Conference napalm::heavy_metal

AYOV18::TMCMANUS

    Just FYI guys, ANTHRAX have just announced their UK tour Dates with
    "guess who" rumoured to be supporting - Should be a BALL BREAKER!!!
    
    Gm.

CSC32::G_HOUSE "They call me 'Blood Sucking Vermin'"

    One of my friends came by today with a tape of Living Colour for
    me to listen to.  
    
    I tell you, I'm VERY impressed.  These guys have INCREDIBLE energy,
    and they captured it well on tape!
    
    Looking forward to more!
    
    gh

CAINE::MINARDI "Ride the Lightning"

    I heard another Living Colour cut on Raw Power last week, and
    it ROCKED.
    
    This is cool, an all black heavy metal band. Cutting edge for sure.
    
    /Motorbreath

CSC32::G_HOUSE "They call me 'Blood Sucking Vermin'"

    I've now heard the entire tape and it's excellent!  They do a variety
    of tempos in their songs and have an incredibly raw edge overall.
    King tone on everything!
    
    gh

GBMMKT::VACCHELLI "Living my life sin after sin"
    
    I saw Living Color "Cult of Personality" last night for the first
    time M-indless TV.  I was really shocked.  I didn't know they were
    black until you guys said so and then when I saw them I was even
    more shocked.  They don't look like any heavy metal band I've ever
    seen.  The look like a cooler version of any rap group.  The lead
    singer was wearing the same outfit I've seen on Salt n Pepa in some
    of their videos only with a jacket difference.
    
    Don't get me wrong.  I love the tune...... These guys add a whole
    new dimension to metal music though.  I don't know if I'm ready.
    
    Kat

26922::BOURQUE "Hammer of Justice Crushes You"

      I saw them to on Mtv,,,Have a real good sound,,,,
    
    Gen.Tama
    

SALEM::BUTKUS "Don't talk so old to me"

    Does anyone know if living colour is an offshoot of a band
     called Sound Barrier?
    
    	M
    	 B ( just one of those boring initial people. yawn )

USADEC::CLUETT

I just would like to say -- that LIVING COLOUR is a great band...
    Their tape VIVID is very well done although i don't consider them
    in the heavy metal category. Great go ahead rock and roll....
    
    And lets look forward to them with Anthrax live in '89!!!!!
    
    Enyaw

CSC32::G_HOUSE "The world needs guts"

    Anyone seen Living Colour live?  What kind of a show do they put
    on?
    
    gh

YODA::COOK "Guess again..."
    
    I've seen the video, and I like the song now after watching it.
    
    /prc

YODA::MCCARRON "What?"
    
    Re: a few back
    
    I saw them two weeks ago (the 28th?).  Tons of energy and good song
    selection.  Wait'll you hear one of the final tunes.  It's a cover
    (not the Bad Brains cover) and their version rules.  I wish I could 
    say how they were musically, but my untrained ears don't know any
    better.  They sounded great to me, though.  Corey Glover has got an 
    amazing voice, I was very impressed.
    
    BTW, if you're into moshing, definately jump into the pit.  It wasn't
    the craziest, but still fun.  CG had a nice stagedive, right on
    a friend of mine's head.
    
    They played at the Nine in Boston on a tiny stage.  I'm sure if they
    had more room to run around, it would have only increased the energy
    level.
    
    Paul
    

    I've only seen the video a few times. (Cult of personality).   
    I was very impressed with these guys.  Cutting edge is right! 
    Good power and style with the lead guit.  
    
    I hope to see and hear more from these dudes.
    
    HITMAN   

    I went and saw Living Colour last Sat night in Denver.  They were
    excellent! (aside from some minor technical difficulties)  They
    all played very well and sounded GREAT!
    
    A very good live act!  I'd definately recommend them to anyone that
    has the chance.
    
    Interesting that they did an 1:45 minute show when they have only
    the one album (about 40 or so) minutes worth of material on vinal.
    They did one song I didn't recognize (maybe a new one, they didn't
    say), and one cover of a tune by the Bad Brains.  That cover COOKED
    too!
    
    gh

    
    Re: .13
    
    Was it the last song you didn't recognize??  That's when they played  
    the cover tune that I mentioned earlier.  Their version destroys the 
    original.  It was Tracy Chapman's "Talking About a Revolution".     
    
    
    Paul
    

> It was Tracy Chapman's "Talking About a Revolution".     

WBCN plays a tape of that every now and then - it is *killer*! The
show was broadcast live from TT the Bears on WBCN, and that's
where they got it from.

cat

    Could have been, it was about 2/3 of the way through the set.  I'm
    not familiar with Tracy Chapmans song, so I couldn't have identified
    it.
    
    gh

    
    RE: Cat
    
    Really?  When I heard it, I caught it like half-way through the song,
    and I thought to myself...`man, Tracey sure has some lousy band behind
    her hackin up this tune!'.  I found out at the end it was Living Colour
    and I was disappointed...I think they could have done a much better
    cover of it.  The thing I disliked most about their version was Vernon
    Reid's overly distorted, out of tune, didn't quite fit guitar playing.
    
    I think its a BAD cover of a GREAT tune
    
    BUck 

    re buck
    
    so what else is new  imo  every  thing this guy plays is out of
    tune and distorted. u mentioned about jimi bell playing 1000 mph
    and nothing but rubbish coming out, well i think vern is that x-1000
    
      Dave
    

    
    I love Living Colour, and think the album is great.  I like the
    diversity of the song styles, and even though the album is being
    classified as heavy metal because of Cult Of Personality being the
    first single, it's really not, IMO.  Each song is much different,
    I mean, listen to "Cult" and then the next song.  No similarities
    whatsoever.
    
    My SO can't get into them at all, he think Burnin' Vernon stinks.
    (He's one of those fussy guitar players like you Buck;^))  He
    thinks all of his leads are crap, and has seen them live a couple
    of times and he says Vernon just plays a bunch of unrelated notes
    and calls them "a lead."  Personally, I can't get enough of the
    album.  It is beginning to grow on him, but he says once you see
    Vernon, it turns you off of it.
    
    I agree to a point.  Playing 1000 indistinguishable notes per minute
    does not a good guitar player make, as so many seem to think.
    (Here I go with another one of my brilliant;^) analogies- wow haven't
    made one of these up for a while!!)  Just because you can paint a
    house in a day doesn't mean you can paint a picture.
    
    Dilly_who_is_infamous_for_her_stupid_analogies.

