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Jack Casady, isolated Somebody to Love at Winterland 1969

EssentialTension

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EssentialTension Grand Master

EssentialTension

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[quote name='The-Ox' timestamp='1451924076' post='2944634']
what do the Alembic electronics contribute to here? In simple terms
[/quote]

[quote]

[b]FlyGuitars[/b] When did you start using the [url="http://www.vintageguitarandbass.com/guild/bass/Starfire.php"]Guild Starfire[/url]?
[b]Jack Casady[/b] I think '67 I found one. I'd heard from someone about the Guild Starfire and I can't frankly remember exactly how I arrived at it. I was probably here in Los Angeles cause we did all of our recording in Los Angeles. We'd spend a month at a time down here and then you'd wander around. We used Studio A at the RCA building on Sunset and Ivy for the first album ([url="http://vintagegroove.co.uk/showCD?ID=40"]Takes Off[/url]) we did in January / February 1966 and then later on in that year we did the second album [url="http://vintagegroove.co.uk/showCD?ID=41"]Surrealistic Pillow[/url] and I think the third album [url="http://vintagegroove.co.uk/showCD?ID=42"]Bathing At Baxters[/url]. We rented a place down here and we stayed for almost two and a half months off and on and then I did a lot of roaming around Los Angeles. One of the people in the studio I think, (told me about) that Guild bass and I bought that. I started playing around with it and brought it to the session, but I don't think I recorded with it. That third album was still a somewhat modified [url="http://www.vintageguitarandbass.com/fender/bass/Jazz.php"]Fender Jazz bass[/url]. I really liked the nature of the f-hole tone but of course it was a short scale neck, it was deficient that way.
[b]Fly Guitars[/b] So you changed the electronics?
[b]Jack Casady[/b] I really wanted to get not only more power out of it but I wanted to get more quality of tone because with the 31 and a half inch scale I wasn't getting the low end like I would have liked to get. I mean the speaking length was part of the problem but also I wanted to take that tone and expand it. A friend of mine, Owsley Stanley, (famous for other things) was into electronics and he also knew a guy named Ron Wickersham who later on became involved with Alembic. And we started talking about that Guild bass. So that was when he suggested that we put a preamp and run it with a 9 volt battery and also use components that were of a higher quality, including the pots. I took the pickups, that was my idea, and flipped them out and added another alnico magnet on the other side so each pickup had twice as much power. The other issue that expanded the quality of the tone that they suggested was to take it and bump it back down to low impedance. By low impedance I was able to expand the dynamic range and that's what Les Paul had used and still did use his whole career, he played a low impedance guitar. Though he didn't get the volume of the squashed up high impedance pickups, that became fashionable later on.
[i]Jack Casady playing his first Guild Starfire[/i]
The idea with the Guild was to experiment a lot with the preamps and also tone variants. It was nice and fancy, the one Owsely worked on. He made a nice carving, and a modular inset for the electronics.
[b]FlyGuitars[/b] That was the bass you're seen using at Woodstock and on various TV show clips on You Tube?
I think on You Tube there's a picture of the first bass with Jorma and I doing an NPR program. On that one you'll see the nice carved piece, beautiful the way I've stained it dark brown and it had all this inlay at the top.
[b]FlyGuitars[/b] So what about the next Guild Starfire bass, the sunburst one?
Later on when the (first one) got stolen I had another Guild. I (had) bought two Guilds at Chicago Music in '68 I guess it was. They were 1967 and matching. I've got one upstairs that's never been touched, but the other I sent out to Ron Wickersham. I said I've got to get this thing back out on the road. He says I've got some new ideas. I said great, I don't care about what it looks like just saw the front of the thing put in the plate, and he says well it'll be crude, it'll be a hunk of aluminium. I said great, just saw it out and bolt it in. The way we were thinking at the time, we were thinking well if you go in to a recording studio you see a channel strip with all the tone variants, notch filters and all that kind of stuff, can we put that in the bass itself and that's basically what was done. We approached it that way as if you'd have a nice long panel in front of you with all your controls and tone variants, band pas filters, notch filters all that kind of stuff and boosts which basically turned up enough would be a distortion boost but a bass boost where you could control the low end so pretty much just like you had a channel strip you know. So that's what he did he used the highest end components in there and that was the approach to the instrument. It was more an experiment with the electronics than it was the instrument itself. It looks like I literally just put a piece of aluminium with a bunch of knobs on the front. That's the one I loaned to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame, it's hanging there.

