TrevorR

Are you including Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox in that classification? Coz I think that most of their stuff is pretty good. Some of it is brilliant (their versions of The Final Counrdown, Mr Blue Sky and Wannabe, particularly)

…post Squire (RIP), post Anderson but with Steve Howe and Geoff Downes still in the band with a selection of fill ins. It’s to promote their new album which is due out in mid-May. I have to admit that I was curious how it would turn out as a huge Yes fan. I have to say that even with my low expectations coming into it the song failed to live to even those. Sure Steve Howe’s guitar sounds as Howeish as ever and is about the only redeeming factor. The song seems really bland even by latter day Yes standards with little to make it stand out while it noodles along. Jon Davidson puts in a decent enough Anderson-alike performance but that is what he was to do a decade or so ago. However, the lyrics, such as they are seen to be simply a bunch of barely connected inspirational sounding non-sequitur. Basically nonesense… And that coming from someone who has spent 40 odd years listening to Jon Anderson’s convoluted, karmic bleating. However, as a long term Yes fan and as a bass player the biggest disappointment was the bass playing by Billy Sherwood. It’s not intricate and melodic while still driving the song along like Squire always was. No, it’s just busy and noodly. And delivered with a pretty uninspiring rock tone - OK it’s probably his Spector and they do have a distinctive Spector sound… but there’s nothing here which you’d grab onto in terms of tone. It was OK… and the bass in prog rock, and particularly following Chris Squire’s footsteps should never be just OK. I had always suspected that my interest in Yes, either live or in terms of new music died alongside Chris. Listening to this track does nothing to dispel that thought. Anyway, I wonder what you guys think - Yes fans and non-Yes fans alike,

This is artistic genius compared to her and Angelique Kidjo’s demolition of Gimme Shelter! And this album won a Grammy!!!!!

…not forgetting that Eric Carmen’s All By Myself was a cover of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto, M’lud.

That was pretty “Meh”. Two downbeat Lizzy covers I do like are Sade’s version of Still In Love With You and Emm Gryner’s Running Back from her “Songs of love and death” - an album of Irish rock song covers. Also in the “Meh pile” - The Corrs version of Old Town. in the flippin excruciating pile is Metallica’s Whiskyin the Jar.

This is the important stuff. Praying for you, your dad and the family.

Indeed, nor drummers… when I joined a wedding/covers band back in about the early 2000s during our first rehearsal we stopped to have a bit of a tea break. NB the strings I was using at the time had black silks (that’s important -you’ll see why in a minute)… The drummer gave a long hard stare at the headstock of my bass and said, “Trev, what kind of bass is that you’re playing?” “Oh, it’s a Wal - they’re a small hand builder, so you might not have come across them before.” “Wal you say?” Stares closely at the headstock… “Yeah, Wal. Why?” “Well, I’ve been staring at it from over here and with those black strings I really could have sworn it said ‘Tw@t’!!!” 🤣

I was actually stunned two weeks ago when a new guitarist at my regular jam night asked me when I had just arrived, “Oooh, what’s in the case… let me guess… Fender?” “Nope.” “Warwick?” “Nope” “Stingray.” “Nope” “Ooh, what is it?” “ You might not have heard of it - a Wal…” Guitar player promptly falls off his chair and engages in enthusiastic chat about it…

I sympathise with where they’re coming from (a bit) but the problem with “encouragement” like that is there’s a 99.999% chance they are not musicians and just have no idea how music works. They probably have an unconscious presumption/bias that either you’re worshipping and not thinking about your instrument, notes and such carnal fripperies or you’re a diva with an ego the size of Yngwie who wouldn’t know worshipping if you slapped him in the face with it and is just getting your self gratification rocks off giving a performance… black and white thinking… false dichotomy stuff. Having no idea how music works they won’t appreciate the reality that you can be playing to the best of your ability and still be 100% worshipping at the same time. Or that music, notes, rhythm and everyone playing the same thing does actually matter… Why would they, it’s completely outside their sphere of knowledge and experience. If you can mentally translate what they said to, “We know that you’re getting stressed by the fact that the worship leader doesn’t really know what he’s doing but try not to worry about getting the musical side right and try to worship anyway. Even with his failings the congregation is worshipping and that’s what’s most important - not the medium itself, the outcome in the body of the church.” then you’re probably most of the way there to what they thought they were saying. Now, if it was accompanied by some sort of, “…but we recognise what you are saying and are trying to encourage and help him improve his skills…” that would be even better. But I suspect that latter bit of insight and leadership wisdom may be beyond them right now. Maybe one day?