    
    	When Mr. Reid plays, he seems REAL stiff...I don't know if it's
    exaggerated, but his guitar never moves on him, and his picking
    is stiff, too.
    	I agree...the soloing on 'Cult' is far too fast and all-over-
    the-place. But hey, it works in the song! I like this album...it
    shows diversity and sounds good. Paul Gilbert might be far more
    accurate, but I can't stand Jeff Martin's vocals (yes, I know...)
    
    					Les
    

    
    When LC played at the Nine, "Talking About a Revolution" was performed
    "soulfully".  No crunching guitar riffs or pounding back-beat. 
    Guess they decided the soul version was better.
    
    
    Paul

    I thought the lead guit in the video was pretty cool, it was different.
    But if every song on the album is like that... it might get anoying!
    
    But every band has its faults.
    
    HITMAN

    I know what you all are saying about Vernon playing strange, obtuse
    leads (not necessarily related to the rest of the song)!  The first
    time I heard Cult of Personality on the radio, I thougth, "Ack, this
    guy can't play, this totally clashes".  But after listening to them and
    seeing them, it does kinda grow on ya.  I obviously don't really know,
    but I think that the clashing outta tune effect is intentional, for
    effect.  It *has* an effect, whether you like it or not.  Seems like,
    listening to the rest of his playing (not just the leads) he should be
    fully capable of playing a tasteful, melodic lead.  Since he doesn't,
    that makes me think it's intentional. 
    
    He is pretty stiff on stage, like someone said.  He plays with his
    guitar high, up around mid-chest, and doesn't move around much at all. 
    
    For those interested, at our show he didn't have the stack of Marshalls
    like in the video.  I couldn't see any visible amps on the stage,
    but there were some small Mesa-Boogie cabinets behind him, so I
    presumed he had a Boogie amp stashed somewhere.  His sound wasn't
    all that great, quite frankly.  There didn't seem to be a good
    distinction at times between the clean and dirty stuff he did (meaning
    he played parts which should have been squeeky clean with a bunch
    of distortion and it sounded pretty bad).  Some of the clean stuff
    WAS clean, so I think it was either his fault (didn't stomp the
    right switch) or the sound guys were screwing him up (badly).
    
    It was still a hot show!  8^)
    
    gh

      
    
    Hi.
    
    Without asking you guys if you want to hear this or not.. 
    
    The following is an article taken from Rolling Stone on Living Colour.
    
    Taken without permission from Rolling Stone magazine, Issue 549,
    April 6th, 1989.
    
    *anything surrounded by asteriks means italics.
    
    
    LIVING COLOUR TURNS TO GOLD
    
    *A trailblazing black rock band scores*
    
    Vernon Reid is a proud man.  After six yars of talking loud and
    getting nowhere, the hard-rock guitarist has finally proved his
    point.  Even as he paces about a San Francisco hotel room, *Vivid*,
    the debut album by his band, Living Colour, is Number Sixteen with
    a bullet on the pop charts.  Sales have zoomed past the 500,000
    mark.
    
    Reid hopes that his triumph will have far-reaching consequences.
    The members of Living Colour - lead vocalist Corey Glover, bassist
    Muzz Skillings, drummer Will Calhoun and Reid - are black, and the
    New York-based group is the first black rock band to attract a large
    mainstream audience since the demise of Sly and the Family Stone
    in the early Seventies.  Reid thinks the record industry should
    sign numerous black rock bands.  "It's definitely buttonholing time,"
    he says with a sly grin.
    
    Scattered about the hotel room, his band mates agree.  "*This* puts
    the record industry on notice," says Glover, whose long black hair
    is tied in a ponytail.
    
    "I hope it brings about a change," adds Calhoun, who has an immense
    kaffiyeh draped around his shoulders.  "And I hope it's not just
    a black-rock-versus-R&B kind of thing.  I hope it broadens the whole
    scene.  And I hope it broadens the mentality of the presidents at
    the record labels."
    
    Although it's been on the *Billboard* albums chart for more than
    six motnhs, *Vivid* really took off in late December, thanks in
    part to a much-aired video of the tough rocker "Cult of Personality."
    Suddenly the hard-rock crowd is showing up at Living Colour shows
    en masse and stopping Reid on the street for autographs.  Van Halen
    singer Sammy Hagar is so high on Living Colour that he would like
    to produce the band's next album.
    
    "I think back to where we were last summer," says Skillings.  "Minimal
    radio play, almost no video play.  Almost selling our record by
    hand, audience by audience, city by city."
    
    At first, says group comanager Jim Grant, Epic Records didn't know
    what to do with Living Colour.  One college rep for the label even
    tried to conceal the group's race by refusing to provide a photo
    of the band to a student newspaper.  "The rep said it wasn't going
    to help get people to the show," Grant says.
    
    At the afternoon sound check at the Stone, the San Francisco rock
    club wehre the band will be headlining that night, Reid is onstage,
    playing a bluesy riff on an ESP guitar that looks as if it had had
    yellow, green, orange and blue fluorescent paint dripped on it.
    As he shifts into a wild, Hendrix-inspired frenzy of white noise,
    Skillings and Calhoun join in, and the jam builds to a fury.
    
    Dubbed "the black Led Zeppelin" by England's *New Musical Express*,
    Living Colour is more than a badass hard-rick band.  There is a
    political and social wareness to much of its material, and its sound
    includes metal, punk, funk and jazz references.  Reid's "Which Way
    to America?" - contrasting the America see on TV with hs perception
    of real life - features the sarcastic chant "Where is my picket
    fence?/My long, tall glass of lemonade?/Where is my VCR, my stereo,
    my T.V. show?"
    
    Sarcasm notwithstanding, the members of Living Colour found their
    tastes well within the mainstream while growing up.  "When I was
    a kid, everyone I knew was in a garage working out rock songs,"
    Skillings says after the sound check.  "Led Zeppelin, early Foghat,
    Grand Funk Railroad.  We put on the *Woodstock* album and learned
    all the songs off it.  We're not an isolated thing.  The fact that
    Living Colour has made it this far is unique, but the fact that we
    exist is not."
    
    "What I hope our success is doing is encouraging other black rock
    bands to stick with it," Reid says, "because this is the result
    of six years of hard work.  Other bands have told me our success
    is giving them the feeling that it's possible."
    
    Reid rattles off a list of black rock bands he thinks should get
    a shot:  Uptown Atomics, Eye and I, J.J. Jumpers, the Deed, the
    Veldt, Harvey, Follow for Now and 24/7 Spyz.  "It's not about 'Now
    we got through the door, close the door behind us,'" Reid says.
    Rather, he'd like to see Living Colour as a trailblazer.
    
    Before forming the band, Reid played in alternative-jazz groups
    like Defunkt and Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Soceity.
    But it wasn't until Mick Jagger stepped in, that doors began to
    open for Living Colour.  "We were a band like any other band playing
    at CBGBs," Reid says.  "One night Mick Jagger comes in, checks us
    out, and the ball starts to roll from there."
    
