wombatboter

Superstition - Stevie Wonder I've played with a lot of bands..it's always terrible and it doesn't have thé vibe. You just don't get that sound.

Maybe Wilkenfeld-Colaiuta were not available ? I saw the line-up with Tal and Vinnie last year live over here in Belgium and it was one of the best concerts I have ever seen. I can't imagine that Rhonda or Narada are able to be on the same level but I'm always ready to be convinced. I have seen and heard some stuff from Rhonda and I miss a bit of the harmonic depth Tal already has despite her "young" age.

I love that solo too but I still have doubts that he really played it himself.. In a documentary producer Mike Chapman complained about the poor technical abilities of the musicians of Blondie (the drums for Heart of Glass had to be played one tom, snare, hi hat, etc.. at the time) and that it was really hard to work with and since this is such a difficult solo..? I would love the thought though that he really played it himself.

[quote name='jude_b' post='715919' date='Jan 17 2010, 08:24 PM']Tacky eighties: there was a really really good bass solo on a 12" version of Freedom by Wham.[/quote] I remember a great bass solo on an extended remix of "I'm your man", isn't that the one you mean (with a great jazzbass-sound in a Stanley Clarke sort of style (Dean Estes, I presume ?)) ? My favourite : Jaco's fretless solo's on "Refuge of the roads" (Joni Mitchell)

I liked it again.... one of the things I really like is that you're not afraid to put power in your playing, even if that means that you're taking risks and might miss a note. But you just go for it and you get away with it. I like bass-players who are not ashamed and don't stare at their toes. I also like your choice of your notes. It seems to me that you play like you are : rather sure of yourself but there's no harm in that. Great bass-playing, I like it a lot.

In 1981 I had just bought my first cheap bass (an imitation Stagg Rickenbacker) and I learned to play bass with the "Boy" album. Took me a long time but I loved the basslines of An Cat Dubh, Twilight, Out of control and it was an excellent lesson to keep tempo on "Into the Heart" (it looks simple but it isn't, Clayton does a great job keeping time on his own). I prefer the U2 repertoire including Achtung Baby but afterwards I lost track a bit but every now and then there is still a great song that pops up (Stuck in a moment, Vertigo). I moved on from Clayton to Mark King to Pastorius to Palladino to Wooten etc. He was a necessary part in my chain of bass-playing. The most amazing thing is that U2 are still together. The pressure and the tension must be immense at certain moments but they cope with it and they keep trying to re-invent themselves. They don't always succeed but at least they try. Have the same friends for more than twenty years is a thing some of us rarely accomplish, so imagine how challenging it must be to be in a room with the same three musicians, over and over again without the tempting thought of "solo-albums". And like someone said : Clayton does always have a great sound, it changed but it drives the band.

U2 was the first live concert I ever saw (in 1981 in Brussels). You could feel that they would be big, they were special and not like other bands. I like the way The Edge leaves the chords a bit open so Adam can find his own space. There's also nothing wrong with playing eighth notes when the song requires this sort of playing... I still prefer his Ibanez Musician bass, it really fitted him.

I would have preferred a more Precision-like model Can't say a bad thing about Adam Clayton (that tasteful slapsolo on "Gloria", that beautiful riff on "Stories for Boys", that groundshaking tone on "Mysterious Ways" that makes your car-speakers wiggle, that grinding sound on "New year's Day", "Vertigo" and "Sunday bloody Sunday", etc) I wonder how anyone can find these bass-lines boring or uninspired ? He may look a bit unintrested, his bass-playing surely isn't to me In my list he stands next to Mick Karn, Palladino, Levin, McCartney and other great bassplayers

[quote name='GreeneKing' post='712088' date='Jan 14 2010, 12:30 AM']Want to be a bassist and do tricks? Maybe try guitar? Bass is SERIOUS business doncha know [/quote] I only take the instrument serious, myself I don't :-)

I have two very stupid "tricks"... :-) - with your right hand you pinch the artificial harmonics on your G-string going up from the end of the neck to the bridge. Normally you have a tone which will chromatically go up. Meanwhile with your left hand you act as if you're filling up an imaginary glass with an imaginary bottle which you "pour". Combined it should imitate the sound of a pint you're filling up. - with your left hand you scratch underneath your armpit as if you are a monkey, with your right hand you scratch across the length of your E-string with your fingernail in the same rythm as your left hand. Meanwhile you put your lipps in a Mick Jagger sort of way which will complete the whole image :-) I doubt if the last one will appeal to you :-)

Excellent and you sure got some balls....great playing !

