Moog Music Forum

Grabbed this from the Matrixsynth blog.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkO8Zg-WHno

it looks great and they sounded great 2. blew everyone else off the show too.

Love the Stripes. Great to see him using the Phatty.

Awesome!

Sorry if I seem mean here, but while it is nice to have the LP getting some exposure, it is too bad it is not being used by someone who can play it.

I know tons of people that can play that thing like a Stradivarius, but can't make a buck doing it. Then you have a guy making the big bucks just banging on any random key and people think that it is great.

Don't mean to offend anybody...it just bugs me when people who can't play as well as most (I know that he is not considered to be a keyboard player) get big money for messing around and everyone genuflects and hails him as a genius.

I guess that I am getting old and cranky!

old and cranky? maybe, but I agree whole heartedly! Growing up idolizing and emulating the likes of Emerson and Wakeman, now those were the days!

I think it's great that he uses it. Jack was looking for a particular sound for his composition, and he used the Phatty to apply it. What's wrong with that? It's not like he was flaunting his keyboard prowess. He didn't have a huge pretentious modular tower nor did he start to stab the keyboard with knives. He played what he felt he needed, and that was that.

thewaag wrote:I know tons of people that can play that thing like a Stradivarius, but can't make a buck doing it. Then you have a guy making the big bucks just banging on any random key and people think that it is great.

That's how life goes...
Anyway, he is not a keyboard player of course, but without any doubt he has a creative mind and that makes him an artist...

Zorn wrote: Anyway, he is not a keyboard player of course, but without any doubt he has a creative mind and that makes him an artist...

He's not a guitar player, either, so that leaves him with just this "creative mind" thing.

I like his guitar playing. I love the tones he comes up with as well as a lot of his hooks.

thewaag wrote:Sorry if I seem mean here, but while it is nice to have the LP getting some exposure, it is too bad it is not being used by someone who can play it.

I know tons of people that can play that thing like a Stradivarius, but can't make a buck doing it. Then you have a guy making the big bucks just banging on any random key and people think that it is great.

Don't mean to offend anybody...it just bugs me when people who can't play as well as most (I know that he is not considered to be a keyboard player) get big money for messing around and everyone genuflects and hails him as a genius.

I guess that I am getting old and cranky!

This is a pointless statement. Just because someone isnt what you consider to be a virtuoso doesnt mean their musicality isnt relevant. What he did on the LP was great for the track. subtlety is not the name of their game.

I think the most important question we have to ask here is ....where did he get that swank red LP......
Is this Moog Custom or did some stooge at his record company order an intern to take red spray paint to it.....

?

maybe Amos can shed a little light on this......he know everything!

i dont reckon moog did it as all of their kit was exactly the same colour. that makes me think it was all done by one person/company, but not moog.car paint and a can of laquer and there ya go!

goldphinga wrote:

thewaag wrote:Sorry if I seem mean here, but while it is nice to have the LP getting some exposure, it is too bad it is not being used by someone who can play it.

I know tons of people that can play that thing like a Stradivarius, but can't make a buck doing it. Then you have a guy making the big bucks just banging on any random key and people think that it is great.

Don't mean to offend anybody...it just bugs me when people who can't play as well as most (I know that he is not considered to be a keyboard player) get big money for messing around and everyone genuflects and hails him as a genius.

I guess that I am getting old and cranky!

This is a pointless statement. Just because someone isnt what you consider to be a virtuoso doesnt mean their musicality isnt relevant. What he did on the LP was great for the track. subtlety is not the name of their game.

Thank you for labeling my statement as pointless, Goldphinga.

I guess that we are looking at a generation gap here. I come from a time when you expected a recording artist to be able to play his instrument. Jack White’s random pawing of the Little Phatty is not what I would call playing.

You can call it art if you want. I guess that knowing when to drub the keys of the Little Phatty to get the necessary “sound” for your composition could be considered art. So can Yoko Ono’s screeching. It is just not my definition of the word, and I realize that this is strictly open to individual interpretation. I won’t call your opinion pointless because you think that Jack White’s keyboard doodlings are genius artistical interpretation.

My rock idols are guys who were virtuosos of their instruments, as well as being great songwriters. There were plenty of guys who wrote and performed rock classics who were not instrumental masters but could at least play the instruments that they performed with. People can say that Keith Emerson hid behind a “pretentious modular tower” and that he would “stab his keyboard with knives” but this was all for show. The guy played the absolute bejesus out of his instruments. Having not watched Jack play the keyboard before, I don’t know much about his keyboard prowess, but if the video clip is any indication, he has none. If people want to idolize him for that, go ahead. I won’t, but I won’t criticize you for doing so.

My comment was just a statement that here was a guy making big money as a musician and he shows no proficiency on one of the instruments that he plays. And yes, it does bug me that people consider this to be genius. It is incomprehensible to me, but again, I am older than most people on this forum. Musical tastes and expectations have changed. There are people on this board who regularly post music clips that show more keyboard ability than does Jack (at least in this clip). I appreciate their work a lot more.

It has been said that if you lock 1000 chimpanzees in a room with a typewriter and paper for 1000 years, at some point in time one of them might write War and Peace. Suddenly that chimp is an artist, I guess. I am not calling Jack White a chimp by any means, but it is hard for me, personally, to call his keyboard adventures art, based on this one clip. Would not a Rick Wakeman type of arpeggio been a more musical choice (and for this type of music, I guess that maybe the answer is no). For ME, Jack should stick to the guitar and hire someone else to add some keyboard textures to his music. It appears that I am in the minority here.

I am smart enough to realize, however, that musical taste is like beauty—it is all in the eye of the beholder. One man’s art is another man’s noise, and what is pointless is to debate what is and what is not musical, or what is and what is not art.

If you agree that Jack White is the second coming of Hendrix and you want to spend your hard earned money on White Stripes CD’s, that is your prerogative. You will get no argument from me. However, if I can’t understand what all the hub-bub is about and prefer to idolize people who exhibit some mastery over their instrument, do not dismiss my opinion as pointless.

I don't think that a lack of virtuosity is necessarily a phenomenon of the 21st century. If virtuosity defines musicianship, then Muddy Waters, Hubert Sumlin, etc., should not be considered artists? I appreciate virtuosity, but don't limit my listening to virtuoso displays of musicianship.

But I do appreciate your opinion. When you said in your original post that people that have mastered their instruments have almost no exposure, unfortuantely I think you were right on. But I don't think that the White Stripes are the worst offenders - they do offer something original and stimulating. I don't like cookie-cutter, flavor of the month mass-produced stuff, but that doesn't fit the White Stripes. And I'm not even really a big fan of theirs or anything.