    Jagger subsequently produced two songs - "Glamour Boys" and "Which
    Way to America?"  But even Jagger couldn't guarantee a record deal.
    "People were skeptical," says Jim Grant.  "'Mick Jagger?  So what?'
    they said.  I'd call some labels and say I had two demos Mick Jagger
    had just produced and not get called back."
    
    That night the hard-rock crowd turns out in full force to see Living
    Clour at the Stone.  Longhaired dudes in black leather with
    bleached-blond, spandex-dipped girlfriends hanging on their arms.
    Plenty of scruffy white teenagers who have driven in from the suburbs.
    
    "Most people don't give a shit about the color of their skin," says
    Living Clour fan Paul Balbas before the show.  "As long as they
    can rock, no one cares."  His sentiments are echoed by other membrs
    of the audience.
    
    Taking the stage, Living Colour blasts off with its metallic rocker
    "Middle Man."  For much of the set, Reid remains stationary, bending
    over his guitar to fire off round after round of high-speed riffing.
    While Skillings and Calhoun hold down an immense, booming, rock-steady
    groove, Glover works the stage like and inspired cross between Robert
    Plant and former Black Flag singer Henry Rollins, tossing back his
    long mane of hair, then throwing himself into the audience during
    "Which Way to America?" and riding on a sea of fans.
    
    What half a million Living Colour fans appear to be saying is that
    great rock is great rock, and that it is time to end segregation
    at record labels and on radio and let the music speak for itself.
    "It will be interesting to see how the business reacts," says
    Skillings.  "Are they going to try to clone what's happened, or
    are they going to dig deeper and understand that this band made
    it because we have something that's different?"
    
    
                                 

    I just saw an advertisement on TV that said Living Colour were to
    be the musical guests on Sat. Night Live this week.
    
    gh

    
    Anyone notice the cameos of Scott Ian and Frank Bello in the "Glamour
    Boys" video?
    
    
    Paul
    

    A video for Glamour Boys?  Hmmm...  haven't seen it yet.
    
    Is it getting any decent play?  I'll definatley be looking for it.
    
    Gh

    Glamour Boys is getting a LOT of radio airplay, but I haven't
    seen it on emptyV yet.
    
    	Great tune though.
    
    	joe.

>Glamour Boys on eMpTyV...

Joe...then you must never watch it...I saw it probably 5 times over the weekend.

And I NEVER watch tv....

/kath_sick_of_it_already

    I watch it once in awhile around 6:00 EDT while I eat dinner with
    my kids...otherwise, Kathy, you're right I hardly ever watch it.
    
    joe.

    The video for Glamour boys has been playing a lot on MTV lately.
    It's pretty strange, with a guy putting on a plastic face etc...
    
    Oddly enough, I think they introduced the song as written by Mick
    Jagger. Is that true?
    
    -rt

RE: plastic face in the video...

	Did you notice that was Ken of Ken and Barbie fame?

RE:  Written by Mick Jagger.....

	Not sure...I'll check the CD when I get home.

/kath

    
    Re: Written by Mick Jagger...
    
      It was - and it was produced by him.
    
    
      Paul
      ----
    

    	Well, after seeing and hearing LIVING COLOUR for the 1st time all I
    can say is WOW ! what a great band !!!! I don't know who is who in the
    band but I think their CD will be the next one I buy ! I got one
    question though , is the lead singer's hair real ? :'))))) he must get
    one hell of a headache !
    
    Chris

    
    Corey Glover - Lead singer
    Vernon Reid - Guitar
    Muzz Skillings - Bass
    ? Calhoun(e) - Drums
    
    Yeah, it's his real hair.  He stagedove into the pit during their show
    at the Nine and everyone was pulling it.  None came out, so.....   8^)
    
    
    Paul

		funny i thought he had hair extensions in...
    
    ?????
    
    
    i never did figure out how he could bear being in those hot lights
    and in wet suit..    
    without gettin a heat stoke!
    :^}
    
    
    
    wendy o'
    
    

    I just saw these guys with the Stones.  I was definately impressed.  I
    think they are very original.  I also give them a lot of credit for
    opening for the Stones which to a brand new band must have seemed a
    little scary.  I'm pretty interested in seeing what they do next
    
    Kim

    .39�    think they are very original.  I also give them a lot of credit for
    .39�    opening for the Stones which to a brand new band must have seemed a

    	Give me a break! They took what ever they could get! Stones or
    Madonna!

    	Unfortunately! I have to watch this imitation of a group! When I 
    go see the Stones. I'll decided then whether or not to bash them 
    some more or just say to H*ll with them...


    B.A.

    I would rather have seen Living Color play than the rolling
    corpses.
    
    /Motorbreath

    
    I agree with Motorbreath.
    
    Paul
    ----

    First off, you took what I said wrong.  I think they were wicked lucky
    that the Stones picked THEM but, that for a brand new band it must have
    been pretty scary opening up for these MEGA LEGENDS.  I was just giving
    them some credit.
    
    Second, YOU didn't have to watch them, couldn't came a little late. 
    Boy, you sure are one uptight individual.  RELAX!!!!

	 Living Colour is great......They have got some wicked good
	 lyrics....

	 They have a lot of potential if they could just get some
	 variety into their sound.  I can't listen to their entire CD
	 at one time, it all gets jumbled....and I don't think I could
	 go see an concert just yet with them....

	 Each song, individually, is great....


	 kath

    I bought before Christmas the "Vivid" CD and listened few times. It was
    a very good surprise for me. They are something new to hard rock but I
    do not like all the CD because of the "funky" songs (including Vivid
    itself). When playing funk they are not original at all. Their hard
    rock is very fine in exchange and represents real value.
    
    A Happy New Year to all of you !
    Sorin

    had a listen to this last week,apart from a track about tearing a
    building down which really rocks ithought the rest was drivell!
    
    just an opinion.
    

    
    
    	Re: New Releases note... Flip
    
    	I got "Time's Up" last night and I've managed to listen to about 
    75% of it.  So far I like it.  Similar style as "Vivid".  The first
    tune has a hardcore feel to it... faster pace than their usual. 
    They're still using samples, which I like.  A few songs seem kinda
    "jazzish".  James Brown does some vocals on one song and another has
    Queen Latifah(sp?) doing a cameo rap.
    
    	I'd guess if you like "Vivid" then you'll like "Time's Up".
    
    
    Paul

    
    Warning:
    
    The next note is a long article about Living Colour from Rolling Stone. 
    Its pretty interesting!  But in case your not interested, its next
    
    F.

