Cagey-1
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Post by Cagey-1 on Dec 24, 2011 20:02:47 GMT -5
When I first met Artimus he had just moved down from the Bat Cave area of North Carolina, South Carolina in the summer of 1985- I would say sometime around July 1985. While there he was in a band called WALKING OUTSIDE a three piece progressive fusion type of jazz band. Artimus was a big fan of similar music performed by the Yellowjackets and Weather Report, so it was only natural for him to go in that direction musically. So he formed a band called WALKING OUTSIDE and just based on listening to it, much of it sounds improvised, sort of make it up as you play along. Artimus says he is a fan of Southern rock, but here he says he is playing Southern jazz. Not sure I would agree with him- not the Southern part, but is this really jazz? One thing is for sure, it is not Southern rock! So take a listen to a tape of Artimus that I copied directly from his copy shortly after he moved to Florida for Allen Collins LSII project. Here is WALKING OUTSIDE recorded April 21-23, 1985 and I just transferred it today for the first time since the mid 80's it has even been listened to! And after a listen you will understand why! www.mediafire.com/?gxod51c60we292n
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Post by blueridgemtnbird on Dec 25, 2011 18:58:52 GMT -5
bat cave is only 15 mins from my house. its the same area where the very popularmovie dirty dancing was filmed. i do rememebr artimus playing in a few bars around here after the crash of 77 i tried to go see him once at a bar which burned down sometime in the mid 80,s it was located in a small town called tryon north carolina but it was so crowded that night you couldnt get near the joint so the girl i was with didnt want to try to get in so we moved on somewhere else that night best i rememeber. i cant think of the bands name artimus was playing with at that time tho!!
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Post by BlueMonday on Dec 26, 2011 21:18:15 GMT -5
Artimus says he is a fan of Southern rock, but here he says he is playing Southern jazz. Not sure I would agree with him- not the Southern part, but is this really jazz? One thing is for sure, it is not Southern rock! So take a listen to a tape of Artimus that I copied directly from his copy shortly after he moved to Florida for Allen Collins LSII project. Here is WALKING OUTSIDE recorded April 21-23, 1985 and I just transferred it today for the first time since the mid 80's it has even been listened to! And after a listen you will understand why! Thanks for this Cagey. I just downloaded it and I'm going to listen to a bit of it now. I do have to confess though: I'm not a big fan of jazz, I'm not even a small fan of jazz. This stuff goes right over my head. I'm sitting here listening to this and I do have to say that I'm not getting it. But it is entirely possible that I need to expand my horizons and so I should give this more of a chance...
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Cagey-1
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Post by Cagey-1 on Dec 27, 2011 10:40:26 GMT -5
I didn't get it either.
I thought I was going to get Skynyrd when hanging with Skynyrd band members. I wanted Southern rock and Artimus brought this jazz with him. I was disappointed to say the least. And, one of the worst bands I ever heard was APB-Fenwicks. Ugh!
The music of the Fenwicks, if it can be called music, is how shall I say it... listening to the Fenwicks makes you want to kill. Listening to the Fenwicks can turn the completely sane into instant insane genocidal maniacs with one listen. The music is horrible in my opinion and it revolves around that freak at front vocal- the idiot who wears donald duck outfits that look like Elvis with huge duck feet. He is such a NYC drama queen. A wannabe be famous wannabe who just won't take no for an answer. He is determined to force his bad drama on the world whether they like it or not.
As for this band Walking Outside, listening to this so called performance, it sounds like to me they have no clue what it is they are playing. Everyone just do your own thing and improvise- make it up as you play along.
If I was out in the crowd trying to listen to this band I would not have been happy. I mean I would have come to this show because the name of Artimus Pyle and his connection to Lynyrd Skynyrd is the selling point and then to arrive to hear this jazz crap? I would be pissed off and probably leave and hope the band saw us leave.
If you made your name playing Southern rock and then you try and sell yourself at shows, one would think the music would at least be close enough to enjoy, but this stuff is alien and way out there and for fans of Southern rock, this music does not satisfy in any way, shape, or form.
Even after Artimus moved into the westside studio over at LAC Productions, he actually called up Tim Manning and Jay Hiner to come to the studio to continue playing this crap and for me to go to the Skynyrd studio to hear this stuff was very very very disappointing. This was the last thing I would want to hear. Tim and Jay, please go home and don't come back! Allen is putting together an LSII, not the Yellowjackets or a Weather Report. Thank God!
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Post by BlueMonday on Dec 27, 2011 12:25:22 GMT -5
What is it about drummers of major rock bands wanting to be jazz performers? Stones drummer Charlie Watts is also a big jazz fan and has done jazz stuff as a sideline for years.
I agree that it's not cool for Artimus to use his Skynyrd fame to promote that stuff. There may be some Skynyrd fans who dig this stuff, but I doubt that the numbers are significant.
There are lots of people who swear by jazz. I could be wrong, but I somehow doubt that they have many Skynyrd albums in their collection...
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Cagey-1
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Post by Cagey-1 on Dec 27, 2011 12:43:53 GMT -5
What is their fascination?
Unique rhythms.
For you see, to drummers, Southern rock is quite boring. Monotonous. Keep the beat. No leeway to drum all over the place. Stay in the pocket and keep the beat for all others to shine.
Artimus really likes classical music and he told me one day it had something to do with all the unique rhythms of the music and I suspect the same holds true for jazz.
