Sly Stone on the Grammys

[gamrecords]

well once again another grammy fiasco

The legendary Sly Stone makes an appearance as the baddest looking 60 (or close to it) year old, and they totally butcher it. I don't blame the other musicians but the Grammys themselves.
When Sly grabbed the mic and went to the front of the stage and looked like he wanted to vamp on "higher" the band went it's own way back into the head, thus pissing Sly off enough to just walk off the stage. Follow the dam leader instead of your chart, or the way it was rehearsed, 'cause you know Sly didn't make it for no rehearsal.
Good going Grammys, next time you want to give your respect to an artist, learn what respect means. Honor our legends, and treat our drug addicts with kid gloves.
Show some love.

michael

[Matthew Murray]

Wicked, walking of stage. I'm sorry, but as a musician, isn't that the lamest thing to do? I think it is. You make the best of what happens, you make it work. Especially when you're a "legend", and have decided to make such a rare performance.

Oh, and thanks for blowing it for me .. the telecast must be delayed up here in Canada.. i'm only just past coldplay's lame performance.

[Rick Sutton]

Is that what happened?

Sly has been so reclusive for so long that it's a miracle that he even found the courage to get up on stage. Was reading before the event that it was "iffy" whether he'd get up there with the musicians at all.
Better ask Sly what took place before you make accusations.
I felt fortunate just to hear his songs and see the love that everyone showed for him. We both took different things from this event.

[Dor]

stop ruining it for the west coasters!!!

[trident fan]

hey hooser stop dissin sly

[Matthew Murray]

Stop dissin hoosers
I wasn't dissing sly. I love sly. But if he walked off the stage for such petty reasons, I'm not going to say "aww, poor sly, i'm sorry sly, that must have been awful, muffin". He's bigtime enough that he should be able to take it.

It's not dissing. It just is what it is. I'll still listen to his music, and still worship him.

[Lectra]

dfegad Grammys x 10

Don't watch it ! tutt
Take a few minutes & listen to a record instead.
This was just strange, sad and so f**cked up...
Poor Sly

[wwittman]

I'd BET that Sly had already decided to walk off no matter what happened.

meanwhile, who ever did the music on-air mix needs to be shot. (after the torture).

AWFUL.

[Matthew Murray]

Why all the benefit of the doubt to Sly? Sly can do no wrong, etc?
Of course, I haven't even seen what happened yet ...

[KurtR]

Originally Posted by wwittman

I
meanwhile, who ever did the music on-air mix needs to be shot. (after the torture).

AWFUL.

It sounded amazing to me (compared to the superbowl)

[petemin]

gamrecords,

i haven't seen it yet, but my friend plays in one of the bands that was part of the sly tribute and he told me that it was pre recorded, so even if they wanted to follow sly, they couldn't. pete

[Guarnanene]

Originally Posted by KurtR

It sounded amazing to me (compared to the superbowl)

dude, a behringer dynamic in the back of the stadium would have sounded better than the superbowl


I dunno, I kind of agree with the post against sly, Yes, the band should have followed him, but they weren't supposed to. the show is on a strict time schedule, they can't allow random vamps on the wim of the artist. him walking of the stage was stupid.

[dtucker]

Originally Posted by wwittman

meanwhile, who ever did the music on-air mix needs to be shot. (after the torture).

AWFUL.

I hate to play devil's advocate, but I work on a daily live TV show. I've watched the audio guy pull some serious rabbits out of his ass. But that's only ONE show and ONE act at a time.

Now imagine you have ALL of the modern "greats" at one show...all together in the same arena (NOT a studio...an ARENA!) and you have to juggle all of this during a LIVE broadcast! How many different inputs are we dealing with? Jesus...it's beyond anything you've ever worked with before. And, yes, I'm well aware of your credits.

Tracking in a studio and doing a broadcast of that magnitude are two totally different beasts. Also, chances are that there were multiple trucks doing mixes for the many different acts. There is a very good chance that the person mixing Mariah wasn't mixing Bruce, or Paul, or whathaveyou.