    
    LIVING COLOUR'S TIME IS NOW - But the Black Rock Coalition's Best-Known
    Band Wouldn't Think of Resting on Its Laurels.
    
    Taken without permission from RS mag
    
    First, there was the gold record.  Vernon Reid had spent nearly six
    years slamming his head against a brick wall of indifference, paying
    exorbitant dues as he fought for his inalienable right to rock.  So
    when he was finally handed a plaque commemorating a half-million sales
    of Living Colour's first album, *Vivid*, Reid - the band's headstrong
    founder and virtuoso guitarist - almost broke down and cried.
    
    "I was thinking about all the things I'd been through to get this,"
    Reid says a little sheepishly, recalling the postshow ceremony athte
    Palace, in Los Angeles, back in February 1989.  "Breaking up with
    girlfriends, guys in the band leaving - all of that.  I was really
    close to tears."
    
    Then there was the time Casey Kasem nearly sent Reid into hysterics. 
    "I was in a hotel room in Florida, and I heard Casey Kasem come on the
    radio and talk about us on *American Top Forty*," Reid says.  "*That*
    was mind-blowing, especially when you think about where we're coming
    from."
    
    But Reid insists that as a measure of success - of the true impact and
    import of Living Colour's hard-fought black-rock crusaade and that of
    the Black Rock Coalition, the black-music-activist group that Reid
    cofounded in 1985 - nothing beats the imperial seal of approval that
    he, singer Corey Glover, bassist Muzz Skillings and drummer Will
    Calhoun received last fall from the self-professed "architect of rock &
    roll" and black-rock daddy of 'em all, Little Richard.  The band,
    then doing opening-act honors on the Rolling Stones' *Steel Wheels*
    tour, was about to drive out of the Los Angeles Coliseum after
    finishing its set when Richard, who was backstage, walked up and
    introduced himself with characteristic flamboyance:  "Hi!  I'm one of
    those glamour boys you been singin' about!"
    
    "That was heavy," Reid says, laughing.  "We were surprised that he even
    knew us."
    
    The next day, Richard invited Living Colour up to his room at the Hyatt
    on Sunset Boulevard for a chat.  For the band, though, it was more like
    a private audience with the pope.  Even now, the band members are
    reluctant to divulge the specific nature of their conversation. Glover
    says simply, "We were so awe-struck, we were catatonic."
    
    Richard himself is anything but, especially on the subject of Living
    Colour.  "I was telling them to make sure they sign all the checks," he
    says, cackling with glee.  "And to play from the heart, which they do. 
    And to give your all.  If you don't give your all, you don't give
    nothing, and Living Colour does give their all."
    
    "They play with feeling and conviction," continues Richard, who
    contributed a dynamite guest rap to the sidesplitting raver "Elvis is
    Dead" on Living Colour's new album, *Time's Up*.  "Do you understand
    me?  They are not just saying words to be saying them.  I think black
    people need to support them as well as white people, to realize the
    contribution that they are making at this time.  The same thing that
    startedin the Fifties with me, they are taking it through the Nineties. 
    And God bless their souls.  They are keeping it alive." 
    
    "You talk about moments," says Reid.  "That was *the* moment.  Hendrix
    played in Little Richard's band.  He was the cat who did 'Good Golly
    Miss Molly,' who turned concerts into riots.  Having Little Richard
    say, 'You guys are doing the right thing' - if I needed validation,
    that's it.  Everything else really don't mean sh*t."
    
    "An early gig?"  Vernon Reid toys pensively with his chopsticks in a
    Japanese restaurant in New York City's East Village and casts his mind
    back to the bad old days of the mid-Eighties - before gold records and
    Casey Kasem, when Living Colour was playing the 2:00 a.m. cleanup slot
    at CBGB and Reid's dream of a black rock band with sociopolitical heart
    and jazz-funk flair was getting a universal thumbs-down in
    record-company A&R offices all over town.
    
    "Okay, this is before the current lineup," Reid says.  "We were at
    Seventh Avenue South [a defunct jazz club], and that night was so bad
    that eh night manager came up to me and said, 'You guys had so few
    people here that if I really wanted to make an issue of it, you owe
    *me* money.  Ha, ha ha!'  The sound of his laughing echoing down the
    stairs as he walked away - man, that was a really low ebb.
    
    "I had a vision though," Reid continues.  "I believed in the music, and
    I always believed that if it got the chance to get out there, that
    people would like it.  I didn't put a number on it, though.  Because my
    scale of things was all very small."  For example, Reid looked up to
    the venerable avant-jazz group the Art Ensemble of Chicago.  "They were
    self-contained, and they'd managed to keep that going," he says.  "To
    me, that was success."
    
    What happened to Reid, 32, and the other members of Living Colour over
    the past tree years isn't just success, it's sweet justice.  Originally
    given a lukewarm welcome by a music industry that widely believed that
    ablack rock & roll band's album was a contradiction in terms, Living
    Colour's 1988 Epic debut, *Vivid*, eventually sold 2 million copies
    worldwide, mostly on the strength of the band's incendiary live shows
    and heavy MTV video play.  The album yielded two Top Forty singles,
    "Cult of Personality" and "Glamour Boys."  "Cult" won a Grammy for best
    hard-rock performance, and the band also walked away with an armful of
    statuettes at th 1989 MTV Video Music Awards, including Best New
    Artist.
    
    "I always felt, in the beginning, when we first finished *Vivid*, that
    it would at least go gold, with the right promotion,"  Will Calhoun
    says.  "It was the timing, the image and the fact that these four guys
    were not gonna go *back* - that these guys were not gonna soften up their
    sh*t.  There was no sign of compromise in the music."
    
    The band was not prepared, however, for the speed with which its new
    album, *Time's Up*, took off.  It entered *Billboard's* album chart at
    Number Eighty-two and vaulted into the Top Twenty the following week. 
    According to Living Colour comanager Jim Grant, Epic initially shipped
    400,000 copies of the album; before the week was out, the reorders were
    coming in.  What's more, rock radio - which was last to get on the
    bandwagon for *Vivid* - embraced the leadoff single, "Type," right out
    of the box.  The track went to the Top Ten in AOR airplay.
    
    "It's sometimes hard to tell how much our success has to do with our
    own work and how much it's the trapings and the business around it,"
    Muzz Skillings, 26, says warily.  "Like what if MTV suddenly stopped
    playing our videos?  It probably wouldn't be as drastic as if they
    stopped playing, say Motley Crue's videos.  But it would definetly have
    an effect.  I mean, we can handle that.  We'd just start over.  But it
    is a sobering thought."
    
