Bez vs Lol Tolhurst vs Linda McCartney vs Andrew Ridgeley - who was the most talented?

All this mention of the Cure has got me thinking back to when Robert Smith sacked Lol Tolhurst from the band cos he got fed up of him drinking and contributing fuck all to the band.... basically Lol had become what people in the profession call "a bit of a Bez" - in that he was just there to make up the numbers whilst offering very little discernible talent.

However, thinking even further back in time, Bez wasn't the first of his kind anyway was he? The mere mention of Macca's first post-Beatles venture Wings (yeah yeah yeah remember that unkind joke about what does one call a dog with wings eh?) always called to mind his faithful wife Linda. What exactly did she add to the band apart from some very dodgy dancing, some rudimentary keyboard bits and some decidedly iffy harmonising? Still, she was a good lass and a talented photographer and vegetarian campaigner-cum-cook. So little wonder Paul was so besotted soon afterwards.....and the sense of loss at her untimely passing was undoubtedly deeply felt.

Anyway, if Linda was the first "Bez" (complete with probably the first ever mullet as well), then Andrew Ridgeley must surely be contender for the second - a full decade after Linda's first appearance, Ridgers was happy to pose with his Bronzed Greek compatriot Georgey and do dubious things with shuttlecocks but offer pretty much sod all musically....

Then came Bez in 1985 and his legendary maracca-shaking antics and wild bug-eyed freaky dancing that spawned a million imitators (Barney in 1988 on TOTP to name but one!)....

....and soon afterwards it was Lol Tolhurst's turn to dry up musically, hitting the bottle to such an extent that Fat Boy Smith apparently got Lollypop man to stand in front of him whilst he vented his trademark angst about him being "a waste of time, a waste of space and like a fucking slug on the floor - useless and ugly....!!!" (on an album track called Shiver and Shake) - before kicking him out of the band before the next album Disintegration was completed....

So, to conclude, who would YOU vote from the four nominations above as being the biggest Bez of them all?

Let's have your votes please!

:p

There's plenty of people on here who will be wanting to know why you've left Mrs Steven Morris off that list.

Or, indeed, one P.Cunningham.

Officially, what was Andrew Ridgeley's job anyway? Was George his sugar daddy? Was Andrew suppossed to appeal to the fat girls?

0_o wrote: Officially, what was Andrew Ridgeley's job anyway? Was George his sugar daddy? Was Andrew suppossed to appeal to the fat girls?

I thought everybody knew about Andy Pandy. He was actually George's secret bit on the side. That first album of their's [Fantastic!] had the two of them posing on the cover in leathers. Surely that was enough of a clue! Besides, even the title of their second album [Make It Big!] was a barely concealed euphemism for stroking the candle and lighting the wick. ;)

Jed

Biginmikitchen wrote: Jed

(Ooh-ooh-ooh WOOOH ooh-ooh WOOOH ooh-ooh!!!)

Clever! ;)

Hmmm, wasn't there a Beatles song called 'and your bird can sing'? And wasn't there an obvious Linda joke to go with it? Still, I dunno if she was that bad, I seriously doubt that Wings would have been any less mediocre without her, and compared to the second Mrs McCartney...

PS I just voted Andrew Ridgely by mistake. That must be how Boris got in.

Andrew