Shaggy

In my ongoing personal project of listening to stuff I meant to listen to more to in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s but never got around to, I’ve been listening to “The Fox box”, a 4 CD set of all of recorded material from the 1970’s pop band Fox. Some decent songwriting, and very good production and musicianship (including some nice bass playing). However, unlike the last band I was listening to - Renaissance - who were SO much more creatively than the one single that they’re remembered for (“Northern lights”), I think Fox’s musical apex probably was the one single that they’re remembered for (“S-s-s-single bed”). Mind, Noosha Fox does have one of the most sensual voices in popular music.....🥰

Ahhhh.....I stand corrected! 👍. I thought it didn’t look quite like my ‘65 IV, but wasn’t sure how......🤔

To be utterly pedantic, it’s a TB IV 🙂

Likewise; not a trend I’d seen before until BC 🤔 I suspect (but stand to be corrected) that’s it’s probably a male, slightly OCD thing? Any of our female colleagues on here deliberately bought YOB basses? Alembic, Travis Bean, boutique-era Kramer and BC Rich, many of the better Gibson designs, Hamer, Ovation, Wal, John Birch, Electra, golden-era Ibanez - to my mind a fabulous era for bass design and manufacture 🙂

Many years ago I used to work in a bar, and during idle moments myself and my colleague would compete to see who could mix the most revolting drink to make the other one throw up (Malibu + tomato juice + Iron Bru etc.....🤮) Must listen to “Sally” (being a big Joy Division and Smiths melancholia fan.....) I have mixed feelings about Springsteen - 50% American cliche, but 50% worthy successor to Dylan.......? 🤔

I remember those. The ‘80’s was in many ways a golden era for music, but Stars on 45, Jive bloomin’ Bunny, and then Stock Aitken and Waterman (*spits loudly into the saloon spittoon *) were low points that have probably never been been beaten since for lowness.....

When any of my harem of unplayed basses starts getting stroppy, I sing them the the old line from Hotel California: ”You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave*.......) (*coffee table basses excepted, of course 😉)

We do love a “negative” thread! 🤔. Some of these mentioned are to my mind the greatest songs of all time (Bohemian Rhapsody / Stairway to heaven / any ABBA), and it’s pretty clear from the foregoing that many are hated simply through over-exposure in playing in cover bands, which I can certainly relate to - but if you heard “Mustang Sally” or “Brown eyed girl” for the very first time, you’d almost certainly think “what a great song”! There are songs I dislike simply through being bad; (eg “Agadoo”, “Grandad”, any rap / thrash metal), but what really makes me reach for the OFF button on the radio is a song that I really should like (by genre / artist) but is ruined in some way by mannerism or pretension; Joy Division were one of my favourite bands (I was lucky enough to see live), but whilst New Order have written some good stuff I find the sub-Kraftwerk vocals very hard indeed to listen to; likewise the fake reggae singing on any later UB40 is simply painful - and this was the band who early on did the fabulous “King” and “Food for thought”.

Seeing them tonight, Swansea Liberty stadium. Saw them last at the end of 1979 - at the time they were pretty much the “house band” at Liverpool Uni students union! Post gig edit: Really enjoyable gig. I had the venue wrong - it was at Swansea arena but daughter put me right en route. Doh. Not a venue I’ve been to before, but great that Swansea finally has a decent one to attract bands. Band on top form; 4 of them rather than the duo plus big reel-to-reel tape machine I saw in ‘79, all the hits plus some impressive new material. Really imaginative back drop projections, good clear stage sound. Andy McCluskey bounded around the stage like a young ‘un and his voice as strong as ever, the only negative was that his bass guitar (black Fender Jazz) - such an important part of the early material - was mixed so low as to be inaudible.

Slightly ashamed to admit that I generally choose the strap to match my stage outfit rather than the bass..... 🤭 Mrs Shaggy teases me for having more straps than she has pairs of shoes, one reason being there’s a couple of excellent local custom makers.

I’m sure it’s not, in fact I’m sure I have older FS threads of unsold gear that I could resurrect! 😉 3 old (but very short) existing threads on Renaissance, so just didn’t want to start a new one; though evidently of no interest anyway. Right, off to listen to some Curved Air now......🤔

Brief resurrection of a zombie thread...... 🧟‍♂️ Since a turning 60 a couple of years ago I’ve been listening to music (rock, folk and classical) that I’ve always meant to get around to listening to over the last few decades, but hadn’t up until now as life just got in the way. One of these was Renaissance (the band) - as my teenage years were in the 1970’s I was quite heavily into Prog rock at the time, but Renaissance for whatever reason totally passed me by - I was aware of ‘Northern Lights” when it was released as a single and thought it a pleasant ditty with some nice Chris Squire-ish bass on it, but really no more than that. So, recently bought the “best of” CD’s (Tales of 1001 nights vols 1 & 2), plus the 3rd album “Prologue” as many online reviews rated “Sounds of the sea” as their fave song which is missing off the complications. Wow. Full fat Prog, which the single would give you no idea of; maybe not with the sheer musicianship of Yes or Genesis, but superb compositions and arrangements. Jon Camp often compared to Chris Squire and there are indeed similarities, but he has his own style and feel. The wonderful vocals of Annie Haslam certainly lift them into a niche of their own - again there are better singers, but her style fits effortlessly into the mood of music and has the technical skill to fit into the complex arrangements. Anyone recommend any individual albums, or has likewise discovered bands they should have discovered ages ago?

If that was Koa facings I think I’d be driving up to Perth right now ; the Distillate basses are an excellent second best to the series basses. If it was Orkneys I might see it as a red flag, but not Perth - after way too long on this forum I’ve noticed that much of the best gear is North of the border......😉 And I bought my series 1 on here for £1500, not so very long ago.