Russ

[quote name='thinman' post='197668' date='May 13 2008, 07:54 AM']Yet another John Barrowman! John Barrowman! John Barrowman! vehicle. They've only got to bring him back into Dr Who and he'd be in three programmes in a row. That Jessie seems a lovely girl but born 40 years too late.[/quote] He will be back on DW at the end of the series for the last couple of episodes (bring on Davros!). If I'd Do Anything and that game show he's on with the kids were still on by then, he would be on three shows in a row... luckily, I think both the other shows finish before the DW finale. I like John Barrowman, but that's just over-exposure...

I'm all for each part of a song having its own identity, ie, if you soloed a single instrument from the band (ie, just the bass, or just the guitar, etc), you'd be able to easily identify the song, because each musical part is an equal contributor to the overall sound. That's just down to good songwriting. I'm a big believer in the notion that a good song, although often sounding better when played by a whole band, can be played solo with just an acoustic guitar or a bass and not lose its identity. A band who do this brilliantly are The Cure - Simon Gallup's bass parts are so well crafted to the song, and the song could happily stand alone with just his bass and Robert Smith singing over it. They're not technically amazing, they're just melodic, they outline the chords well, and are very well written. This is the direction I'm going in... I've done the whole slapped-32nd-notes flashy thing before, so now I'm trying to be a bit more intelligent about it.

[quote name='Muppet' post='197533' date='May 12 2008, 09:32 PM']Kevin Spacey's got a point though! Weeks of licence payers money spent on advertising Lloyd Webber's latest rehash, whilst serious productions get nothing...[/quote] It's not ALW's musical this time - Oliver is Cameron Mackintosh's show. I must admit to being a little disappointed with the choice of Oliver as the musical for this year though, as the role of Nancy isn't hugely demanding from a vocal perspective. It would have been far more interesting to keep the ALW theme and cast a new Christine for Phantom, or Eva Peron for Evita - both far more demanding vocal and acting roles. I take Kevin Spacey's point - it's giving a load of extra free publicity for ALW/Cameron Mackintosh's shows, but, to be fair, having TV auditions for roles in the plays that Spacey puts on wouldn't make for very good telly.

[quote name='The Funk' post='197532' date='May 12 2008, 09:31 PM']Is Jessie the Irish 18-year old one? Do you think Lord Lloyd Webber is hoping she literally would do anything?[/quote] That's her... the redhead with the wonky mouth. Although somehow I don't see her becoming the next Sarah Brightman...

I should hate this stuff on principle, but I've been sucked in. Was the same last year with the Joseph one. Jessie's going to win, that's as obvious as it was that Lee was going to win last year - she's in a different league to all the others. But I like Jodie. Then again, I have a thing for loud Northern lasses!

I like the groove of funk and can turn my hand to it as a playing style, but I do find a lot of the so-called funk classics difficult to listen to (eg, old Stevie, Parliament/Funkadelic, Brothers Johnson, etc) - the production is very, very dated and sounds quite cheesy nowadays. It does sound either like bad porn music or the soundtrack to a blaxploitation film. It just hasn't aged well. Can't fault the playing or musicianship though.

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='194707' date='May 8 2008, 02:36 PM']So why did you choose to have the modifications to the headstock and body? Nice piece of facia wood there...[/quote] I designed the body shape myself, based on a body design that I designed previously for an older custom bass. I worked with Bernie to refine the design a bit, and it ended up working really well - the longer top horn made the bass have better balance, especially considering the very light ash in the body, and the additional weight on the headstock... which brings me to... The headstock is shaped like that to accommodate two (!) Hipshots on the B and E strings - at the time, I was using various different tunings in the band I was in, and I wanted to be able to use one bass for everything. It actually worked too, although the headstock went through a couple of redesigns.

Keeping with the GB porn motif, here's a few pics of my old, much-missed one. I think you'll agree it's pretty different to any other GB out there.... [attachment=8522:bass_front.jpg][attachment=8523:bass_leds.jpg][attachment=8524:bass_headstock.jpg]

[quote name='kevbass' post='191919' date='May 4 2008, 10:14 PM']Yeah he's a nice bloke, he let me try that stingray clone also and I was pretty impressed with it.[/quote] +1 on Jonathan. Great bloke and really knows his sh*t. He is a guitar guy at heart, but he can do some great things with basses too. Ask him to show you pics of the Entwistle-style Alembic Explorer copy he made recently...

