xilddx

[quote name='peteb' timestamp='1368721356' post='2080724'] Scott Thunes rears his head round these parts yet again! Actually, I would be quite interested to hear Wackerman's views on ST and the demise of the Zappa band. Have you read Bryan Beller's account of his dealings with Thunes after Dwezil replaced him with BB (on his old website)? Well worth a read if you can find it - Beller is trying to be nice about Thunes, but he still comes across as a complete sociopath...! [/quote] Yeah I read that, Josh Freese and Thunes got on really well, then Joe Travers came in and acted like a rock star on stage, chucking sticks in the audience and stuff (I have one actually ) which Thunes didn't like AT ALL. He didn't get on with Travers at all. According to Thunes, Dweezil basically told him he needed nice people in the band so they could get on and share rooms on tour because of budget, so he fired Thunes and got Beller in who was Travers' mate from Uni. Meanwhile Dweez continued to travel everywhere first class. I find Dweez a bit of a dick really, he says all the other Zappa bands with other ex band members, and the tribute acts are putting their own spin on his dad's music and disrespecting his memory, whereas ZPZ faithfully reproduces it. I wonder what Frank would say about that since he enjoyed bastardising doo wop and blues so much and rearranging Bartok and Stravinsky etc. Dweez was a miserable sod when I met him too which doesn't help

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1368717596' post='2080658'] One thing about reading Guitar Player back in those days was it was full of musicians and references to music that I had never actually heard . I used to read Jeff Berlin's Bass And Beyond column for years before I ever heard a record with him on ( I know some out there might see that as a blessing ...) , and so many other players were similaly unknown . It's easy to forget that nowadays you can read about a player or a piece of music and get on Youtube and be watching and / or listening to things within thirty seconds . In those days unless you had the money to buy expensive import records you were often left to imagine what these people sounded like , unless they were session musicians who had played on chart records you had heard this side of the Atlantic . [/quote] Exactly! I was learning little bits of Larry Coryell and Al Di Meola without knowing what the f*** it was supposed to sound like. That sort of thing gives you some personality in your playing, little nuggets of technique and phrases and chords that you learn from a page, and if you get excited by them you start expanding on them based on what pleases your ears, a note here, a space there ... I got much more pleasure from reading GP the other night than most of the stuff I read on the web.

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1368641685' post='2079677'] You should tell the lovely Kit to come to Bristol mate [/quote] We've started talking about it man, let's hope we can get out of London soon! Thanks a lot mate.

A sh*t load of Zappa, Olivia Newton John, and Dean Friedman.

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1368716837' post='2080638'] Yes , yes , yes ! In the 1980's I used to get Guitar Player every month without fail and it was indeed written to a level that no magazines even aspire to nowadays . It was full of genuinely knowledge - expanding information and thought - provoking veiws , and I learnt [i]so much [/i]from reading it that I still think about today . And the adverts were a scintillating and sumptuous glimpse of a world of gear that I could only dream about at that time . I'm getting a bit emotional now . In the U.K we had International Musician And Recording World magazine , and that was pretty good too , as well as the gear pages in the back of Sounds , and that was probably the best all round music paper ever , in my opinion . [/quote] I got all emotional reading it the other night too. I got very excited

[quote name='jezzaboy' timestamp='1368714506' post='2080570'] I have spent an absolute fortune on music mags since the early 80`s. Could have bought a pre CBS P bass with the money. I must stick up for Guitar & Bass magazine here. Good interviews, vintage gear stories and decent reviews. [/quote] G&B is the best of all the UK mags by a mile.

