man back in the day I dug some living Color and Vernon Reid was cool for a minute. i mean i go back to when dude was rocking on the Black Coalition records i use to have that on tape.

so where you got Vernon Reid as a Guitar Player?

did he do enough for you with color on record and on stage to matter or was he a time period thing?

mistermaxxx R.Kelly, Michael Jackson,Stevie wonder,Rick James,Marvin Gaye,El Debarge, Barry WHite Lionel RIchie,Isleys EWF,Lady T.,Kid creole and coconuts,the crusaders,kc sunshine band,bee gees,jW,sd,NE,JB

Miami Heat, New York Yankees,buffalo bills

...unfortunately, I don't think Living Colour was a great band. Reid came out of the Ornette Coleman and by extension, James Blood Ulmer (GREAT guitarist who's underrated and should get more props)-school of playing "harmolodic" solos (I never really understood what that means and no one else besides the musicians seems to get it either;still:solos that are free from pre-set harmony and seem to go more by the individuals conception of melody-Reid obviously lacked Coleman's feeling for blues/be-bop/50's R&B but instead seemed to take the style in a more post-Van Halen "metal"-direction); that was the scene that spawned him and he carried it unto the hard-rock/metal scene which made his solos seem very "fresh" compared to everyone that was aping Yngwie Malmsteen or Randy Rhoades or Van Halen; I still maintain that the *solo* on "Cult of personality" was one of the freshest and coolest and craziest and most deranged and least cliched you could hear on MTV in that era right next to some of marty friedman's leads with Megadeth a while later and very little else-most leads at that time was just standard scale-wankery or pentatonic cliches...

It's a shame I could never get into his band though...

that didn't hook you into Living Colour?

__________________________________________

http://www.twitter.com/chriscjamison/

People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.

Peter Drucker

I'm 99% sure that LC had better lyrics than practically everything I dug at the time-the 1% is Napalm Death; shit, I could often not even hear the lyrics!

No, I just have a kind of dumb taste when it comes to this type of music. Like c71 mentioned power-chords below; well, I LOVE power-chords and single-notes and shit in *that* musical-context. I'm into music that feels like a cold glass of water rather than a coctail; Living Colour didn't sound aesthetically ''pure'' enough (and no, that statement should not be misinterpreted as some racist-shit!) for my very specific tastes. Also, when they came out, I was primarily into thrash and started to ge4t into death and grind, it just wasn't where I was at and even when I got into more "alternative" music, my favorite band was Dinosaur Jr and when it comes to "heavy" alternative, I'll take a band like (prime-era) Soundgarden over Jane's addiction any day of the week.

Basically, I wasn't really into the more "funky" or "black-rock" style at all; I love funk and I love heavy rock but combined? No thanks... Same with Hip-Hop and metal mixed; it cancel eachother out. It's like Hip-hop then was masculine, muscular and in your face but it sampled soul and funk and jazz and it was often dance-friendly. Meanwhile, metal at the time often had quite intricate riff-arrangments, tempo-changes and quirky elements. However, combine the genres and the more "esoteric" aspects cancel eachother out and all that remains is this big muscular jock-stomp...

Of course, this has nothing to do with LC but still...

To be fair, LC wasn't that funky overall but they still had that chunky kind of groove I associate with that scene/era... I didn't even like pantera later-too ''groove''-and by extension, too "jock-stomp"- for me... (and no, living color were obviously not like that)

I must also admit that their riffs were kind of lame most of the time IMO; if you have Black Sabbath as one of your GOATs, you kind of need that shit in the heaviness and LC's riffs were often pretty ''meh'' honestly; they had a great singer but the riffs? I can barely remember any and I remember memorable riffs from fucking demos I've heard like twice

Jake, (if you haven't heard it) you might like Yohimbe Brothers, then... he definitely takes more of the approach you like on that.

I was going to compare it to Guitar, Drum n Bass, but I'm not sure that's entirely apt beyond the instrumentation... have't listened to either album in a while.

