stephen stills sucks

and there's something about the voicings used in his songs, even in the CSN stuff, that really rubs me the wrong way. one day i'll get to the bottom of that. for now i'll just leave it at: he sucks.

Go fuck the one you're with.

Sincerely,
an oldies radio casualty

i've always been a bit puzzled as to why david crosby gets slagged by some for the foregoing negative traits, when it's always seemed to me that stills personified them MUCH MORE than crosby ever did. and stills doesn't have a drug habit to blame it all upon ... nor was he ever as good as crosby was (in the byrds).

-- RM (rm...) (webmail), December 25th, 2004 2:00 PM. (link)

I WISH this could be true; unfortunately while driving home the oldies station decided to inflict not one not two but THREE stephen stills songs on me in a row. so apparently people still like him.

meltzer is always way ahead of the curve, man.

frightening words

(Hey Michael, three-letter user names were great until the spammers came along; now every time someone spam-runs (all combinations)@mydomain, I'm one of the first stops.)

It might be the best example of sixties disillusionment put on record.

i like some of stills other solo stuff.

http://www.nrk.no/img/493374.jpeg

I've just spent the last few days listening to "Stephen Stills" and "Stephen Stills 2". Perhaps the lyrical sentiments are tired and cliched, but the music and the performances are pretty damn good. Dude had a lot of southern white-boy soul.

And funny enough, I felt compelled to listen to these albums after I read Shakey. And Stills DEFINITELY was the most loathsome character in the book. I shied away from ever checking him out because I've always detested CSN, and only ever had time for Ohio and Helpless when it came to the CSNY canon.

Interesting

I am totally interested, but I'm a fan of early Still.

"Change Partners" came in while I was shopping in Home Depot a couple weeks back and it sounded great.

that disc does look interesting, thanks for the heads-up.

ok so I picked up 'Stephen Stills II' and "Change Partners" is truly incredible ... C'mon Amateurist

c'mon stormy, it took you this long?!?

Stephen Stills sucks?

Well we wouldn't have had Christina Applegate if he hadn't...

yeah hstencil I am a lame-o, what can I say!! I am always late to the party. Other super later acquisitions include the entire Bonnie Raitt catalog which I have been gorging on recently/

"Change Partners"'s time changes -- verse/chorus-- are pretty and slinky, and this ode to 70s free love is real fine from where i sit

you're not lame - oh wait, you like bonnie raitt, maybe you are lame!

no seriously it had more to do with amateurist than anything. you're still my bro.

ps. kenny williams better make a trade already, amirite?

dude the Sox bullpen is a travesty .. If they end up trading Buehrle, so be it, as far as I care -- Mark deserves better than the bunch of bums they assembled behind him. first five Bonnie Raitt albums are incredible, dude, check them out!!

Yeah Suite gets overlooked due to ubiquity I guess but it’s dope af

If anyone wants to know what makes Nash worthwhile, you need to hear the later Hollies tracks that he wrote and sang (not so much their singles).

Like what
― calstars, Wednesday, May 18, 2022 6:19 PM

got curious myself because i only knew the real big ones ("king midas" and "bus stop" basically) and the whole album butterfly is about as solid as it gets for britpop of the time. i would say it's closer to what the kinks were doing on albums like face to face or something else than anything else i'm familiar with. hint of buffalo springfield spice in that you really can sense who was the leader on each song, even though they have joint writing credit (suppose you could say the same for the beatles in the end, obvs). his songs with csn(y) seem like a pretty logical progression in hindsight. hollies' harmonies are also super good. not a new opinion, i know. but i've never really heard this stuff in depth before. "RECOMMENDED IF YOU LIKE . . ." kind of deal. it's quite nice.☺

(also i didn't know what i was doing and played the back-to-back mono->stereo version. stereo version doesn't really work on headphones. "try it" is good fun though. most of the songs are still great, regardless of mix.)

oh yeah, sorry to up this for the reason of not shit talking sexy stevie. you sensual thumb puppet, with a heart of pure cocaine.♥

I like how in Shakey, Stills often comes across as the Daffy Duck to Neil's Bugs Bunny.

I'm not familiar with who-does-what in the Hollies, but besides a long run of excellent singles (stretching beyond Nash's time in the group), I really enjoy Evolution as well - an under-appreciated gem from the Summer of Love.

The stereo/mono/etc. mixes with their back catalog is kind of a mess, thanks to both frequent re-issues of the '90s-era remixes and the fact that the Hollies camp refuses to allow any licensee to remaster the mono mixes - they're all forced to use the shitty sounding digital masters that were heavily processed with NoNoise. I prefer mono but I'm hoping someone out there digitally transfers good copies of the original vinyl.

is Manassas kind of a weird forgtten gem of a project?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ01tkS8nhU

i still like manassass though. eerie and eclectic.

― Let's disco dance, Hammurabi! (Austin), Wednesday, May 18, 2022 7:24 PM

besides buffalo springfield, it's the best thing he ever did.

hehe, cool! just getting into it

Ha, I was listening to a streaming radio station recently and this kinda swampy, kinda funky, early 70s rock banger came on and it totally turned by head cuz I certainly hadn't heard it before, couldn't quite place the singer thought he was def familiar and it was of course Manassas and I was like "goddammit I have to listen to the whole record now don't I?"

me too

am very much enjoying this thread. also very much missing scott seward at times like this.

Stephen Stills aboard his boat "Manassas" docked in Gold Beach, Oregon in 1977. pic.twitter.com/T9esBbMfNB

— JoyToKnow (@JoyToKnow1) October 13, 2018

I have my ship
And all her flags are a-flying
She is all that I have left
And music MANASSAS is her name!

