Now the Stones have pulled a VH. On the band's Rarities CD (which was released a few years ago truth be told), the band abused Photoshop to make Bill Wyman disappear from the cover, despite the fact that he was in the band during most of the period the CD music was recorded (1971-2003).
It took five years for anyone to notice but according to this story people are enraged this week.
Check out the side by side below. The story notes that they did a crappy job of deleting Wyman, leaving his bass cable in the shot!
Why on the hell do bands do this kind of stuff? The worst offense is Ozzy Obsourne (Sharon, really) being so angry at original bassist Bob Daisley and drummer Lee Kerslake that she had the masters of the classic Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of A Madman replaced with newer musicians. I am so glad I have those on vinyl because all the CDs I have ever seen have the new guys on it and the magic is gone. Talk about the Original Sin. Ugh.
5 comments:
Michael Anthony should probably look both ways before he crosses the street...
I know this is no joking matter. It really pisses me off (and not just because I'm a bass player). In fact, this behavior (although technically legal) is clearly unethical and perhaps immoral.
However, there is a weird Spinal-Tapish quality to notion of the "convenient" (for band management/leadership) "vanishing bass player phenomenon." It's music's version of historical revisionism -- except the people involved are still alive and the events are still fresh in the minds of hundreds of millions of witnesses. Did they really think no one would notice? Of course, thanks to vigilant bloggers and journalists like you, it is leading to a Streisand Effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
Hold these cowardly bastards accountable and shine some light under the rocks where they are hiding.
Funny timing, Voxmoose. I was JUST Photoshopping you out of the photos of the Osiris reunion. I am not very good at it though, so instead of a clean Tom-free stage, I have a giant gray-brown smudge with a bass neck sticking out of it. You look like a melting ghost or one of those freaks from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Pretty cool actually. Thank me later...
Although I'm profoundly bitter about what you have done, there is some sad truth to the fact that at this point in my life I actually do more resemble a giant smudged gray-brown ghostly freak with a bass neck sticking out of it than the dapper young nebbish of yore...
Apparently there is no greater honor for a bass player than to be permanently erased from the band's history -- besides, it is a great way to generate fresh buzz for a band. I'm willing to bet Gene Simmons is deeply struggling with the marketing possibilities of this phenomenon.
This Japanese technology will become the bass player uniform of the future:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFGo6kCmf38
Post a Comment