Nick Rhodes from DuranDuran on this board?

[PhonoquO]

Anybody know if Nick Rhodes is around on here?

[thenoodle]

Yes. When he posts, he uses the name Walters.

[allencollins]

is that the gtr player?
He's real good

[thenoodle]

No, Nick is the guy that stands next to the keyboards. I'm not sure if he plays, but I've checked their videos and he definitely stands there.

[allencollins]

Originally Posted by thenoodle

No, Nick is the guy that stands next to the keyboards. I'm not sure if he plays, but I've checked their videos and he definitely stands there.

Oh lol Who was the gtr player? That guy smoked. He didn't get to show off that much on CD. Live he was very Dynamic. I didn't care much for pop music in the 80's
but I thought those guys were very original and very good.

[not_so_new]

Originally Posted by allencollins

Oh lol Who was the gtr player? That guy smoked. He didn't get to show off that much on CD. Live he was very Dynamic. I didn't care much for pop music in the 80's
but I thought those guys were very original and very good.

Same here (well except I did dig pop in the 80s). To me the real gem of that band was the bass player, really serious chops.

I just saw them over the summer, great show. The new CD is good as well.....

I don't know anything about Nick Rhodes hanging out here, I would doubt it but you never know who is lurking 'round these parts do ya?

[Syki]

Hmmmm, how many "Platinums"...quite a few...lol

[allencollins]

Originally Posted by not_so_new

To me the real gem of that band was the bass player, really serious chops.

Yeah he was awesome too. Kinda like the dude in level 42 (remember them??)
Just a bit tamer or 'produced' though

bravo the 80's!

[qubi]

Nick Rhodes???? R u Kidding??? man, ok, I'm showing my age, but he was a big influence on me.. I mean the guy standing behind a rack of classic Roland synths and a fairlite behind him.. If that image isnt the seed of a gear slut than what is?? (yes, I'm a keyboard player ) .. BTW, John taylor plays bass (and also in power station with Robert Palmer, RIP).. And he IS awesome.. Some of the most melodic basslines in 80's pop music.. Ok, so I'm an oldschool-Durany.. Oh well.. If he is lurking around here, it would be great to hear from him..

Peace

[warhead]

I thought Duran Duran had some very cool songs in the 80's but haven't kept up with them since. Those guys could actually PLAY though, very talented.

My favorite tune of theirs I must admit...a soundtrack song: "A View To A Kill". Just always dug it, not to mention it was the first Bond flick I ever saw in the theatre.

If he is hanging here somebody wake him up!

War

[ozraves]

They made better records with Warren Cuccurullo before they decided to go back to the past and sort of do the self tribute thing.

[aevan]

Wasn't the guitarist Andy Taylor? He played in Power Station too from memory.
He was from the tapping brigade era.

[timmcallister]

As a matter of personal taste, I did NOT like them during their highest popularity. I will say however, The Wedding Album, was absolutely brilliant.

[Rufuss Sewell]

I truly believe Nick Rhodes is the reason I produce music for a living. The synth textures in Duran Duran are unlike any other band. When I was 7 (1982) my older female cousin would play them all the time. Even at that age I remember thinking that with just about any other band I knew what each member was contributing to the music. The singer sang, the drummer drummed... so on. But Duran Duran had sounds that didn't seem to exist in this world... and nick was sitting there in front of a bunch of computer screens twiddling knobs. To me at that age, everyone else in the music world was just a musician, but Nick Rhodes was a magician.

In fact I have a Nick Rhodes sticker on my Juno 60... now I just need a Jupiter 8!

The cool thing about Nick was while everyone else went DX7 he continued to do new things with analogs. He's not as concerned with playing notes as he is with creating new worlds for the music to exist in. Even today he uses an Alesis Andromeda. His endorsement and praise convinced me to get one. And I absolutely love it.

By the way, Medazzaland (1997) is a great album that basically got overlooked. There are 5 or 6 Duran Duran classics on there. Unfortunately Electric Barbarella and Big Bang Generation were chosen as the singles, and they're kind of weak songs.

My Top 5 Duran Duran Songs:

1. Winter Marches On (Notorious)
2. Of Crime and Passion (7 and the Ragged Tiger)
3. New Religion (Rio)
4. Night Boat (Duran Duran)
5. The Promise (Arcadia... but might as well be Duran Duran... plus David Gilmour and Sting... you can't beat that!)

