Misdee

But even after Flea withdrew his endorsement to all intents and purposes it was still his signature model. EBMM did indeed sell a whole lot of basses because of the Flea association, and probably still do to some extent. So in retrospect Sterling Ball got plenty of gain for very little pain. Modulus Flea/FU basses had a higher price and far more limited distribution than EBMM, for sure, but they must also have had a radically different business model that took that into account. Or at least they should have.

Singers voices go awry as they get older. It's just a fact of life. Even great singers lose it sooner or later. To be fair, Debbie Harry was never a great singer, but she had a style and a delivery that made her great at being a pop star. Nothing wrong with that. It must be very hard for performers who have enjoyed stardom because of their talent and good looks to accept that time conquers everything and everybody. I imagine being a geriatric Debbie Harry is quite a difficult thing to negotiate. I thought she looked great in those visor shades and more power to her for dying her hair grey.

True, but the rest of the industry has largely surrendered nowadays and decided to follow Fenders model. To the extent that even EBMM have started to copy Fender's models, eg the Caprice, Cutlass, Joe Dart 2.

I am not a Glasto aficionado, but I watched Elton on Sunday night and couldn't help but realise that this was something rather special. I've rarely seen a performance that unified people like that one. I can only think of Queen at Live Aid, really. It's a terrible cliché but it's true, those songs have become part of people's lives and part of the cultural fabric of our nation. What's great about Elton is that he doesn't pretend to be a normal person. He's had fifty-odd years of being the superstar Elton John and he is unashamedly different and difficult. But ,paradoxically, ordinary folks identify with him and his music.

Thinking about it, Flea's patronage didn't manage to keep Modulus afloat, so on reflection maybe Sterling Ball is a very shrewd CEO.

Sounds unreasonable, I agree. But then again,Fender are partial to a signature rebranding of their basses. Look at the Sean Hurley Precision Bass. I suppose that does have a mute, but it's pretty tenuous isn't it? Remember the Phil Lynott P Bass? Essentially a P Bass with a mirror (and an eye-watering price tag) on it. I can see where Flea was coming from. There's no doubt EBMM were selling basses on the back of Flea's popularity,but I don't think he was ever going to get a cut. Maybe his revenge was to get Fender to make him a signature Stingray.

Nice work putting this montage together, Bart. Flea is an iconic Stingray player, no doubt about that. He is also one of the very few bass players people who don't play the bass and know nothing about bass players have heard of and are impressed by. I remember during the era Flea was using Stingray basses him complaining about the necks being unstable and incessantly needing adjustment. I also remember other Stingray players making the same complaint at the time. Still, 30 years later EBMM necks are still flatsawn without any reinforcement, but mine seem to behave okay. Having said that, I would have to point out that nowadays I am only touring between my bedroom and living room with my basses, so climatic changes are fairly minimal. More importantly though, I remember what a monumentally influential bass player Flea was in the early 1990s. No bass player in history has inspired so many bad wannabes. It was seemingly impossible to go to a see an amature band anywhere in the world without having to endure a usually painfully bad channelling of Flea's bass aesthetic. It was an epidemic. Even some established band's bass players in came under Flea's spell. From those he inspired,the slapping I could live with, the bombastic punk funk attitude less so. Flea pulls it off because it's authentically him, but no one else does. I will always be a fan of his playing, though.

Monkey Biz, they were called,I seem to recall. But back in the early 1980s there was Soundwave in Romford. That was the first dedicated bass shop I remember. I never got to go to the shop but I remember the adverts listing their stock in the gear section of Sounds music paper. They were something to do with the fledgling Trace Elliot amps and Status basses. I think maybe they were made on their premesis or something like that. That was the only place in the UK you could buy a Steinberger bass when they first came to the UK in 1982, and the price wass £999, if I remember correctly. That's £3322 in today's money, apparently. Quite reasonable by today's standards, the only problem being back in 1982 I didn't have the train fare to Romford, let alone £999. Unlike nowadays when bass players will buy any old tat at any price so long as it has a romantic association with the past, back in the 1980s bass shops were important because it was all about having the latest thing. The kind of gear people fetishise nowadays - P Basses, Gibson Grabbers, short scale basses,flat wound strings, old vave amps ect- were considered extremely undesirable and outmoded. The more modern, hifi and hi-tech your gear was the better. There wasn't the worldwide marketplace facilitated by the internet that we take for granted nowadays and shops like the Bass Centre had the contacts to import the most desirable and exotic equipment into the UK. Reading between the lines, I think the advent of the internet was the beginning of the end for the Bass Centre as it was in its heyday because it effectively ended that shop's exclusive access to so much equipment. UK bass players had more options as to where they spent their money. Purely nostalgia on my part but I preferred the old days and the excitement of a trip to the Bass Centre compared to waiting for the DPD man to deliver a cardboard carton.

Martin who eventually became the manager was a big Billy Sheehan fan, I seem to remember.

The Bass Centre in Wapping was the best shop in the world ever. In its heyday they had a stunning array of basses, amps and everything else. Just as important though, was that Barry and the rest of the staff were always very decent people to deal with, whether you were buying or just trying stuff out. There was something about that shop that epitomised playing bass in the 1980s. I went to the other branches in Manchester, Birmingham and LA, and they were all good, but Wapping was the best.

