Happy Jack

OK, so here's a strange thing. I was enjoying listening to the original so much that I picked up my bass, thought I'd have another go at that little bass lick that Porter puts in at the end of each line of the verse. Hmmmmm ... that's a little faster that I remember this song being. And I'm sure that the original is in E, not F. I know that's a TOTP recording an' all, but it both looks & sounds as if the whole bloody thing has been varispeeded up by a semi.

I wish I that very same hat that the drummer's wearing ...

"I remember George Clinton asking the rhetorical question in Parliament's "P-Funk (wants to get funked up)" " Can you imaging Doobiein' your funk?"" Yeh, but who knows WTF he was talking about?

It will be my immense pleasure to play this bassline (slightly simplified) in about four hours from now ...

Looks like a Classic model? I'm assuming it's the 34" scale rather than the (much rarer) 35", and I guess it's bloody heavy. What do these normally sell for? The info is not as easily available on line as I'd have expected.

In all fairness, "the day" was nearly 50 years ago.

Doh! Sorry - this is correct and my earlier post was a typo. Thanks for the correction @itu

So, Trigger, about this broom of yours ...

That was genius. Very, very impressive.

Oooooh, ya beach!

Our guy (Paul the Drums, as he's known at the SouthEast BassBash) was so keen to nail this that he booked a couple of sessions in a drum booth at Bell Drum Studios (Acton) and just worked on it until he had the whole thing down. It makes a real difference ... playing live, you sound so much more convincing if the drummer is playing it exactly right.

And for some reason that's left me singing

The "dreary middle bit"? Pot, meet kettle. Overall, it sounds like an early attempt at being Euro ZZ Top. @Silvia Bluejay tells me that this was probably a bigger hit in Italy than Radar Love.

There's less of Denmark Street than there used to be (Crossrail construction works) but yes, plus Macaris down Charing Cross Road about 200 yards. Haven't been to The Gallery in years, but I imagine it hasn't changed much.

I think you're all being very harsh on these guys. I too would want to keep it all below the radar if I was re-forming S Club 7.

Poptastic!

Most cabs are either 8 Ohms or 4 Ohms. The lower the resistance, the more power will be extracted from your amplifier, so if you plug your rig through an 8-Ohm cab, and then plug it through an otherwise-identical 4-Ohm cab, the 4-Ohm can will sound much louder. NOT twice as loud, but a pretty big step up. Life gets exciting when you start combining cabs in pairs. For reasons that you can look up on t'Internet, if you pair two 8-Ohm cabs then their combined resistance drops to 4 Ohms, and if you pair two 4-Ohm cabs then their combined resistance drops to about 2.7 Ohms. There are plenty of amps that can handle resistance as low as 2 Ohms, but there are plenty more that can't. The easiest way to tell the difference is to look for the tell-tale white smoke coming out of the back of the amp. This is not a design feature. As a general rule it's best not to get hung up on wattage figures. They are horribly misleading, easily misunderstood, frequently misrepresented, and tell you surprisingly little about how loud a cab will go. Trust your ears. Go and see half a dozen bands playing the sort of gigs that you expect to play, check out what the bassist is using and how he/she sounds, go and have a chat between sets. Find a sound you like and see whether you can buy something to match. You'll sell it within the year as you learn more, but that's the price of spending time on Basschat.

Good thinking ... Marmite would work, wouldn't it?

And with the pickups reversed ...

Never heard of it?

That was Rick expressing his relief that he could stop singing that high. We've already dropped it from F# to E to make it possible for him to sing it, and he has a pretty good range. The Tokai Thunderbird that I was playing there was kept detuned by a tone and reserved for just this song at each gig.

Oh well, if at first you don't succeed ... cheat.

@Silvia Bluejay will fix ...