examples of Billy speeding up and making everyone/Jimmy play faster

[srt4b]

[Ram27]

I'm not sure if I like the mix on those TAFH shows anymore....everything just sounds loud, it's like an FM rip

[johncg]

Billy has an atrocious sense of time from the standpoint of a professional working musician like a “session guy” or a jazz musician. It’s literally embarrassing how much even his subdivisions are inconsistent with each other live, let alone his actual tempo. On the other hand, as “natural” unpolished musician he simply can’t be beat. Meter-wise he is more Neil Young or Bob Dylan than Steve Cropper or Tommy Tedesco. He plays in a way that forces everyone around to be stretch and conspand around him....Mr Jeff Schroeder has alluded to this himself in interviews by very diplomatically saying that Corgan has a “strong voice” and it’s a challenge to find a place to fit with him musically. Jeff is much more a musician’s musician or a session guy. He could play with anynody and make it work. In other words, he’s the sort of guy that can hear a song once and play it back accurately, and who has an acute enough sense of rhythm to lock with a click, play behind the beat, or play ahead of it. Corgan is a genius and I adore his talent but he wouldn’t last eight seconds in a cutting session with even the average player in NYC, Nashville, or LA. It’s just not his thing. I doubt he ever even practices with a metronome or works on transcribing. You can tell that just by listening to him. But again that’s totally cool....you don’t have to know what an adverb and a conjunction is to be a great speaker. And you don’t have to understand the mechanics of music to be a great musician. It’s far far more important that you have something to say. And Billy has way more to say than 99 percent of musicians

[teh b0lly!!1]

that is untrue. billy is incredibly consistent with his attacking of the strings, and this is why he is capable of creating those walls of guitars without ending up sounding muddy and obnoxious. he just doesn't adhere to a metronome, and just so happened to be lucky enough to find the world's best freestyling jazzrock drummer, who also does not like adhering to clicks. and even on top of that, they really do share a musical bond on par with those of the greatest songwriters, imho. i mean how unlikely is that.

but anyway, even though billy is an oddball version of a professional musician, and it's easy to mistake him for a 'grungy' guitarist, but that's definitely not the case imo. he's a formidable professional in his line of playing and writing.

[johncg]

Originally Posted by teh b0lly!!1

that is untrue. billy is incredibly consistent with his attacking of the strings, and this is why he is capable of creating those walls of guitars without ending up sounding muddy and obnoxious. he just doesn't adhere to a metronome, and just so happened to be lucky enough to find the world's best freestyling jazzrock drummer, who also does not like adhering to clicks. and even on top of that, they really do share a musical bond on par with those of the greatest songwriters, imho. i mean how unlikely is that.

but anyway, even though billy is an oddball version of a professional musician, and it's easy to mistake him for a 'grungy' guitarist, but that's definitely not the case imo. he's a formidable professional in his line of playing and writing.

Honestly there’s not much here I disagree with. All I would add is that those walls of sound were done over the course of tens or hundreds of hours of takes and retakes. It’s not like he went into the studio and tracked ten rhythm guitars on top of each other in ten takes. Really that’s not a skill anyone on earth has.

I agree he’s formidable in his line of playing. I gave him a lot of props for that in my post. What I’m saying is his line of playing is very different from that of a working professional in the sideman, studio guy, or jazz sense. We can totally agree to disagree on this point but I do notice some jarring inconsistencies in his time feel with regard to subdivisions during live performances. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s a professional and it certainly doesn’t mean he’s not great. But it’s there.

[teh b0lly!!1]

yeah i hear you. we're not really disagreeing here i think.

i also see your point about jeff being a more 'rounded out' professional musician as well. but perhaps that's what makes everybody here hate his playing so bad - being good at that stuff and being "everybody's musician" usually means you lack a strong musical personality of your own. jeff is probably a much more versatile musician than any of the original pumpkins, but he's a jack of all trades and master of none.

re: subdivisions, yeah -
live playing billy is much more uninhibited and scattered. jimmy is too. they are both all over the place tempo wise. but where they're lucky is, their inconsistencies usually match and they remain in the pocket. that's quite literally what makes all the difference and enables them to still sound good.

It’s not like he went into the studio and tracked ten rhythm guitars on top of each other in ten takes. Really that’s not a skill anyone on earth has.

also, re: this sentence. i'm way more fascinated with rhythm playing than lead playing. dude there are so many incredibly gifted rhythm guitar players out there. not saying they'd nail 10/10 right off like that, but they certainly come close to that crazy millimeter pinhead accuracy.

i'm not a metallica fan anymore, but James Hetfield is probably the ultimate rhythm guitar player of them all and you can count on him not needing dozens of hours with Butch Vig in the studio to quad track a rhythm track. what that guy can do in the studio, and his instinctive precision, are unparalleled. all those classic metallica records sound so fucking perfect, playing wise, and they've been recorded on analogue with much less ability to fix mistakes.

[srt4b]

Great commentary dudes. Will be interesting how the new tours plays out as it will undoubtedly be set to a click, at least to start the songs.

[Corgan's Bluff]

Jeff, with his lack of emotion, as their perfect circle guitar metronome.
The real reason for him as a third guitar player.
For a precise, broadway level show every concert of the tour.