Lord Sausage

I was 14. Gigged at school in dinner time to about 800 kids. Can't remember exactly what was first tune. Was bricking it. It was either 'Walkin By Myself' By Gary Moore. Or it was 'There's Only One Way To Rock' by Sammy Hagar/Van Halen. Either way 100% Cheese!

[quote name='scalpy' post='914757' date='Aug 4 2010, 11:44 AM']Personally, I feel that one of the main issues in terms of standards in British musicians (of all genres) is their unwillingness to challange medicority in their peers. If a musician is not up to it, they should be told and asked to make a choice; practice/improve or get off the bandstand. No aggression, no bull, just a straight 'are you up to the job? Yes/No? Stay/Go. Competence is a requirement. If you haven't got it, give the gig to someone who has.

Dam straight! My missus has been depping (singing) with a decent soul band but the alto sax player's instrument is old enough for a bus pass and won't stay in tune. When they asked what I thought I mentioned this and it was like they weren't expecting any criticism at all! Why do we side step around the issues all the time? Tell your guy hit it or be hit![/quote]
This is quite a sweeping statement! Do you have foreign evidence to back up and compare this with (perhaps its all the world). How do you know this is a problem with all genres all over the country. In the majority of bands i've been in we've always pushed to improve each other or just sack bad uns.

[quote name='Lifer' post='914458' date='Aug 3 2010, 11:41 PM']The singer in my band also does some acoustic stuff and I like remixing/re-imagining songs. Rough mix of the Dibnah version of her song Beautifully Broken (see [url="http://www.myspace.com/leahruthmusic"]http://www.myspace.com/leahruthmusic[/url] for original!) now up on my myspace [url="http://www.myspace.com/dreaddibnah"]http://www.myspace.com/dreaddibnah[/url]

Still got some tweaks to do but always good for some input before it's finally finished, fire away![/quote]
Yeah, its alright. The first one sounds like kayleigh by marilion meets Portishead. the second one like portishead and early goldfrapp. Not massively my scene so maybe don't know what i'm talking about. Like the ambience more than the songs and her voice is a little ordinary. But was nice to listen to.

Sack Him!

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='912618' date='Aug 2 2010, 11:08 AM']This one knows about mids. Realised the mid knob is like another volume control.[/quote]
Ha ha. Bet that's heaven when a guitarists finds that out.' Yes!! MORE VOLUME!!!!!!...............It goes up to 11'

i tend to just drive it myself. I just think whoever is most confident in the band should set it and drive it, whoever that may be.

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='911969' date='Aug 1 2010, 03:54 PM']Show you guitarists the mid control is like another volume.

Caricatures had a guitarist that detuned his bottom string to A, and played through an octaver. Took me a while to figure it but cabs that can out sub it, and driven growly mids gave enough separation to pick out what I was up to, just about.[/quote]
Its funny how so many guitarists have no idea about mid frequencies!

Whenever i've done pit band work i've always made a point to keyboard players about staying out of my way, unless its written for the keys to be down there.
Fortunately with the two bands i'm in both have the same keyboard player. We went to music college together. The ensemble lecturer there , who was a maverick genius and piano player, informed him to never use his left hand when playing. He told him the bass player would always be down there doing the donkey work for him. He said 'Ya right hands for playing melodies and chords, Ya left hands for smoking and drinking'. My friend has never once deviated from that advice!

[quote name='bubinga5' post='910805' date='Jul 30 2010, 11:11 PM']there must be a solo that brings you out of that middle ground?[/quote]
Its not just bass its kinda anything. I think the problem lies in that the first 'solo' i can remember hearing, of any desription, was (guitar solo)'Eruption' by Eddie Van Halen. Just the fire and passion (and the fact it was him just warming up and being recorded, which i found out years later) just blew my head off. And i ain't heard anything of same intensity anywhere on anything since.

No matter how good the bass solo, they always fill me with a sense of indifference!

[size=3]Not to sound pretentious, although it probably will, I consider myself a musician. When i write bass parts for songs i thing purely in terms of compsition and harmony. Not what bass lick, trick, tone etc i will use. I study all aspects of music. However my principal technical ability in music is on the bass guitar.
The best thing i heard on this subject was from a lecturer whilst i was a college. He was a genius and could play anything. He said that initially when asked what he did he would always say he was a piano player. This led to people always sying to him 'oh do you know this Tune, do you know that tune' etc. Eventually he started getting fed up of this so when people used to ask him what he did he started saying he was a musician. This led to him almost invariably being asked 'Really.....What type of drugs do you take?[/size]

[quote name='dr1' post='908085' date='Jul 28 2010, 12:29 PM']mr. Guy Pratt him self here on the forum!!! my gosh!!! [/quote]
Who?

[quote name='risingson' post='907667' date='Jul 27 2010, 10:40 PM']I think he played with Iron Maiden for a time.[/quote]
Who?
Sorry that's enough now

Who?

