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Big Geezer Butler fan

#43
I have to admit that when I saw Sabbath this past summer, Ozzy was certainly not at his best. He sang off key most of the night and yet the crowd didn't even know the difference. Geezer and Tony were awesome. I was on the right (near Tony) so I didn't get a great view Geezer in action, but could certainly hear everything he was playing. It was awesome.
 
#46
ChessTiger said:
My question is..."Who doesn't like Geezer?" Everybody I know LOVES Geezer!!! He is the greatest!!!!

I've NEVER heard anything bad said about the man. Anybody that can write lyrics and play like he does...'Nuff said.
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+1

Geezer is awesome and a model for all young rock bassists and musicians in general (minus the silly overuse of drugs), IMO. In interviews he's always the coolest one of the original 4, I don't recall him ever acting like a douchebag, and he appreciates the good fortune he's had with Sabbath over the years.

As a bassist he is a monster. Bluesy, groovy, and metal and evil all at once. His earlier distorted wah tone is the inspiration for most modern doom metal bass, and his current tone is clanky and thunderous.

He has played for so long with Iommi that it's like they read each others' minds, and the two of them together always seem to put out some good stuff.

And his lyrics are legendary. Yet another reason why Sabbath still holds up so well today.

I saw a Sabbath tribute band earlier this year. I generally don't "get" tribute bands, but these guys were awesome, and I saw a lot of 20 and 30-somethings singing along to Geezer's 40-year-old lyrics.

Geddy may be my hero, but when I am jamming I often channel Geezer. (Including playing finger style over the fingerboard sometimes to get that square wave sound).
 
#47
Geezer and Mel Shacher are why I play bass. I saw many Sabbath gigs in the 70's, Ozzy sucked then too. At that California Jam Ozzy did attain sainthood status.
Geezer plays the simplest penatonic notes, though it looks like he is playing 500 miles and hour. The best only play what is needed.
Shacher is Jamerson playing hard rock. Under rated. Listen to Aimless Lady. Red Album.
 
#49
Geezer has played several basses over his career, but is best known for playing a P-bass back in Sabbath's early days. He has also played Ampegs, Rickenbachers and now plays Lakland exclusively.
 
#52
pfox14 said:
Geezer has played several basses over his career, but is best known for playing a P-bass back in Sabbath's early days. He has also played Ampegs, Rickenbachers and now plays Lakland exclusively.
Click to expand...

He kept a P bass as a recording bass in the '70s. Live he seems to have gone through basses in this order in the early days;

Stripped finish P-bass. Seen in the earliest Beatclub videos.
Sunburst P-bass. Seen in the "Live in Paris" video recorded in Belgium.
Ampeg Dan Armstrong.
John Birch custom. Seen in the Cal Jam video.


What I find weird is that he became almost inaudible on live recordings once he went over to the John Birch basses. On both the Cal Jam and King Biscuit recordings of the era he is buried in the mix. On the Cal Jam video he is flailing away. I guess the Birches could take that elaborate stage technique better than the P bass at the cost of tone. Iommi had such a full tone as well, thanks to his modified treble boosters and stuff. Those live recordings from 1974 become pretty tedious. Iommi has some long, meandering solo that equates to very little, the tempos start to falter, War Pigs, Paranoid and Iron Man sound silly in C#... too much coke and silliness.

I got to see Black Sabbath earlier this month in Glasgow, and they rocked. They made the (wise?) decision of putting Under The Sun as the second track, so Ozzy's highest notes were over and done early in the set. Ozzy kept sticking his head into buckets of water, and killed a radio mic with the resulting spray. His roadie sticks a new mic on the stand in double-quick time, but it isn't as loud in the monitors and Ozzy starts singing flat. A couple of times Ozzy was clearly signalling to the sound techs to turn up his monitors, usually after singing a bunch of stuff a semitone flat. I guess he has okay relative pitch but really needs the monitors cranked to hear anything. Most amusingly a plastic pint glass was thrown up onstage and Ozzy volleyed the thing with his left foot, breaking it in half. For such a shambling guy this was quite the display of reflexes and, lest we forget, Axl Rose has left the stage for lesser crimes. Either way Ozzy was in fine voice. He messed up the timing on the track Black Sabbath, rushing most of the verses as though he was edgy or uncomfortable. Other than that he hit most of the notes and had a clearer voice than, say, the 1978 Never Say Die concert video where he croaks through the tunes.

Geezer was using Lakland basses. One was done up as a '51 style P bass but with a split coil. I think he used three other basses, two black ones and a gold one,all in various P or PJ configurations. A wah pedal was onstage for him to play the Behind the Wall of Sleep-Bassically-NIB transition, and as soon as he was done it was whisked off the stage. His tone was very much like the tone on the 13 album, punchy and aggressive though a lot of the treble was wasted on us, sitting a quarter of a mile away from the stage.

