The Recording of a Musical Document - Part 1

I have been trying to get people to work with me musically for probably about 20 years now. No, I haven't taken ads out, but I have spoken with my fair share of people and other musicians I know. Usually these conversations get to a "Yeah, man, that sounds great!" but, then they usually end up going the route of text messages going unanswered.

I have latched on with a couple of "promises" from some people on projects that they have talked about starting. These have usually lasted about a month, with discussion just eventually fading in the wind.

None of this is meant to sound like a "Please, take pity on me" rant. This is all just to explain the drastic measures I have recently taken on my quest to finally get some music written and recorded

CATHARTIC RAMBLING: Many times I have stopped and thought to myself "Why am I doing this? Why not just be a guy who watched TV and sits on the couch? Go hunting, get into sports, or things like that? Why keep trying to be a 21 year old Rock Star?" The reality is that I am not so sure I can stop. I set aside my music when I had a family. I kept playing, but my actual drive faded away. I had a chance at one point to join up with my buddy Todd in the band The Gaza Strippers. Two things kept me from trying to go for it: I had just gotten married, and I also didn't think I was good enough for the role of a lead guitarist. I probably could have got the chops in time if I had worked at it, but the other obstacle kept me from going for it.

So, here I am 25 years after that situation. I was 25 when that offer was made. That is a long time. In that time period I recorded 4 songs with my buddy Larry doing drums. The songs were written previous to that day, then he learned them within two hours and we recorded them to a 4-track.
Then, pretty much silence. Some dabbling here and there, but nothing really substantial.

So here we are. I decided to take it all into my own hands.

In the past I have tried using drum machines and programs. I really suck at that. Plus, it bores me to tears and I just don't enjoy the idea of programming drums. So I knew I wanted actually drumming. I have been able to play basic beats on drums for years. Never a great drummer, by any means, but enough that I believed I could learn to be better.

But my house is not the biggest place, and space is a little tough to really make, especially taking into consideration my music collection. My wife was cool with the idea of a drum set moving in with usm but we had to figure out the space. Her suggestion of getting rid of the rest of my stuff, while thoughtful in my desire to get a kit, was not quite the suggestion I was looking for.

So the idea of an electronic kit came to my mind. They are smaller, they are extremely quiet, and they can record directly into a recording program. For my  situation this seemed ideal. Plus, when I started looking into them, they really were not out of my league as far as price is concerned. Oh, sure, some were stupid expensive. But I am not a pro, and I am just looking to learn to get better at drums. I just needed an affordable drum kit.

That is how I met the Alesis Nitro Mesh. An electric drum kit, within my budget, that does everything I need it to do. Plus, on the other positive side, it gets rave reviews for actually being a good electric kit.

I bought the thing, brought it home, and set it up. My initial plan was to buy it, let it sit for a little bit in the box, then when I had plenty of time to mess around with it, break it out then. But, I got home later that same night, and just started to take it out of the box to look at the parts. About a little over an hour later I sat there with the parts all assembled. I picked it up and moved it to the spot it was going to live in for a little while.

The next night I went about wiring it up and giving it a test run. Much to my surprise it wired up fairly easy. Flipping the power switch also gave me the results I was not fully expecting: IT WORKED!!! I proceeded that night to mess around with it a little bit, just to see how it all worked.

I am glad to say, it all worked exactly how I had hoped it would. Everything about the kit is exactly what my research had said it would be. Simple to use, sounds nice, and seems like it will be easy enough to expand parts and sounds. I still haven't spent much time setting up the sounds. For the time being I am just using the thing. I will get into the fancy side once I am fully at ease with what I am doing and am getting closer to the ultimate goal of recording.

So, now I have my kit. It is in the basement, and now I sit here just over a week and a half later. The big question is . . . what the Hell have I been doing? Well, come back for the next exciting chapter in our adventure to find out!!!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to explain this blog and what I am going to be doing here. The ultimate goal with this kit is to finally record again. Finally get a project done. None of my old bands ever actually released anything. None of our demos ever made the way to people. Close friends had copies, but we never pressed anything, never had actual covers, nothing. Our demos were sent to clubs and friends, and that was it. So the goal here is to actually have a finished product. Will it see light of day as actual physical media, or will it just be posted as a download somewhere? I don't know. But it will be an actual product.