So glad it worked out! Enjoy! That is a stunning piece of shedua - well, two stunning pieces, front and back. Shedua used to be one of the standard wood options included in the base price but a few years ago Paul changed it to an upcharge - using zebrano as a standard facing instead. The reason was that good flamed pieces were becoming harder to find and he didn’t want to offer the bog standard plain tops. But the upside is that, since it’s an extra charge he now only sources really special, super funky looking, high quality pieces - like you’ve got on yours. And yes, as the angle of the light changes the flame does move. It’s quite a stunning effect and absolutely gorgeous without being blousy like, say, a PRS-style quilted maple. Gorgeous, gorgeous bass. Enjoy exploring the tones you can get from that preamp!

I’m finding it looks better without specs at the moment!

A bit underwhelming, even if in a retro 60s/70s manner… wonder how long they’ll stay on the books?

For me it’s usually the bass line from Thin Lizzy’s Dancing in the Moonlight. If I’m trying a bass out in a shop it’ll also be the bass li e from a couple of folk songs my band did back at university, just coz the muscle memory still means the notes naturally fall under my fingers. And the French horn melody line from The Theme to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - which is a lovely tune. Only ever once had a shop assistant say, “Hey, wait a minute, is that…?”

First saw him playing on Toyah’s “The Changeling” tour. The drummer on that tour was some young kid called Simon Phillips. Often wonder what happened to him and if he made a go of the old drumming career… 😉 That was one heck of a rhythm section!

Brilliant!

Oh yeah, and I used to chat regularly to the four girls from B*Witched when they worked on the tills at my local Tesco to make some spending cash before their first single came out. Four Irish girls caught my attention as a fully (Northern) Irish person so I’d always make a point of saying “Hi!” and having a chat whenever they served me. Not exactly “musical heroes” though!!!

I’ve met a few heroes over the years and been lucky that they were all pleasant and easy to get on with. For example, I’ve been presented with guitars that I won in competitions by bot Steve Howe and Gordon Giltrap - two of my three favourite guitar players (never met Gary Moore). Got to know Gordon over the years; such a lovely guy. But my most treasured hero moment was meeting Phil Lynott after a gig at the Cornwall Coliseum on their farewell tour in 1983. After the 83, as usual, I was hanging around in the empty hall waiting for my dad to pick me up (it was a 25 minute drive from home) and watching the crew breaking down the gear. Phil wandered out on stage (a little wobbly) carrying a huge, half finished vodka bottle. He spotted me standing in the middle of the empty auditorium and shouted over, asking if everything was OK. I said “Sure, just waiting for my dad, and watching the crew break down. It’s alright, he’ll be here in about a quarter of an hour.” So he said, “Well come up here and we’ll wait.” I climbed over the barrier and he and a roadie helped me up onto the stage. So we spent the next 15 or 20 minutes sitting on Brian’s drum riser just chatting until my dad turned up. Of course I asked him if he was really splitting up the band and if he had plans for what he’d do next. The answer to the first was, of course, “Yes.” And the second just got a wink, a tap of the finger on the side of the nose and “I’ve got a few ideas!” Then we sat here just shooting the breeze with our legs dangling off the riser. At one point he accidentally kicked my leg as he was swinging his legs and spent a couple of minutes apologising profusely in the way only happily tipsy people can do. At one point Scott poked his head out, spotted us and quickly retreated backstage. Eventually dad showed up at the other end of the hall and I jumped down to get my lift home. We exchanged a little wave as I went out the rear doors and he wandered back stage. What a lovely guy he was!

It is great… I’m hooked. Love how he makes topics and composers you thought you had no interest in fascinating and accessible. Widescreen radio is a brilliant metaphor!

