Hector A. Ruiz

MBA, Project Manager, Tennis Player, Musician, and Author of "How to Destroy a Country"

Category: Music Page 1 of 2

The worst band breakups: Oasis

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On August 31, 2024

In Music

Today we are resuming my “Worst Band Breakups” series. So far I have covered Supertramp and Styx. Today I will discuss the band that prompted me to start this series: Oasis.

I first heard Oasis back in 1994, and I went to see them at Earl’s Court in 1995, when they were -arguably- at their absolute prime. Even then, the Gallagher brothers were not particularly friendly to each other. At first I thought it was an act, but in time myself (as well as everyone around the world who followed them)m realized that their dislike for each other was genuine. As it happened with Supertramp, the reasons for the rocky relation between the brothers is filled with rumors, unconfirmed stories, and a lot of speculation. The general consensus though takes us through the early years of the band.

Supposedly, Liam and Noel never got along, even as kids. There was a particular famous story about Noel playing guitar as a teenager and Liam pounding a tin drum incoherently just to annoy his older brother. As they grew older, Liam was the one who founded Oasis. Noel was a member of a somewhat unsuccessful band and would rarely interact with his brother, especially when it came to music. Eventually Liam realized that Noel was a way better musician, composer and songwriter than any of the members of his band -including himself-, and ended up inviting Noel to join them. This is how Oasis was formed.

Noel quickly assumed control of the band and started outputting the series of hits we are all familiar with that resulted in their first two albums: Definitely maybe, and What’s the story (Morning glory)?, all by himself. With nothing left to do, Liam -again, younger brother- was left relegated to a secondary position. However he still had quite an important role: lead signer and front man. Still, as time went on, Noel kept on berating on Liam, and Liam had no other option but to sit back and take it, with signing being his only escape route. I am no phycologist, but to me this is a classical younger brother syndrome.

As the years went on, Noel started to sing in a few of the band’s songs, which left Liam even more outcast. Cornered, Liam started behaving like a spoiled little brother: he started showing up late to the studio, or drunk, or late and drunk; he started showing up late to concerts, or drunk, or late and drunk; in addition to drinking, he started venturing into drugs; all of this while presenting himself as the absolute leader and cornerstone of Oasis.

By the early 2000s, the excess life and abuse led Liam’s voice to deteriorate, and by the middle of the decade it rapidly descended into putting him in a position where he was an image without sound during their live shows. When Noel demanded Liam to come clean and provide a reasonable explanation of his failing voice, he responded that he had health issues, which were never disclosed. Noel then would begin to doubt whether if there were any medical issues at all, and suspected that the cause of Liam’s decline was the abusing lifestyle he was living without showing any dedication or commitment to the band. Finally, in 2009 Noel had enough and released the below statement

“It is with some sadness and great relief…I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.”

Supposedly they have not spoken to each other since… until now.

With the upcoming tour in the books all over England and Ireland, several
questions are pondered by Oasis’ fans:

  • Why reunite after so long denying any possibility? Are the reasons financial?

and more importantly:

  • Will they be able to survive the tour without breaking up.

Stay tuned and we will see.

HR

Genesis’ best era: Gabriel’s or Collins’?

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On April 14, 2024

In Music

Today I am going to touch on the eternal debate among all Genesis fans. Which is the best era: Gabriel’s or Collins’?

To answer this question I will use the reasoning to respond to my girlfriend, when a long time ago she asked me an even better question: “Why can’t Genesis do a full group reunion?” The moment she finished her sentence, my answer flowed as if I had been asked why can’t it snow in Aruba. I said to her:

“It’s unviable. A setlist of a Genesis reunion with both Pete and Phil would be weird, odd, and would produce more detractors than satisfied fans.”

“Why?” – she inquired.

“Because it would be like watching two completely different bands.” – I said.