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1368712713' post='2080524'] You're right. The IV's were much better. Technique stuff's light years ahead of contemporary UK offerings. The nerdy detail is the only thing that's better these days, but that's all on the forums anyway. Used to love some of the columnists - Teisco Del Rey, Tommy Tedesco, Rik Emmet. Remember when GP introduced the ' warts'n'all, no holds-barred' gear reviews? Slaggings galore, pissed-off mfrs and ads getting pulled. A very short-lived exercise involving mucho back-pedalling, u-turns and eggy faces. Since which events, no mag has ever dared follow suit and 'tell the truth'. [color=#ffffff].[/color] [/quote] Tommy Tedesco's column 'Studio Log' was superb! He even said what he earned for the session What an amazing musician he was. I don't remember those reviews mate, I'd love to read some!

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1368712513' post='2080521'] Wrong how? I thought that was a pretty accurate evaluation of the Scott Thunes situation? What else do you know? [/quote] Zappa said Thunes had a difficult personality, refuses to be cordial and not interested in small talk. Zappa loved what he brought to the band and it was Thunes' arrangements of the Ravel and Bartok pieces that made it to the tour and on he two 88 band realeases. He was made clonemeister after Arthur Barrow and had a hard time with most of the band, Kenneally being the exception. Zappa has said before that Ed Mann and Chad Wackerman were the ringleaders and most of the the rest of the band joined them in making things difficult for Thunes, who didn't help himself either by reacting badly to it. In the end Zappa asked the band if they would tour with Thunes and they refused to. So zappa wound the band up because he could not afford the time and cash to rehearse another bassist - remember the had about 80 pieces of highly complex music to learn and play, that takes a LONG time to learn. He cancelled remaining dates and lost about $400,000. Later, the rest of the band were falling over themselves to apologise to Frank. And something in particular really wound Zappa up - one of the horns kept moaning Thunes never gave him enough support on his solos, but Zappa played the tapes to him later and he said "Oh he sounds good man!", Zappa said in an interview that that sort of sh*t makes him sick. Ed Mann has made up with Thunes fairly recently, Wackerman remains silent about the whole affair. If you are fascinated enough, read Andrew Greenaway's 'Zappa The Hard Way', a book about the 1988 tour and tons of interviews with the band including Thunes (but not Wackerman), and Electric Don Quixote by Neil Slaven has a few chapters in it. To hear Thunes' view of events, read 'Interviews with Really Scary Musicians' by Thomas Wictor. Search Requiem for a Heavyweight on google and you'll find a cut version of Wictor's full interview published in Bass Player. EDIT: Here you go .. [url="http://www.cidanka.nl/keneally/stbp0397.htm"]http://www.cidanka.nl/keneally/stbp0397.htm[/url] Also, Mike (urb on here) interviewed him a couple of years ago for BGM, but there's not much about the 88 tour n that, great interview though

[quote name='steve-bbb' timestamp='1368711232' post='2080497'] Zappa's various line-ups is another example of this - although even this defies logic as he seemingly insisted on keeping an extremley talented bass player who's ego was bigger than the rest of the band put together and somebody as shrewd as FZ must have realised it was a car crash waiting to happen [/quote] Wrong mate

I used to read Guitar Player and Musician magazines back in the '80s and '90s. I've lately been buying a few up on ebay from that period and reading old interviews with some of my favourite musicians. One I just got was Guitar Player from Feb 83 containing interviews with Zappa and a young Steve Vai who was in Zappa's band at the time. What has struck me is the sheer depth, length and quality of the interviews (combined, the Zappa and Vai interviews would take up a whole issue of BGM), the columns are amazing, and the general attention to detail - proofing seems to be excellent. The interviews are just magical to read, incredible knowledge to be gained, and they are so inspirational. Comparing these old mags to the current BGM or GP and BP, they just eclipse modern music player journalism. I have learned SOOOOO much just from this issue! I've just bought a bunch more and I can't wait to read them! EDIT: I bet this will delight someone on here! Jaco cover Guitar Player 1984! [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Guitar-Player-Magazine-August-1984-Jaco-Pastorius-/400442764812?pt=Magazines&hash=item5d3c3fae0c"]http://www.ebay.co.u...=item5d3c3fae0c[/url]

Have a top night Clarky! Sorry I can't be there mate.

