Posts made by high_wilusa

Mark Ronson seems like a good person to produce him. Hopefully Macca and Ronson's collaboration it'll be finished by the time Duran Duran are ready to get back in the studio with him next year. From what they said when talking about working with him on the All You Need is Now album, and they praised him to the high heavens, is that he's very knowledgeable about music and has a firm hand without being overly bossy, which sounds like something that's good for a producer of McCartney as well. He just sounds like a really good producer to work with, with a positive attitude who wants to get the best out of the songwriters/bands rather than making them have one particular "Ronson sound".

I was such a new wave chick back in the 80's. There used to be a syndicated radio show called "Rock over London" that had all the latest hits and gossip from the UK. And of course I read Smash Hits. MTV introduced tons of British bands. It's so weird realizing there was no internet to find stuff out back then. I'm so used to it now that I can't even remember my life without it. But it was all magazines and MTV and any scrap of info or gossip you could get your hands on. Duran Duran were my all time favorites but others were Tears for Fears Thompson Twins Depeche Mode Eurythmics U2 INXS(an Aussie band) Howard Jones There were a lot of others but I can't remember most of them right now. Soft Cell(Tainted Love), Human League(Don't You Want Me) and Flock of Seagulls(I Ran) were actually the first "new wave" hits I remember hearing. And I was still very into Paul up until the mid 80s as well, having gotten into The Beatles and Paul when I was about 8 or 9. So Paul was still very much a presence in my 80's musical experience.

Is Ronson supposed to be working with Macca? I hadn't heard that. That would be interesting to hear. He's apparently a very good producer, in the sense of guiding but not getting in the way of the artists. He'll tell the truth but he's not mean about it. The members of Duran Duran say he made them feel very good about themselves--yet he obviously didn't kiss their asses in the sense of letting them keep things that weren't very good, he made them do things over if he thought they weren't up to snuff.

herc:

this is a big picture to post it here,i'll give you the link,it's a beautiful photo from Paul's new album kisses on the bottom,set it as your desktop like i did,one of the best photos that Paul has taken since years http://www.rocksquare.com/blog/wp-content/rs_uploads/Paul-Kisses-on-the-Bottom.jpg

I agree, it's a great picture of him.

Thanks to a Duran Duran site I was looking at, I came across this really cute picture of Paul from it looks like early 2011 or late 2010, I think Paul actually looks rather young in this pic, despite the goofy face(or perhaps because of the goofy face). It's our Paul, Simon Le Bon and Ben Stiller doing "Blue Steel"(Stiller's male model character in Zoolander's "signature pose") https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/419763_2946250569940_1071559994_33012035_1645356630_n.jpg credit to Salvo at duranasty.com Stiller's the only one doing it right(he did originate it LOL), Paul's looks extra goofy and Simon looks like he's trying to stop himself laughing. I notice it looks like Paul's holding a martini? Wonder if it was shaken or stirred. I just kind of love the idea that Paul has very possibly seen Zoolander, that movie cracks me up.

lazydynamite88:

im surprised 'le bon' never insisted on coming back the next day to re-do his embarrasing moment.....'mccartney' certainly did!

Well, they weren't Paul McCartney. He's always an exception. lol Actually I doubt they even thought of it at the time. They were all involved in other projects and running off in different directions afterwards to finish them up. Anyway, did you listen to any of the links I provided, nice mix of old songs and new songs, audience taken videos(except Dream Boys and Crystal Ship), no studio "trickery" involved--so....can he sing?

audi:

Simon LeBon has taken VERY good care of his voice.

And the MSG and O2 Arena stuff I linked to is AFTER he and the band had a huge scare during the summer where the entire upper 1/3 of his range just disappeared(he lost almost a whole octave). In the end, whatever caused it, was something even most of the specialists hadn't seen or had seen very rarely as it took weeks to get something resembling a proper diagnosis and it took almost 4 months to get it back, including vocal therapy.

I checked my Live Aid DVD tracklist -- "A View To A Kill" is NOT on it. No wonder I wasn't aware of it.

LOL Yeah funny how that worked out, I just assume they begged Bob Geldof(or whomever put the DVD together) to leave it off. Because, dayum....bum notes really don't come any bigger than that.

lazydynamite88:

they would have been dangerous if 'le bon' could actually sing!. infact the recentish single 'ordinary world' was suprisingly good. still cant get over that 'high note' le bon tried to hit during the american leg of 'live aid'....'duran' were in their prime then aswel,a really bad moment infront of millions in 1985,reminds me,who else had a train wreck infont of millions that day????anyone we know?

