Who Played the Synths and Keyboards on the BL Album?

Okay, here is a question that will seem totally lame and silly to most of you, but it's a slow day and you know how much I love keyboards, so...

Bad Lieutenant's Never Cry Another Tear is primarily a guitar based record, but several songs have quite a lot of keyboards on them. Poisonous Intent is obviously the most synth heavy disco track on the record (and one of the most New Ordery), but This Is Home, Walk on Silver Water, Running Out of Luck, Runaway, Summer Days, Dynamo and even Sink or Swim all have keyboards or synths on them (SOS has a small melodic synth part very low in the mix for the first 20 seconds). So the record does actually have quite a lot of synth on it.

My question is...who played these keyboards on the record? Obviously Phil plays them live and some of them run off of Roger's machines, but who played them on the record?

I would imagine that Bernard probably played most of the synth parts on NCAT, especially since Jake and Phil were doing so much guitar.

Thoughts?

Bernard Sumner

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: Bit of a non-question really... obviously Bernard. Over the course of Electronic, post-98 NO and Bad Loot he frequently mentioned in interview he's happy to have other people handling the guitars or at least lessening his workload in that respect. It probably gives him more time to focus on the lyrics and production.

I would imagine Phil helped out in a minor sense but he is obviously first and foremost a guitarist while Jake seems to be more of the singer-songwriter acoustic guitar variety. I would imagine on the tracks Steve M co-wrote he was also at the keyboard but that is only a few tracks over the whole LP.

As you say it's a relatively keyboard "lite" album anyway. There are the prerequisite synthesized strings soaring away on most of the songs, the odd weird ambient noise (Dynamo, How Long etc) and obviously Poisonous Intent is drum programming heavy. Otherwise it's predominantly a guitar based album in every single sense. I think Barney is hoping most people will concentrate on the instruments high up in the mix rather than an obscure keyboard part buried deep in the mix as (most likely) it's probably not all that remarkable.

At best the keyboards are fairly anonymous compared to what he's done before. They suit the tracks as they are. He was never gonna write a squelching 80s bassline over all those Smiths-y guitars and I'm glad he didn't, would've sounded out of place. Not that I'm dissing the album of course; it's enjoying a bit of a revival on my iPod at present. Regardless of how soft the production sounds at times there's some quality pop songs on there just as with the underrated Electronic stuff.

I've also thought that it was probably Bernard who did most of the keyboard work--although I've seen live footage where Phil plays some notes during concerts ('Tighten Up' is one example).

I do admit the keyboards are like secret ingredients in cooking---it's there to enhance and accentuate, but it's not the main 'ingredient'.

leather_girl wrote:

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: Bit of a non-question really... obviously Bernard. Over the course of Electronic, post-98 NO and Bad Loot he frequently mentioned in interview he's happy to have other people handling the guitars or at least lessening his workload in that respect. It probably gives him more time to focus on the lyrics and production.

I would imagine Phil helped out in a minor sense but he is obviously first and foremost a guitarist while Jake seems to be more of the singer-songwriter acoustic guitar variety. I would imagine on the tracks Steve M co-wrote he was also at the keyboard but that is only a few tracks over the whole LP.

As you say it's a relatively keyboard "lite" album anyway. There are the prerequisite synthesized strings soaring away on most of the songs, the odd weird ambient noise (Dynamo, How Long etc) and obviously Poisonous Intent is drum programming heavy. Otherwise it's predominantly a guitar based album in every single sense. I think Barney is hoping most people will concentrate on the instruments high up in the mix rather than an obscure keyboard part buried deep in the mix as (most likely) it's probably not all that remarkable.

At best the keyboards are fairly anonymous compared to what he's done before. They suit the tracks as they are. He was never gonna write a squelching 80s bassline over all those Smiths-y guitars and I'm glad he didn't, would've sounded out of place. Not that I'm dissing the album of course; it's enjoying a bit of a revival on my iPod at present. Regardless of how soft the production sounds at times there's some quality pop songs on there just as with the underrated Electronic stuff.

I've also thought that it was probably Bernard who did most of the keyboard work--although I've seen live footage where Phil plays some notes during concerts ('Tighten Up' is one example).

I do admit the keyboards are like secret ingredients in cooking---it's there to enhance and accentuate, but it's not the main 'ingredient'.

I agree with both of you. I really like NCAT, been listening to it a lot today. I also think that Bernard played all of the keyboards on the record, and there are some pretty sweet synth parts on the record (All of PI, the huge string washes at the end of This Is Home, the synth at the end of Running Out of Luck, ect), so its cool to know that's Bernard playing the keyboards. Leather Girl, Phil does play the keyboards live. I just wondered while Bernard wasn't credited in the album credits at playing keyboards.

Steve also did some awesome programming, drumming, and synth work on ROOL, Runaway, and PI. I especially like PI as it has those trademark Steve Morris snare hits and programmed bits, as weel as a killer disco bassline and lots of synth washes for the last minute of the song. If you put Hooky's bass on PI, you'd have a fucking great New Order dance track, better than Guilt Is a Useless Emotion or Someone Like You.

I do sometimes wish that NCAT was moreof a mix of guitars with dance, as illustrated in Mark Reeders excellent remix of Sink or Swim.