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Cagey-1
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Post by Cagey-1 on Dec 27, 2011 13:11:53 GMT -5
...I agree that it's not cool for Artimus to use his Skynyrd fame to promote that stuff... I did not mean to make it sound like Artimus was the one doing this kind of thing. Usually it is the promoter or the venue who try to maximize publicity for famous associations. So I did not mean to blame Artimus for using his Southern rock Skynyrd association to draw in paying customers to his jazz (crap). Sorry, but to me that is exactly what it is crap. As I listen to this crap I keep waiting for it go somewhere but it is like never going anywhere. And it just does not appeal to me at all. It is absolutely lame-ass boring to me. Sorry Artimus, but I can not change my opinion of it. I have to wonder how much he got paid for a show like this one. Ugh! I wouldn't pay for it if I knew it would be like this!
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Post by BlueMonday on Dec 27, 2011 17:24:03 GMT -5
What is their fascination? Unique rhythms. For you see, to drummers, Southern rock is quite boring. Monotonous. Keep the beat. No leeway to drum all over the place. Stay in the pocket and keep the beat for all others to shine. Artimus really likes classical music and he told me one day it had something to do with all the unique rhythms of the music and I suspect the same holds true for jazz. That makes perfect sense to me. From that perspective, being Skynyrd's drummer must have felt especially boring to Arti at times (and I'm saying this independently of the great music created by the band with Arti in it) because Ronnie insisted on having the songs played the same way night after night after night, which obviously left no room for creativity. Arti likes classical music? I like this about him. Kinda flies in the face of the redneck Skynyrd image, doesn't it? But of course, Skynyrd fans know just how wrong that image is. I did not mean to make it sound like Artimus was the one doing this kind of thing. Usually it is the promoter or the venue who try to maximize publicity for famous associations. So I did not mean to blame Artimus for using his Southern rock Skynyrd association to draw in paying customers to his jazz (crap). Sorry, but to me that is exactly what it is crap. As I listen to this crap I keep waiting for it go somewhere but it is like never going anywhere. And it just does not appeal to me at all. It is absolutely lame-ass boring to me. Sorry Artimus, but I can not change my opinion of it. I have to wonder how much he got paid for a show like this one. Ugh! I wouldn't pay for it if I knew it would be like this! OK, I misunderstood what you said. I'm glad Arti didn't use his Skynyrd fame to promote this crap. I agree with you : it sounds like crap to me too. Tuneless stuff. I can take some jazz, but definitely not this!
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Cagey-1
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Post by Cagey-1 on Dec 27, 2011 17:39:05 GMT -5
I guess now would be as good a time as any to add in a few more things...
Artimus told me once that when Ronnie hired him to play drums for Skynyrd that he knew Artimus was a powerhouse drummer who wanted to bang the hell out of those drums and do it artistically, and so according to Artimus, when Ronnie hired him Ronnie told Artimus that basically you can do whatever you want to behind those drums, but you must keep the beat for me. Just keep the beat so Ronnie could keep count and do his thing. This gave Artimus some leeway to bounce around the set just a little bit.
Sometimes the guitarist screwed with Artimus like at the beginning of Gimme Three Steps when Artimus would start it off sometimes the guitarists would not join in and stand around and let Artimus go on and on until they decided to jump in.
Artimus was also into classical big time. I recall driving around St. Augustine in his hippie volkswagon van one afternoon listening to classical which to me is just more crap I don't care for, Artimus told me he was really into it because of all the rhythmic variations within the music and also because it was non-offensive music.
I asked him non-offensive music? What do you mean by that? And he explained that listening to some rock music with people yelling at you was at times offensive and pissed him off and he joked about the offensive music making him want to kill someone- kidding of course, but I got the point.
I had never looked at music like that until he brought it up and then I had to put up with listening to his APB-Fenwicks band and oddly enough that is about the only band I ever heard that would make someone genocidal after listening to it. But hey, that is just me.
So in Artimus off time from Southern rock, he mostly listened to progressive fusion type of jazz and classical and most of it without "offensive" vocals to piss him off.
And if I tried to put on some Skynyrd he would promptly turn it off. For some reason he did not like listening to himself in Skynyrd.
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Post by BlueMonday on Dec 29, 2011 7:56:44 GMT -5
Artimus told me once that when Ronnie hired him to play drums for Skynyrd that he knew Artimus was a powerhouse drummer who wanted to bang the hell out of those drums and do it artistically, and so according to Artimus, when Ronnie hired him Ronnie told Artimus that basically you can do whatever you want to behind those drums, but you must keep the beat for me. Just keep the beat so Ronnie could keep count and do his thing. This gave Artimus some leeway to bounce around the set just a little bit. I was very surprised to read this. It goes against what I've always read about Ronnie, who was apparently very strict that he wanted the songs played the exact same way every night. I'm not sure why he wanted that. Maybe it made things easier for him. I have no reason to doubt what Arti said, but I'd bet that Ronnie wanted the guitarists (and I would think Billy as well) to play their parts the same way every time. All the live recordings I've heard seem to bear this out. I wonder about Leon though. Since Ronnie was giving Arti some leeway, did he also allow Leon some? Sometimes the guitarist screwed with Artimus like at the beginning of Gimme Three Steps when Artimus would start it off sometimes the guitarists would not join in and stand around and let Artimus go on and on until they decided to jump in. LOL. I'm sure Arti must have loved that... and Ronnie...
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