    The challenge now, Ried says, is "making sure that the band still
    represents what I wanted it to be in the begining, that it doesn't
    become something it was never meant to be, a monster that eats people
    up - I want to keep it real."
    
    So in making *Time's Up*, Ried says, "the only pressure I felt was that
    I didn't want us to look over our shoulders and say, 'Oh, God, now we
    having something to lose - we have to protect our thing.'"  In fact,
    *Time's Up* is an album wholly about risk and self-determination, from
    the defiant hardcore whirl of the opening title track to the climactic
    majesty of Reid's closing hymn, "This Is the Life," a Zepplin-like
    tract of stern but hopeful realism.  In "Under Cover of Darkness,"
    Glover and guest rapper Queen Latifah address the high price of serious
    romantic commitment in the age of AIDS; Calhoun's "Pride," which rocks
    with magnum "Cult"-style force is a simple, sobering celebration of
    African American dignity.
    
    Musically, Living Colour's refusal to simply fall back on the
    funk-metal meal ticket of *Vivid* illustrates the band members's
    deep-rooted spirtual resolve.  They skid all over the black-rock map,
    zigzagging from the fusion meltdown in the midsection of "Information
    Overload" to the bedrock Memphis sould of "Under Cover of Darkness" and
    the sweet Soweto hop of "Solace of You."  There are also a number of
    striking spoken-word and sound-effets links placed strategically
    throughout the record, most notably "History Lesson," which features
    samples from an old black-history record starring actors Ossie Davis,
    Ruby Dee and James Earl Jones.  The band's producer, Ed Stasium, says
    he was extremely pleased when his teenage son told him that listening
    to *Time's Up* "was like reading a book."
    
    "The common thread that holds that record together is that it's not
    about conformity, it's about individualism," says Glover.  "If you find
    your own individualism and you look for that inner truth, then you have
    what it takes to move on in this life, to move on in any direction, to
    get yourself up and out of whatever dregs you're in.  That's what makes
    you *you* and that's what makes us all interact and move.  And become a
    people that move."
    
    "That's the secret of the blues," Ried adds.  "People think the blues
    is about being miserable.  Gospel, too.  Actually, it's about changing
    that into something else, exorcising those thins that bother you.  And
    we try to take a broader perspective.   Some of the songs take a broad
    view of what life is, not so much dealing with the specific issue of
    being black in America.  That is definetly a thread that will be in our
    records.  But something like 'This is the Life' is about a situation
    that anyone can be in."
    
    Indeed, Ried is surprised, and rather bummed, that some reviewers have
    mistaken the explicit urgency of the lyrics and the jump-cut musical
    frenzy of *Time's Up* forhumorless, hard-rock didacticism -
    high-decibel pulpit pounding for the Sound-Bite Generation.  "The
    purpose is not to bludgeon people - like I've read criticism of 'Elvis
    is Dead,' Reid says, referring to the album's hilarious punk-funk swipe
    at the fanatic deification of Presley and the cold exploitation of his
    legacy.  "One critic took issue with the line 'A black man taught him
    how to sing/ And then he was crowned king.' He said, 'Well, what about
    his hillbilly roots?' Look, Sam Phillips said, 'If I can find a white
    man to sing like a Negro, I'll make a million dollars.' He was very
    clear.  He wasn't talking about Elvis's hillbilly roots.
    
    "Part of it is who defines things," continues Reid.  "It's not enough
    for the powers tha be to love Elvis, for him to be *their* king of rock
    & roll.  Elvis has to be the king of rock & roll for everybody.  And
    that is somethiing I cannot swallow.
    
    "part of what we're dong is just dealing with the fabric of our lives,
    the things we see happening around us," Reid says.  "Like that line in
    'Type': 'We are the children of concrete and steel.' This isn't the
    Sixties or the Seventies.  This is the Nineties, and people are not
    kidding.  Innocence is a thing of the past.  no one is innocent.  No
    one can afford to waste the time.
    
    "To me, that's a drag.  You see kids, ten and nine years old, what
    hey're talking about, the level of what they have to deal with.  It's
    straight up.  They've been forced to know what's at stake.  So by the
    time you become an adult, you're a hard case."
    
    Has it made him a hard case?
    
    Reid pauses.  "I don't know," he says.  "I'm just stubborn.  If I get
    knocked back down, I just get up and go for it again."
    
    Will Calhoun used to get real bugged during interviews.  "In the
    beginning, everyone wanted to hear the story that we were four ghetto
    boys playing outside on 125th Street at some broken down store,"
    Calhoun says, "and Mick Jagger came of the the store and saw us one
    day, bought us all fresh instruments and we became great."  
    
    Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth.  "We come from
    working-class familites," Calhoun, 26, says emphatically.  "Our parents
    busted their ass to get us where we are.  Everyone went to college on
    some level."  The band certainly owes Jagger a sizable debt of
    gratitude for his early patronage; he produced the 1987 demos of
    "Glamour Boys" and "Which Way to America?" that eventually netted the
    group its Epic deal.  (The performances were so hot they were included,
    in remixed form, on *Vivid*)  But Living Colour is the singular product
    of hard knocks, disparate influences, indomitable racial pride and an
    uncommon commitment that, in Reid's case, goes back more than a decade.
    
     "Not that I'm more committed than they are," Reid says of the other
    members, "because they made the sacrifice, too.  But the idea for Living
    Colour had been with me eery since I started playing the guitar, for
    fifteen, sixteen years.
    
    "It was," he notes a little wearily, "a real process."
    
    Born in London of West Indian parents and raised in Brooklyn, Reid was
    already a well-known and respected player on the New York scene -
    equally at home in the progressive-jazz and postpunk camps - when, in
    1983, he started the group that would eventually become Living Colour. 
    The band, featuring drummer Greg Carter and bassist Alex Mosely, was
    originally a side project that rehearsed and gigged when Reid wasn't on
    the road with the Decoding Society, drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson's
    harmolodic jazz-rock group.  Personnel shifts were frequent.  The
    band's first lead singer was a woman, D.K. Dyson, now with the highly
    touted Black Rock Coalition group Eye and I.  Acclaimed jazz pianist
    Geri Allen was another early member.
    
    By 1985, when Reid left the Decoding Society, his new band had a name
    (inspired by the old NBC-TV announcement "The following program is
    brought to you in living color," amended with a British spelling) and
    Reid had a clear idea of what he wanted Living Colour to be:  a
    full-tilt *rock* band celebrating the continuing vitality and enduring
    promise of Robert Johnson, Billie Holliday, Bo Diddley, Sly Stone,
    Ornette Coleman and Bad Brains (to name but a few), with the muscle and
    volume of Led Zeppelin.  Writing "Funny Vibe," the savage cocktail of
    jackhammer funk and edgy Hendrixian metal that later opened side 2 of
    *Vivid*, was a major turning point, Reid says:  "It was the first song
    written in what would be the Living Colour vein, mixing two different
    kinds of music together."  
    
