Grooverjr

How do you explain why you need all of these superficially exactly the same basses to anyone who isn't a bass nerd? Or do you just not bother?

Well this got me all excited so I spent the weekend with Moises and playing a lot of old JJ lines and fiddling with sounds. Got a couple of the subtleties of Nice N Sleazy and Tramp down, which was great. I had a look at some of the tabs on that site and they are patchy (some are bang on but some are almost completely unrelated to the tune or have huge gaps). Unfortunately because I rarely play with a pick I've messed up my forearm so I've got to rest it. Seems like I am not as hardy as the man himself.

Maybe it was the times. End of Thatcher. Or maybe they were just an unrepresentative bunch, but most weekends someone would end up in a ruck of some description, and it was a range of ages and backgrounds and often not with outsiders but within the group. I was never involved but it just seemed like there were quite a few hair triggers. Lots of amphetamine may not have helped matters. Then I became a raver for a few years so it was a very different scene and then moved abroad so lost touch with them all. I have known plenty of lovely metallers so certainly not going to make any assumptions about there being a connection. Just personal experience....

Nice people, maybe, but I have never been anywhere near a fight since I stopped hanging around with them. Must be all that testosterone 🤣

Nights Over Egypt by The Jones Girls. Easy to pick up but keeping it really clean and getting the feel is a bit trickier. And trying to nail the noodly bits in White Rhino Tea by Ozrics.

I'd say possibly for a little bit in early 90s with Metallica and the tail end of GnR, but largely true. In Latin America rock and the whole long hair and leather thing was very cool for a very long time, mind.

He had an accident with the secateurs last weekend..it turned into a bloody Sunday

Surprised no one has questioned whether Ibanez are cool. The classic SR shape is very pretty but they are far too run of the mill to be cool (just as a current fast Ford can never be cool). Anything French and boutique or boutique-adjacent is the coolest in any sphere. Vigier for me, Clive!

@thebrig that's pretty damn close. Good stuff

But you could have gone for Aural Sculpture....... 🤣 Seriously, sounds like a lot of fun and as well as being awesome, as you say, it's an eminently learnable and giggable album I'd have thought

Oooh, you lucky bugger. That's a bit of a dream gig for a bassist! You can wear black, play a black P bass and strut around on stage looking like you own the joint - who wouldn't love that? I've tried for ages to get an early JJ tone (as exemplified on Nice n Sleazy) and it always required so much gain that the noise from the strings was overpowering or the treble took over. I've been trying to pin it down through sculpting on the Roland VB99 and it gets close-ish but I think a lot of what made it so unique is also down to his technique with the pick, which I clearly don't share. I find the tone also makes it really hard to identify pitch, for my ears at least, so it's harder to work out songs where he's using anything other than bog standard intervals. Tramp, for example, is straightforward but I've never properly nailed some of Baroque Bordello. When the tone isn't off the charts, like Strange Little Girl, it's also pretty easy to get them. And when you do, you appreciate just how nice they are. I wasn't aware of that relentlessrevolutions site, so I'll have lots of fun trawling through that and seeing where I was off. It's got a lot of the less popular stuff, which is great. No School Mam, though 😥

Very generous, but I'll have to pass 😀 😀 Those 4 basses are all quite different to play and all absolutely wonderful. I don't think they are going anywhere, probably ever. And even if my arms stop working that Vigier (and the ACGs) would keep my eyes happy forever. Who needs pictures when you have beautiful basses to look at? That rack is right by where I work and it's a lot nicer to look at than the rogues' gallery of my colleagues on endless Teams calls.

I believe it was once yours....

Happy to oblige. Just a quick and dirty job so ignore the various crap in the background It's got an unusual squat headstock and body that I like a lot. Neck profile is wide and slim, which fits nicely under my hand. I'll probably take out the J pickup and put a Roland GK unit in if I can get the proper installation kit. . It sits very nicely on the rack as well - like a BCer's beauty contest lineup!

I tried labella flats and hated them. Like playing fence wire. A very expensive mistake. Tapewounds are better but they are very, very thick and the sound is only really appropriate for certain things. I like the sound of flats but find that I play them badly - my middle finger occasionally seems to catch and not move through smoothly so I either end up missing the beat or getting a horrible extra loud note. TIs are much more like rounds in their flexibility

I thought I'd let everyone know that I decided to......do neither! I put a 'wanted' for a cheapie fretless here on BC and the marvellous @alyctes very kindly sold me a 'Vintage' fretless for a no-brainer of a price. No basses or necks have been harmed and I've got a lovely new bass. Very much ejoying dipping the toe in the water.

Belated update..... bought some Fill n Finish then, with a steady handed mate, used a scalpel blade to make the edges of the scuff smoother, cleaned it with some soapy water, left it to dry and then drop filled and left to solidify overnight. A little light sanding with 3000 sandpaper and you can't feel or see anything at all. A remarkable transformation. Thanks for the various advice

Thanks. I'd heard about this and it makes sense. The board does have a few scuffs from someone doing the same in the past but nothing serious. They're very old strings so a lot of the roughness has worn off and it was really an experiment to see if the extra give was what I wanted (it was). So I've got some TI flats on the way which I expect to live on the bass forever more. I can get a sort of Mwah out of the TIs I have on a afretted shortie so I'm looking forward to their arrival!

I've just got a fretless, too. Fun, ins't it? I'm taking the approach of playing lines I know really well, scales etc. i.e. things where my ears will notice anything that isn't right and trying to dial it in from there. Mine has no lines, only dots where the frets ould be at 3/ 5/7 etc. (not where the dots would be on a fretted bass) and I was planning to put lines on but I don't think I will as the muscle memory seems to be doing a decent job and it is forcing me to use the ears more. I did swap out the old strings for some very worn-in rounds and that is helping with the feel (and the mwah) as I was finding the tapewounds too stiff and as a result I was plucking too hard.

Many things start heading towards the floor as we age. Why should the bass not join them?