If you are not well educated on Genesis’ history, the short story is that Peter Gabriel started the band. After going through a couple of line up changes, they settled with keyboardist Tony Banks, bassist Mike Rutherford, guitarist Steve Hackett and drummer Phil Collins. This is the line up known as “the Gabriel era”, which features a repertoire exclusively concentrated on progressive rock. Gabriel’s era songs are philosophical, with profound lyrics, sometimes mythological, other times abstract, other times filled with surrealism. The music is complex and the staging of their concerts featured Gabriel using his full powers as a front man by impersonating -in full costume and make-up- a multitude of characters from their even more intellectually complex songs that included:

  • A Victorian era friendship broken by a brutal decapitation, followed by a sexual attack by the decapitated ghost.
  • A mythological tale about Hermaphroditus and a nymph.
  • A couple of lovers who travel through time and end up witnessing the apocalypse.
  • An invasion of giant poisonous plants that aim to eradicate the human race.
  • An new Yorker Puerto Rican who sees people around him trapped in cages.

The remaining members equally shone showcasing their talents on their instruments: Banks playing quasi-symphonic arrangements on the keyboard, Hackett soloing with techniques way ahead of his time, and Rutherford by bringing lively musically independent bass lines. However, special attention must be given to Collins who, unbeknownst to many people, excelled as an absolute superb drummer both in terms of skill and technique. In fact, I rank Collins in my top three best rock drummers of all time -only surpassed by Bonham and Peart-. If you listen to every Gabriel-era, and pay attention to Phil’s marvelous talents, you will end up agreeing with me. Apart from being an amazing drummer, Collins also provided vocals on several songs (and not just as filler background, but as a very harmonious valuable vocalist in contrast to Gabriel’s passionate but -generally speaking- dissonant voice). So one could make a case that Collins was not just a drummer: he was arguably equally ranked as Banks, Hackett and Rutherford in terms of importance after Gabriel, which meant that he was a talented musician that added value to the band. Then one day, when Genesis were at their peak, Gabriel left the band citing personal reasons.

Left without their front / showman, main lyricist and attention grabber, the band scouted a replacement for months, only to realize that one cannot simply replace Peter Gabriel. Given Collins being able to simultaneously sing and play drums, and given that Collins’ voice, while not the same style as Gabriel’s- was actually worth of a front man, the band felt Phil could be the new vocalist and front man, a role that he initially timidly accepted, but as time went on, grew more comfortably in until he fully adapted and embraced it. Fans refer to this period as the “transition era”. During this time, the band noted that Phil’s softer, smoother and more harmonious voice did not go inline as well as Gabriel’s, especially with the band’s catalogue of progressive songs. More importantly, they probably also found themselves without the create output that Peter brought with his lyrics, so they began experimenting with a softer prog that flirted with soft-rock, something that was not the direction the more artistic oriented Hackett signed up for back when he had joined in 1970, so he left the band in pursuit of other ventures.

“And then there were three…” was released in 1978. It was an album with a title that reflected the band’s situation from a musical and personal standpoint. With Gabriel and Hackett out of the way, Rutherford, Banks and Collins shifted the direction of the band to reach a wider audience and achieve more commercial success. This is the beginning of the “Collins era”, which features the popular hits that made the band reach stratospheric heights and filled stadium tours all over the world.

With Banks and Rutherford being on the background -along with regular tour drummer Chester Thompson-, Collins became the face of the group and carrier of the band, especially when he launched a solo career parallel to his ventures with Genesis, which was equally successful as his group gig. So the Gabriel-era fans took offense on Collins’ success and this is where the strain among both group of fans began: blaming Collins for destroying an artistic-oriented band, and turning it into another commercial sell-out pop group. What a lot of people do not know is that while Collins took a lot of the blame, it was the three of them who equally drove the group into that direction. An example is their hit song “Follow you, follow me” commonly entirely attributed to Collins, when in reality it was Rutherford who wrote it. Interestingly enough, neither Gabriel nor Hackett had any strains with the other members. They just kept pursuing their individual projects witnessing both groups of fans fight each other over which era was the best.