This site is basically going to chronicle the journey. From my learning to play the drums, to my doing the first recordings (what those are, you will have to wait a few days to find out, but the title will be an old title I used before, Pieces of Time), to my writing the new songs for the actual album I am planning, to my working out the songs and eventually recording them. It should be a fairly interesting journey, I hope.

Suspiria - Psychologically Impaled (2017)

NOTE: This review was written a long time ago. I just now found it hiding in my stuff and am deciding to post it in an attempt to bring Sonic Ruin up to date.

Full disclosure: I have to say, I am completely biased when it comes to this little slab o' silver.
A little background. Suspiria was a Chicago Death Metal band from the early 90s. They specialized in crazy technically skilled tunes that were both ridiculously catchy and mind-bogglingly intense. They played out only a handful of times, but they were insanely good live. Yes, I was at every show, I ran the lights for them. I was also at every single practice pretty much and saw every single one of these songs grow from a riff here or there to the brilliant pieces that they would become. I even suggested a part of "Yesterday Beyond." Plus, as the liner notes point out, I drew the first demo's original cover and suggested the band name change.

Suspiria were all my best friends. The band are like family to me in many ways. They stood up in my wedding. I worked for many years with the drummer, Larry, in our 9 to 5 lives. I built my house next door to him and I met my wife through him. The guitarist, Todd, was always like a brother to me. The countless nights we sat around until the wee hours of the morning, just talking. Todd and I still get together. Dale, the vocalist, was always one of the funniest people I have ever met. We hung out all the time. I met the rest of the band through Dale. Heck, I was even an early candidate for helping Dale start a band. Problem being I was lousy at Metal. I also worked with Raf, the bassist, for numerous years.

While it might be true that I am biased to a degree, there is no denying the phenomenal talent and skill behind all of the songs on this release. These guys opened my ears to Death Metal. Without listening to them play I am not so sure I would have ever wandered towards extreme Metal. But, thanks to them, I grew an ear for the style and was able to pick out the good from the bad. Suspiria was one of the best.

This release is made up of the two demos released by the band, Psychological Inertia (1992) and Divinely Impaled (1991). Included are also live versions of all 7 songs, recorded at 2 different shows. All of the songs have been met with a remastering and a clean-up for this release. The live tracks are a little rough. They exist here more for novelty than anything else. The final two live versions of "Permanent Destiny" and "Conflictions" are the best sounding. Those two songs also prove that for as good as the Suspiria demos are, they were for real, as one can easily hear that they sounded just as good live, if not better than recorded.

The beautiful thing about Suspiria is how many changes one gets with the songs. Yet they always flow back to the main idea. The songs move from segment to segment and always have a purpose. Every riff makes sense in context.

Todd Scow's guitar playing is acrobatic and fluid. We used to refer to his fingers as noodles. Watching him play was always part of the fun, and it is almost a shame that the live tracks are not accompanied by video, as seeing Todd play these songs was always part of the fun.

One also has to remove their hat to Ron Muc for a solid rhythm job on guitar. Keeping pace with Scow was never an easy job, but Ron did a solid job.

The drumming by Larry Demumbrum is also a high point. While an amazing drummer, part of what made Larry so brilliant on drums is the fact that he was also a guitarist, and he played both guitar and drums in a similar way. Larry always treated the drums very much as a lead instrument. One listened to a song just as much for the drumming as they did for the guitar playing, and while many drummers accentuate the rhythm, Larry always accentuated the lead guitar. Much in the way Keith Moon would accentuate the vocals, Larry did it to the guitar leads. Yes, I compared Larry to Keith Moon. He will kill me for that.