Reminds me of an old song my mum used to love, Mairzy Doats

This Radio 3 documentary does a very good look at John Williams’ magpie tendencies… https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015cm7 Tom Service’s prose can be a bit purple and pretentious but The Listening Service is always a fascinating listen on a wide range of musical topics…

…and Walton for the quiet bits on Tatooine in the desert… (see above)

Caveat, I’m not worrying about music you can learn or play along with just interesting different styles and composers you might want to listen to to see what you enjoy - there will be composers and styles you like and those you don’t… just like any type/style of music. You’ve had a load of great suggestions a.ready so I’ll try not to duplicate too much. So here are a few of my favourites which are worth checking out. Lots of references to Bach, and you really can’t go wrong. A personal favourite are the 6 Brandenburg Contertos. You’ll recognise some of the movements because they regularly get used for TV themes or incidental music. Haydn has been mentioned too. I prefer the later symphonies such as 94 and 104. Mozart I can be a bit take it or leave I but I really like his Symphony 41 - again one that’s been used for film scores etc. Try out one of Beethoven’s symphonies - no 6 the Pastoral is well known and very accessible but No 3, “Eroica” is a favourite. Brahms’ 2nd Symphony is quite Beethoven influenced but a nice listen in its own right. Maybe a bit melodramatic in places. Probably my favourite piece is Elgar’s Cello Concerto - either of Jacqueline DuPre’s recordings are considered definitive. All of Rachmaninov’s piano concertos are fantastic but no 3 is considered the ultimate. No 2 will get you loads of super romantic themes used in loads of films. Try to find the recordings by Vladimir Ashkenazy with the Concertgebouw conducted by Bernard Haitink. Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini is fun too. I love Aaron Copland’s music - very cinematic and modern but in an accessible way. His Clarinet Concerto is fantastic and Appalachian Spring is lovely if you can get past flashbacks to school assemblies as it uses a theme from an old folk tune which was murdered by music teachers up and down the country as “Lord of the Dance”. The Quiet City is very evocative of… well the middle of the night in an American city in the 30s, 40s or 50s, I guess. Another favourite is Nonet for Strings. George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue does a melding of classical and jazz styles really nicely, with an iconic clarinet intro used brilliantly for ther opening of his film Manhattan. Finally, I’ve been getting into William Walton recently who blends a sort of Beethovenesque classical style with more 20th C harmonies and a cinematic texture - you can hear where John Williams nicked a load of inspiration for his eerie, quiet passages in his soundtracks from (and the noisy bits from Gustav Holst). Been listening to his Symphony no 1 recently. And another favourite piece… a fluffy little thing that Gustav Holst wrote to give the school orchestra string section something to do at a school concert when he was a music teacher at a posh girls school… not heavy, or serious or super classical but hugely enjoyable, which I guess was what he was going for… it certainly always raises my mood! Ironically, here seemingly played by the string section of an orchestra at a posh girls school!

There’s not much better than a really good pun… except maybe a really really awful one. I was listening to a band I’ve not really listened to much in the last few years and it got me thinking about this. A number of artists have used punnery in their album titles… k.d. lang’s smoking themed disc, “Drag” for one, Rush’s “Moving Pictures” has an album cover exploring multiple entendres. But what was the band that got me thinking punningly? An accordion led folk rock band from Wales called Mabon. Their second (I think) album has a name that makes me smile every time I see it… OK Pewter… Ouch!

…strictly that’s “- used on 5 albums* over a period of around 8 years…” *Power Windows Hold Your Fire A Show Of Hands Presto Roll The Bones …but, yes, Justin Chancellor is probably the main well known user at the mo. Others who continue to are less well known or their “fame” heyday has passed (Colin Edwin, Percy Jones, Dave Bass, Lol Cottle are probably the current better known users). Also, worth noting that the list on Wal’s website is of those who have bought/been using their basses over the years rather than an “endorses list”. Wal have never offered artist endorsement deals like many other bass companies.

P-bass shaped Wal - an obscure option the few knew about and (as far as we know) only one person (Kev) took up - there’s a bit more to the story but I’ll leave that to @Spoombung