Back to the original question of today’s entry, the feasibility of having a reunion and a tour with all five members, while interesting is completely unviable. I am quite sure Gabriel and Hackett probably have a lot of appreciation for “That’s all“, “Invisible touch” and “Mama“. However a setlist that featuring “The return of the Giant Hogweed“, followed by “Follow you, follow me“, “Musical box“, “In too deep“, “Tie lamb lies down on Broadway“, “Tonight, tonight“, ending with “Supper’s ready“, would make a David Lynch film look like Michael Bay’s.

The bottom line is, Gabriel’s era is a more art-oriented, and Collins’ era is more pop-oriented, and while Collins’ era featured live performances from Gabriel’s with Phil as lead singer, there is something… that “it” factor in Gabriel’s persona and voice, that Collins’ simply did not have. They are two completely different approaches, two completely different catalogues, generated by craftsmanship from two different set of talents.

Not only Genesis is an interesting band, they are an interesting case study. Their musical career is the antithesis of The Beatles: an initial period studio-oriented in which their ideology was to be as creative and artistic as possible; and their latter period comprised of sell-out elemental straight-forward pop music.

Whichever era you prefer, is the best for you.

HR

The worst band breakups: Styx

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On November 15, 2023

In Music

Following my previous entry on Supertramp, today I will explore an almost equally talented band that underwent an almost equally path of separation as Rodger Hodgson and Rick Davies: Styx.

It is not easy to pinpoint Styx’s exact foundation year, so to make a long / multiple lineups early years story short, I will concentrate on the main members. As a teenager -pretty much as most teenager during the 60s-, Dennis DeYoung was heavily influenced by The Beatles. He played accordion, keyboards and had a beautiful natural voice. Probably around 1970, Dennis met James Young (also simply known as JY), who was into the early era of hard rock developed by Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. The band got the name Styx probably around 1972.

During the early 70s they released their first albums, Styx and Styx II, which contained a mix of songs that combined a bit of progressive rock, a bit of hard rock, and a bit of soft rock. Ironically enough, their first hit was actually a romantic ballad: Lady (which explains why it is so commonly featured in It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia, and is another proof that the show is nothing short of brilliant). Then in 1975 one of their members quit the band, and Tommy Shaw was brought in. Shaw’s musical talents equaled Dennis DeYoung’s, which made him quickly establish himself as a main contributor, which allowed Styx to become a bigger success. However while their talents were equal, their musical interests were not. Still, despite their differences, and thanks in part to JY’s invaluable role as mediator between the now two leaders, the band’s popularity soared boosted by both DeYoung’s and Shaw’s compositions, such as “Come sail away” and “Babe” -by DeYoung-, and “Fooling yourself” and “Renegade” -by Shaw-. As their popularity grew, DeYoung felt more attracted to the mainstream media, while Shaw wanted to maintain an artistic direction geared more towards rock. Then came the 80s, and with it… Kilroy.

Released in 1983, “Kilroy was here” was the band’s most commercial successful band. It was kind of a concept album mainly fueled by DeYoung’s vision, and the best way I could describe it is, as something that sits on the verge of commercial rock, progressive rock, new wave rock, and the 1980s, touching all four edges at the same time. That is what it made the album so successful, and that is why it led to the band’s breakup.

I feel that Shaw ran out of patience, and while he probably enjoyed his time working on Kilroy, it was not simply what he wanted to do musically speaking. With Shaw gone, DeYoung probably felt burned out, and his creative output diminished substantially at a time in which music was starting to change drastically. Bands with a sound like REO Speedwagon, Foreigner, Boston, Styx and Chicago were quickly being phased out by a new era of musicians that set the wheels in motion for the counter-culture era, which I will address another day on a separate entry. Still DeYoung kept on going with JY for the remainder of the 80s and the early 90s reaching decent touring successes, and there were even a couple of reunions that brought Shaw back for a little while. That is when the problems started.

By 1999 DeYoung fell ill and told his band members he would be unable continue touring with them. With financial and legal commitments, Shaw, JY and the other members recruited a touring vocalist and hit the road without DeYoung. As it happened with Supertramp, DeYoung sued the band for going on tour as “Styx” without him. The band countersued, and who knows how their relationship was torn within the legal arguments. Eventually, they settled on allowing Shaw and JY keep the name Styx, and DeYoung being able to use variations of it on his tours, such as “Dennis DeYoung from Styx”.