    The words - "No I'm not gonna hurt you/No I'm not gonna harm you/And I
    try not to hate you/So why you want to give me that/Funny Vibe!" -
    spelled out with machine-gun eloquence Reid's rage and frustration in
    communiating his vision to a rigid, unapologetic music industry rife
    with racial stereo typing and de facto discrimination.  In the fall of
    '85, he channeled that rage and frustration into establishing the Black
    Rock Coalition, a black-music advocacy collective dedicated to total
    creative freedom and achieving uninhibited access to the marketplace
    and media.  Now in its fifth year, the BRC boasts a membership of
    thirty bands and 175 individuals as well as a newly formed Los Angeles
    chapter and a busy agenda of concert presentations, recording projects
    and awareness events.  Back then, Reid says, "I was tired of freaking
    out, and when I heard other people freaking out, I said, 'Something has
    to be done'".
    
    Ironically, the sense of unity and confidence fostered by the BRC had a
    crucial effect on Living COlour's personnel and the band's own strength
    of will.  Muzz Skillings, a native of St. Albans, Queens, who had
    played with hard-rock, jazz and salsa groups, joined the band after
    meeting Reid at a BRC meeting.  Calhoun, a Bronx-born graduate of the
    Berklee School of Music who toured with Harry Belafonte, played with
    the Black Rock Coalition Orchestra before he signed on in 1986.  And
    Corey Glover, who was introduced to Reid at a birthday party back in
    late 1982 (Reid was impressed withGlover's soulful rendition of "Happy
    Birthday"), could relate all too well to Reid and the BRC's war of
    prejudice because of his own experiences as an actor.
    
    "The first time I went down to meet an agent, they had me read some
    copy, and they said, "Too ethnic,'" says Glover, 25.  "And my mother
    was an English teacher at the time.  If I spoke any less than perfect,
    I'd hear about it.  Then, about a year and a half later, I did this
    radio commercial for some allover body scent.  The guy came out of the
    control room and said, 'It's just not black enough.  Could you make it
    blacker?"  What do you want me to do, slap it on?  That was the rudest
    thing I'd ever heard."
    
    Glover - who landed the role of Francis, the smartaleck soldier in
    Olvier Stone's *Platoon*, before he joined Living Colour in late '85 -
    admits that he current lineup had its share of growing pains, in large
    part because of Reid's dual duties as bandleader and BRC president and
    a lingering public perception that Living Colour was just Reid and
    sidemen.  "In New York, people thought of Living Colour as Vernon's
    band, which in a way it was," Glover says.  "And the first video,
    'Middle Man,' was too disjointed.  It didn't show us as an entity,
    interacting enough.  Long after the first album was out, people still
    though of this as totally Vernon's thing."
    
    Which Reid insists it isn't:  "Living Colour definetly started out in
    the beginning as a vehicle for me to express myself.  But I really
    enjoyed what other people would bring into it.  'Middle Man' is Corey's
    words and my music.  And I like the way that happened.  And it grew from
    there."
    
    In late 1987, with their Epic Records deal practically in the bag, the
    members of Living Coloru formalized their realtionship with al etter of
    agreement that, Gover says, "gave us a united fron in dealing with the
    outside world."
    
    "For example," Glover says, "one of the items in the document was that
    we were a *band* and that we all had a voice, and a vote, in making
    decisions.  But Vernon would be the executor for the rest of the band,
    the principal negotiator, because he was the founder."
    
    The band also established its own corporation, W.T.F.F. Inc., which
    stands for What the F*ck Factor.  "It's when things work, but in a
    strange kind of way," Glover says.  "You do it any kind of way to get
    something going.  It's just in keeping with the Malcolm X philosophy: 
    'By any means necessary.'"
    
    It was the classic black man's nightmare.  Corey Glover was walking out
    of a movie theater in Brooklyn Heights not too long ago when a police
    car screeched to a halt literally at his feet with its lights blazing
    and siren screaming.  "Two wheels of a police car get up on the
    sidewalk," Glovers says, "and then it's 'Hey, you're Corey Glover,
    aren't you?  You're in that band Living Colour!'
    
    "I'm going, 'Oh God, don't ever do that again!  You scared the sh*t out
    of me.' The reality of it is that my first thought was to 'assume the
    position', you know?  Because I am a black man, the first thing I think
    of if there are sirens or something is, they're after me.  It's scary."
    
    For Living Colour, writing and singing about the American black
    experience is no more an abstract exercise than it was for Muddy
    Waters, Duke Ellington or James Brown.  Each member of the band has the
    perosnal experiences and the emotional scars to prove it.  And if you
    think the success of *Vivid* has softened the pain, think again.  Just
    last year, the popular hardrock magazine RIP published a cover photo of
    the members of Living Colour with their heavy-metal buddies in Anthrax. 
    One disgruntled reader sent a copy of the issue back to the magazine's
    office - with the four Living Colour faces burned out.
    
    "You know, we're not raising the issues so much as the people are
    reacting to us, because of their isms and schisms," says Skillings. 
    "And it's funny, because I used to go through life really ignoring it. 
    Literally saying, 'It's their problem if they want to be stupid or
    small-minded.' But I've been thrown in situations where I've had to
    deal with it."
    
    Like the bus driver who worked for Living Colour on one of the band's
    recent tours.  "I know he was a closet racist," says Calhoun.  "You
    know, we're allyoung black guys from New York City, and he had the vibe
    when we first got ont he bus.  He didn't always have the wheels
    polished and cleaned, he didn't always have the bunk open so you could
    put your bags in.  He gave us all the keys and said, 'Put the sh*t in
    there, when you're done, lock it.' You know what I mean?
    
    "But after a while, he started to change, man," Calhoun adds with a
    smile.  "At the end he was like 'I'm gonna miss you guys, and by the
    way, can you sign a poster for my daughter?'"
    
    There was no happy ending, though, to the public war of words between
    Axl Rose and Vernon Reid when Guns n' Roses joined Living Colour for
    four shows last October at the Los Angeles Coliseum on the Rolling
    Stones' *Steel Wheels* tour.  During a live radio interview on opening
    day, Reid and Calhoun were asked for their opinion about Rose's
    invectives agains "niggers," "faggots" and "immigrants" in the infamous
    *G n' R Lies* song "One in a Million".  "We basically said we didn't
    dig it because the labeling of people is not cool," Reid says.  "It
    reduces people."
    