[C Heat]

Arcadia. Yay!

[Tubthumper]

A band I once played in got the Duran x2 support slot here in the mid-80s. I tried to strike up a friendly conversation with the guitarist (Andy Taylor??) backstage, however it appeared that I wasn’t good enough for him.

All I can really recall from our show was that, as soon as the stage manager shone his torch side stage so as we could find our way onto stage, 5000 girls let out the sort of scream that I’d dreamt about all my life. Now, common sense told me that they didn’t really care a flying fukk for us, BUT….. I thought I’d made it as a muso that night.

The best was yet to come: the after party. NEVER had I seen so many gorgeous women in the one location at the one time….. there was a queue of…. well….. shitloads of them, all lined up, checking their makeup, adjusting their cleavages, pulling their frilly blouses and stuff, just waiting to be granted an “audience” with their royal highnesses.

Is there a single Duran x2 song that has stood the test of time??? Hmmm, dunno, can’t think of any right now.

[Sounds Great]

They did a vocal thing on one song that always made me quite ill. That and a particular Georgia Satellites number.

[Blast9]

As I understand it, a lot of the "tricky" bass was played by Bernard Edwards when Nile Rodgers produced them


As for Andy Taylor... "Dysfunctional" and "coke" springs to mind. And that's from a friend who knows!

[MadGuitrst]

Originally Posted by ozraves

They made better records with Warren Cuccurullo before they decided to go back to the past and sort of do the self tribute thing.

I agree with that 100%.
The records of that DD era were very good and Warren is far superior to Taylor.

[Vermeer]

The thing with these guys is that initially I did not believed they played their own instruments (too pretty). Then I seriously got into Power Station ( Andy taylor, John Taylor, Robert Palmer and Tony Thomson) which was produced by the Chic guys (Freak Out, We Are Family). Anyway serious shop going on.

When I first heard The Killers ' "Somebody Told Me", I could not believe how they totally had the same sound. Specially the bass player. On the synth department, they only used a Korg Triton (I recognize all the standard presets), so they have miles to go before they can match Nick Rhodes's keyboard chic.

By the way, there is a guitarist named Nick Rhode who I believed played on Peter Gabriel and Gowan's albums from the 80's.

Vermeer - 80's Revisionist

[sedohr]

Oo yeah. I loved Duran in the eighties. And some good stuff came in the nineties too. The productions were brilliant, as were the songs. All that strange chord changes and the unusual harmonies. The bass playing was of course too one of the signatures of the Duran sound.

I read an interview with Nick Rhodes last year in SOS or Future Music and it was fun to see how ambitious he is regarding his sound. Always amps the keyboards and stuff. He hates the softsynths too.

They came to Iceland last summer. Wow, that was nostalgic. They were great. A little older than in the 80´s

I didn´t know about the Bernard Edwards thing. But then I just learned that Bernard Purdie played some of the first Beatles albums! But who knows

Kalli

[BB Bill]

Originally Posted by Tubthumper

Is there a single Duran x2 song that has stood the test of time??? Hmmm, dunno, can’t think of any right now.

Ordinary World is a modern classic. Everyone knows that one, from the second the guitar intro starts. Beautiful song.

[Synth80s]

Originally Posted by Vermeer

By the way, there is a guitarist named Nick Rhode who I believed played on Peter Gabriel and Gowan's albums from the 80's.

Are you sure you're not thinking of David Rhodes? He still plays with PG and he kicks ass.

http://www.davidrhodes.org/

-Synth80s

[Synth80s]

Nick Rhodes is a monster. IMO, he and Greg Hawkes were among the most influential keyboardists in pop music for a solid decade.

If you want to hear a great modern Nick Rhodes album, check out The Devils' album "Dark Circles" from 2003. The first song will get you dancing on the hood of your car. The album is inventive and sleek. It stands up to repeated listens.

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p...kcikpsbb59~T00

The Devils are Nick Rhodes and Steven Duffy. Duffy is the criminally overlooked leader of "The Lilac Time" who was also a founding member and the original lead singer and bassist of Duran Duran before he left for a solo career and DD took off for stardom.

-Synth80s

[BB Bill]

Originally Posted by Rufuss Sewell

I truly believe Nick Rhodes is the reason I produce music for a living. The synth textures in Duran Duran are unlike any other band.