I will never forget an interview I watched a few years ago, in which Shaw and JY were asked what were the chances of a reunion with DeYoung. Shaw’s face was so sincere and honest, he did not have to even say a word to convey that there was zero possibility of a reunion happening. He went on to explain that both himself and JY approached and tried to reason with DeYoung on multiple occasions, yet the possibility of joyful agreement in which their old relationship could have been restored was never even in sight. They both claimed that DeYoung had become a difficult person, an unlikeable person, and in general someone you just did not want to be even close to.

A few weeks later I came across DeYoung being interviewed on some show I do not recall at this time. I carefully watched his face, I listened to his words, I paid attention to the way he would articulate his sentences, and the way he would convey his answers. I concluded that similarly to Roger Hodgson, DeYoung seemed to be what Shaw and JY had described. I may be wrong though, but who knows. It has been proven that fame, money and popularity can transform people. Interestingly, DeYoung and Hodgson performed together on a show not too long ago. They are both great talents that is for sure.

Stay tuned for my next entry.

HR

The Beatles – Get Back

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On May 19, 2023

In Music

The highly anticipated documentary with never-before-seen footage of The Beatles recording Let It Be, was finally played on my TV over the weekend. Two conclusions I drew out of it:

  1. Paul is a brilliant music machine.
  2. John was the only person Paul looked up to.

A must watch for music fans.

The worst band breakups: Supertramp

By

On April 21, 2023

In Music

Reunions: may they be defined as the events in which band members who had been separated for many years, decide to come together and rejoin their old band, in order to relive their past success, and maybe even -although not the main priority, and highly unlikely- create new ones.

Rage Against The Machine reunited, and Oasis just recently reunited, which is what prompted me to write today’s entry. But which bands have featured break-ups so intense that the possibility of a reunion is zero percent? I had always thought there were five and I have to be honest and admit that Oasis was one of them, although they were not my number one. However today’s entry will be about the band I had at number five: Supertramp.

Supertramp was it was Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies who were the driving forces behind their success, with both of them being the main songwriters and singers of the majority of their hits from 1970 until 1985 when Hodgson left the band. Although the actual reasons for the breakup have never surfaced, the most popular was that both Roger and Rick wanted to spend more time with their families, and that even their respective wives had a part in the breakup, by complaining to their husbands that the tour life was exhausting and destroying their marriages. Nobody knows if this is the actual truth. In 1993 they briefly reunited for a special presentation that featured them playing “The Logical Song” and “Goodbye Stranger”, but parted ways shortly thereafter.

A number of years went by, and the band -led by Davis- announced a tour. This news was not well received by Hodgson, who at first confronted Davis about Supertramp being on tour without the guy who actually represented everything Supertramp was, and more importantly, playing songs that had been written / sung by Hodgson, which -according to Hodgson- was a violation of a verbal agreement they had made back in the early days of the group, in which they promised not to play each other songs in case either of them left the band. Supposedly Davis tried to reach an agreement with him so he could join them, but nothing was worked out. With financial and legal commitments made, Davies and the band went on tour as “Supertramp”, which enraged Hodgson.

Several legal battles ensued; long story short is that any chance of saving Davis’ and Hodgson’s relationship went to the Grand Canyon. The latest is that they are not even in speaking terms. At some point during the 2010s, Hodgson stopped paying royalties to some of the other band members, which led them to sue both Hodgson and Davis: Hodgson won the suit in court, and Davis settled out of court. Additionally, Hodgson has been known as being notoriously outspoken against having any of his Supertramp songs or live performances posted or shared online. That is the reason why for a long period of time, it was almost impossible to find any live performances of the original Supertramp lineup on YouTube, and instead the results would show Hodgson’s solo tour performances.

Stay tuned for the next entry: Styx.