I always liked Dale's voice. He might not have been as brutal as some Death Metal growlers, he did have his charms. His phrasing in many songs helped add an extra needed hook. His phrasing during "Permanent Destiny" for the line "Attack on those" has always been a favorite vocal line for me, and that includes in bands that are not friends of mine. In my opinion the vocal production on the early demos of Divinely Impaled ("Permanent Destiny," "Conflictions," and "Life Deletion") serve his voice best. The added effects help add a little more color to the vocals. The production for Psychological Inertia is a little dry on the vocals and I always felt a little effect could have added some depth.

The packaging is fantastic, with a wonderful interview with both Todd and Dale. It was, for me, a weird read. I knew all of the answers as I read it and I also remember almost every single aspect as if it was yesterday. It was during this interview that I realized how much Suspiria felt like a band I was a part of. I almost have as much pride in this release as I would my own band. But Todd's ridiculous memory and knack for keeping track of his own history make for a fascinating read. I wish more bands had his recollection and respect for their own history, as it makes for a great read.

Sprinkled through the pages are also quotes from other bands about Suspiria. Most of these help to create a legend of a band that should have been huge. We also get live shots from the band, promotional pictures, demo cover reproductions, and lyrics. There is really a lot crammed into these pages.

If you are a fan of Death Metal, technical Metal, Progressive Rock, or just really good Metal with amazing musicianship, you owe it to yourself to add this to your collection.

A change in reviewing style

One of the things that I prided myself on with Sonic Ruin was the in-depth nature of the reviews. I have always liked the reviews or retrospectives that took the albums apart as much as they could. This is what lead to the third issue of Sonic in which I delved into the Trashcan Darlings release Getting Away With Murder as much as we could.

I still have intentions of bringing Sonic Ruin back to print, in that exact same format. Each issue being an in-depth study of a certain release. It is all a matter of finding the time now. Whereas Sonic went into hibernation due to funds previously, now it is 100% an issue of time.

So, in the interim I am going to handle my album reviews a little different than other publications and blogs. I might not be the only one using the following method, but it did just come to me and I like the idea. So, if it is how another site or publication does it, I am not trying to steal their method, it just seems like the best method that will fit with my ultimate goal with Sonic.

Albums are collections of songs. I like to figure that a band puts the songs onto their albums because they feel all of the songs are worthy of being heard by the public. Every song should be a matter of pride. Nothing that lands on the finished product should be a filler. We all know that bands do release filler on their releases, but those songs should still be held up against everything else just the same.

My mind goes back to being a kid. I had just bought a 45, it may have been Journey's "Who's Crying Now," released in 1981. She asked me if I liked the b-side of the single. She then told me that the record companies usually placed a throw-away song on that side, but if the band puts a good song on that side then we win. This was the start of my realizing that bands and labels might actually have lesser quality songs, or as I would learn, filler.

So with Sonic I am going to start judging albums song by song. Each song will be getting a rating. Each song will be worth 5 points. So, an album that has 10 songs will be worth a total of 50 points. Then as the end I will calculate the total point value earned by the album and figure the percentage. The percentage that the album gets will be the rating. So, and album in which every song rates a 4 would be worth a total of 40 points, but its percentage would be 80%. Which would make sense, as every song is really good, but nothing achieves that over-the-top greatness that should be in the 90% area.

This experiment will be starting with the current releases from T.S.O.L., Bash and Pop, and the completely and ridiculously biased review I will be writing for local defunct Death Metallers Suspiria.

Getcha Rocks Off: Sex & Excess, Bust-ups and Binges, Life & Death on the Rock 'n' Roll Road - Mick Wall (2015 UK; 2016 US)

If you were into Rock during the 80s to any degree more than siphoning your knowledge from the radio or MTV, chances are you are familiar with the name Mick Wall. If you lived in the UK you are familiar with the name for sure. If you lived in the US and were interested in the UK scene, chances are you learned the name by mid-80s. If you never ventured outside of the shores of the US then you probably became familiar with Wall by the late 80s.