-------
so I'm in a band now:
album ---> http://greenwoodburns.bandcamp.com/releases
Soundcloud ---> http://soundcloud.com/greenwood-burns

my own stuff -->http://soundcloud.com/lonesomedstringband

avy by buckshot_defunct

I'm listening now on Spotify and it's not exactly my cup of tea (those genre-bending rock/dance things have never appealed to me; I think the musics cancel out eachothers strong parts; sort of like funk-metal or jazz-rock); the guitar-playing is cool though!

EDIT:After getting longer into the record, this feels like a straight-up mixtape/compilation with latin-songs and everything. Some songs are nice but I can't imagine there is a target-audience for this stuff beyond Reid-stans...

> Some songs are nice but I can't imagine there is a
>target-audience for this stuff beyond Reid-stans...

-------
so I'm in a band now:
album ---> http://greenwoodburns.bandcamp.com/releases
Soundcloud ---> http://soundcloud.com/greenwood-burns

my own stuff -->http://soundcloud.com/lonesomedstringband

avy by buckshot_defunct

He's cool. I met him at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem NYC in 1990 when there was a free Black Rock Coalition show there with The Deed, Acid Zone, and Kelvynator (great show). I asked Vernon to recomend me some guitar instructional books and Vernon said Ted Greene's "Chord Chemistry" book, which I bought and did help me somewhat.

The reason Vernon doesn't rate top status to me is cause obviously Living Colour came at the listeners usually straight forward with Corey's voice and Vernon's use of power chords and I'll always value black rock guitarists who lay heavy on the minor 7th's and minor 7 flat 5 chords (the usually funk guitar chords) like Jean-Paul Bourelly. I really ain't too into the power chord thing unless it's someone like Kurt or Greg Ginn of Black Flag or Dr. Know of the Bad Brains.

Living Colour sort of knew there would be power/value in coming a little less direct at the listeners on songs like "Type" which had a more interesting guitar sound and vibe or on a later song like "Auslander":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYKxa_22BVk

but Living Colour always seemed to not want to be too "indirect" most of the time. Corey's voice would be more cool if the musical settings were more strange or weird in Living Colour's music.

I recently went through a phase where I was trying to find Booty Doctor, to no avail. That was a mixtape staple oof my college years.

-------
so I'm in a band now:
album ---> http://greenwoodburns.bandcamp.com/releases
Soundcloud ---> http://soundcloud.com/greenwood-burns

my own stuff -->http://soundcloud.com/lonesomedstringband

avy by buckshot_defunct

meetings and he did too. Really cool guy.

been considered a legacy act in any way shape or form. Maybe it's because their material that got closest to being popular was pretty vin ordinaire, I dunno.

I recall not really loving that Kelvynator album overall, but Booty Doctor was something else altogether.

-------
so I'm in a band now:
album ---> http://greenwoodburns.bandcamp.com/releases
Soundcloud ---> http://soundcloud.com/greenwood-burns

my own stuff -->http://soundcloud.com/lonesomedstringband

avy by buckshot_defunct

doing it, Defunkt released a classic track "crisis" off the "crisis" CD, but the earlier stuff wasn't for me. I had 2 of the earlier Defunkt LP's.

"Refunkanation" from Kelvynator is cool to me. Not classic like some Jean-Paul Bourelly or The Veldt CD's but pretty good.

"hit me" not the track "crisis" (just checked on amazon.com soundclips)

The track "Crisis" sounds good:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QZ1K1W/ref=dm_dp_trk6?ie=UTF8&qid=1367443632&sr=1-1

but the track "hit me" is a song that really captured that vibe of then:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QZ1JZY/ref=dm_dp_trk4?ie=UTF8&qid=1367443632&sr=1-1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jQPSHHW5Qg

He doesn’t rank that high for me at least.

loving that this got bumped.

jakob and lonesome exhausted all i have to say though. reid is a top-notch player that hasn't yet found his place.

that yohimbe brothers joint is overlooked though - need to return to dj logic's catalog, i was all about it when he was dropping shit. Where's he at?

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~