ready to go with bolan,
even over play on car ads hasn't chilled the vibe
+ he has that live fast die young thing going
but
i forgot about ronson & eno
damn
bowie by a hair
low & pin ups are crucial
whats next
beatles or stones
33s or 45s
bowie was solid for at least 15 years and at times he was truly groundbreaking.
granted, bowie owed bolan for a lot of his success during the Ziggy eray, but genius always steals, and besides, "Ziggy" really one-upped bolan. one of bowie's true talents is his ability to collaborate with the right people and to really be prescient when it comes to whatever style of rock will be popular in a year or two or twenty.
VS
Battle of the "Two Album" bands*?
*post-Morrison Them albums being considered by a different band altogether...
that's what the asterick was for...
honestly, mick ronson is a GREAT guitarist... his guitar parts are tasteful as fuck and he has the ability to make Bowie and Lou Reeds 4 chords songs sound EPIC... imagine "Vicious" by Lou Reed without all Ronson's guitar licks... in addition he's a great piano player, that's him on "satellite of love"... he's one of the best arrangers of pure rock and roll. and his tone alone qualifies him for rock goad status, his usage of a wah wah pedal strictly for tone, as opposed for "wah wah" sound (he's play with the pedal halfway depressed and just leave it there) was a genius move... i don't hear that much beck in ronson, he's more of an inside player, and less bluesy... too me, the only guitar player i hear in ronson is brian may from queen...
as for bowie vs. bolan, it's no contest, bowie all the way... bolan was a TWO trick pony (cosmic folk and post-psych rockabilly), wheras Bowie could hit to all fields... fuck, i played out "ashes to ashes" last night... Bowie beat Bolan at his own game with shit like "jean genie", "diamond dogs", "velvet goldmine", and then moved on... to Philly Soul, disco, motorik, synthe pop, etc...
dude got so funky, james brown stole his song!
wheras Bolan's attepts to move beyond his established style in 76-77 were pretty bad... by bolan's death, bowie had done all of the above styles, (albums ranging from "Young Americans" to "Low") and bolan was treading water... never underestimate how important Tony Visconti was to the whole T Rex sound... i've read interviews with him and it sounds like Bolan was like an idiot savant who really needed guidance in the studio... which may have been the case with Bowie too, but at least Bowie was smart enough to move from Ronson to Gamble/Huff to Eno...
and speaking of stealing, Bolan stole from Syd Barrett!!!!
Explain.
fuck, the Pink Floyd's version of "King Bee" from 65 sounds like it could be the B-side of "ride a white swan", blues rock with a LOT of feyness...
David Gilmour
the patented Zappa tone. by no means invented by ronson.
i agree ronson's main strength lies in his ability to fill in the gaps in the tracks and really take them over the top.
and dude really never got enough props for his arangements fo sho.
back to bolan though... i think the idot savante quote is perfect.
there was an article in guitar player with visconti where he talked alot about bolan' gear. he played a totally assed out yamaha accoustic and shitty solid state amps. Visconti even mentioned how dope his tone was and that he bought the EXACT same amp and he could never get it to sound like Bolan.
dude was one of those guys who got in the studio.. did a few lines, some tokes and then just let the tape roll. leaving it up to visconti to get the sounds down.
why no mention of John's Children? some prety nice freakbeat foolishness there... polar opposite to the tyranosaurus stuff.
Bowie on the other hand is pretty much the antithesis of spontaneous... everything is meticulously calculated and planned to the nth degree.. with the studio and the players being an integral part of his vision. the man was truely a genius when it came to picking the right people for the right job.
i actually think they were better before Bolan joined... "smashed blocked" and "just what you want, just what you get" are my jams...
Not saying Bolan wasn't a Syd fan but Bolan was well into his mystical wizard rock thing before David Gilmour was even in the band.
http://members.cox.net/dregenold/marc/early.html
Wether he was better than Bowie or not, Bolan was not terribly consequential to John's Children's sound or success.
bowie didn't start getting bad until the early-to-mid-80s..."scary monsters" is a fantastic record and that is 1980.
word... can't front on "let's dance" either.. it's not "art", but it's catchy as hell...
hey, patrick poprock, yo i hear you run this joint! every time anyone mentions disco or boogie, it's called a "crazypoprock" record...
oh and re: syd and bolan, i know bolan had his wizard act before (or around the same time) as Gilmour joined Floyd (1968), but he didn't have the act before Syd was famous... like i said, before Syd, Bolan was just another mod... Bolan stole Syd's persona, for sure...
you listen to early T.Rex, and Pink Floyd songs like "Flaming" and esp. "The Gnone" sound like BIG influences... Bolan's one big genius move was taking the Stones "Jumnpin' Jack Flash" post-psychedelic blues/rock sound and streamlining it... it's hard to imagine Bang a Gong without "let it bleed" "beggars banquet" and "sticky fingers" ...
from: Bolan loves Syd
"For management Marc selected Blackhill Enterprises who also managed Pink Floyd. This was no coincidence as Marc was a big fan of Syd Barrett, the driving force behind Pink Floyd at the time. Marc acknowledged Syd as a key influence and once said that Syd was one of the few people that he considered to be a genius.[/b] And, typical of a characteristic that would become a common occurrence throughout his career, Marc couldn't resist drawing a comparison. What "The Pink Floyd do electrically," he declared, "we do acoustically.""
nothing.
welcome to the 20th century...
bad artists borrow, good artists steal.
bowie is a GREAT artist.
for over 10 years, his finger was on the pulse of the cutting edge of music to an amazing extent. he had an almost erie ability to know whom to steal from and when.
"The track featured Marc Bolan on guitar, with whom Bowie would spend the next few years as a rival for the crown of the king of glam rock. Producer Tony Visconti, who brought the two aspiring pop stars together in the studio, recalled that the session went well until the end when Bolan's wife June remarked to Bowie, Marc is too good for you, to be playing on this record!"
lol
- Damo