Just checking his wiki, learned a his pearl:

He sold out MSG the day before George Harrison organised the Concert For Bangladesh, and Stills donated his stage, sound, lighting system and production manager but was upset when Harrison "neglected to invite him to perform, mention his name, or say thank you". Stills then spent the show drunk in Ringo Starr's dressing room, "barking at everyone". Stills's Madison Square Garden show was professionally recorded and filmed but has never been released, although a filmed recording of "Go Back Home" was played in early 1972 on the Old Grey Whistle Test, and two acoustic tracks were released on Stills 2013 box set Carry On.

lol

I dunno, I'd probably be a little annoyed, too

THat first Manassas lp is pretty great as were live sets I have heard from the time. & CSNY had some great guitar burn live too.
I think I need to get his solo lp and the set of demoes from between Buffalo Springfield and CSN.

Somehow “stills barking at everyone” is very easy to imagine, backstage, maybe sitting on a fold out metal chair, whiskey in hand

Also like to imagine “stills banking at everyone” where he’s still barking but also giving advice on credit default swaps and fx rates

The fact that he was married to Veronique Sanson blows my mind somewhat.

xp Yeah, I'd be annoyed too. Donating all that is no small thing, the least George could've done is say thank you. But getting drunk and yelling at everyone wasn't the way to handle it.

pssh
It’s the perfect way to handle it

otm

Stephen Stills did not like Punk Rock. Foreigner get a pass though. pic.twitter.com/dilG3ehFP8

— Bobby Lee (@BobbyLeeBoogie) December 9, 2022

johnny "rotten" is right

Is that real?

i sure hope so.

Dirty, Loud, and Tasteful: the Stephen Stills Story
by Stephen Stills

"FIRST QUESTION: IS THIS A GUY OR A CHICK?"

"sir this is a wienerschnitzel"

Do you think he was slapping random things all offbeat when he said "That groove my man Mick is laying down"

johnny "rotten" is right

xpost LOL!

From FB:

"I keep bass strings on my bass for two years at a time. I play bass so hard that I really thump it so, when I get a new string, I buy some barbecue sauce and sit and rub it in. This is because it's got to get a little funky, rusty, and greasy in there so it will start to respond. And that's something you can't build on a machine." Stephen Stills

it rubs the BBQ sauce on its skin

so gross!

Does he say what brand of BBQ sauce he uses? I need to know if thicker sauce = thicker bass

Anything left over from what the strings he slathers on his ribs.

it's actually really common practice not to change bass strings, they are really "zingy" when they are new (talking roundwounds not flatwounds) that can be overly aggressive and unpleasant esp for certain kinds of music.

the god of bass, James Jamerson, never changed strings unless one broke. Plenty of Nashville guys and reggae guys too. It really does help get that deader thump sound. I've even read about some old Southern down home trick of rubbing bacon fat on bass strings.

I personally only change them every year or two years when I take my bass into the shop for a setup and adjustment, I just have the shop put new ones on but I'm sure I've gone longer than that before.

one time recently when I saw Shellac somebody asked Bob Weston how often he changes his bass strings and he said "every other show", so he must really like that zing

they are a very zingy band

but yeah that makes sense, Bob's sound is totally new strings

Didn't Jaco do something similar using fried chicken grease or something?

I do question the authenticity of that blindfold test posted above. Did people use the phrase "killing it" back then? I'd go look for the source of the interview but I'm too lazy

Anything left over from what the strings he slathers on his ribs.

And just to be clear, literally his own torso.

Ahem. Bass Players Who Never Change(d) Their Strings

Tired: Bass Players Who Never Change(d) Their Strings

Wired: Bass Players Who Never Change(d) Their Sauce

okay, he's a creep and i hate him and animal fat on the strings is a thing sure buuuut... actual bbq sauce and literal rusty strings? lolwhat!? is he okay?

the sauce is that extra mojo you need

okay, right. i like how dumble amps sound. i "get it man."

but the rust? (thinking emoji)

Rust Never Something Something

Stills' post-Deja Vu career is so tremendous a disaster, my mind is blown each time I remember that there was a moment, circa 1968 and Buffalo Springfield's debut record, when Stills and Young seemed to be operating on equal levels of genius.

Just Roll Tape is my favorite of his non-Buffalo-debut work.

4 + 20 is a haunting track -- hit harder when I was 24 too, but still a jam.

I love See the Changes, especially the CSNY version with Neil on woozy, beautiful harmonies.

Looking over tracklists again -- Fishes and Scorpions is a Springfieldesque beauty, and I remember the '75 self-titled being altogether salvageable. It was always my go-to for a mournful wallow when in an "oh Stephen how could you fall SO flat on your face and never, ever stand back up" mood. Should revisit and see if I still (sort of) like it.

I out-and-out love Long May You Run, but in a perverse kind of way. The Neil songs rule -- you get to watch him try and fail to shake off the shadows of the Ditch era. Stills' bland, slick band is an unexpectedly perfect fit for that stumbling darkness. Stills' own songs, Make Love to You and Black Coral particularly, are so appalling, so uniquely appalling. It's the worst-written music I've ever dedicated close attention to. The awfulness beggars belief! to the point that I sort of enjoy subjecting myself to it!

I should revisit the Manassas record. When I was doing my CSNY chronological run, I remember looking forward to it plenty, but then feeling let down by the songwriting and thin sound. I don't remember it being eerie, but I'm more inclined to trust Austin than my decade-old impressions.