Don't diss broadcast engineers until you've seen them work. I would bet that most of the guys (or gals) mixing tonight's broadcast were the best in the biz...but they were dealt a hand that was nearly impossible to deal with.

Blame the Grammys. They've made just watching the broadcast completely unbearable.

[Matthew Murray]

Hmm. Just saw the Sly number. Didn't look like he was all that pissed to me. You might have misinterpreted what happened, I'd say.
He is kind of like... old now. Chances are he just got a little overwhelemd. THAT he can't be blamed for.

[gamrecords]

when you get called out and you are the legend that they are honoring, you would think they would have his vocal mic up as well as the Motif he was playing.

He probably could give a @#$% about this anyway, and hasn't been seen for 20 years, and he won't be seen for another long time if at all. And probably said eff it, I don't need this, and walked off.

Who knows, these shows are such crap I guess is my point. If they really wanted to honor him, they should of had Prince out there and others that were trully affected by him.

WW, saw you on cable the other day with the big Cindy Lauper show, now that was VERY cool. Some great guests, and seemed like it was a lot of fun.

...and now I have a face to put with the man behind some great work I truly admire.

just my 0.2,

michael

[GYMusic]

Yeah.. Sly... uh ... well...uh

But Kelly Clarkson? Clive must have a bundle backin' that shit.

[henryrobinett]

He didn't look pissed to me. As he walked off he gave a sly smile. Then again maybe the west coast feed was cut somehow. But from here it didn't look that bad. Now HE looked really bad. I mean he looked bad. But what would you expect?

[DC11]

Didn't look that bad to me. He smiled, waved and left. I figured a performance like this was rehersed and he may have thought it was done or something. Or he just felt it was time to leave.

I could give a shit about 95% of the grammys and the artists, but Kelly Clarkson was great. I'm not even talking about her song, though that was fine. I mean her speeches.

[gamrecords]

Originally Posted by GYMusic

Yeah.. Sly... uh ... well...uh

But Kelly Clarkson? Clive must have a bundle backin' that shit.

Yha, good thing she beat out Bonnie Raitt and Sheryl Crow and even Gwen, she's such a better talent.

Another musical creation that is putting money in peoples pockets.
Don't get me wrong, I think she can really sing, but she's more marketable right now, and that is what wins/sells.

Now Kanye West, I got no problem with confidence, but damn.
.....and when did Coldplay become U2?

ok, enough of my sarcasm. Somebody's going to yell at me about Kanye, I know it.
Hey, I know he's got skills, but it's the guys that don't have to say much, that I'm more interested in.

michael

[the1Hub]

Originally Posted by gamrecords

when you get called out and you are the legend that they are honoring, you would think they would have his vocal mic up as well as the Motif he was playing.

michael

the show had tons of tech problems. anybody catch the sugarland performance as a great example? he had two mics up for vocals, one wich seemed to work but way to low. the other looks like it was hooked up to a talk box and possibly a vocoder (the synth he was playing perhaps (it looked like only a midi connection no audio, could be wrong though) that was the mic he was singing into at first but i could not hear a thing unless he shifted slightly toward the other mic.

mabey for another thread but who the hell turns up the guy form linkin park over sir paul singing his own song!!!!?!?

simply put... shamefull attempt imho. bad grammy show no respect for you this year tutt

[gamrecords]

>>he had two mics up for vocals, one wich seemed to work but way to low. the other looks like it was hooked up to a talk box and possibly a vocoder<<

that's what I'm saying, the talk box was there for something cool that Sly would of or could of done. Let the man have his time, he earned it.

Yha, the show had a plethora of tech problems, it was funny seeing them cut off Chris Lord Alge up there with Green Day.

michael

[RKrizman]

Originally Posted by wwittman

I'd BET that Sly had already decided to walk off no matter what happened.

meanwhile, who ever did the music on-air mix needs to be shot. (after the torture).

AWFUL.

Yeah, seemed like Sly's mic was off for the first several bars. Maybe the same guy mixed this who mixed the Stones on the Superbowl.

All in all, what a dreadful show. Is this the best that the mainstream record industry has to offer? Once iTunes reaches another 25% deeper into the modern catalog, nobody's going to ever buy a CD again.