Mick Wall, during the 80s, was probably the most respected Rock journalist of the era. The man the bands trusted. The man who fit in perfectly with them due to his not being star struck and his being able to hang with the bands and their activities. He made his name mainly as a writer for Kerrang!. In my mind he was the Rock writer. Malcome Dome was the Metal guy, Howard Johnson the Glam guy.

Eventually Wall turned his eyes towards the US and started to write for RAW magazine. His hands were in many ventures and many areas. Eventually wandering on his way to the pages of Classic Rock magazine.

Getcha Rocks Off . . . is an account of his breaking into journalism and different nuggets from the years after. The stories take us from the mid-70s up through the early 90s, with slightly stepping into current years. The bulk of the tales take place during those years and we are only brought up to current dates when mentioning current whereabouts or mentioning the last meeting with Lemmy (Motorhead).

The book takes us through many an encounter with Phil Lynott, a quick passing with Johnny Rotten, David Lee Roth, Ozzy Osbourne, Don Arden, Steve Clark, Jimmy Page, Guns N Roses, and a gigantic slew of supporting characters. The stories are outrageous, unbelievable, a little scary, and in the case of Clark, Lynott, and Lemmy, heartbreaking. The Lynott and Clarke stories due to their passings in the book. The Lemmy due to much of the subject matter (Lemmy telling Wall he isn't dying) and the book coming out before the truth being the opposite of what Lemmy had claimed.

There is no shortage of discussion of drugs, booze, or sex. Open any page and one will find any three of these being discussed. Wall himself abused all of these possibly more than all of his subjects combined, if his tales are to be believed. What I took away from this was what separated Wall from the others. Most of the Rock stars would be using to ridiculous levels, and then venturing out onto the night to further adventures. While Wall would usually seem to be ending up face down and unable to move.

On Mick Wall's website his own description of the book states:

"A semi-fictionalised account from a time when giants really did walk the earth, stalked by overpaid and overindulged rock writers like this one. You couldn’t make it up."

So how much of what we are treated to his actually fact is a little questionable. I find it odd that the two lines, however, contradict themselves. If it is "semi-fictionalised" then you surely could make it up. I expect that much of the semi-fictionalized aspects are the bits of dialogue and the actual ways certain events played out. One bit with Rick James may also be a little bit of a stretch. Maybe.

The book is definitely fascinating. The stories are wild and fun. Mick Wall shows why he is considered to be one of the best. His writing also shows why he is trusted by the stars. At no point is any of this an attack. He is sure to speak honestly and humanize everybody he discusses. Axl Rose started as one of those on the side of Wall, but due to events he turned against him and railed against him in the temper-tantrum induced GnR tune "Get In The Ring." Wall speaks honestly about the events that lead to whine from Rose, but he never gets whiney back. He never attacks Rose. In fact, he is understanding of the person that Rose became, and he almost feels bad about the things that happened. It appears that Wall has always attempted to understand his subjects, rather than just make assumptions.

Getcha Rocks Off . . . is a great book. If you enjoy great writing, Rock N Roll, and a massive slice of debauchery, do yourself a favor and grab this and spend some time in a truly hedonistic past era.

Can the Trench Dogs save the world of Trash?

 Over the past few years I have not spent as much time in the company of Glam, and its like, as would have been normal for me in the past. From time to time I have wondered why this might be the case. In the past year I have spent more time listening to Progressive Rock. The two styles share a few things in common. They are both misunderstood by the masses and they both enjoy excess in one form or another. For Prog it is the excess of musical style. Grandiose arrangements and concept albums that deal in high concept ideas. For Glam it is excess of, well, just about everything else. 

But my distancing myself from Glam has confused me a bit. I was not sure why I have stepped away. I suspected why, I was just having a hard time admitting the reason. 

Let's take a step back in time. Step back to the wonderful year of 1984. A year when I first found Glam in the guise of Hanoi Rocks, T-Rex, the New York Dolls, and other such lovely bands. It was the year I grabbed Slade. It was a sound and a style I never heard on my radio. 

