#Ringo starr long hair how to
They taught us to read rock’n’roll, they taught us how to listen to rock’n’roll, and with charm and humor and invention they introduced us to all the visual, audio, and cultural tools of rock’n’roll. To add a soupçon of perspective, seemingly lost in the hoopla over Ringo’s Knighthood is the fact that Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees also received the exact same honor, too, at the same time (Robin Gibb, by the way, eschews the hairpiece thing entirely, preferring a traditional comb-over/blowout combination).Īnd as much as I despise what Ringo did to rock drumming (when you actually hear a drummer who doesn’t continually beat the crash cymbal to death it is like finding Diet Sprite in the Desert), the fact is, he is still a Beatle. Left: Lainie Kazan Right: Gene Simmons in ‘Never Too Young to Die.’
Now, he mostly looks like the titular character in Paul Wegener’s 1920 German expressionistic classic, Der Golem. I couldn’t help myself: I said under my breath but, well, not quite enough under my breath, “I guess you would f*ck Lainie Kazan!” Because at that point in his life, Gene looked a great deal like Lainie Kazan. There are a dozen or more bands whose work I treasure more than the music of the Beatles - the Beach Boys and Wire, to name just two - but I know, truly, that it all began with the Beatles they were my first musical nightlight, the frame on which I first hung all my pop-rock dreams, they are the door to the ecstatic electric heaven. No matter what poo I may fling at them, I honor, love and respect all that they have inspired in me and in the world. We lived in the shadow of the Beatles cultural Everest they are literally the gateway drug to the life-long high of electric pop music. So very, very many rock’n’roll recordings and live performances would be infinitely improved if the damn drummer just stopped whacking away at the crash cymbal and the reason people do this can pretty much be traced back to ol’ Ringo.īut I still think he deserves the Knighthood, I really do, because he was in the freaking Beatles. Then listen to Ringo, who sounds like he is swinging a freaking dead fish at the crash cymbal during the verses of many Beatles songs.
These drummers power their bands while leaving space for the guitars, bass, and vocals to do their thing. Go listen to the crisp clarity and power of the drums on any Eddie Cochran record, or anything by Huey Piano Smith, Fats Domino, Elvis, or Little Richard or more pertinently, listen to the clean, powerful swing of Charlie Watts or the hard-nailed hi-hat of Bobby Graham (a legendary English session drummer who plays on most of the early hits by the Kinks, the Dave Clark 5, Them, and the Animals). I am tempted to say that using the crash cymbal a rhythmic instrument (as opposed to employing it primarily for punctuation or emphasis) is the worst thing any human ever did to rock music. “Riding” the crash cymbal is a hideous, anti-musical habit all it does is create a wash of sibilant noise that cuts directly into the vocal and guitar frequencies. This dissonant rhythmic spasm was almost entirely unheard of in rock drumming before him, and due to the Beatles ubiquity (and the peculiar notion that anything the most popular group of all time did must be a “good” thing), it became a standard aspect of rock drumming. Mind you, this is not necessarily because of Ringo’s actual playing: Although the fellow has a certain skill and, oh, élan, Ringo is also largely responsible for introducing American rock drummers to the absolutely hideous tic of keeping the four-beat on the crash cymbal.
On March 20 th, Ringo Starr placed his right knee on a wine-scarlet cushion, knelt before Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, and was proclaimed a Knight Bachelor.ĭespite the fact that the Beatles’ legacy is coated with the filthy dung-dust of musical colonialism (as I detailed in multiple pieces last month), Ringo’s Knighthood is much deserved.
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