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Med Zeppelin

Don't know what's going on with the Xmas songs this year. Last year the Slade and Wizard ones literally filled the floor. Dave

I'm trying to really nail Do The Strand by Roxy Music at the moment and that line seems to exemplify a lot of what is being said here. The rhythm of the song, which is an absolute classic mover, is driven by the bass which is working largely as percussion and it's busy in a sense with the notes without over complicating the choice. I also find you get a fantastic sense of how much the bass of a track is holding the rhythm when you pull the bass out and listen to the tune without. Sometimes it is still largely the same (a lot of pop stuff) but with others the whole thing falls apart and feels completely empty. Roxy Music's first few albums are a great example, as is Roly Wynne's lines on early Ozrics stuff. They are often quite busy tunes and quite a lot of the time he is noodling but the bass is nearly always the dominant instrument in terms of the tune feeling like the tune. What a player, gone very much too soon.

Tempted to go down one of these routes for a living room practise tool. The Positive Grid stuff looks amazing and satisfies my hatred of wires. Dare I ask, if you had to say out of your lot which is the ‘best’ (not necessarily bang for buck but which is the best outright), which would you choose?

Local venue with my regular gig, SlowJin. Lakland 55-02 via Shure GLX wireless into EBS Microbass. DI to desk, line in to Genz Benz Shuttle 9.0 power amp section and Vanderkley 2x10. Long term IEM user. Big Martin house PA Rig. We came, we saw, we Rock’n’Roll’d.

I wasn't so much highlighting the importance of rhythm keeping, but thinking of the wide range of rythmic possibilities. It feels like we lack the vocabulary to discuss rhythm the same way as we do harmony.

Just sent you a message. I tried them in lockdown, but I just don't like flats on anything 😅

As a direct result of watching that video, the next Junkyard Dogs gig will feature me turning to the drummer and saying, "Paul, the next song should be played as a Scotch Snap". I will then repair to the nearest A&E to do something about that drumstick ...

First Christmas show with Glam Viva! last night, awesome live music venue on the outskirts of Chesterfield. We hadn’t played this venue before but it had been advertised well and we hadn’t played a rammed pub for most of the night. Dancing from song one..like @dmccombe7 the Christmas songs were less appreciated than the normal songs but we normally stick to just 2 for this reason. Sandberg Lionel into my normal Boss pedals using my aging Smoothound wireless. Normal Markbass mini rig of doom. End of gig celebration with 4 jammy doughnuts - I did share! Crap drive back home as, as per normal on a Saturday night after midnight, plod had set the variable speed limit on the M1 at 50. Purely a revenue job as there was no roadworks or poor visibility. Cruise control is your friend.

Melt Loaf

I hated Markbass amps when I was a younger, more naive man. Everyone seemed to have one, and I was once loading out my Ashdown CTM 100 all valve head into the back of my Corsa when a chirpy ‘older’ bass player on before me pointed to his 1x12 Markbass combo said ‘you want to get rid of that, get one of these! Does everything that one does but lighter!’ - despised them from that moment on. Why would I not use a big, gritty valve amp instead of some horrible little yellow thing? Anyway, here’s my AG1000 head and Ninja Cab. It sounds so good in a mix with minimal tweaking, it’s got handles in the right places on the cab, carry bag is hideously convenient for the head. Preferred this set up to nearly everything else I own apart from my SVT and Bassman 8x10, but it annihilates everything in terms of portability, quality of sound and ease of use, second maybe only to the stupidly lightweight GR Bass stuff.

Thanks Pete, yes that ascending part is quite (major understatement) tricky, in fact that’s the only bit I’m concentrating on at present, figuring once I’m happy with that the rest will fit in easily enough.

Thanks Dan

Th only difficult thing with the studio version is the 'Our only goal will be the western shore' bit, where you have to play ascending major scales at a brutal tempo. I can only get the speed by playing it with hammer-ons, so all credit if you can play it at tempo picking every note! There is a very effective cheat that you can use that sounds great, playing major pentatonics rather than the full scales. I first saw Michael Anthony (of Van Halen) doing that on a video from some jam at a party, where he was playing the bass part and singing lead. That's a very difficult thing to do, hence simplifying the bass part slightly. I tend to play like that with drummers who perhaps haven't really nailed the part, or are playing it at a too fast tempo (it's surprising how many people want to play this when they ask you to sit in or at jams). If you want to challenge yourself, have a listen to some of the live versions where there is an extended guitar solo, where there is a lot of bass playing going on! The secret there is to play lots of runs using the F# blues scale, but targeting the flat fifth as much as you can get away with! Funnily enough, Kashmir is a pretty easy song to play, once you get the hang of the groove.

First and foremost It's the rhythm of one's bass playing that holds a band together and propels the rest to glory (whether they deserve it or not 😄). Rather than being a frustrated guitarist playing bass, I've always thought of myself as a frustrated drummer. Basically I play the drums on on bass, with the chord tones of whatever is going on being my kit. That's a very simple description of how I go about it but people always seem to like it.

Wow! How does it sound? I’d be seriously considering getting a per string preamp and wiring a multichannel cable. I don’t know why though.

The Pubes

I know I'm asking a question that can't be answered any chance there might be deals on these post Xmas?

And am now currently tinkering around with The Immigrant Song.

playable, yes. overcomplicated, yes. I would make a chord chart and play a bass line that actually makes sense. only reason to play this line is because it is part of some kind of unison or arrangement. if not, directly to thrash