I'm with you on this one.

It's easy to poke fun at Rhodes' piano chops, and he himself has admitted many times that he is by no means a new Hancock. But the synth and sample work he did with both Duran Duran and Arcadia in the mid 80's was very innovative, and it certainly influenced me a lot.

Arcadia's "So Red The Rose" contains some of the most beautiful and most original synth/sample/sound fx textures ever. And those keyboard stabs on "A View To A Kill" were the f***ing coolest thing I had heard at the time!

Because they were so popular with teenage girls, and because they were the ones who "invented" music videos it was (and is) easy to dismiss them as a new Bay City Rollers, but they were OK players and they wrote some pretty damned good songs too. The production on their 80's albums do sound dated, but try playing "Save a Prayer", "The Chauffeur" or "Winter Marches On" just on an acoustic gtr and they're really strong, timeless songs.

And "Ordinary World" is easily one of the 5 best power ballads of all time IMO.

[Synth80s]

Originally Posted by Rufuss Sewell

I truly believe Nick Rhodes is the reason I produce music for a living. The synth textures in Duran Duran are unlike any other band. When I was 7 (1982) my older female cousin would play them all the time. Even at that age I remember thinking that with just about any other band I knew what each member was contributing to the music. The singer sang, the drummer drummed... so on. But Duran Duran had sounds that didn't seem to exist in this world... and nick was sitting there in front of a bunch of computer screens twiddling knobs. To me at that age, everyone else in the music world was just a musician, but Nick Rhodes was a magician.

In fact I have a Nick Rhodes sticker on my Juno 60... now I just need a Jupiter 8!

The cool thing about Nick was while everyone else went DX7 he continued to do new things with analogs. He's not as concerned with playing notes as he is with creating new worlds for the music to exist in. Even today he uses an Alesis Andromeda. His endorsement and praise convinced me to get one. And I absolutely love it.

By the way, Medazzaland (1997) is a great album that basically got overlooked. There are 5 or 6 Duran Duran classics on there. Unfortunately Electric Barbarella and Big Bang Generation were chosen as the singles, and they're kind of weak songs.

My Top 5 Duran Duran Songs:

1. Winter Marches On (Notorious)
2. Of Crime and Passion (7 and the Ragged Tiger)
3. New Religion (Rio)
4. Night Boat (Duran Duran)
5. The Promise (Arcadia... but might as well be Duran Duran... plus David Gilmour and Sting... you can't beat that!)

Ha! I almost picked up a minty Juno 60 last week with Nick in mind and I passed on a Jupiter 8 last year (cheap but with an unknown history).

I dig your top 5, especially "Winter Marches On". Agree that Medazzaland was a great album. Unfortunately, DD strung together a few albums with only a handful of strong songs. I dig "My Antarctica" on Liberty, but the album has a lot of bland songs. Pop Trash has a handful of good tunes as well. The lone Arcadia album is a sonic masterpiece. "Lady Ice" is perhaps the ultimate expression of the New England Synclavier. And does it get any cooler than the heavily filtered and gated drums on "View to a Kill?" That was defining sound -- take that, Phil Collins! ;-)

If you don't have these, here are two DD-related releases to pick up:

1) "Astronaut" in SACD 5.1 (I think they may have also released a DVD-Audio version). Not the best surround mix, but a bit more interesting than the CD.
2) The Devils "Dark Circles" (see my previous post) -- A fantastic album that few people seem to know about.

-Synth80s

[Ruudman]

For me, "Save a Prayer" from RIO is a good tune.


ruudman

[DonPedro]

Duran Duran played Iceland some months ago, and they fukking rocked. Really good good show and excellent performance. They have so many hits that people can sing along the whole concert.

Major influence to us thirty-somethings at least.

[JulianBrightnes]

Like their studio-work a lot, but Simon LeBon really can't sing.
Anyone remember their performance at LiveAid in '85?

Cheerio, Julian

[dave-G]

I'm in my 30s, and Duran Duran's influence on me was that I think they blew.

In high school, a friend and I made up some bumper stickers that looked like the SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving), but recaptioned them to say Students Against Duran Duran. There might still be one on an old guitar case somewhere.

Those were dark times in popular culture, IMO. .. Good bass player or not - the overall gesture into the world that this band made was just so .. er.. cringey.

Oh, and Patrick Nagel can eat a dick.

-dave