Le Bon CAN actually sing. He's 53 years old and sounds almost exactly like he did in the 80's, except maybe better because he has more power and control now. He's not Pavarotti, but he's a pop singer, he doesn't need to be Pavarotti. His voice may not be everyone's cup of tea but IMO he sounds better live than many rock and pop artists do. That Live Aid bum note was a doozy and couldn't have happened at a worse time(god knows Duranies around the world still cringe at the memory of it) but it was just a bum note, it can happen to anyone. Here's the MSG 2011 version:

, no bum note on "need". The band is a fantastic live act. For the nervous fellas in the crowd 2011: SXSW 2011: [second](]The Chauffeur[/url] (and a [url= in 1995(just Simon and Warren Cuccurullo on acoustic guitar) A rocker: New album vocal focused, MSG 2011: [The Man Who Stole a Leopard](]Before The Rain[/url] and [url= Oh and a very rare thing indeed, a Simon Le Bon solo song, only about 4 of them have ever seen the light of day over the past 25 years--but I think this quite a pretty song: , 1998, just Simon and an acoustic guitar.

I saw these guys in concert not too long ago at Madison Square Garden and they are still amazing. They were my teenage crush(loved Simon Le Bon--and I loved that long Wild Boys haircut too, it looked really good on him--he got me reading poetry and books I might not ever have read so see, teenage crushes can be good for your intellect, nyah!;P)--and had all my walls plastered with magazine pin ups and posters of the band, there wasn't a square inch free. I saw that Rio thing, if anyone has Netflix, it's available for streaming now. It's worth buying though, it's called "Classic Albums: Rio" http://www.amazon.com/Duran-Classic-Albums-Rio/dp/B001G7EGOM and it's only about $5 US dollars for the DVD. Their most recent album, All You Need is Now, is terrific. Produced by Mark Ronson. It's really worth checking out(with the understanding that they obviously are not making a hard rock album or a folky album, they make often fun funky pop music with a bit of a dark side). Some people find the atonal sythesizer sound on the title track during the verses hard to love even though it's got a really catchy, soaring chorus but I loved it because I don't have a problem with some atonal sounds(oddly because Macca's used some atonal sounds from time to time and helped me to appreciate their usefulness in building up towards a melodic "explosion") and the lyrics to the song are a really upbeat, nice tribute to the relationship between the band and the fans who have gone along for the ride, either for part of or the whole trip. "Girl Panic!" is just plain fun, "Before the Rain" is haunting and dramatic and a perfect album closer(and believe it or not, a great concert opener), "The Man Who Stole a Leopard" is a twisted tale indeed. And, in a move that would make many of us McCartney fans jealous, they play about 5 or 6 NEW album songs in concert and the new songs generally get a good response--not like the old ones of course but that's natural, they are new(but of course just to show that fans are never happy, just like McCartney fans complain about the setlist, you see on message boards fans complaining about the setlist LOL--why don't they play more b-sides, too many hits lol, I think we fans should just admit we're never happy and let it go. I'm just suggesting if anyone in Asia/Australia/Europe has the chance to go see them live on the current/next leg of the tour, go. It's a great show, Simon's still a first class front man and better yet, in great voice and may even sound better than ever(after a huge scare last summer where he inexplicably lost nearly 1/3 of his vocal range, nearly a whole octave, and they had to cancel the British and European tour that was planned for the summer), lots of audience participation sing-a-long potential(there is a reason they play a lot of "the hits" it's because Planet Earth, Notorious, Rio, The Reflex, Wild Boys, Ordinary World, etc gets the whole darn audience singing along.) PS: Did you ever hear about how they met Paul McCartney in the studio when they were recording the Rio album and he was recording, I guess, Pipes of Peace(?)--it was George Martin's Air Studios--apparently Heather McCartney met them first(and asked them not to mention how they knew her, as she'd apparently met them whilst hanging with punk rockers her mom and dad didn't exactly love her hanging around with)--- and one day she was like "Would you like to meet my dad" so Paul came in and said he was sure that one song(Rio) he'd heard them playing had HIT written all over it.

21st Century Paul:

SusyLuvsPaul:

I've noticed that handsome men usually have pleasing melodious sounding speaking voices, and Paul IS/was the most handsome Fab. In my opinion

I didn't watch that much in men, but sometimes I say/think "the good-looking singer's voice". Cause the most beautiful voices use to be of singer considered as good-looking, pretty subjetive of course, but it seems like there's something about it. when thinking about beautiful rock and roll voices, it's Elvis, Paul McCartney, George Michael, etc. Elvis had that voice when speaking too.

That's funny because I remember when I was a kid, quite frequently being disappointed upon seeing the face that went along with a voice I'd loved on the radio. Most of the time the looks didn't match the voice. The guy would be ugly as sin, meanwhile I had thought the voice would belong to a cute guy. Still happens to me once in a while, it's just now I actually expect it. LOL

Yeah but to be honest I can't see much in George's criticism that is at all useful. I don't think it was a good, even if harsh, kind of criticism, I think it came from a place of jealousy/resentment.

I read somewhere, John asked Paul, "do they play you off me the way they play me off you" Paul's reply was, yeah they do.. this was during the 70's

And yet somehow Paul mostly managed to resist "being played" while John apparently played right into their hands.