My love of this style soon came with frustration, as in the U.S. the style of music quickly fell into the realm of the Hairband. Some bands carried a look that fit, but the music sounded more like commercial rock. It was lacking an edge. The audience didn't sway and groove to the music, they headbanged (which was something that was beyond ridiculous to me). There were bands playing the style I enjoyed, but these bands were located outside of the U.S.

Flash forward to the present day. Over the past few years I have noticed a similar thing with Glam. But this time it is a worldwide issue. The world of Glam is now dominated by Sleaze (*snicker*, get it!?!). The color has been removed and replaced by black. We do have some bands still giving us proper Trash, such as Hard Luck Street. But for the most part Sleaze has become where it is all at. 

So when I recently saw a picture of the Stockholm based four piece known as Trench Dogs I naturally got a little excited. However, I held my excitement at bay. I had been here before. I have stood at the gates of excitement for a cool looking band, only to be crushed by a terrible sound, one too many times. 

I first checked out their video for "Self Sabotage," a song from their Fashionably Late EP (2015). Now, while the film footage that went along with the band footage left me a little bewildered (a gas mask adorned person in his skivvies rolling around in the woods), the footage of the band made me smile. We had a style of dress straight from Dog's D'Amour, and we had a variety of hair colors. Blonde, black, RED!!! To make matters even better, I very much enjoyed the song. It sounded not too distant from what one would expect Hanoi to have rolled out from the Bangkok Shocks. Raw as heck, but obviously performed by a group of skilled musicians. 

I knew I had to check out more. So I quickly went to their "Burn Church Street" video, from the most recent 2 song release Wine Stained Eyes (2016). Yes, I was using the videos instead of just going straight to search on Apple Music, as in this day and age if I can see a band in action I want to do that while checking them out for the first time. 

It seems that they are using shocking images to help them along. As this video is another confusing number with the band enjoying a meal of some rather nasty looking items. I was also a little saddened by the amount of black hair. Oh well. 

What put a smile on my face was the song. The band seems to have wandered even further into the Hanoi/Faster Pussycat sound of Glam. No chunky guitars, no music to bang your head to, just brilliant and hooky Rock and Roll! Wonderful guitar playing with a swagger and style that would put a smile on the face of Ron Wood, Keith Richards, or anybody else who wishes to appease the Gods of Rock and Roll. No over the top acrobatics, no out of place flash. It is all well placed groove and feeling. 

The song sways from verse to pre-chorus to the ridiculously catchy little bit that will get stuck in your noodle for days that these guys call a chorus. Each section moves fluidly into the next. Each section catchy, but building to the next to make each moment better than the prior. 

Now, imagine my surprise when I found that I still had not found their best song. That would be the brilliant "Devil and the Deep" from the same 2 song release, Wine Stained Eyes. Similar in feel to "Burn Church Street," and hopefully signaling that the band has found their true path and their own style. "Devil," however, is even more fluid in the movements and carries more hook. It is a brilliant tune with one groove after another and with brilliantly done backing vocals. 

Trench Dogs have one EP, Fashionably Late and two singles. Giving us a total of 8 songs to groove to. Each song is of the Trash and Glam style. No Metal to be found, just straight up trashy Rock and Roll. For fans of that style who have felt a little neglected over the past few years, I encourage you to check them out, if you have not.
Another thing to love about them is that during their live acoustic videos one can see guitarist Mattias playing a Hagstrom acoustic! Anybody who plays a Hagstrom is way cool with me. Considering they are a Swedish company seems a no brainer, but still, Hagstrom are the best. 

A little something else. I have been streaming all of their stuff through Apple Music. I really, really, really want the physical copies, but I am not able to find an address or anything on how to purchase their material.
Now gents, when can we expect a full-length release? 

Netflix Nuggets

 Today was a day of clerical work for my job. I am on Spring Break right now, so that meant sitting on the floor in my family room and sorting and grading papers. This is usually the time I put Columbo on and let them play until I finish my work. Today, however, I chose to catch up on some movies. I do love them movie marathons when I go for them.