    That night, Rose responded from the stage.  "When I use the word
    *nigger*, I don't necessarily mean a black person," he said according
    to a report in the *Village Voice*.  "I don't give a crap what color
    you are as long as you ain't some crack-smoking piece of sh*t.  All you
    people calling me a racist, shove your head up your f*cking ass."
    
    The next evening, during Living Colour's set, Reid stated his case
    simply but articulately for the Gunner's hometown fans:  "Look, if you
    don't have a problem with gay people, then don't call them 'faggots'. 
    If you don't have a problem with black people, then don't call them
    'niggers'.  I never met a nigger in my life.  Peace."  Living Colour
    then roared into, appropriately enough, "Cult of Personality."
    
    "What scared us the most," Glover says of the incident now, "was that
    when he [Rose] said these things, the audience roared.  No matter what
    he said, the audience roared.  That's what we were trying to say - this
    is the kind of control you have over people and the things you say
    affect people.  And to say these things uninformed, and to have people
    take it as gospel, is scary."
    
    "Leading people is a perilous business," Reid says, and no less so for
    Living Colour.  "They talk a lot about rock stars growing up in public. 
    And that's kind of it for us, working out our relationship to America,
    trying to deal with our lives in America, as confusing as *that* is.
    
    "And part of that is in our music," contunies Reid.  "When we get to the
    bottom of things, there's something universal there.  When I say our
    lives in America, I'm talking about being African American, and beyond
    that - with respect to people who want the country to live up to its
    own Constitution, as citizens of the country.
    
    "But the other thing is, it's not just a grim business.  We have a
    great amount of fun.  It may seem real dour, but we have a great time
    with each other on top of it.  And that's the main thing.  If it wasn't
    fun, if it ws all polemics, it would be ... *phew!*  You have to laugh. 
    You go to, man."
    
    For example, over dinner a few weeks ago, the band was having a good
    yuk about the big helium "floozy" balloons that were inflated during
    "Honky Tonk Women" on the Stones' tour.  "Man, Will has a great idea
    for our show when we go into those big places," Skillings said,
    cackling.
    
    "Yeah," Calhoun aid with an impish grin.  "We'll have these big
    balloons of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X on either side of the
    stage.  And at the end of the show, we can have them come together and
    shake hands!" 
    
    This has to be some kind of *deja vu* for Vernon Reid.  It's a Tuesday
    night at CBGB, the place is practically a tomb, and a Black Coalition
    band is up onstage, blasting away with all its heart and might for
    about a dozen fans, most of them BRC compatriots, including Reid.
    
    It was only three or four years ago that Living Colour was the band up
    there, defiantly broadcasting its sound and message to a small but
    hardy congregation of local fans and BRC faithful.  Tonight, though,
    it's a killer biracial trio from Atlanta called No Walls, who were
    discovered by Reid while he was on the Stones tour.  The group's black
    singer-guitarist, William DuVall, had passed a demo tape to Reid
    backstage.  "I listened to it, and it just sucked me into it," says
    Reid, who subsequently brought the grup into the BRC fold and helped
    arrange a week's worth of New York shows, including this one.
    
    Reid's enthusiasm is well justified.  No Walls' CBGB set is a brilliant
    collision of sinewy punk attack, angular jazz-fusion maneuvers and
    catchy art-pop songwriting, like psychedelicized Prince in a
    Mahavishnu-Minutemen mood.  There are hints of Living Colour's metallic
    moxie in there as well, although DuVall says that he, bassist Henry
    Schroy and drummer Matthew Cowley have been influenced not so much by
    Living Colour's sound as by its example.  "It felt so good just to see
    them make it," Du Vall says after the show, "to know that someone with
    a different concept, who went through many of the same things we are
    going trough, could go all the way.  That's so important."
    
    I'm in contact with guys in bands all the time, and the success of hte
    first record idd mean a lot," Reid says.  "Certainly it mean a lot to
    black musicians coming up.  'Here's somebody doing something different,
    and beating the odds.'
    
    "A lot of things have *not* changed," Reid continues.  "And frankly,
    I'm very disappointed.  I would love to have a custom label, a boutique
    record label.  Because so much stuff is being missed.  I hate it when I
    hear things like 'Oh, I don't know about he songs, I don't know
    about this or that.' Because it's the same stuff they said about Living
    Colour.  They say the same things over and over.  And then they'll turn
    around to me and say, 'Oh, but I knew Living Colour would happen.' It's
    *jive*, it's really jive."
    
    It galls him especially because he's seen the future of black rock ,
    and it looks damn good.  "When 'Cult of Personality' hit, I found
    myself talking to twelve-year-olds and eleven-year-olds," Reid says. 
    "They'd picked up on the album from seeing the video.  Which was very
    important to me.  It means their conception of rock & roll is going to
    include something that's not the same old stuff.  In a few years,
    they're gong to be talking about the things they first listened to, and
    it's going to be Living Colour, Tracy Chapman, whatever.
    
    "It's interesting, too, because the song is about *that*," Reid
    continues.  "That's the weird things.  The song is about fame, the
    machinery of fame.  On one level, it's about leaders, people being led. 
    But it's also about being trapped.  Because in a certain sense, those
    kind of people are trapped."
    
    Reid isn't worried abou that though.  "You get trapped," he says, "only
    if you say things you don't mean.  I mean everything I say.  You can't
    be trapped by the truth".
    
    
    
    
    F.

    Are these guys in the UK charts ???
    
    'Cos they're supposed to be on TOTP tonite !!

    
    Yes, they're in the charts....don't know the name of the single.
    
    Flip

    The single is "When love reared its ugly head".

    I just picked up a copy of Times Up at lunch and am presently enjoying
    it on my Walkman as I work.
    
    I'm only thought side one so far, but I have to say that this is an
    outstanding album!!!!  I'm kicking myself for not getting it sooner!
    It's easily as good as Vivid, which I loved.
    
    gh

    Just as an update, now that I've listened to this album several times
    through, I have to reaffirm what I said before..
    
    These guys KICK!!!  
    
    You can really hear a lot of influences in the music, everything from
    hardcore to traditional jazz and they just rip musically!
    
    gh

	Great gig last Sunday at Brixton. All the old faves from Vivid covered
	and of course all the faves from Times Up, which was the opening
	song of the set. In the encore they did the Clash' Should I Stay Or
	Should I go.

	Vernon Reid really is some guitarist, however he did lose his way
	in a couple of spots, but made up for it with some blinding solo work.

	What I will say is, the lads could do with some coaching regarding
	their questionable choice of strides, ranging from Vernons nasty
	black patent plastic numbers, to Muzz' horrible jazzy tights. 