I've tried a few... on the plus side, they're light, the necks are great and, if you dial out the piezo (way too thin sounding), they sound surprisingly punchy. Like everyone else has said though, they're not very comfortable instruments - there's very little body contouring, no appreciable forearm chamfer, and yep, the bottom horn digs into your leg. A brave, but flawed exercise in progressive bass design, in my opinion. I loved the old model they made for Steve Swallow when I first saw it in BP years back, and was pretty gutted when it finally came to market, and looked nothing like his model.

I miss my GB. I want it back. It was actually up on eBay last year, but I missed out on it... didn't have the spare cash. On the plus side, Bernie says he still has the plans for my one (it was quite a different shape to a regular Rumour, both the body and the headstock) and he could make me another.

Did a tour a couple of years back around some smaller venues up North. It was going OK, until we got to Hull (no offence to anyone who lives there, but what a god-awful, dull, grey depressing place), where we had a gig at some gothy pub. We got there to unload our stuff at lunchtime, and the place was heaving - a good omen, we thought. So we went off for the afternoon, found a B&B and took a nap. We got back for soundcheck, and there was literally nobody there. So we soundchecked, hoping more people might turn up later, but, nothing. We ended up getting paid for the gig and playing pool all night with the landlord with our CD on the stereo instead of actually playing. He felt guilty, as he hadn't really promoted it. But it wasn't really his fault, it was our manager at the time's fault - she'd not done any promotion up there at all, not contacted any local papers or anything, and it seems this place didn't open regularly on Sundays, and most of this place's regular punters thought the place was closed!

I started on guitar at 16, with a good friend who happened to be an awesome guitarist showing me the ropes. Every time I went over to his place though, he had a gorgeous Candy Apple Red Fender Jazz that I couldn't resist picking up and vaguely hitting with my thumb in an attempt to be like Mark King. So I got my first bass at 17 - it was an "Axe", hideous P-bass-like thing with a neck like a banana, but it was something to start on. Jumped into the deep end, trying to learn Level 42, old Metallica and RHCP tunes... I could slap 16th-notes before I could play a blues scale properly! Carried on like this for a couple of years, jammed with a few bands (this, IMO, is the single thing that will make your playing better over anything else - playing with other musicians who are better than you), then decided to get a bit of formal instruction. So I signed up for a 3-month course at BIT (upstairs from where the Bass Centre used to be in Wapping)... picked up quite a lot in that short space of time, learned different grooves, got the basics of reading and theory down and sharpened up my technique. Glad I did it, as it did point me a lot more in the right direction to learn, and gave me a bit more hunger to learn more about music and theory. After that, it was just back to learning tunes off CDs and playing in bands again, but with a bit more of an open ear.

Out of the ones you linked to, the Warwick Rockbass Streamer will be head and shoulders over the others. Just DON'T go for the Harley Benton... absolute sh!te in my experience.

Bloody hell, never knew you lot were such a conservative bunch. My party pieces are bass versions of Stairway To Heaven, Under The Bridge and (for the more discerning listener) Con Te Partiro. I'm also not adverse to pulling out the thumb for a quick slap-tastic bit of Mr. Pink, Tommy The Cat or Nobody Weird Like Me, or just quoting bits of well-known basslines from the likes of Disco Inferno, Le Freak, and for the rock types out there, Schism or Anesthesia. But these are occasional bits of fun - 95% of the time, I want my basslines to do the talking in a band context. I do spend a lot of time and effort on my tone though - although I don't always want to be upfront, I do want a well-defined, present bass tone so that even the simple stuff can't go unnoticed. There's nothing wrong with a bit of showbiz and showboating, and if the guitarist can do it, then I bloody well can too. Just don't do it all the time.