You know what the thread was just meant to be about what people thought of his playing. Not whether he was a nob or how good the beatles were. However, I've always thought that certain people like or dislike bands because it's cool to. For instance, I don't like or get Pink Floyd. Sounds like a drug comedown. However over the years i have met people who like Floyd and they only no the obvious but its cool to like them so they do. i think the reverse is true of The Beatles. I'm not their biggest fan but like a lot of what they did and respect what they did. I've met people who are all like 'hate the beatles there sh*t' etc and haven't heard the best and i've met people who jus refuse to like them because its the beatles. I think a bit of that is going on here![size="3"][/size]

[quote name='scalpy' post='906425' date='Jul 26 2010, 10:46 PM']All these people saying Macca's a bell-end as if they have to work with him. Obviously I haven't either, but I know a man who has who can't praise him enough. He has endless tales of Paul rolling his sleeves up and getting involved, never ever mentioning his wealth and giving to charity on an epic scale. For somebody to live through what he has without any semblance of precedent would put any personality to the test, and you could argue that only George got close to being truly humble about it all. Musicians as a breed are proud of what we do or we wouldn't put ourselves in the position to communicate our ideas to an audience in the first place. Paul is quite rightly proud of his accomplishments and a lesser man would be even more boastful or whatever characteristic you wish to choose to describe him. If I had played bass in the Beatles I'd probably find it a little tricky not to mention it once in a while.

Musically I believe the word to describe his playing is eloquent. Always the right turn of phrase at the right time. One of the few bass players the average punter will do "air bass" to when he drops a fill in- I'm thinking "With a little help from my friends".

I can't believe there's 7 pages of this stuff and I don't believe anyone's mentioned him playing and singing at the same time. There's a video from the Magical Mystery Tour period where you can see him miming away admittedly but the bass line is bang on. I must remember the song. The earlier stuff maybe more simplistic but he rips through it.

And as to all this business about Entwistle and Jamerson. McCartney was doing a very different job for those songs. Most of us have played in more than one band and know that you just can't always do your thing. It's back to the right thing at the right time. The Beatles were about the lyrics, the melodies and the textures. Paul did what he needed to and considering the variety of material demonstrated an imagination way beyond what most other musicians are capable of to suit. Entwistle was effectively the lead guitarist in his band and Jamerson developed a niche for another equally fantastic way of playing, again very specific for the audience.

I'm staggered that so called musicians can't recognise what McCartney has achieved, especially as in many ways he has defined commercial bass playing.[/quote]
right on!

The Muppet theme tune, Remember you're a Womble, Summer Nights from Grease, Theme from Rawhide.

Just as a matter of interest where do you get these basses that go Plonk. Mine goes Boom ba Boom ba Boom ba Boom, Bunga Bunga d'dl drim dum drim da Boom!!

i demand everyone worships at the sausage altar. i demand shrines are built in every house. I demand a 10000ft statue is made in my likeness out of sausage. For i am Lord Sausage and i can change the universe. if not.....well that's ok. As long as i'm rocking out i'm happy!

[quote name='MacDaddy' post='905155' date='Jul 25 2010, 08:01 PM']Go on then I'll bite.

What [i]is [/i]the point of music?[/quote]
i don't think that question can ever be answered properly! but here goes. There is no point. Just like everything else in life. Its all pointless and illusory and will eventually be forgotten. To quote the great philosopher Eddie Hitler " you're born, you keep your head down, watch a bit of telly, then die.....if you're lucky"

All that matters are the notes!

ha ha ha some of the posts are well funny. As if it got dead aggressive. Ahh the human condition. Anyway enough of that bollocks. i've just remembered another cool macca bassline. old brown shoe.

[quote name='oldslapper' post='902329' date='Jul 22 2010, 08:40 PM']Very thoughtful player, probably because he's a songwriter too, his bass lines are about the song.

One J.S. Bach had the same approach to writing bass parts, and he wrote a good tune or two.

Just my opinion.

Dee Murray was very "Macca", not sure he was a songwriter, but had same approach to melody & rhythm.[/quote]
Bang on! When i started learning bass one of the first things i did study lots of JS Bach bass parts. Definitely helped with my musicianship and playing!

[quote name='Oscar South' post='902322' date='Jul 22 2010, 08:31 PM']One of the best bass players of all time. Imo however good his songwriting is, his bass playing eclipses it. Nothing simple about it either.[/quote]
I meant just the idea of switching staccato to legato

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='902301' date='Jul 22 2010, 08:17 PM']MCartney was a guitarist, just the least good one in the Beatles. Sting is known as the singer over anything else. So not the best examples, shoulda gone for Flea.

Does Paco de Lucia play bass?[/quote]
Convoluted! These two people play bass and people know who they are!