Three Great Concerts

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On August 27, 2022

In Music

What an amazing couple of months!

Alanis Morissette, Rage Against the Machine and Red Hot Chili Peppers, performed at the PNC Center, MSG and the MetLife Stadium to the very best of their abilities.

Each one in their own style gave an exceptional performance, worth the anticipation.

Will The Cure tour in America soon?

HR

Chicago: The Terry Kath Experience

By

On May 30, 2021

In Music

A few days ago, I came across this interesting documentary about Terry Kath, which is hosted by his daughter.

Terry may be one of the most -if not the most- underrated guitarrist in the history of music. He drew praise from almost every one of his contemporaries and he gained the respect of hundreds of thousands of fans.

It’s a very personal documentary, which provides a little insight on Terry as a human being and the driving force he was behind the band Chicago. It’s currently free on YouTube, so feel free to catch it anytime.

A huge loss that left us too soon.

HR

Led Zeppelin vs. Deep Purple vs. Uriah Heep

By

On November 21, 2020

In Music

A few days ago I was browsing the youtube comments of Deep Purple’s Japan’s live performance of Child in time. One of the people who posted claimed that “Deep Purple was/could have been better than Led Zeppelin, had they stayed together as Zep did.” This got my attention.

Speculating in sports is a bit easier because you can see the career’s projection of the person, therefore you can safely assume (to a certain degree) that similar results may keep happening in similar future contexts. IE: Monica Seles would have kept dominating the tennis cirquit throughout the 90s had she not been stabbed, because she had been doing so for the past three years and nobody had an answer against her game. In music though, it’s a bit different.

Regardless of either Deep Purple had kept its original line up (Giliam, Blackmore, Lord, Paice), Led Zeppelin was a great band, arguably second to The Beatles, or at least worth enough to be mentioned in the conversation of candidate bands for second place after The Beatles. Zep’s only “average” album is their last one, which is not that bad and it’s just that it’s not on par of its predecessors. I also know that Zep may have plagiarized a few songs and recorded them as their own without giving proper credit, but still it’s not like it was 80% of their songs.

As much as I love Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin’s songs cover a wider range with a variety of themes, than those of Deep Purple. I can listen to DP all day long and I know that it’s hard to believe they are the same band that play “Smoke in the water”, “When a blind man cries” and “Lazy”. Overall I think Zep was able to perform and demonstrate their talents on a more consistent basis than Deep Purple, and this is why I have to rate LZ over DP. The same logic applies to Uriah Heep: as much as I love “July Morning” (I can listen to this song in loop all day), “Rain” and “Gypsy”, UH also fell short to showing what they could have been.

HR

Beethoven

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On July 18, 2020

In Music

I’ve been pracising Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata over the past weeks and the one thought that pops in my mind every time I play it is: “This piece is perfect. Is Beethoven the greatest composer of all time?”

This a very difficult topic to address, not only because there are other candidates to claim the title, but also because you would have to set up a very long and detailed set of parameters to judge each candidate in the discussion. For me, Beethoven’s merit comes from several reasons. Take for instance his Fifth Symphony: the entire first movement -which lasts about seven minutes-,
is built entirely over just four notes, three of them are repeated. How did he get away with that? Essentially, it’s just one note repeated three times followed by a second note played on sustain, over and over again, and for some reason, the sublimity of its sound transcends everything we know. Needless to say seven of his nine symphonies are masterpieces, with the ninth being the epitome of his genius.

Then you have his chamber music, which is completely on a different direction from his orchestral work. And then of course you have his 32 Piano Sonatas, eight of which are memorable pieces of work: The moonlight, patetique, appassionata, les adieux, tempest, pastoral, waldstein, hammerklavier and the #32.

How can you argue against that?

HR

Stairway to Plagiarism

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On February 6, 2016

In Music

Last week, Led Zepellin surving members Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones were deposed for the suit filed by lawyer Francis Malofiy, who represents American rock band Spirit, who in the late 60s wrote an instrumental piece called “Taurus”, a song not many people are familiarized with. However I can confidentely say that you have probably heard Led Zepellin’s most famous song Stairway to Heaven, even several times, maybe as many times as Malofiy has listened to it.