[quote name='Painy' timestamp='1368648941' post='2079852'] I think expresion in music obviously makes a big difference. My dad (an extremely accomplished classically trained musician) would often comment on the tendency for a lot of Japanese musicians to be technically flawless and very precise but he found their playing to be somewhat 'souless' and to his ears somehow less musical. Now this is of course a rather sweaping generalisation of musicians of one particular nationality but I do see how he felt about music played that way. For some reason music creates an emotional response in our brains which is why we enjoy it but this looses somethin in translation if every note is played in a mechanical fashion. For me the danger of simply playing something note for note is that it is very difficult to recreate faithfully the phrasing and feel fingerprint of the original player and you can then end up playing with almost no expression at all. I would much rather play with the feel that comes to me naturally and still create expressive music, albeit a different feel, than with no feeling at all. Of course as for whether the average punter will notice the difference in the music they may not but I know I'll be able to tell myself and 18 years / 1000+ gigs of playing covers has certainly taught me that the crowd respond more if you appear to be enjoying yourself and believe in what you do! Of course thats me and my opinion - boring if we all thought the same way! [/quote] That sounds spot on to me mate. Great post.

[quote name='Clarky' timestamp='1368635593' post='2079560'] Frankly, I find it hard enough to play in time and in tune (especially on a double bass) that "personaliy" doesn't come into it, perseverance and concentration does. That plus the fact I am a goatwhore [/quote]

[quote name='krysh' timestamp='1368635008' post='2079545'] @ nige: I like kits version much better than the original and your cover also is outstanding. I don'tknow the original, so can't tell about your personal performance. [/quote] That's really kind of you mate, thank you!

[quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1368633705' post='2079528'] Given that I didn't ask a question, I have no idea what you mean. [/quote] Maybe I misread it mate.

[quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1368634214' post='2079538'] I had no idea whether it was faithful to the original as I am not at all familiar with Yes. I just enjoyed it. [/quote] Thanks man

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1368631685' post='2079495'] Only if you give a flying f*** about what other people think of your music or have a desperate need for people to tell you how wonderful you are. I'd say the highest goal in music is to create something that you yourself are happy with. If it ends up connecting with other people then that's just a bonus. [/quote] I would think most pop and rock musicians need to do both. Unless they are happy selling fried f***ing chicken for the rest of their lives.

[quote name='Left Foot' timestamp='1368629303' post='2079448'] [url="http://basschat.co.uk/user/3459-xilddx/"][color=#282828]xilddx[/color][/url] - Office is unusually busy today hence why no comment on video, cheers for putting back up [/quote] No problem mate, hope it's what you were after.

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1368628624' post='2079438'] That 'Wick sounds more like a Rick than most Ricks I've heard!! Nailed the tone totally man! [/quote] The power of the POD mate, plus you can play a nice bass insteadof battling a Rickenbacker Cheers!

[quote name='risingson' timestamp='1368627953' post='2079428'] Great pick work Nige. I'm getting tired of seeing bass players avoid using picks, I put it down to years of prejudice against pick playing. The guys you do see finally picking it up are usually great fingerstyle players but novices with picks which I always find really strange to watch. I digress, but you nailed it. [/quote] Very kind mate, thank you! The only problem is I can't use a pick with the gloves on I very rarely play pick style with the bands but I LOVE the feel and sound of them.

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1368624009' post='2079342'] We need to work together, I have a million ideas, and maybe 4 finished songs floating about at the moment. [/quote] I have millions of ideas too, it's just sitting the f*** down in my studio and starting to arrange and record them I got a new recording system and I'm only just starting to get the hang of it, I find it daunting and have to push myself to geet in there. I have a fair bit of pro recording for an album to do aswell which will definitely push me to learn it quickly!

[quote name='Norris' timestamp='1368618418' post='2079200'] How about making one with a silouette Ric********* headstock? [/quote] Who the f*** would wear it?

From the OP it seems clear it's about the writing process.