shaniqua don't live here no mo'

the 400 gigs are fabulous. still downloading. can't wait to play with it all.

but in the meantime...

1. how about those rehearsal recordings from the with teeth era? i'm having soooo much fun with these. and now have i've had the opportunity to compare live recordings of the jeordie/aaron/jerome lineup vs. jmj/robin/freese at length, i've come to some conclusions.



i've listened to the same songs, side by side, to hear how aaron played them versus how robin plays them. i used to think i was just being really hard on aaron because i missed robin, and that's partially true, but now that robin is back and i can listen to aaron's work objectively, i'm still not impressed. i used to think his style was just like, attitude. but looking back it's just messy and actually pretty unoriginal. there are still maybe two parts where i like what i did, but overall his contribution to the songs was really limited. robin OWNS those songs. aaron just kind of played them. peace out, friend.




yeah, my love for him is well documented. but you'll notice this is a picture of him from the gnr era. i thank that era because it made robin a better musician and it influenced his play in nin a little bit. oh, and north's solo before "only" ain't got shit on robin's.




i really don't have many legitimate complaints about jmj. yeah, he has stupid hair but he's a good musician and has the best back-up singing voice i think nin has ever had. good for him. i can't even complain that's boring to watch because i think he actually does a bit more than jeordie. but i still miss jeordie. and that's because (and i don't know how he achieves this) jeordie's bass had the coolest tone. listening to these recordings (and just thinking back to the millions of shows i went to during those tours), i realize how much the basslines pop. they sound especially dirty and crunchy and heavy and sexy. jmj and jeordie will both play the same bassline, and though i have no complaints about jmj's technique, i just think it's a shame that his bass doesn't stand out a bit more. especially when i got really used to waiting for certain basslines. i miss the dirtiness of it.



i like jerome on the drums better. that's it. i don't speak drummer, so i don't know how to explain why, but the best way i know how is that jerome uses less tink-tink high pitched drums and uses more deep, earthy sounding ones. his drumming is distinct and he is responsible for a lot of my favorite drumming moments that josh tried to capture, but never fully mastered. i think josh is the technically superior drummer (i mean, i think, i don't know) but i think jerome was better suited for this band.

so my regret is that we never got a jeordie/jerome/robin lineup. because that shit would have been a-mazing!!!


2. i'm so late to the party, but i downloaded IEMs from irvine and the cabazon soundcheck. please don't beat me up over it, trent! the cabazon one is pretty useless, but the irvine one is awesome! i love how loud tr's vocals are and how you catch so much more detail listening to these recordings.