-R

[Remoteness]

Like I stated in another thread...

This is just my opinion but, I don't think the recording/mixing engineers for live broadcast events use their solo buttons enough.

I've been the EIC or audio coordinator for plenty of remote truck dates when I wasn't the mixer and the guest engineer never used the solo system during the actual live broadcast performance. They just DO NOT care to listen to individual channels while they're on air.

I think that's insane but, like I said before -- It's my opinion.

When I mix live shows (be it TV, radio or whatever) I not only solo channels in a variety of different solo modes, I also listen to the mix from a mono speaker mounted six feet behind my scull. And I don't turn around to listen to it either. I want to hear how the mono signal sounds hitting the back of my head. Matter of fact my main speaker switch is patched to my nearfields and the nearfield switch is patched to that mono speaker setup behind me. When applicable, I also setup a hot feed of the show to a separate speaker. This helps me when I'm soloing for long periods of time -- I can still hear the broadcast mix to air off the hot feed.

I need these setups and conditions to do my job correctly. It's the only way I like to mix a live broadcast show.

Does this make any sense to you folks?

[ExistanceMusic]

I never take cans to live gigs anymore. There's been a few times where I wish I had, but I always get by. Live to air mixes, on the other hand, I always have my cheap senns around my neck. They are comfy there, and I can just stick 'em on my ear to make sure of things, like whether the guitar mix got kicked or if the snare mic's been knocked out of the way. Doubly important if you can't see what you're mixing.
I like the way you have it set up Steve, I might look into something like that in the future.

[Remoteness]

I never solo into "cans" in the studio or remote truck -- I use speakers. If I'm doing FOH, and it's applicable, I'll bring my nearfield monitors and K/T stereo DDL so I can time ailgn the speakers and "cans" (if necessary) to my FOH mix postion in the room... It's a great way to deal with soloing at FOH.

[ExistanceMusic]

Yeah, I've been playing with delaying my heaphones to line up with the FOH sound if I'm in a trailer that's far enough away to muck me up. I have a D2 in my flightcase that doesn't get used sometimes. Are you using your nearfields for tonal decisions or just for soloing? I only use the cans for "what the hell is that buzz" or "why can't i hear the snare" type things. Everything else I just get my balances in FOH or the broadcast monitors.
What's your reasoning behind having your solo'd channels coming out a speaker instead of cans?

[LX3]

Re Sly... just seen it on British TV. I'm sure Sly was meant to be there to the end of the number. Looked to me like he felt so uncomfortable, he'd had enough and left the band to it. Did you see the looks Will I Am and Steve Tyler gave each other after his exit? Spoke volumes.

Great band though (was that Nile Rodgers on guitar?). And I thought the live mix was competent, considering how many channels they must have had going just for that performance. Bit of a "TV mix", with the vocals pretty up-front, but better that than lose the vocal altogether. Apart from burying Sly, but maybe that was intentional - he looked a bit lost most of the time, so I'm not sure what was in his vocal mic was worth turning up!

[trident fan]

i have so much respect for sly. nile rodgers is a jack ass. fuuck did u see randy jackson trying to play bass.

[DC11]

Dawg, you know we did dawg

[Roger Starr]

Sly is fantastic, tho' probably totally brain blown up guy. I have all his albums and it's all just great. We don't know what exactly happend, but Sly is a 60's and 70's freak. Loose in a positive way, but unfortunately also negative. In case he wanted to improvise, or actually just making music and no computer pre-recorded bull-sh*t, they were simply not prepared to that. Says a lot about the whole plastic Grammy TV that gives no space to REAL music played live. It's like caging King Kong. A good band leader and good musicians knows exactly how to anticipate on a front man, how weird he or she might be. I hope that some will be heard of Sly and most of all, I would like to see the original Stone Family Band instead the ones who did that tribute, way, way better. Also, that whole Tribute Album s*cks, to much rap bulsh*tters doing nothing but wrong on the great music Sly made (Steve sings cool and the Moby groove is not too bad neither tho'). Well, OK...

Roger