Today's choices are three films lurking in the Netflix Horror section. I decided to go for a theme, so I chose to go zombie. I am not too sure why, as the genre is on such an overkill right now I was almost destined to dislike each one of these.

First up was Re-Kill (2015). This one has been on the top of the Netflix banner for a while now and they seem to have been pushing it. So this one was destined to be one I was going to watch. I liked the premise enough, so what the heck?

The premise is this in a nutshell: Five years after the zombie outbreak there are special police forced assigned to take down zombies. These units are called the R-Division. I guess that is Re-kill Division. We get to tag along as part of a documentary film crew to experience the life of the police/soldiers/people in the R Division. Which means this is a documentary, shown from the cameraman's view style movie. Shaky-cam is all over the place. 

The absolute best way to describe this movie is to call it Starship Troopers (right down to co-ed showers) by way of Blair Witch Project. We get to our movie by means of entering into the TV in the house of a little girl. Basically imagine yourself watching an episode of Cops, but with zombies. This means you get the commercials included. Commercials for safe-zone housing, pills to take daily to lessen your chance of infection if you are bit, and commercials for sex due to the world needing re-population. 

Re-Kill is a decent enough movie, but it did wear on me with all of the darkness and shaky camera. I didn't really like any of the characters too much, so my emotional attachment was fairly light. I would recommend it if you have nothing else to watch but want to see zombies in a little bit of a different style. The commercials are almost worth the time. Aside from the grammatical and spelling errors I did notice in the commercials. 

Next up was Stalled (2013). How do you make a zombie film more claustrophobic than Night of the Living Dead? Have the whole thing take place in a bathroom stall! That is pretty much the whole premise of this British film. A hapless janitor gets trapped in the women's bathroom during a Christmas party as the zombie apocalypse happens. Eventually another person (a lady) also gets trapped in the stalls and they spend the whole movie avoiding the zombies outside their door while chatting with each other. The movie does a decent job giving us enough humor to keep us interested. We never see the female character's face, but the way the film makers show her conversation bits is very well done. She becomes quite a likable character, even if all we have is her voice and a very simple vision of her. 

I should mention that when the movie started I was wondering if the movie would be silent. We go a long time before we have any dialogue at all, and then when we do have some it is the pointless chat of two women in the bathroom. But for a good amount of time we spend without any dialogue at all. I was almost a little saddened when we did start to get dialogue. 

My favorite of the three zombie flicks today was the last one I watched. Kill Zombie! (2012, original title Zombibi). This is basically Netherland's answer to Shaun of the Dead. A zombie horror/comedy film that centers around two friends (brothers, actually) trying to rescue the girl. There is more to it than that, but that is the basic premise. The two brothers are accompanied with two gang member that they are in jail with, one of the police officers that is in the station during the outbreak, and another prisoner. 

OK, here it is a little more clear. Two brothers get arrested for getting in a fight at a party. The two guys and them are all arrested. While in jail a Russian space center crashed into the building one of the brothers works in. This unleashes the zombie apocalypse. Our prisoners, however, have no idea this has happened, due to being in jail and being asleep. 

The next day they awaken to find the jail cell door open. So they escape. As they do they find the world destroyed and they encounter the zombies. From there they are saved by the female police officer in the poster and the trek to save a co-worker/love interest starts up. 

No, Kill Zombie! is not new territory. No, there are no ground breaking effects (in fact the blood is CGI, so that is a big negative). No, it is not dark and gloomy and scary. 

What Kill Zombie! does do is give us some great characters. Every single one of the traveling team we love (OK, one of them we only like, but he turns bad). The interplay between them all is great, especially the two brothers, and then the "loser" brother and his relationship with the gang members. The movie carries a lot of fun with it. 

An added bit that works extremely well are the news bits. We are brought up to speed of the apocalypse with a news anchor who interjects from time to time. These bits are wonderfully wacky and rather twisted at times. I could possibly see some people finding them pointless, but if you are in line with the comedy aspect of the movie these bits are just added fun. 

