V Empire... Keyboards.
I just got the Back On Black LP version of VEmpire and checking the liner notes I noticed something I've never heard mentioned before...
"All keyboards on this album performed by Keith Appleton".
So, I gather at the time of the recording of the EP the band was:
Dani, Stuart, Rob and Nick.
Keith worked as an Engineer, session player and general legend at Academy Studios where VEmpire was recorded and he also worked with Peaceville greats like Paradise Lost, Anathema and My Dying Bride (as well as filling in with session keys/noises on MDB's experimental "34.788%... Complete" album after Martin Powell had left for Cradle).
Due to CoF not having a keyboardist at the time of VEmpire they must have gotten Keith to record as a session player whilst he engineered the album for them, but by the time the actual artwork/press etc was being put together Damien had joined the band as a full time member... thus they put him down as keyboardist for VEmpire, despite not actually playing on it.
Remember that they also made up a 6th member just to keep the line-up looking solid and complete until a 2nd full time guitarist was found! :P (Incidentally the Jared Demeter character is played down a lot on this Back On Black reissue of VEmpire... guess the mystery/joke was not really that important anymore!)
This kind of "white lie" in music isn't unusual of course, Johnny Kelly from Type O Negative only actually played drums on one album despite being in the band for the recording of 4 albums...
I just find it odd how I've never heard anyone mention this before... the keyboards (and use of effects and so on) is very different to "Dusk..." where presumably Damiens only studio keyboard playing with Cradle is shown. I had previously put it down to different production in the past, but it's obvious now listening again with this new information that a whole different set of synths and effects (and fingers!) were used on VEmpire which give it that sharp, crisp, edgy sound, compared to the very cheesy, more basic ones used on "Dusk..." (which partly give it the great low-fi Hammer vibe that the album is loved for of course!)
This also means that from The Principle-Midian (excluding FTCTE) there was a different keyboardist playing on every release... wow! We learn something new about Cradle every day! ;)
Tags: academy, appleton, damien, dusk, gregori, keith, vempire
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Managorth Anora on -
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Permalink Reply by The Smell Of Rain on -
That sure was the only important part of the post that needed to be commented/reflected on... you know, like in every other thread around here............... don't worry about the rest of the content which wasn't worthless flippant opinion or anything and might actually be interesting to some people, or even old news to others. ;)
Final said:Dusk was low-fi? Woah. Never thought of it that way before…
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Permalink Reply by Final on -
Your initial post was more of a collaboration of things you’d gathered, right? So I suppose that it leaves little for discussion, for I am not aware of any info that’d contradict said post. That Dusk part, however – yeah.
The Smell Of Rain said:That sure was the only important part of the post that needed to be commented/reflected on... you know, like in every other thread around here............... don't worry about the rest of the content which wasn't worthless flippant opinion or anything and might actually be interesting to some people, or even old news to others. ;)
Final said:Dusk was low-fi? Woah. Never thought of it that way before…
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Permalink Reply by The Smell Of Rain on
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That's the trouble when you ignore the context of a post...
I didn't say "Cradle obviously wanted to sound like Burzum so they went to a cabin in the woods in Norway with a cassette recorder, hired a wolf as their sound engineer, then to celebrate the completion they burnt some churches... and the end result of all this was Dusk... And Her Embrace. The most Lo-fi Black Metal album ever recorded!!!"
What I did say, with the magic of context easily undertandable when you read the whole post was that The KEYBOARDS recorded on Dusk by Damien give it a "lo-fi Hammer vibe" (lo-fi referring to the way old Hammer soundtracks often sound compared to a glossy Hollywood movie of the same era) due to him probably using a pretty cheap touring band set-up, which is very different to the crisp advanced KEYBOARD SOUND on VEmpire, recorded by a professional engineer in his 40's with years and years of both keyboard and engineering experience without as many time restrictions (I guess, considering it was his studio and whatnot).
No offense to Damien or his poor old keyboard(s), I'm especially not having a go at his playing on Dusk... as I mentioned it's probably the keyboard sound and style that makes Dusk such a fan favourite album I think (added to the fact that most of it was written way before he joined anyway). Besides, I seem to recall Ben using frickin' Casio keyboards at one point during his time in Cradle!! :P
Now, I wonder what else is going be taken out of context here... :D
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Permalink Reply by Managorth Anora on
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Permalink Reply by Final on
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Nothing is or was ever taken out of context, man. I understood what you wanted to say, I just didn’t agree with it. Anything else?
The Smell Of Rain said:Now, I wonder what else is going be taken out of context here... :D
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Permalink Reply by Lifestalker on -
I didn't really like the keys on Vempire
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Permalink Reply by J-F on -
You might find this interesting.
"It should be remembered though that Gregory Moffat (Damien) was fired
for being useless on the Keyboards, and in fact the best piece for which
he was credited, which appears on Vempire was written and played by the
studio engineer and the rest of the band when Greg had left the studio,
because what he had come up with was such rubbish. Apparently he never
even noticed - what a top musician!"
Taken from an ancient forum post by Stuart Anstis' wife Antoinette.
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Permalink Reply by Faustus on -
I wouldn't trust any Stuart's words, especially that he was fired from such reasons ;) And I don't think they would hire Damien to write liner notes for "Lovecraft & Witch Hearts" if they had such bad relationship.
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Permalink Reply by The Smell Of Rain on
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I do wonder if he even played on "Dusk..." either then, if there were such problems... he seemed to play the parts well live... but that doesn't mean he was a good creative writing force for the band when writing/recording... but since he had only just joined the band it doesn't sound like they gave him much of a chance considering Dusk... was already pretty much written at that point and I doubt he would have wanted to step on anyones toes when it came to recording... who knows. Maybe he never even played live and Stuart used his magical toes to play keyboard whilst Damien mimed, lol... :P
I do remember Dani (being quoted as) saying he "never really liked the guy (Damien)" for some reason... not sure if he meant personally, or whether he/they just didn't get to know him that well outside the band, and thus had no chemistry between them...
But Damien/Greg still seems to be proud of his time in the band, at least enough to do those liner notes as mentioned and he had some fond nostalgic info about his time in the band on his MySpace I seem to remember, unlike some ex-members/their loved ones who don't have many positive things to say at all (yet have a disproportionate amount of bad things to say...).
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Permalink Reply by Lifestalker on
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All this speculation about Damien,
Guys, we all know Dani is the mastermind behind Cradle of Filth.
He does every instrument including keyboards. He just hires memebers to act like there is more going on and that Cradle of Filth is a band, when in reality it's a solo career.
joke by the way.lol
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