[quote name='7string' post='162469' date='Mar 24 2008, 12:51 AM']We think it's going to be a bit of a gastronomic tour as well. The important question has to be asked..."Is KFC better than over here ?". I've got a copy of the Rough Guide to the USA which seems to have plenty of places to eat as well as giving a bit of history as well. Thanks again for taking the time to reply to this thread. Very much appreciated.[/quote] I hope you're not a vegetarian, as there's some awesome steaks to be had over here! Even the chain restaurants (Chili's, Longhorn, Outback, etc) do great steak. As for KFC, the chicken tastes the same, but you won't get chips... all their meals come with "biscuits" (kinda a savoury version of a scone) but you develop a taste for them! Wendy's is also great for fast food... you can amuse yourself greatly by asking for a "biggie number two" and the Baconator burger will fill you up for an entire day! Since you're going to be going through the south, make sure to check out some Southern cuisine - more biscuits, plus the wonders of stuff like chicken fried steak (basically steak done in KFC-style batter). And if seafood's your thing, there's some great shrimp to be had. I have issues with being in the US, but the food and the music shops aren't among them (other than the lack of availability of good chips and the scarcity of decent Indian restaurants)... have fun! You'll love Vegas - it's like Disneyland for adults. Must get back there one day.

I'm liking the sound of the LD400 Pro... 2x10", external speaker out... been hoping they would come out with something like this ever since I saw the first LowDowns. The question is, are they going to be putting out cabs as well?

[quote name='bass_ferret' post='145402' date='Feb 22 2008, 11:47 PM']And what did Warwick expect in return?[/quote] At the time, it was mostly exposure, and mention in any future interviews, album covers or press that I used Warwicks. At the time, Warwick were lacking high-profile endorsers in the UK - their most visible endorser, Stuart Zender, had slipped under the radar after leaving Jamiroquai, and, since Warwick like to push their "rock" credentials, there were very few rock guys with any visibility using their stuff (eg, Glen Diani from One Minute Silence, who also disappeared off the radar after OMS split), so I got in there at a good time. Shame it didn't work out, really... if I'd been able to afford something like a Streamer Stage II 5-string (still over £1000, even with the endorsement, and I didn't have that spare at the time) I might have stuck with it.

Well, I like the new BB. It's quite possible that the polepieces on the pickups have been epoxied over, like the older Attitude models, but you can't really tell from the pictures. I still think Billy's a great player, but I heard him proseletysing about being a Scientologist recently, and that made me lose a lot of respect for him...

I had a Warwick endorsement for a while, back when my old band was doing pretty well. We'd just come from doing a UK tour, doing Bloodstock 2003 and various other decently big gigs, so I approached M.A.D. (back when they were the Warwick UK distributors, before Warwick opened up their own offices) about an endorsement. No freebies, but they did offer me stuff at 50% off trade price, so I ordered a Streamer Jazzman 5. Approaching them was simple enough - gave them a press kit and CD, mentioned the label we were on, and talked their ear off about giving them exposure and stuff. Alas, I couldn't get on with it (thanks to that nasty baseball bat-like neck), so I got our band management to contact Warwick and cancel the endorsement. They didn't want the bass back, so I sold it on eBay for more or less full retail price! Made £500 out of them... cheers, Warwick!

Yep, pretty sure it's a cheapo Vintage that someone's tried to make look like a Warwick with the big stupid "W" decal on the headstock. In my experience, avoid - they have the thinnest sounding pickups I've ever heard.

I seem to recall that pretty much all Jeff Finch basses I've ever seen are either copies or approximations of other companies' basses... would that be accurate to say? That one above is pretty obviously based on an F Bass.

I've played a few. They're pretty bloody awesome... if you get a good one. Unfortunately they're subject to that patchy quality control that you seem to get on midrange Fenders. Try before you buy, but the good ones are every bit as good as any high-end Jazz you can think of. I'm seriously considering one - the 5-string version.

An interesting, and quite esoteric collection! Gotta love the Sei 7. I think Martin is definitely a bit freaked out by the fact that you have a Sei tattoo - he was telling me about it the other day! Once I've got myself back up to more than two basses to show off, I'll do one of these too...