Adonai

Talk about Petra albums, songs, and concerts.
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p-freak
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Re: Adonai

Post by p-freak » Fri Jan 29, 2016 5:49 am

While I might not agree with BriGuyPEI, I don't think his statement deserves the ridicule that it gets. Things to thoughtfully discuss:

How were these melodies prepared? Did Bob write them or did John have some influence on them as well? Was it perhaps a different process from how they worked with the Elefantes? Was it perhaps the absence of the Elefantes that created a different pattern as far as melodies are concerned? Perhaps they deliberately wrote and recorded the music in a different way, so the melodies would be less or perhaps more supported by the music. We do have some people with a music ear here. Let them pick apart a few songs from Unseen Power and Wake-Up Call and compare them with the recording process in mind.
BriGuyPEI wrote:Second: Wake-Up Call. I went back and listened to it again today. I think the real weakness is the melodies. I've mentioned this before about a couple of songs in other threads, but it struck me in many of the other songs today as well. I find that the melodies in many songs (or parts of songs) sound forced and awkward. The biggest example of this is Marks of the Cross. It almost sounds like John is just picking notes at random and stringing them together. Others that stood out today: Believer In Deed, the chorus of Sleeping Giant, Strong Convictions, the verses of He's Been In My Shoes. I've named most of the songs here. When the album first came out, I thought that Bob had run out of songs.
I agree with BriGuyPEI that the melody of Marks Of The Cross is not very strong. It's sounds quite repetitive and I can imagine that it sounds like John is improvizing the melody on the spot (which is a different way of saying 'just picking notes at random and stringing them together'). It would be very interesting to find out how much freedom John was given or in what way Bannister influenced these melodies, or if Bob perhaps deliberately wrote different types of melodies for this album/producer.
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Re: Adonai

Post by Mountain Man » Sun Jan 31, 2016 5:16 pm

pmal wrote:Think about this: the band must not have been too crazy about it because they didn't release another album like it. Debate that. Or do you think that matters?
Wake-Up Call was the final "Dream Team" album. Probably why they never released another one like it since their output over the next several years was all over the map musically.
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Re: Adonai

Post by Mountain Man » Sun Jan 31, 2016 5:28 pm

p-freak wrote:I agree with BriGuyPEI that the melody of Marks Of The Cross is not very strong. It's sounds quite repetitive and I can imagine that it sounds like John is improvizing the melody on the spot (which is a different way of saying 'just picking notes at random and stringing them together'). It would be very interesting to find out how much freedom John was given or in what way Bannister influenced these melodies, or if Bob perhaps deliberately wrote different types of melodies for this album/producer.
The melody is consistent. While John may have improvised some of the "woahs" and other flourishes, I doubt he ad libbed any part of the song's melody.
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Re: Adonai

Post by BriGuyPEI » Sun Jan 31, 2016 6:54 pm

Wow, I'm off for a few days and look what happened! I guess I could have worded this better, but my opinion is that the melodies just sound forced and there are times where the flow of notes just doesn't seem natural. In Marks of the Cross, the first 10 or so notes flow and then all of a sudden the pitch jumps way up (the word "abound" for example). To me it just sounds awkward. In the other cases I mentioned, I'm not saying there is no melody, I'm saying that to me the melody doesn't seem to flow well or naturally. Personal opinion I guess.
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Re: Adonai

Post by superfly » Tue Feb 02, 2016 12:40 pm

If memory serves, Cates wrote the music for Marks Of The Cross and Bob did the lyrics.
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Re: Adonai

Post by Toby » Wed Feb 03, 2016 6:01 am

Every time I listen to the WUC record, I ask myself if this is really Louie on drums or a session drummer playing. If I compare the drumming style between WUC and PP2/GF for me there is a big difference. Some fills on WUC don't sound to me like Louie would play them. Or maybe he had to change his playing style for PP2 and GF...
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Re: Adonai

Post by executioner » Wed Feb 03, 2016 12:48 pm

Toby wrote:Every time I listen to the WUC record, I ask myself if this is really Louie on drums or a session drummer playing. If I compare the drumming style between WUC and PP2/GF for me there is a big difference. Some fills on WUC don't sound to me like Louie would play them. Or maybe he had to change his playing style for PP2 and GF...
It's a well known fact that Louie did very little drumming on God Fixation(Kevin Brandow did most of it), and Louie did all the drumming on WUC with a quote from Brown Bannister saying that very little session players were used on the album and wanted Louie's raw sound to come out and questioned why Louie hadn't been used by the previous producers. I am not sure about PP2, but it would not surprise me if it was multiple people.
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Re: Adonai

Post by Mountain Man » Wed Feb 03, 2016 2:45 pm

I think Wake Up Call is one of the purest examples of Louie's skills as a drummer. It's just pure Louie with few if any overdubs or samples. One of the many reasons it's one of my favorite Petra albums.