Can't help it but I had expected to have a more "Karn"-esque bass-line. His unusual frasing and manierisms would easily fit this tune (especially at the end) but he keeps it a bit too tidy. This dancing routine by Gabriel is terrible (clearly a case of white men who aren't use to dance who do ridiculous attempts)

I have no idea but a great song (hadn't heard it before). Good singing, nice chords and a smooth arrangement. Wish that sort of stuff would still be obvious ànd in the charts.

I think that a lot of bassplayers just know certain positions on the neck but have absolutely no idea what sound is connected to that particular spot. They just know that when they fret a certain place on the neck that this is correct and that the fifth and the octave underneath it probably will be too... We just follow our hands and I think that in a lot of cases our knowledge of the tonal values is highly overrated. Try to sing a tune and then play it on your bass without making mistakes, that's really hard. It shows that we think in patterns and not in melodies.

[quote name='iamapirate' post='691762' date='Dec 22 2009, 08:56 PM']Master blaster and sir duke just come naturally to me [/quote] Not really stupidly easy tunes to me.... or maybe I'm missing the irony ?

[quote name='Sean' post='701862' date='Jan 5 2010, 05:53 PM']Here's another live version of Suspicious Minds - this is the one that's on "Elvis Live". I love how high the bass is in the mix and how The Scheff goes from laying back a bit to just ripping away and then back again and then... [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrRgZ6ReiWk"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrRgZ6ReiWk[/url] The way it sort of changes gear at 2:40 gives me goose bumps. The high register phrases at 3.15 - 3.45 are just glorious [/quote] I listened to it yesterday evening and really liked it...again it's clear that when you have a singer who really is in control and is able to lead a band a lot is possible. Even when it gets "sloppy" the right person (like Elvis) can lead it back into intensity and create something special on the spot. Jerry Scheff told me that when they played with Elvis, they rarely rehearsed and that anything was possible, everyone was going wild and Elvis loved that. He stopped playing with Elvis for a while and then came back to do some shows in Vegas. Scheff came on stage, picked up his bass and started to play like he used too but was instantly summoned by Elvis to "calm down". In a short period something seemed to have changed and they had to change their way of playing.

Never noticed it but you've got a point :-)

Like a lot of people before, I complemented Jerry Scheff on his "best work ever" on "Burning love"...but he didn't sound irritated when he told me it was another bassplayer who played that one. I quickly raved on about his sound on "Way Down" and he found his pride back and said "thàt's me, allright !". I met James Burton and Ronnie Tutt on the same night (they were all there with their women who seemed very eager to spend the earned money in the fashion shops in Paris..) I remember Scheff talking to me about James Jamerson. Scheff told me that he was quite familiar with the scene at that time where Jamerson came out off and he said that Jamerson was not really remarkable at that time, he said that in different clubs you could find bass-players who had the same qualities as Jamerson but that he was the one they picked up. Apparantly there was a lot of bass talent at that time. Me and Jerry in France :

I had the pleasure to meet Jerry Scheff in France and I enjoyed his company while we went for something to eat in a restaurant. Nice person, still an amazing bassplayer (he also played on "Riders on the storm") and he told me that he listens to a lot of Radiohead these days.. He does need hearing-aids (in both ears) nowadays.. He also plays on the Roy Orbison-dvd (black and white-night) together with Ronnie Tutt (also the Elvis-veteran), highly recommended.

I bought it too a while ago.. I love "Cousin Dupree" (and the dvd is a great one to try out the possibilities of the sound of homecinema :-))

A drummer I play with a lot around here in Belgium had the pleasure to play with Chaka during one concert and she brought Gouch along. He was floored by this bass player and he said that it's amazing how a bass-player could be so busy on his instrument and yet hold a tight groove.