cantkeepjohnnydown

I think people reacted the way they have because you implied that not only was Leo Fender simply a shrewd copycat, but that his products were also essentially inferior, which is a rather puzzling statement to make considering he is so well known for having consulted and listened closely to working musicians of the time and developing his products, indeed innovating the entire field, to better accommodate their wants and needs. If you're going to take shots at one of the towering figures of popular music I think you should expect having to elaborate a bit.

I keep my finger longish for guitar playing, so whenever I play fingerstyle on the bass there's inevitably a lot of nail involved, and it changes the sound drastically. But, as others have said, the easiest way to get more attack is to simply play harder. I learned to play the bass mostly unplugged, so I always had to play aggressively in order to hear anything, and it's a habit that sticks! That being said, if you can play both with your fingers and a pick, why not just choose whatever is right for the song?

Was Devoto still with them at that point?

Gypie was a great guitarist and the Baby Jane single is a favourite of mine. Still, Wilko had a stronger and more unique identity as a guitarist and wrote all the best Feelgood originals. He apparently also had a fairly miserable time with the Solid Senders before joining the Blockheads and teaming up with Norman Watt-Roy.

I do believe Gary Numan is still grieving this split!

And, in yet another development, Robin Simon joined Magazine while Midge Ure played in Visage with three OTHER members of Magazine, and his fellow Rich Kid Rusty Egan! Whew!

Music history is littered with bands who lost members and were never quite the same, but occasionally there are band splits with unequivocally positive outcomes. My first example would be Ashleigh Hutchings leaving Fairport Convention in 1969, which led to the birth of Steeleye Span as well as Fairport recruiting Dave Pegg (and making their best album). Incredibly, Hutchings repeated the feat a couple of years later when he left Steeleye to form The Albion Band. I'd dare say no other musician has made a finer career out of forming and leaving bands! Another example is Howard Devoto making the first seminal Buzzcocks EP and then swiftly taking off, the result of which was the formation of Magazine and the incredible blossoming of Buzzcocks as led by Pete Shelley. What are your examples?

In the realm of recording and mixing with either in-the-box or outboard effects and all the gain staging that comes with it I would tend to agree with you. When we're just dealing with the core bass sound going into the amp I don't think it's bad practice, although I haven't seriously tried it myself with any active basses I've had as the sound would get so monstrously huge as to be impractical. It does also somewhat defeat the point of having the EQ control at your fingertips, but ultimately whether you fine tune your tone there or on the amp shouldn't matter much. Of course, if you have an older amp it absolutely will overdrive because of the much, much hotter signal (whether you want it or not) so I basically agree with your last point.

Really any headless tuners that work!

Hello everybody! I've been browsing, sporadically posting on, and occasionally buying at this site for years now but thought I'd make a new account for the purposes of actually sharing my music. As it happens I've just released some of it over at https://gennetmoyle.bandcamp.com/ I choose to call it a demo collection as I don't think the production is quite on par with what I'd expect of myself for an album, but still I think it's certainly listenable. A lot of it could be fitted into a sort of singer-songwriter mould, but there are more instrumentally focused tracks as well, and some folky and proggy touches here and there. Since it is Basschat I'm posting this on I thought I'd put together a small bassist's guide so you can all, simply put, get to the good stuff without all the faff! So, here are the tracks described in terms familiar to our vocation: 1. Quite bass-forward, this one. Throughout the collection there's very little percussion, and so I've attempted to use the other instruments in rhythmically engaging ways. So for this track, while the mandolin and bouzouki are mostly arpeggiating away in eighths I've tried to create some rhythmic space with the bass, to keep things from being too static. It's especially noticeable in the early sections. 2. No bass at all, unless you count the accordion. 3. The bass comes in at around the halfway mark. Almost a sort of Glenn Cornick approximation near the dusty end. 4. The bass line really drives this one. Perhaps an unbecomingly big sound for such a gentle tune (this is where the clickbait title of the post approaches believability). 5. No bass, again. 6. This one definitely has bass, but I can't say much about my intentions, because I can't remember them! 7. No bass. Sorry! 8. For a quick contrast, arguably too much bass — it's double-tracked throughout the song, which wasn't my original intention, but I ended up taking a liking to it. Sort of a strange jig. 9. I don't know how to say this... No bass. 10. There's something of the 80s UK indie scene to this one. The bass line is a lot of me stubbornly not playing the root. It's probably impossible to play this sort of music without trying to sound like the late, great Andy Rourke. 11. Bass comes in for the latter part of the song and is played almost as a harmony or lead instrument rather than a bass one. 12. This song is the result of struggles with an uncooperative DAW and a terribly outdated interface and sees me attempting to multitrack a decently busy arrangement without a click. All of which is to say that the bass line is really quite nice if you can handle the wildly fluctuating tempo! 13. No bass here, but all the better to prepare you for the next track. 14. If that other song was sort of a strange jig, this is sort of a strange reel, then sort of a strange jig, and then a normal reel! The bass takes centre stage, here. 15. No bass guitar, but the strings on the acoustic guitar played on this song are heavy enough to achieve a decent low end. Give it a try and you might just like it! Well, there it is, then. If you've made it this far or indeed if you've even given my music a listen, you have my thanks!