| November 3rd, 2004 06:44 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Lip-syncs have sprung leaks often through the years
By Brad Kava
Mercury News
So, all these classic rockers are steamed about Ashlee Simpson's lip-syncing.
``They didn't do that in our day,'' I've heard more than a few say.
Not so.
Rock 'n' roll, right on up to the Hall of Fame level, has been rife with subterfuge, and, as the technology improves, performers have found more ways to use it.
Take Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, who on tour in the 1980s opted to lip-sync his harmonica solos during ``Midnight Rambler'' and ``Miss You'' (which Sugar Blue played on the original recording.)
Jagger, whose playing has improved in recent years, had his own version of acid reflux. He said at the time he didn't want to go home to his wife with bloody lips after the shows. I didn't know they made harmonicas with razor blades in them.
Don't ask me how, but I ended up under the stage at a Van Halen concert at the Cow Palace in the early 1990s and had a Wizard of Oz moment.
There, directly under where Eddie Van Halen supposedly was playing keyboards on stage, was another musician triggering the prerecorded keyboard parts. So would you say the guitarist was finger-syncing?
The rock band KISS used tape of violins during its love song, ``Beth,'' but one night in Canada, the tape slowed down, making for a moment almost as awkward as when its giant Statue of Liberty, which gave the audience the finger and melted its face into a death skull, failed to work. In a real-life Spinal Tap moment, the band held a note interminably until its production crew told the performers to continue because the effect wasn't going to be revived.
On its ``Joshua Tree'' tour, the Irish quartet U2 fleshed out its sound with synthesizers, as did the Who, on many tours.
The bands would have to focus hard to keep the beat in time to the prerecorded parts. Usually the drummer has what is called a ``click track,'' a metronome playing on headphones to keep up with the prerecorded bits.
During Journey's heyday, roadies would stand under the stage singing the nah-nah-nahs, during ``Loving, Touching, Feeling.''
In its tour two years ago, Blue Öyster Cult had a roadie playing guitar and singing the high vocal parts that band members couldn't reach anymore. Like the Wizard, he was tucked behind a curtain.
As with the younger Simpson, plenty of television appearances were lip-synced. Almost every group on ``American Bandstand'' and most of the European television shows did it.
Rob Zombie had an Ashlee moment during the MTV awards in the mid-'90s. When the tracks behind him hit the skips, the White Zombie crew kept going as the live music and background tracks were in different tempos. People thought that's how it was supposed to sound. And, really, who could tell?
Some, like today's hip-hop artists, have a recorded backing track but still sing live over it.
The group Public Enemy walked away from its microphones during ``Bandstand,'' making a mockery of the process.
Linda McCartney should have walked away from her microphone. On husband Paul's tour a decade ago, in the ultimate example of musical nepotism, she sang background vocals. Only her microphone must have been off during the shows.
But some wag at the soundboard made a tape of her screeching that was so awful that by comparison, it made Yoko Ono seem like Mariah Carey.
The tape became a staple on morning radio shows and should serve as a warning for the marginally talented, like Simpson, who sing much better with a studio's computer enhancement.
Maybe some people should just stick to lip-syncing and not try to hide it.
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| November 3rd, 2004 08:50 AM |
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| glencar |
I didn't know that about Mick. Shame on him. |
| November 3rd, 2004 12:26 PM |
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| Moonisup |
I doubt that MIck didn't play the harp in 1989
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| November 3rd, 2004 12:34 PM |
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| jb |
The Legacy only further tarnished. |
| November 3rd, 2004 01:31 PM |
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| Bob Tamp |
Just because some asshole prints it, it doesn't mean it's true.
First off, Jagger never played harp on Miss You during the 1989/90 tours but played guitar. You can hear the harp being sampled through Matt Clifford but never does Jagger fake blowing a harp.
And the harp on renditions of Midnight Rambler were all different listening to the boots. |
| November 3rd, 2004 06:41 PM |
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| Gazza |
absolutely correct on all counts, Bob.
"Lip synching" harmonica - I mean, please!!! Watch the bloody videos and listen to the Cds and tapes folks
A German newspaper was actually successfully sued by the Stones during the 1990 European tour for writing an article which stated that they mimed during parts of their shows. |
| November 3rd, 2004 07:45 PM |
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| Mr. D |
The writer of the article asks "I didn't know they made harmonicas with razor blades in them?" Doesn't this guy know that if you play a few fast harmonica solos a night, then you're bound to get some cuts on your lips. Besides, as people have said above me, if you listen to boots and watch footage, it's obvious theres no synching going on. |
| November 3rd, 2004 09:14 PM |
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| Soldatti |
quote:
Gazza wrote:
A German newspaper was actually successfully sued by the Stones during the 1990 European tour for writing an article which stated that they mimed during parts of their shows.
I readed the same story of the shows in Buenos Aires in 1995. |
| November 3rd, 2004 09:56 PM |
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| Taptrick |
He just used a different track every single night....rrriiggghhtt.
~ |
| November 3rd, 2004 10:11 PM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Jagger wouldn't do that anyway, but I wouldn't put it past Eddie Van Halen. Besides "lip synching' is kind of like masturbating, the real sin lies in getting caught.
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
| November 4th, 2004 08:36 AM |
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| Gazza |
LOL |
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