Tony Iommi played a number of SG guitars as well. I saw one Gibson, but mostly they looked like Jaydee customs. Most of the Jaydees had heavy finish wear. I'm not sure if I saw his 'Old Boy', but he had some that were fairly close in terms of roughness. He brought out a white Jaydee I've never seen before for the last few numbers, but even the finish on that was worn through to natural mahogany along the top of the contours. I was looking out for his Lou Moritz custom replica of his original 'Monkey' SG. Lou, aka SGLou on some forums,built this from the ground up, and Iommi was certainly using it on earlier dates. I never saw it in use in Glasgow, so maybe it was getting the night off , it couldn't stand up to the rigors of touring or Tony just prefers custom Jaydees at this stage of the game.
 
#54
kohntarkosz said:
He kept a P bass as a recording bass in the '70s. Live he seems to have gone through basses in this order in the early days;

Stripped finish P-bass. Seen in the earliest Beatclub videos.
Sunburst P-bass. Seen in the "Live in Paris" video recorded in Belgium.
Ampeg Dan Armstrong.
John Birch custom. Seen in the Cal Jam video.


What I find weird is that he became almost inaudible on live recordings once he went over to the John Birch basses. On both the Cal Jam and King Biscuit recordings of the era he is buried in the mix. On the Cal Jam video he is flailing away. I guess the Birches could take that elaborate stage technique better than the P bass at the cost of tone. Iommi had such a full tone as well, thanks to his modified treble boosters and stuff. Those live recordings from 1974 become pretty tedious. Iommi has some long, meandering solo that equates to very little, the tempos start to falter, War Pigs, Paranoid and Iron Man sound silly in C#... too much coke and silliness.

I got to see Black Sabbath earlier this month in Glasgow, and they rocked. They made the (wise?) decision of putting Under The Sun as the second track, so Ozzy's highest notes were over and done early in the set. Ozzy kept sticking his head into buckets of water, and killed a radio mic with the resulting spray. His roadie sticks a new mic on the stand in double-quick time, but it isn't as loud in the monitors and Ozzy starts singing flat. A couple of times Ozzy was clearly signalling to the sound techs to turn up his monitors, usually after singing a bunch of stuff a semitone flat. I guess he has okay relative pitch but really needs the monitors cranked to hear anything. Most amusingly a plastic pint glass was thrown up onstage and Ozzy volleyed the thing with his left foot, breaking it in half. For such a shambling guy this was quite the display of reflexes and, lest we forget, Axl Rose has left the stage for lesser crimes. Either way Ozzy was in fine voice. He messed up the timing on the track Black Sabbath, rushing most of the verses as though he was edgy or uncomfortable. Other than that he hit most of the notes and had a clearer voice than, say, the 1978 Never Say Die concert video where he croaks through the tunes.

Geezer was using Lakland basses. One was done up as a '51 style P bass but with a split coil. I think he used three other basses, two black ones and a gold one,all in various P or PJ configurations. A wah pedal was onstage for him to play the Behind the Wall of Sleep-Bassically-NIB transition, and as soon as he was done it was whisked off the stage. His tone was very much like the tone on the 13 album, punchy and aggressive though a lot of the treble was wasted on us, sitting a quarter of a mile away from the stage.

Tony Iommi played a number of SG guitars as well. I saw one Gibson, but mostly they looked like Jaydee customs. Most of the Jaydees had heavy finish wear. I'm not sure if I saw his 'Old Boy', but he had some that were fairly close in terms of roughness. He brought out a white Jaydee I've never seen before for the last few numbers, but even the finish on that was worn through to natural mahogany along the top of the contours. I was looking out for his Lou Moritz custom replica of his original 'Monkey' SG. Lou, aka SGLou on some forums,built this from the ground up, and Iommi was certainly using it on earlier dates. I never saw it in use in Glasgow, so maybe it was getting the night off , it couldn't stand up to the rigors of touring or Tony just prefers custom Jaydees at this stage of the game.
Click to expand...

You know Gibson should do a dead on copy of the "Monkey 64 SG Special".

THAT would be cool!!

I own a 65 SG Special that has been stripped but you can still see the red in the mahogany grain, these mid-60's period Gibson SG Specials had super hot P-90's, mine measure at 8.7k.

Keep in mind, the 64 SG Standards had cleaner brighter sounding "pat no. humbuckers" often only 7.5k.

Of course we know Tony had a double row "Mini humbucker" that apparently was wound to sound more like the hotter Gibson PAF's NOT the pat no. 60's humbuckers that were cleaner.

The dark round sounding 8.7k P-90 in my 65 SG Special NAILS Tony's early tone.

Tony's darker bridge tone on the first few albums is the one I prefer overall, it blends well with Geezers P-Bass tone!

Once Tony went to Laney Klipps, the sound became a bit fuzzier and then all of the overdubs on 'Sabotage' where Tony copied his buddy Brian May's recording methods.

We still have no mentions of Geezers bass amps in the studio and live thru the 70's?
 
#58
I love the metal band he had they called GZR or Geezer. It had Deen Castranovo on drums and two killer metal vocalists. He teamed up with a buddy named Pedro Howse on guitar. Very thrashy. Great bass tone too. I just saw the bass player mag award show. He killed it on fairies. Just tore it up.
 
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