The wonderful Chris Minh Dokey has got one. I know his main bass was a 2024, but now he mainly uses a P34 with a Hipshot D-tuner.

I met Black Sabbath briefly when I was about 12 years old at what must have been the height of their wild days. It's an awfully long time ago but I distinctly remember them all being very deeply suntanned and looking quite leathery.

You know you are getting old when Geezer Butler is on Radio 4 on a Saturday tea time. I bought the book last night and have had a quick dip into it. So far it's living up to my best expectations. 👍 And yes, a truly iconic bass guitarist. Made up the rules for an entire genre. Who could be cooler than Geezer Butler? One of the all-time greats.

Yes, I will stick my neck out and venture that this bass will sound very much like a Fender Jazz Bass.

LaBella flats are the most old school sounding of all the strings mentioned. If you want lower tension then maybe the Low Tension LTF-4A set would be worth a try. They definitely sound more clunky( in a good way) than Thomastiks. There's something in the midrange of LaBella flats that makes them sound so good. Another alternative would be Dunlop flats. They've got a thick, chewy sound but are still very articulate. To my ears they are kind of an amalgamation of LaBella and Thomastiks in terms of tone.

Such a good band. It's stating the obvious but their great strength was the songwriting. They put most other groups of their era to shame with just how clever they were, without ever being grandiose or pretentious. I remember seeing Martin McAloon playing his sunburst Music Man Cutlass back in the day and thinking what a beautiful bass it was. It must have been brand new at the time. Nowadays my lust for that bass is tempered by the knowledge that it probably weighs a ton. I hope he's still got it, though, and will be playing it on tour.

I use a Dunlop Nickel 120 B string on my Yamaha BB2025 and it sounds fine. Tension and tone is enough in keeping with the 40/60/80/100 guages that makes up the rest of the set that it has never bothered me. And to me, a 5 string with an inconsistent, weak B string is as much use as the proverbial chocolate teapot.

The 1024x has got a more distinctive tone than the 734a, to my ears anyway. The 734 is a essentially a generic active PJ. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but the 1024x has got a unique sound that no other bass on the market can replicate. For what it's worth, I can't think of another bass that sounds like the P34 either. The 1024x has got a lush bottom end and sounds like an active bass in certain respects. The P34 by way of contrast, sounds notably lean and precise, but not in a bad way. I don't think you will go far wrong with either. I like the 1024x in so much as I love the 2024x that it's based on, but the P34 sounds great too. Plus it's a Japanese-made Yamaha and that means a superb quality instrument that will last a lifetime.

I love the shape of these basses. A very stylish design all round. They look like beautifully crafted instruments.

I've been aware of John Giblin's playing for almost as long as I've been playing bass. My first bass teacher was a big fan of his playing with Brand X, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush ect and used to play me records( it was back in the olden days) featuring John's playing to inspire me. If you look at who he played with over the years it's a pretty dazzling array of artists. Seems like he was always amongst the elite of British bass players, and quite rightly so. RIP John Giblin. I like to think that somewhere beyond the Milky Way he is still ripping it up on his fretless Wal and being more interesting than most other bass players could ever hope to be.

He was a terrific bass player with a sound and style that really stood out. Quite literally; that bright P Bass tone with roundwounds and a pick was unmistakable even on medium wave radio and the lo-fi TV sets most folks had back in the day. Such an inventive and creative player. The Smiths wouldn't have been the monumental band they became without his contribution. I'm very sad. RIP Andy Rourke.😟

I wish maple necks were lacquered nowadays as standard, but it suits most manufacturers to put an oil and wax finish on because it's much less work and therefore less cost for them. By the 1970s Fender were using pretty thick laquer on their necks, and I'm sure it had a very significant effect on the tone. That combined with the fact that they were using ad-hoc variations on how they were winding their pickups from batch to batch might well explain why you come across some very raunchy P Basses from that era.

Yep, early 70s P Bass from the Joshua Tree era. Sounded great, looked the part, suited his style.

Proper Pau Ferro is reckoned by some to sound brighter than rosewood but a bit less bright than maple. You would need pretty good ears to be sure of that, though. In my experience maple is noticeably much brighter with a lacquer finish. Unfinished I don't hear that much of a difference from rosewood ect, but there's so many variables it's hard to say definitively. Just buy a bass that sounds good to you !😄

If I'm learning a song at home as an exercise I like to try work out the original bass part, if only as a starting point. Back in the days when I used to play covers in a band I was quite happy to play my rendition, but was always mindful of key elements of the original bass line. However, like the O.P, after a couple of Babychams I may well have decided to share my genius with the audience by embellishing songs with my own ideas. How much of a transgression overplaying might be is a depends greatly on the skill of the bass player. Quite often what is criticized for overplaying is actually bad playing, and lots of it. Playing what's best for the song doesn't necessarily mean playing less, but it does mean playing better. The best players can do whatever they want to and make it work. Some bass players play a lot, some play less. All that matters is how effective the overall sound is. In some circumstances less is more, in others the more the better. Rush wouldn't have been better served if Geddy Lee had taken a more minimalist approach,, for example, but his bass style would have ruined AC/DC.