Old Man Riva

Hadn’t realised it was a Peel session. I first heard it on Alan Freeman’s Saturday afternoon show and always assumed it was from that. I taped the show and listened to it loads as it had a Bowie track on (can’t remember which one) and also Phil Manzanera’s 801 doing Remote Control. Good times!

Just watched the Louis Cole set. Blimey, what a band! Tomorrow I dare say I shall be watching it again …

As stated on here already, Matt Bissonette’s playing was fabulous last night but he stays pretty faithful to Dee Murray’s lines, only reinforcing what a wonderful and talented player Dee was…

Just your average 1970s kid’s TV music! From Sesame Street, the abridged version of the Pointer Sisters Pinball Number Count …

Great, isn’t it! There are so many highlights, but at the moment I’m really digging the bit at 17mins 50secs where Rob Mullarkey shows some truly wonderful use of the Digitech Whammy pedal. He’s such an innovative player. Also think that the unsung hero of the piece is Ian Allison, whose excellent questions really draw out the best responses/playing from the players…

If you’re a fan of Rob Mullarkey, Richard Spaven, J Dilla, D’Angelo, stretching time, different time signatures, or simply want to watch a fabulous rhythm section right on top of their game explain how they go about things, then this is well worth a watch…

Les Pattinson of Echo & the Bunnymen was an upstroke player, and a fine one at that. One of Flea’s favourite bass players, apparently…

This is one of my favourite Pete pics…

As well as featuring a typically wonderful Les Pattinson bass line it is arguably the finest song to mention collective greengrocer stock there’s been…

Aye, it appears history has tortoise nothing...

Hopefully this adds rather than derails! Here’s an excellent appreciation of Chuck R …

That’s great! There’s an interview Chuck Rainey has done recently with Rick Beato where they discuss (amongst other things) Kid Charlemagne. Rick Beato has the guitar included when they’re listening through to the bass and drums, which blends everything together perfectly. Chuck Rainey says it was all done in one take!

Wilton Felder’s bass line on Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow by Joni Mitchell is lovely to play. Cool, groovy, slinky and perfect. There’s also a little motif/phrase up towards the dusty end that is great fun.

This popped up a few days ago. Never really seen proper full concert footage of this era before…

The whole thing is brilliant and disturbing in equal measure! It’s Pete Way before Pete Way…

I must admit I was surprised when I first saw him using the Thunderbird, but it sounds and looks great. His mid-70s heavily modded Jazz was in a Cov music shop a while back - the one he used in General Public. Pretty much all of the hardware had been replaced by brass versions (even the pickguard). It sounded great, was lovely to play, but needless to say it weighed a ton!

If it’s good enough for Sir Horace Gentleman…

… watched it and it’s fabulous. Rick Beato is so good at getting people to open up, and Chuck Rainey is such a wonderful and interesting guy. A lovely look at Chuck Rainey’s journey, along with some fascinating insights into being a (pro) musician and the trials and tribulations of the session scene…

… not had time to watch this yet but if it’s anything like Rick Beato’s usual interviews it’ll be well worth the watch.

There were other bands in the series - I can’t recall seeing the Icicle Works, but fairly sure the Bunnymen were on. I quite liked the Icicle Works until I read that Mike Read (the DJ, not the Runaround fella!) was fond of using one of their albums as the soundtrack to his Percy Filth escapades - obviously not their fault, but still! Re. BAD and Chiefs of Relief, was that recorded for TV? Pretty sure that turned up on a late night Channel 4 show at the time…

This is a good watch. Back when this was filmed/aired the chances of anything music-related being shown on prime-time telly were slim, but this popped up on the BBC as an early evening programme as part of a series of gigs at Sefton Park in Liverpool (Big Country were also on as a separate broadcast and cleverly changed the chorus to Angle Park to Sefton Park, the cheeky loveable scamps!). As I recall it was on a Tuesday/Wednesday evening at 7pm, or some such? Anyway…

… another 80s favourite.

Here’s a very 80s track with a very 80s video. I thought this was massively hip and cool at the time… (still do!)

It sounds like an eminently sensible and practical way to try and improve the instrument! I can't recall anybody I knew back then even giving a second thought to whether the (perceived) improvements they were doing to an instrument would affect future value. Swapping out the original nuts for a brass version ("more sustain") or installing a new Schaller bridge (with rolling saddles!) were done with a view that the instrument would be improved, which was the main consideration. The first replacement p/ups I knew of were the cream coloured DiMarzios. Then came the active EMG p/ups, which caused quite a stir. You could have an active bass with relative ease. The battery was normally okay to squeeze under the control plate on a Jazz, but more difficult to do with a Precision, which is why the body was often routed to fit the battery. And the work that went into fitting a Floyd Rose to a Strat would these days probably be seen as sacrilege. I blame Eddie Van Halen!