Gerry Marsden

[excoriator]

I'm not going to take pleasure from anyone's death, but I think this particular fellow made a career of singing terrible songs out of tune all his life. I think he is the only singer whose best-known song sounds better when bawled out by 20,000 drunken scousers than his original.

Living on the bank of the Mersey as I do, the ferries used to run extended crossings which included a diversion for a few miles upstream accompanied by a recorded description of historic points of interest punctuated by bursts of Marsden's dirge-like out of tune singing. Occasionally I'd catch a burst of this from several hundred yards away and feel all the worse for the sheer awful triteness of the words, melody and the out of tune singing.

[aubrey]

Out of tune singing is a technique.

I'm not keen on Marsden's stuff, but he seems to have been a nice chap; he wrote that ferry song on his own but gave the rest of the group credit (and royalties) on it as well.

[excoriator]

I don't doubt he was a very nice man. From what I've seen and heard of him I would have been happy to go drinking with him. But no musician, and no composer.

The melody of 'Ferry 'cross the Mersey' runs out of inspiration at the end of every phrase, let alone every line. And then to emphasise it tacks on a really boring final cadence. It is, frankly, irritatingly childish. Add to that the out of tune singing and the result to my ear anyway is excruciatingly bad.

Singing out of tune is not a technique Aubrey. It is due to cloth ears. Sorry, but it is.

[aubrey]

Oh, it's a dreadful song; but whether or not his out of tune singing is deliberate or not, it can be quite effective - soul singers use it a fair bit, and it is deliberate with them


This is not soul, but it is deliberate, and quite extreme; and I think it's scored as well, though Frank might just have asked for it.

[excoriator]

I got the impression that he was under the impression he thought he was perfectly in tune! That's the sad thing about it.

But I guess trying to be a musician with cloth ears is challenging.

[aubrey]

He might have been.

There was a song we did that I had to sing, and someone played us a tape of it straight we'd played it (at The Clarendon, in Hammersmith). I could tell I was singing flat, but only when listening on the tape; I had no idea when I was actually singing.

To be fair on me though, I wasn't a singer, and I was playing drums at the same time. That group could really have done with a decent singer though; we were very good otherwise.

But with Marsden, there would have been someone present at the recording who knew he was out of tune, and thought it didn't matter. And I've told you about the producer who tuned The Fall's guitars for them, and then didn't like the sound and detuned them again, haven't I? Being perfectly in tune doesn't matter with some music.

[excoriator]

I think I've mentioned seeing a queue of guitar-clutching Beatles wannabes in the '60s outside a Liverpool music shop paying to have their instruments tuned for the Saturday night gig. I think the fee was a very reasonable half a crown.

Given the undiscriminating nature of their audiences I wondered why they were wasting their money on such a pointless indulgence.

[jonjel]

As a young engineer I did some work for a well known music studio in London. The joys of parking outside have long gone, but I digress. We built a couple of machines which converted 1" tape into a master disc, with a hot stylus cutting the groove. I actually still have some original discs which might now be worth a few bob - yet more digression. The process was 'music- to engineers console to tape to master disc.

But I well remember the sight of an overweight manager or two wearing very fancy shoes a gold Rolex or two and suits which cost thousands. They had brought with them a few yowling alleged singers being accompanied by a professional orchestra, all of whom looked very bored. And then a couple of guys on a large console who would turn that appalling sound into something representing music. And that folks is why a lot of them never appeared live, unless they mimed.

[excoriator]

My hackles rise when I hear music described as an 'industry'.

Once you start doing it for money, its a downhill slope.

[aubrey]

It's a hell of a long slope, Exco - musicians have always been paid.

[excoriator]

Some slip down it a lot faster than others. And some, like Mr Marsden, start pretty near the bottom anyway.

The tipping point seems to be when realisation that your audience is unconcerned by the quality of the performance occurs, provided it can be distracted by deafening volume, sex appeal, gimmicky stage sets videos, bawling energetic performances etc.

[jonjel]

Jan 7, 2021 15:32:54 GMT excoriator said:

Some slip down it a lot faster than others. And some, like Mr Marsden, start pretty near the bottom anyway.

The tipping point seems to be when realisation that your audience is unconcerned by the quality of the performance occurs, provided it can be distracted by deafening volume, sex appeal, gimmicky stage sets videos, bawling energetic performances etc.

C'mon Exco. It keeps the masses amused and sort of under control. While there are 30,000 of them at a gig, or a football match well at least they are not rampaging in the streets for that time period!

[aubrey]

Jan 7, 2021 15:32:54 GMT excoriator said:

Some slip down it a lot faster than others. And some, like Mr Marsden, start pretty near the bottom anyway.

The tipping point seems to be when realisation that your audience is unconcerned by the quality of the performance occurs, provided it can be distracted by deafening volume, sex appeal, gimmicky stage sets videos, bawling energetic performances etc.

All forms of music have their own visual aesthetics, Exco, including sex appeal: pop, rock, classical, even Jazz - especially Jazz. And you wouldn't want performances to be unenergetic, would you?

[excoriator]

Come off it Aubrey!

Whilst musicians are not invisible, their appearance has nothing to do with their music if they are worth listening to.

I might mention Michel Petrucciani the French jazz pianist who suffered from osteogenesis imperfecta which distorted his body almost beyond belief to the extent that he needed linkages so he could operate the pedals. He played like an angel however, and his appearance didn't detract from it one whit.

Have a look at www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUxQLU_eqfU - see what you think. Compare it to the feeble efforts of Marsden and his prancing and cavorting contemporaries.

A good musicians music should transcened his appearance, not depend on it.

[aubrey]

Jan 8, 2021 13:17:06 GMT excoriator said:

Come off it Aubrey!

Whilst musicians are not invisible, their appearance has nothing to do with their music if they are worth listening to.

I might mention Michel Petrucciani the French jazz pianist who suffered from osteogenesis imperfecta which distorted his body almost beyond belief to the extent that he needed linkages so he could operate the pedals. He played like an angel however, and his appearance didn't detract from it one whit.

Have a look at www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUxQLU_eqfU - see what you think. Compare it to the feeble efforts of Marsden and his prancing and cavorting contemporaries.

A good musicians music should transcend his appearance, not depend on it.

And they do. But you're not going to claim that different kinds of music don't have their own visual cues, are you? You're never going to mistake the look of a classical concert for that of a Jazz concert, or a rock or a pop concert.


Incidentally, The Fall's musicians used to get told off if they moved around onstage - Smith wasn't going to have any of the big rock star stuff. They didn't wear special clothes, had minimal lighting, didn't dance or walk about: but even that was thought of as their Look, and even as an affectation.