I was going to include Captured in Time and Space, but that featured a lot of the electronic drums which I've heard Louie hated to play on because he had to change his style to accommodate (for instance, he couldn't do quick fills on an electronic drum because the samples would get clipped short).
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Re: Adonai

Post by Toby » Thu Feb 04, 2016 3:28 am

executioner wrote:
Toby wrote:Every time I listen to the WUC record, I ask myself if this is really Louie on drums or a session drummer playing. If I compare the drumming style between WUC and PP2/GF for me there is a big difference. Some fills on WUC don't sound to me like Louie would play them. Or maybe he had to change his playing style for PP2 and GF...
It's a well known fact that Louie did very little drumming on God Fixation(Kevin Brandow did most of it), and Louie did all the drumming on WUC with a quote from Brown Bannister saying that very little session players were used on the album and wanted Louie's raw sound to come out and questioned why Louie hadn't been used by the previous producers. I am not sure about PP2, but it would not surprise me if it was multiple people.
Ok, I always thought that Kevin only played on "The Invitation". The drums on WUC are killer! I wish they would had done more records with Brown Bannister after WUC.
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Re: Adonai

Post by brent » Thu Feb 04, 2016 11:35 pm

Louie didn't really play drums on several of the Petra records. There were session drum and bass players at first with JDB producing. That is how it is for a good number of bands in the secular world too. During the E brothers years, they wanted to mimmic Def Lepard and such, so they made Louie play simple, do overdubs, playing over the programmed parts. There little to no drums at all on BTS. Drums and bass were pretty much done in the synth. There were no drums PP1 IIRC. That was all mapped by John L. Louie told me the way things were structured, he didn't get paid to rehearse or to record at the end. He just got paid for live shows. He had a painting business and he drove tour busses to put food on the table. So, it is possible that Louie didn't play much. Louie didn't do what he didn't want to do. He marches to his own beat.
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Re: Adonai

Post by Thief » Sat Feb 06, 2016 12:41 pm

I'm surprised. I mean, I knew Louie didn't play in most of the early albums with JDB, but I didn't know that was something that continued on other albums as well.
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Re: Adonai

Post by executioner » Sun Feb 07, 2016 10:35 pm

Toby wrote:
executioner wrote:
Toby wrote:Every time I listen to the WUC record, I ask myself if this is really Louie on drums or a session drummer playing. If I compare the drumming style between WUC and PP2/GF for me there is a big difference. Some fills on WUC don't sound to me like Louie would play them. Or maybe he had to change his playing style for PP2 and GF...
It's a well known fact that Louie did very little drumming on God Fixation(Kevin Brandow did most of it), and Louie did all the drumming on WUC with a quote from Brown Bannister saying that very little session players were used on the album and wanted Louie's raw sound to come out and questioned why Louie hadn't been used by the previous producers. I am not sure about PP2, but it would not surprise me if it was multiple people.
Ok, I always thought that Kevin only played on "The Invitation". The drums on WUC are killer! I wish they would had done more records with Brown Bannister after WUC.
Louie played on only 2 songs from God Fixation which were the first 2 tracks laid down, after that he either had other commitments or just didn't bother to show up; I've heard from 2 different sources that he was a no call no show during most of the production on God Fixation and because of his reluctance to play on JAH got that recording process delayed somewhere around 2 months which ended up him being basically let go.
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Re: Adonai

Post by executioner » Sun Feb 07, 2016 10:37 pm

Thief wrote:I'm surprised. I mean, I knew Louie didn't play in most of the early albums with JDB, but I didn't know that was something that continued on other albums as well.

More often than not Louie wasn't on the albums over his Petra career.
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Re: Adonai

Post by executioner » Sun Feb 07, 2016 10:39 pm

Mountain Man wrote:I think Wake Up Call is one of the purest examples of Louie's skills as a drummer. It's just pure Louie with few if any overdubs or samples. One of the many reasons it's one of my favorite Petra albums.

I was going to include Captured in Time and Space, but that featured a lot of the electronic drums which I've heard Louie hated to play on because he had to change his style to accommodate (for instance, he couldn't do quick fills on an electronic drum because the samples would get clipped short).

It's a shame we didn't hear more from Louie because he really is a great drummer; there most likely would have been a different element added to those albums. I've always felt like the drumming especially during the JDB years were just very basic & bland.
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Re: Adonai

Post by Thief » Tue Feb 09, 2016 8:34 am

executioner wrote:
Thief wrote:I'm surprised. I mean, I knew Louie didn't play in most of the early albums with JDB, but I didn't know that was something that continued on other albums as well.

More often than not Louie wasn't on the albums over his Petra career.
Really surprised by this, and even a bit disappointed. Not in Louie, but rather by knowing that most of what I've heard from Petra wasn't him. Any idea of which albums we can be sure he played on? Aside of More Power to Ya.
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