Malofiy filed a suit against Page, Plant and Jones, under the premise that Stairway to Heaven shares a striking resemblance to Taurus, and that therefore Led Zepellin stole the main theme of Taurus and used it in Stairway to Heaven without “giving proper credit” to Spirit. Malofiy is seeking at least 50% of all of Stairway to Heaven’s royalties, which roughly amounts to half a billion dollars. Before getting into the specifics of the case, let’s take a look of the core problem.

This is Taurus:

…and well, in case you have been living in a cave in Afghanistan since 1962, or in say… an asteroid, and you have never listened to Stairway to Heaven in your life, well, enjoy:

Now let’s address the “giving proper credit” issue.

As I wrote last year, theoretical music is both easy and incredible hard at the same time. There is only a finite amount of notes and the odds of two pieces sharing a few notes in their basic structure is quite fair, meaning that it can happen every now and then.

The issue Malofiy is bringing is not that Stairway to Heaven sounds exactly or even similar to Taurus; it’s that Taurus may have served as the main inspiration to write Stairway to Heaven, and the fact there was no acknowledgement of this by Zepellin. Let’s consider the following example:

Seven years ago, Madonna requested ABBA’s permission to use the main theme of one Gimme, gimme, gimme, which you can listen to below:

…so that she could use its theme in one of the songs in her upcoming new album. The song was eventually launched as a single which became a huge hit:

It is safe to say that they both sound alike, right? Well, of course they do. One served as the inspiration for the other.

The difference is that Madonna gave credits to ABBA as writers, as you can see here. So nothing’s wrong in that case, because ABBA receives royalties and cultural acknowledgement that they were co-writers of Hung up.

In the case with Spirit and Led Zepellin, a point can be made by Plant, Page and Jones, who declared earlier this past week that “their memories on the 60s and 70s were vague“, which kind of makes sense considering the amount of heroin and alcohol they were doing back then. Therefore, a case can be made by arguing that Stairway to Heaven and Taurus sound similarly simply because it is coincidence.

In my opinion, while both songs are not as similar as Hung up and Gimme, gimme, gimme, there is no question that Stairway to Heaven‘s intro sounds very similar to Taurus. Being completely technical, both songs begin with an A minor bass line that progresses descending a semitone per beat all the way to D. The key factor to highlight is that the bass line in both acts as the main theme. Does this mean Led Zepellin indeed stole Spirit’s Taurus to write Stairway to Heaven?

Plant, Page an Jones can certainly plead ignorance and swear happened to be a coincidence, like Nerf Heder did with D.O.F. Additionally, every respectable musician knows that an A minor descending bass line as a main theme is a very common musical structure in rock and pop music. However, that is not the only aspect where Stairway to Heaven and Taurus are similar. The phrasing -meaning, the way the guitar strings are played through the descending progression- is even more similar than the progression itself. The tempo in which the phrasing is played is -I would say- exactly the same. And then, there’s the knockout punch.

Nerf Heder can get away with claiming ignorance and swear that had no idea D.O.F. existed. After all, what are the chances of a teen pop punk band from Santa Barbara, California, knowing about a pop German band from the the 1980s? It’s a 50-50 shot at best in my opinion. But, can Plant, Page and Jones claim they had no idea of Spirit? Not at all.

Led Zepellin as a whole, not only knew about the existence of Spirit: they actually toured with them. And yes, Spirit played Taurus during these tours with Led Zepellin. This is a huge decisive element that does not play in their favor. Then there is also the kicker that Led Zepellin has already been found guilty of plagiarizing Dazed and Confused from Jake Holmes.

…and turn it into Dazed and Confused

All of this makes me conclude that in my opinion, Led Zepellin is guilty of at least subconsciously plagiarizing Spirit from Taurus, and use it as an inspiration to write Stairway to Heaven, in a similar judgement that was given to George Harrison.

What do you think?

HR

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