Placebo!

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Embenny
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Placebo!

Post by Embenny » Fri Oct 08, 2021 9:48 am

So, my car's "new alternative" station let me know that Placebo had just released Beautiful James, and man, it brought me right back to high school. Sounds like it could have stepped right off of Black Market Music, for better and for worse. For me right now, that's for the better. Happy to hear them still doing what they used to do and doing it well, artistic growth be damned!

I hadn't listened to them in quite a long time, which made me reflect on the role they played in my youth. And you know what? I realized they're pretty much the reason I got into offsets.

Yes, I listened to plenty of other "offset legends," but many of them were using offsets without my knowing, and others I actually discovered through my searches for information on the gorgeous guitars I first saw in the hands of Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal.

I think I was 12 when Pure Morning came out and I first saw a Jaguar and Bass VI in action (though I had no idea it was a VI at the time, I could only reliably identify the Jag). I immediately jumped into their back catalogue and found I loved their first album even more. I saw live videos of songs like 36 Degrees, Nancy Boy and Teenage Angst that thrust the Jaguar forward as a buzzsaw, and showed a tiny frontman playing it. All the info I could find on the Y2K-era internet disparaged it as basically being a stupid Jazzmaster for babies, but it couldn't deter me.

I saved up, and when I was 16, the first and only Offset I bought in my first decade as a guitarist was my blue MIJ Jaguar.

I feel like I never hear about them on this board though, or anywhere else, really. They were pretty big, they're still around (apparently), and those first few albums were almost all Jaguar, Bass VI, Jazz Bass and Jazzmaster, with an SG making an appearance for some of the third one.

Oh, and totally unrelated to Offsets (other than a Jazz Bass), they also had my favourite Bowie collaboration since Queen.

I kinda wonder, did Placebo play a role in anyone else's path to Offsets? Were they not as big in the US as they were in Canada and Europe? I wonder why I never see them mentioned, even in relation to these guitars specifically, since they were one of those bands who pretty much always had at least one Offset onstage, if not two. Plus, not that many songs were hitting the charts in the 90s featuring the Bass VI, but it was all over their albums as often as it was on The Cure's.
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gishuk
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Re: Placebo!

Post by gishuk » Fri Oct 08, 2021 11:10 am

Very underrated band IMO

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s_mcsleazy
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Re: Placebo!

Post by s_mcsleazy » Fri Oct 08, 2021 11:26 am

ya know, i like placebo's singles BUT i've never been able to get into the album tracks.
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Re: Placebo!

Post by soggy mittens » Fri Oct 08, 2021 7:05 pm

Yeah big time. I grew up with Sonic Youth being the first and foremost link to offsets but Placebo were the next biggest especially for Jaguars. I loved both but never having actually played either a lot of the attraction was based on look and the Jaguar was just way more eye candy to me. It is its own sound and it has its place but the Jazzmaster was always the more universally suitable sound. I ended up getting a SG copy due to cost/availability and feeling like it got the Brian approval so I'd get away with it, but as far as offsets I got a Jag before a jazzmaster and there were no real regrets. Placebo also got me into Rats and Big Muffs, along with Sonic Youth and The Smashing Pumpkins respectively. when I was 19 I had a choice between a rat and a big muff and while I was really chasing the big muff sound I got the rat and kinda regretted it but I did end up getting a muff some years later, I think I would have got more out of the muff early on but they are both cornerstones of my gear collect now so ultimately isn't a biggy.

In 1998 I had a guitar magazine with Placebo in it and it had all their guitars and gear around the time of Without You I'm Nothing album.. I fell in love with them before even hearing their music and then got my mitts on that album and off I went. I got to see them for that tour as well before they blew up, playing to a fairly empty room and getting to be up front still remains a special memory.

I also kinda drifted from them after sleeping with ghosts but in more recent times revisited to see if there was any gold in the newer albums. Battle For The Sun is a really good album, I listen to that a lot more these days. Great band and watching interviews of Brian is equally as fulfilling. :)
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Re: Placebo!

Post by noisepunk » Sat Oct 09, 2021 1:48 am

s_mcsleazy wrote:
Fri Oct 08, 2021 11:26 am
ya know, i like placebo's singles BUT i've never been able to get into the album tracks.
same. really loved a couple of songs in middle-school and high-school, but for me they kind of just got buried under a bunch of other music i had discovered around the same time.

might be time to give their deeper cuts another go...this new one isn’t doing anything for me though, it sounds very much like a comeback, but no growth, kind of song.

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Re: Placebo!

Post by timtam » Sat Oct 09, 2021 3:29 am

Cool hearing stories of how particular bands were pivotal to people's younger selves. I have always felt I was spoilt by living through punk and post-punk, and so what came later rarely measured up. But every few years I would hear a song by chance on the radio or TV whose intensity grabbed me. Bitter End was one of those. Cranked up loud, it can still give me goose bumps. Coincidentally a new youtube cover/lesson for it popped up in my feed today. Not that familiar with the rest of their discography - maybe I should be. And no role in getting me into offsets. Robert Smith, Tom Verlaine, and Rowland Howard were responsible for that.
"I just knew I wanted to make a sound that was the complete opposite of a Les Paul, and that’s pretty much a Jaguar." Rowland S. Howard.

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s_mcsleazy
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Re: Placebo!

Post by s_mcsleazy » Sat Oct 09, 2021 6:49 am

i mean, i really loved nancy boy as a teenager because i was still in the closet and it was one of the few songs i could think of about anything gay.
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Re: Placebo!

Post by BlixaFan » Thu Nov 04, 2021 7:50 pm

awesome! they are great, i've always liked them. I'll have to check out the new track! thanks for the heads up. and also yes, i remember that jaguar that Brian was playing... (and also remember being 12 years old and confused about if he was a man or woman haha) 8)

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