John Mayhew on Trespass

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: I completely disagree with him,

Trespass is close to Genesis best album. Nice compositions. Not a weak track. The band replaced 2 members for the next album and the composition quality dropped. There's 3 or 4 weakish songs on Nursery imo. The songs on Trespass are cool and the drumming is fine.

Edited by dr prog - July 02 2012 at 21:29

Nov wrote: I would compare John Mayhew's drumming on Trespass to Mick Pointer's on Script

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: I don't believe Trespass is the best Genesis album, but I consider it better than SEbtP, The Lamb and every Collins era album. Iván

Whoa.......Genesis from 1970 - 1977...then they became a pop band...

Trespass is nearly as good as Selling England by the Pound but better than Foxtrot. John Mayhew would have been awful on Selling England by the Pound, but he was not awful on Tresspass. Different things were called for. If the band were wishing for a more guiding and driving drum beat on Tresspass too, then fine (It's not clear to me Anthony Phillips was), but the album would have had a different less classical feel. For me Trespass is a gem that I would not like to hear altered, and Mayhew ought not to be maligned for his contribution, I don't think.

M27Barney wrote: Oh and I agree with the Mick Pointer POV - bloody awful drummer , and I saw him live half a dozen times....

Off topic here, but I agree - naturally, I have 'Script', and I recently acquired the latest Arena album 'The Seventh Degree Of Separation' and I don't hear much, if any, development in his drumming......
John Mayhew on 'Trespass' reminds me of Guy Evans on 'The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other'.

I gotta lay it out on the table here:
 After reading all the 'what if's' , the 'I think's ', the 'so and so said' this and thats.

I see it in this way
The band, as is any new band when writing, composing and recording, was always in flux and as time goes on would eventually find their way.
I dislike very much how posters say that Mayhew would have been horrible on later Lps.
How can you know this ? If your a musician you would know as you're developing the  craft that you never play the same way as a year ago, 2 years ago, etc.
Unless your stuck in a useless rut -you are always seeking to expand.
How do we know that Chris Stewart would not have advanced further if he had stayed ???
Mayhew could have grown into a remarkable drummer as did Collins over time.  Sadly this was not the case.
To say that Collins would have been great on Trespass or earlier is also a very baseless unless you heard him play during that time. He may have been honing his playing as well since he had really only been in one 'real' band prior to Genesis

I've been in bands where the current drummer was very good and as the band evolved the drummer did not and hence we let him go  for a more cohesive like drummer. there was no soap opera or mystery over it We agreed together and while it is disappointing to have one to leave a band. It is part of the process. That said after a time the 'new' drummer left and the previous one came back ! Improved and definitely a more mature drummer in the musical sense.
One can write a novel on band dynamics !

Genesis was in development mode for years especially at this time period/ lp discussed. And unless one can quote directly from the band members themselves or the studio engineers as one poster bucka001 has done, then it is only speculative opinion.
But please don't make those sound like absolute facts.
Read this :
http://www.worldofgenesis.com/JohnMayhewInterview2006.htm

At the time, Mayhew while quite humble and respective of the other members longer association, was good for the band and recordings.


Edited by sturoc - November 10 2013 at 17:32

I view the drumming on Trespass the same way I view John Rutsey's drumming on the first RUSH album. Sure the guys who came after them were technically better but they still got the job done and they both did a fine job. I know some think of "Trespass" as the first Genesis album even though it really wasn't but you can think of it that way.

HackettFan wrote: ghost_of_morphy wrote: After reading this thread I went to the effort of listening to the first side of Trespass just for the drumming. I must admit that Mayhew is bad.  He either marks time like a metronome or he shovels in fill after fill.  There is very little actual drumming going on except in a few parts on White Mountain. This woke me up.  I paid attention to every single drummer I listened to afterwords.  The only drummer who seemed to do as poorly was a drummer who belongs to a knock off heavy metal band which shall remain nameless. And I don't think Rutherford deserves the same criticism.  There were plenty of places on the first side of Trespass where Rutherford went his own way. I have a bootleg copy of White Mountain where Buford does the drumming.  I hope to get to that soon and see where he went with that. To sum uo, it is amazing that Trespass is so good with drumming so bad. Mayhew did not drum in a conventional sense. But the band was instructing him on his parts, so they were culpable if it was so bad, but it wasn't. Mayhew did not provide time, lots of fills here and there. He's more like a percussionist, following along with the orchestration and adding color to it, not driving it, but this fits the ornate style of the album. It fits the classical feel. Mayhew recognized the writing prowess of the group and kept a light footprint. This was a good thing. Although he had a heavier footprint, the same could be said about Rutherford's base. He inserted lots of fills and did little to provide time. It seems to me that Banks was usually slightly ahead of the beat and that he was driving the pace of some of the material. Collins is a better drummer. I think he would have done well on Tresspass, but it would have been a very different album, and therefore I am happy that we have what we have. In hearing The Knife live with Collins on drums, I do not think he improved upon anything Mayhew did on it. Nursery Cryme is not so ornate overall. Then again, when it is, as with Harlequin, the drums have a lighter footprint.

Well its a difficult situation that can border on being read as pompous, egotistical etc. The 'core' members congealed their bond and were trying to bring another in. That' a very hard thing to do and unless your lucky you'll go thru many auditions or sessions to find that person. I've been involved in just this situ and its extremely hard to deal with,cause its your project. If you've only played in cover bands you won't get what I mean. Writing compositions goes very deep an extension of yourself being put out there.
The Mayhew period is such a short amount of time to try and get comfortable with people especially when in a recording studio under the microscope and clock.

I see where Banks comes off as pompous etc in interviews and carefully wording his responses but with a slip here and there too. My feeling about all that is 99% of us do not know him personally or in a group dynamic so how can we honestly try to describe how he really is ?
Within any band, there are 'leaders' & 'followers'. And as we've seen with Phillips (for whatever the real reasons were) left, Gabriel and Hackett they choose not to follow and left.
The eras in question are completed,  times have moved on and that is history.


Edited by sturoc - November 11 2013 at 11:05