All three of these movies are worth a little bit of time. None of them were regrets. But I would say to go in reverse order of what I have here. Kill Zombie! is a definite view. Stalled is one that is worth it just for the unique style of it. Re-Kill is worth it if you enjoy the others movies that obviously helped to inspire this one. All three movies, oddly enough, rely on CGI blood splatter. 

A Minor Gem Found in a Stone

I went to the in-law's house for Easter. My father-in-law subscribes to Rolling Stone, a magazine I really don't like. I liked it back when it was still a giant publication, even if it was 90% ads. I still marvel at how small it has become. Not only did the over-all size change, but it has also lost the majority of its pages. 

I also have to admit here that my under-ground mindset probably adds to some of my disliking of Rolling Stone. Whereas when R.S. came out it was a cool magazine, through the years it became cool to be against R.S. Mainly because the music R.S. backs is crap. Seemingly the big label versions of cooler bands. I kind of see it like pushing The Black Crowes instead of The Quireboys. Both similar, but one more true to a style than the other. The safer one, however, gets the cover, the other gets ignored. Rolling Stone was once a daring magazine to expose the unknown, but it became just another music industry ad page.

Now, here is where I become a little hypocritical, but hang in there for a few seconds. 

The issue I picked up to peruse at the in-laws had an interview that caught my eye. It was an interview with Phil Collins. Now, what made this actually interesting was that they threw 10 or so big songs from the post-Gabriel Genesis and Phil's solo offerings at Phil. He then spoke about them honestly. In fact, brutally honest. 

Phil is an odd thing these days. No self-respecting Progressive Rock fan liked Phil back in the 80s, or even the 90s. Oh, sure, no self-respecting Rock fan did either, but we Prog fans had good reason, or so we thought. He was the guy that destroyed the mighty Genesis. He was the guy that removed the artistic integrity of the once great Genesis, and replaced it with sap. Never mind that he was also on two wonderful non-Gabriel releases (A Trick of the Tale and Wind and Wuthering), and one Hackett-less release that still sounds like the old Genesis and is far better than many give credit to ( . . . And Then There Were Three). 

But now Phil is gaining our respect. Even the proggies started to accept Phil a few years ago. Now the rest of the world is starting to like the guy again. Phil confronts our hatred in the interview. He points out that he understands the hatred, he was the guy up front, and he was everywhere. But he also points out that the first hit, "Follow You, Follow Me" was not written by him. 

Phil dives into a decent amount of songs and speaks honestly. We find out how he feels after all these years, some of the comments we are familiar with ("In The Air Tonight" has been discussed plenty of times), but some are a little surprising. He is not a fan of "Sussusudio" or the album it came from, No Jacket Required. He says he wasn't being himself. When I recently listened to it (having not heard it since the 80s) I was shocked by how much 80s damage there was to it. It sounds nothing like the releases he had put out before it. I have often wondered if artists from the 70s who recorded in the 80s and fell victim to the 80s excesses heard their 80s material and thought "Why?" Phil confirms that he did. 

A few other things that made me happy are the fact that he still loves his Tarzan work, a work that I felt was his best since the pre-Duke Genesis. That was a guy exploring and being experimental, you know, like Genesis did. It was also just wonderful Pop, like Genesis had dreams of being (which is why they were such huge Beatles fans). 

I also appreciate his honesty on the whole talk about Against All Odds. Stating that it was a time when somebody just basically handed him a lot of money. They needed a single, he had one done, he handed over the tune and they handed over the money. Then there was the comment about what he liked about the movie. A certain attribute of star Rachel Ward's. 

The whole interview/music dissection is a wonderful piece. The only problem is it is too short. Again, in the pre-shrunk era of R.S. this would probably have been a super in-depth and fascinating piece. As is, it is still a great piece, but I can only imagine what it would have been like had it been done before R.S. became a tiny little pamphlet.