From groovecake@yahoo.com Fri Feb 01 09:12:52 2002
Subject:Tarkus Revisited and "What If" (LONG)

Ok...all this Tarkus talk has sparked me to get out my
CD and take a listen. The memories come flooding
back...images of large, armored armadillos make it
hard to concentrate...lava...

Huh? Where was I?

Oh yeah...Tarkus.

Man...I can totally see why this rocked my young
world. Bear in mind that I wasn't born when this thing
came out, so I discovered it YEARS after the Tarkus
roamed the earth. But it gave my young ears something
to chew on harmonically and bombastically. As I said
in a previous post, I discovered ELP at the same time
I discovered Tower of Power so you can imagine the
Hammond fueled explosions and stylistic tugs-of-war
going on in my brain as a sophomore in high school.

In listening to it today (2/1/02), I have a few
observations:

1. Wow...some of this is incredible. Emerson really
had a vision for what he was going for. It helps to
try to put yourself in 1970 and try to imagine the
music world in the time it was released.
Consider...this is years before punk and disco.
Hendrix was setting his guitar on fire and changing
the world. The Who were destroying stages and changing
the world. This was a different time. From what I have
read, it sounds like many people were considering that
the next logical step for "rock and roll" was a
bombastic combination of classical sensibility and the
sweaty edge or rock. ELP took this ball and ran with
it (and sometimes it sounds like they just ran
aimlessly...but I digress).

When put in this context, ELP makes a lot of sense.

2. Wow...some of this is practically un-listenable.
There was NO way this stuff couldn't collapse under
the weight of its own pretensions. Not to mention some
of the really poorly executed passages. If you ever
wanted to make an argument against prog rock, all
you'd have to do is play side 1 of Tarkus. Prosecution
rests. (And this is coming from someone who LIKES this
record!)

A couple highlights:

7:21 - 7:26: One of the best passages in the whole
HISTORY of prog rock.

8:46 - This is one of the things that just knocked me
out! The way Emerson used the Hammond almost as a
percussion instrument...the way the tone-wheels spit
and groaned in this passage...to this day I love this
part. (It also contains some of Palmer's most
egregious drum fills. Yeesh.)

14:15 - Carl Palmer should have been fired for this
fill. Walking papers. Pink slip. Don't call us. We'll
call you.

(It really makes me chuckle when you read ELP fan
sites which refer to Palmer with such declarations as
"simply one of the best drummers ever." I mean...I
know that most discussions and critiques of music and
musicians are opinion based and I am as opinionated as
anyone...but c'mon. Aren't some things open to factual
analysis and logical reasoning??)

I'm not even going to touch on the mythologistic
lyrics. That's an essay in itself.

What I do want to toss out is a "what if" question.
This is always a fun thing that musicians like to
engage in: What if so-and-so had played with
so-and-so.

One of my favorites is what if Eddie Van Halen had
played with a rhythm section that was more at his
level?

So...along those same lines: What if Keith Emerson had
played with a drummer with better time? What if he had
been with musicians who could concept his ideas and
execute them and, perhaps, build on them?

When I listen to Niacin, I sometimes wonder what if
Dennis Chambers had been in ELP (ELC). Can you
freaking imagine?

Maybe I should concentrate more on my job...my boss is
looking at me funny...

Mitch

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