	In short, a good time had by all.

	Eck.

    
    
    	According to last Friday's Boston Globe, Muzz Skillings has left
    the band.
    
    
    Paul

    No way!  What a drag, I thought Muzz was great!  Any word on what he's
    going to be doing now (or what L.C.'s going to do about a replacement?)
    
    gh

    
    
    	Seriously, I thought Muzz was pretty cool too.  On stage he always
    seemed to be having a blast.
    
    	No word on what he'll be doing but LC should be recording in the
    Spring... at least that's what I think the article said.
    
    	Vernon Reid, Will Calhoun, and some other guy have formed a band
    meanwhile.  They're playing Nightstage (in Boston) Thursday.
    
    
    Paul

    
    
    	Also seen on MTV...
    
    	Living Colour has a new bass player... forget his name though.
    
    
    Paul

    Hey...I saw that too!  He's looks more their style...
    
           Frizkid
    

    I'm happy that they're back to playing, but I'll miss Muzz.  He was
    great!
      
    gh

    Have they got anything lined up for this year yet?  What's this I heard
    about a new album?
    
    	Kaz

    
    
    I heard part of an interview with the Singer, he said the bassist
    they currently have is on 'double secret probation' to see how he
    works out...

Does that mean one more slip up and he's finished at Faber?

Tim

    I saw Living Colour live at Bowdoin college up here. They were one of
    the most incredable bands I have ever seen. They played like it was
    there last show ever. I think it's great to see them still pulling out
    great stuff.

    they were on the telly here a while ago with their new bass player,none
    other than the incredible Doug Wimbish!The band introduced themselves
    and the bass player just said "Doug"......I took a closer look and
    freaked!!
    
    
                                                  staynz

    Their new album just came out.  I heard a track off it on the radio a
    couple of days ago and it was very good!
    
    gh

    
    	I've seen these guys get TERRIBLE reviews, from Dave Blickstein
    	to magazine reviewers ... especially commenting on the totally
    	"out of control" guitar playing by Vernon Reid.
    
    							GTI

    I *like* Vernon's guitar playing!!!
    
    gh

    I heard a couple of tracks off of the new release.....I like the past
    2 records much better........imo........
    
    Bob

I've got a live recording off of a radio broadcast they did from Electric
Ladyland studios.  Vernon Reid can hold his own.  I wish Muzz hadn't left
the band.

    I really liked Muzz too.  But I heard part of one of the new songs on
    the radio today and I liked what I heard.
    
    gh

    
    
    
    The singer cut his doo off..

    
    It's the "in" thing...
    
    Watta you say we go down to the barber shop, Jim?
    
    

    
    
    
    YA! LETS DO IT!!
    
    
    Mr Barber.. can I have one buckcutt please?
    ZZZZzzzZZZZzzzZZZZzzzZZZZZZzzZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzZZzzzzzzzzzz..
    
    uhh.. thank you.. 
    
                        |||||||||||
    			|||||||||||
    			|  _   _  |
    			|  o   o  |
    			|    \    |
    			\         /
                         \   O   /
                          \_____/
    
	
    Whit-

    
    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DONT DO IT!

    
    Or maybe whit, we could leave a little mohawk... 
    
    

    THE BAD NEWS IS THAT MUZZ CAN BE SEEN IN THE NEW MICHAEL JACKSON
    VIDEO...
    STAIN IS A GROWER, GIVE IT TIME - SAW THE BAND IN BRISTOL WHEN TIME'S
    UP CAME OUT - VERNON'S PLAYING WAS UNBELIEVABLE - THEY'RE BACK IN THE
    UK MARCH/APRIL (BRISTOL ON THE 5TH)
    

    -1
    
    Don't you mean THE GOOD NEWS is muzz has the Jackson gig??
    
    I heard the new LC single last night -- AACK!  A definite clicker!!
    Boring, no form...didn't catch my ear at all.  I think this band is
    done for...

    I have to disagree, Buck.  I thought the new single was cool!
    
    gh

    NO WAY -- USDA 100% certified CCCCCCCCCCRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPP!
                                 

    
    
    
    buck has spoken...

    Well I posted a review (kinda) of STAIN, the new LP, in
    RADIO_RADIO...it does grow on you, despite the slightly naiive
    lyrics...Vernon no longer hits every note every time in every
    circumstance...but there's enough of that kind of thing for us
    Reid-heads, along with other departures (guitar synth etc) .
    
    Vernon has taken to using the Digitech Whammy pedal a lot (kind of an
    octaver/vibrato device) in conjunction with his giant rack...makes for
    some interesting variations on the playing of one who was already a
    true individual...and for those of you who say he can't 'play',
    remember (or learn) that he was for many years a Les Paul-toting 
    unknown doing the covers circuit, getting thru blues, reggae, jazz,
    radio & all the other gear that comes before individuality and the
    finding of a musician's OWN voice....OK, so he's still developing, but
    he can cope with all the genres...on one of the boots I have of LC, in
    Chicago, they do 'I'm a Man' in homage to Muddy, and although the solo
    isn't exactly low-down Telecaster fare, Vernon exercises restraint and
    taste in equal measures.
    
    They sometimes rip thru standards, and usually bring something
    worthwhile to them...check out The Final Solution (pere Ubu) or the
    Clash cover for example...on Vivid there's a killer cover of Talking
    Heads (Memories Can't Wait) - and the Talkin Bout a Revolution
    (available as recorded at TT the Bears on a B-side).
    
    I thought they were absolutely superb live, despite some sound
    problems, and although Reid's tone is a bit thin for my liking, I
    admire that attitude.  He really plays on the edge, and the atonal
    thing he gets going is much more interesting than these metal guys who
    strut about recycling scales and exercises.
    
    If anyone's interested I'll post some sort of review of their upcoming
    gig in this part of the world next week.
    
    
    Listen and learn....
    
    Andy

    
    I heard Living Colour have made  a record "Tribute to Hendrix".
    "Crosstown traffic" was cool!
    
    
    
    Hannu

Living Colour are on the album which features a number of bands doing Hendrix
covers.

Tim

    
     Yes But...
    
      Joe Satriani isn't one of the Musicians...he was asked and Refused to
    do it because Quote"  
    
       I am NOt going to use Jimi Hendrix's memory as a Musical
    Scandel...It's just a Shame !
    
    /Sax
    

    
    re .92
    
    That's right. Thanks for correction. BTW, it is featuring also Spin
    Doctors doing "Spanish Castle Magic". 
    
    re .93
    
    It think it is not A SHAME to make such a record. There has happened
    other things in music business that are shameful, this is not such.
    
    
    
    Hannu