Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Jason with JJ Burnel in 1988


Posted at ina.fr. (Thanks @guillaume_g_z)

20 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Thats not The Stranglers...it's JJ Burnel solo

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  3. What about this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOqXy64-hTw

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  4. I've always had the perception that he plays well this kind of music where no major drum presence and no drum fills. And my perception was confirmed when I heard him in Marina's new album, Froot.

    His work with The Cure is just meh, IMHO.

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    1. agreed, these clips sound good. but the cure stuff, no.

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  5. Its amazing how divisive Jason is. No other members past or present have divided opinion as much. Im a classically trained drummer myself, and I dont think he's bad technically, other than his unevenly accented hihat playing....its just that his drums sound awful.

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    1. It's not if you consider when Jason joined the band.

      We can't know for certain, but the timing of Boris leaving, Robert quoting that his departure was really what led to the end of that lineup rather than Porl's (the one that recorded The Head on the Door through Wish, fairly easily argued as the most capable as musicians and especially as a group), and all the records since being very uninspired in comparison.

      I think of it this way, paralleling another very popular and essential "alternative" band, Nirvana. The Cure would have still been a good band if Boris hadn't joined, but his drumming made it possible for Robert, Simon, and Porl to play in ways that likely wouldn't have happened with someone else. Similarly, Nirvana was already great in 1989-1990, but once Dave Grohl joined, it changed the dynamics in the group such that they could pull off songs that simply weren't possible before.

      WMS had a variety of drummers playing in the sessions, and it's interesting to go back and find out who was responsible for which songs. I wasn't surprised to learn what immediately sounded like a good Cure song, Jupiter Crash, on an otherwise atypically patchy album, simply used the demo drum parts Boris had recorded before leaving the band.

      I think the band's output being mediocre after Wish is a combination of Boris leaving and Robert's losing the passion and drive he had for making exceptional records. That, and he didn't change up the band's sound much, as he had in other major lineup changes, to incorporate different musicians. Jason, fairly or not, gets blamed for this, and is divisive amongst fans as a result.

      Results: with Boris, "Burn".... without Boris, hmm, "Us or Them" or "Never"?

      In a nutshell that's been the band since the mid-1990s. Basically, drummers really matter in punk and post-punk bands, even ones that end up making pop records.

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    2. The same case as in The Cure & Nirvana, happened with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Since Chad Smith joined, the band improved and went very popular and their commercial value raised.

      Boris is the best drummer. Jason just tries to fill every single gap with cymbals or tom rolls. And yes, I agree that his hi-hat uneven accents are annoying and destroy the songs. Most of the young fans can't notice this... sadly. Robert doesn't seem to care or he really likes Jason as a person.

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    3. Well, why don't you give us some examples. So that all of us naïve listeners can see what you are talking about.

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    4. @Jason - Listen to The same deep water as you, One more time, Last dance, If only tonight we could sleep, high, Plainsong, Prayers for rain, Untitled, the snakepit, a thousand hours, Apart.
      Can you hear how Boris uses rests (A rest is an interval of silence in a piece of music) so Porl, Robert and the other guys can play their parts without sounding like a mess?
      Jason can't play like and his playing lacks rests, he makes use of lots of notes with cymbals and toms and tambourines and what not!
      Gaonzalo probably will explain to you better than I.

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    5. The Cure used to be an amazing live act until 1993 when the great Boris Williams and virtuoso Porl Thompson had departed.

      The Cure have an amazing guitarist Reeves Gabrels at the moment and the drummer Jason Cooper who has become a better drummer over the years still drags them down as a live act. They just aren't powerful live anymore.

      Congrats to Jason Cooper for being able to perform a three hour set but he is just a lame live drummer.

      I have seen The Cure around 20 times live and have loved The Cure but nowadays there is something missing... I am praying Reeves talks Robert and the boys to get a better drummer.

      But apparently Robert loves Jason Cooper. I can't believe Simon Gallup and Reeves Gabrels really enjoy working with a sub-par drummer compared to Boris Williams or Andy Anderson.

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    6. Right? I mean Reeves hates working with Jason so much, that he's started a side project (High Hat) with him.

      As a member of the band once told me, "these fans don't have a fucking clue!", referring to comments and reviews posted here.

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    7. ""these fans don't have a fucking clue!", referring to comments and reviews posted here."

      about Jason?

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  6. Imagine if there'd been the internet in the 1980s, when 50 million people passed through The Cure, jesus!

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  7. Hello to all and congrats to the admin of this great blog!
    I've been a fan since 1985 and have been to Cure concerts in like around 30 times !! :))) I dont agree with fans that say jason is a bad drummer. he plays good but changing sometimes crucial drumparts which make some songs sound weird.
    having said that i feel that he is a good guy and he must be a great companion to robert and thats why he cant remove him.
    its his choice but if someday jason makes something really bad he will be sacked in the same fashion as corgan did with mike byrne.
    cheers!

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  8. "these fans don't have a fucking clue!"

    Ain't that the truth! Jason is a better drummer than Simon is a bassplayer but I don't see people clamouring for Mr Gallup to be removed. The anti Jason idiots are a bitter, misinformed personality cult made up of subnormal geeks who don't understand The Cure or the way bands work or people for that matter. I hope Robert understands that they are a tiny percentage of a very unrepresentative minority (i.e. the online FANZ). How many people regularly post on the various Cure sites? Compare that to the amount who attend shows around the world and the countless people who have bought Cure records over the decades? The internet is not the world - it represents NOTHING.

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    1. Yeah! Compare that to the amount who attend shows around the world and have bought Cure records since Boris and Porl left...

      Oh, wait. Right.

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    2. Surely, anti Jason 'idiots' are comparing Jason to Boris or Andy or even Lol... but Jason lovers compare Jason to Simon???? is that correct? :s

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