I think Harrison did have cause for resentment, but I think many of his remarks are taken out of context,

I don't, not really. He was NEVER Lennon and McCartney and he was never going to be within that band. So why not just play his role within the band without bitching about it and then do his own stuff on the side(which would have been quite easy from mid-1966 onward) and in fact he did do some of that stuff but even as he was doing his own projects and getting into his own interests outside the Beatles he was feeling all put out that he wasn't being treated more like an equal within it. It wouldn't matter if he was Mozart(and IMO he wasn't even close, he was a good songwriter, he was not in Lennon and McCartney's league though). His role in that band was not to be Mozart, it was to be the lead guitarist playing on mostly other people's songs.

IMO if anything George benefits from Lennon/McCartney because IMO Lennon and McCartney were held to much higher standards in the aftermath of the Beatles, not just by critics but by fans. Harrison just plain never had that problem, either within or outside the Beatles.(I mean with fans and critics). He was NEVER held to the same standards as Lennon/McCartney were.

lazydynamite88:

i wouldnt mind being a 'second class' beatle behind lennon and mccartney! you go on about fairness but i would say much of the last post was as speculative as some of the posts you are complaining about. taken in isolation any quirky comment by george in the the post beatle years about paul could quite easily be labelled a bit of sarcastic beatle humour. however there were far too many of them [anti paul comments] for them to be so inconsequent. all things being equal ,george harrison had alot to thankfull to paul mccartney for.its a shame that whilst he was alive that there appears to be almost no public recognition of what mccartney's brilliant music and mind did for his career.

Yahtzee, lazydynamite. Anything taken in isolation can be put down to "oh it's just a quip" when it happens for years with almost no recognition going the other way...especially towards someone who very rarely says anything bad the person doing the 'badmouthing'.

Run Devil Run by a mile. Even Paul's own songs fit in with the oldies and he sounds great.

Oh my god I've never seen that before. Silver platforms! You go Paulie!

GeorgeGoode:

Semolina Pilchard:

I became a McCartney fan back in 1980 after hearing Coming Up. I admit, I taped it off the radio and played it over and over. However, at the time I had no idea what the song was called. After a while I decided to write down the words to some of my favourite songs (I must point out I was only 11 at the time) and ops: how embarrasing is this - I thought [Coming Up] was a made up word so I scribbled down 'Domie Aime' thinking it may be in a foreign language or something. I even went around singing it like that until I bought the album. Anyone else had an experience like this they'd care to admit?

Yeah, I had that experience long time ago. In I Am The Walrus I was thinking John was singing "Dead bonzay" but he was singing "Dead Dog's Eye". But not only with The Beatles, also with other entertainers I had that experience. I also had this experience with an Elvis-recording. I was thinking the lyrics of Jailhouse Rock was "The band was Joe Banani Joe began to sing" but in fact it was "The band was jumping and the joint began to swing."

I think when we first heard "Coming Up" my family(I was a little kid at the time) thought it was "dummy up". ROFL I don't know why, except it was an expression we used to hear just around like "Hey dummy up! Do it right next time" sort of like a twist on "smarten up". Maybe just a New Jersey think I don't know.

magicmoon:

CaptainFantastic027:

I don't have the picture but it is a picture taken in the Casbah.

At the Casbah? I didn't know that, thank you!

Kathryn O:

legends state that John was quite jealous if Paul paid too much attention to Cynthia during those early days. I don't blame John at all.

If those rumors are true, I'm surprised John didn't try to break Paul's teeth over the picture It gives the impression that Paul and Cyn were having an "It's just you and me" moment....

trini:

magicmoon, is this the one you're talking about? http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/3210/80592941.jpg

Yes Trini, that's the one! Thank you! Looks like Paul is serenading Cynthia and she's over the moon about it, and the girl next to her is like "hmmmm....."

And the guy next to the girl next to Cynthia looks like he's wishing Paul was singing to him.

Paul was too damn cute in that interview, especially at the end with the sheep bit. He was what? 49 or something then? And he was still so damn adorable('course he still is and he's 20 years older now, he got that sort of sweet bashful "I just said something kind of naughty" smile he could get.

Jess713:

A bunch of pics of Paul and family. http://i35.tinypic.com/2gwu8pi.jpg http://i36.tinypic.com/ieqceh.jpg http://i33.tinypic.com/2ebwlg0.jpg http://i33.tinypic.com/1077445.jpg http://i37.tinypic.com/1zxs500.jpg http://i38.tinypic.com/2zyycg9.jpg http://i38.tinypic.com/2h3rntd.jpg http://i38.tinypic.com/5zf9n5.jpg http://i38.tinypic.com/23tjtiv.jpg http://i33.tinypic.com/aywqbn.jpg http://i34.tinypic.com/jrfbrn.jpg http://i33.tinypic.com/rm7408.jpg http://i35.tinypic.com/98hycw.jpg http://i33.tinypic.com/15mflu0.jpg http://i36.tinypic.com/2d7zz9e.jpg And I love this: http://i38.tinypic.com/282e25l.jpg

Paul likes doing hand stands. Gotta admire the man's athleticism(or at least sense of balance) There is a picture of him doing a hand stand on the beach in a bathing suit too, as I recall.