Source: [url="http://www.flyguitars.com/interviews/jackCasadyGuildBass.php"]http://www.flyguitars.com/interviews/jackCasadyGuildBass.php[/url]

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EssentialTension Grand Master

EssentialTension

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I've got to agree with that. To my ear, the isolated Real Me is nearer to Casady but still not like Casady's rounded and warm but overdriven tone. Won't Get Fooled and Baba O'Riley are really very different. As I say, to my ear.

Anyway, I recognize there's a subjective element in this and I admit I've been a Casady fan for nearly fifty years but never had much interest in Entwistle.

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The-Ox Explorer

The-Ox

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[quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1451934729' post='2944789']
I've got to agree with that. To my ear, the isolated Real Me is nearer to Casady but still not like Casady's rounded and warm but overdriven tone. Won't Get Fooled and Baba O'Riley are really very different. As I say, to my ear.

Anyway, I recognize there's a subjective element in this and I admit I've been a Casady fan for nearly fifty years but never had much interest in Entwistle.
[/quote]

yeah agreed tbf, I had the Real Me in mind when comparing to Casady's not WGFA and Baba O'Riley

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JTUK Veteran

JTUK

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[quote name='Cosmo Valdemar' timestamp='1451934195' post='2944786']
I don't think it sounds like JE at all, in tone or style.
[/quote]

Yep, can't see that at all... and I'm not a fan but style and definitly tone..(or not :lol:)
are nowhere near, IMO.

Grindey..I'll give it that.

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  • 4 weeks later...
spongebob Mentor

spongebob

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This thread got me seriously listening to some 'Airplane. I'd heard a bit, some years back, not enough to grab me.

Went straight in with the studio albums, and have also been hearing some of the live stuff too. I must say, what an amazing band.

The Woodstock performance is pretty stunning, as is some of the stuff from the Filmore, too. Storming stuff...and Jack's playing is so driving - what a tone.

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Dad3353 Grand Master

Dad3353

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[quote name='spongebob' timestamp='1454000929' post='2965254']
This thread got me seriously listening to some 'Airplane. I'd heard a bit, some years back, not enough to grab me.

Went straight in with the studio albums, and have also been hearing some of the live stuff too. I must say, what an amazing band.

The Woodstock performance is pretty stunning, as is some of the stuff from the Filmore, too. Storming stuff...and Jack's playing is so driving - what a tone.
[/quote]

I'm a bit surprised; I had always though that one had to 'be there' to 'get it'. :lol:
The Grand Master Casady has always been, along with Phil Lesh, my ultimate bass player, throughout the Airplane, Starship and Hot Tuna days. The late Spencer Dryden, drummer with the Airplane, found it difficult at times to find places to fit the drums into the arrangements, so much sonic space was taken by the JC sound. This explains to some extent the oft-times brilliance of their interplay.Great bassist; great drummer. A winning combination, for me. Happy daze.

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ahpook Grand Master

ahpook

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[quote name='Lw.' timestamp='1454069073' post='2966012']
Since this thread was started I've slowly become obsessed with Jefferson Airplane, such great music & musicianship across the band!
[/quote]

They're a band I only got into a couple of years ago, but they blow me away now.

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EssentialTension Grand Master

EssentialTension

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[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1454015471' post='2965559']
I'm a bit surprised; I had always though that one had to 'be there' to 'get it'. :lol:
The Grand Master Casady has always been, along with Phil Lesh, my ultimate bass player, throughout the Airplane, Starship and Hot Tuna days. The late Spencer Dryden, drummer with the Airplane, found it difficult at times to find places to fit the drums into the arrangements, so much sonic space was taken by the JC sound. This explains to some extent the oft-times brilliance of their interplay.Great bassist; great drummer. A winning combination, for me. Happy daze.
[/quote]

I don't mean to knock Lesh, who is also an interesting player, but he never makes me sit up and take notice the way Casady can.

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Dad3353 Grand Master

Dad3353

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[quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1454073303' post='2966108']
I don't mean to knock Lesh, who is also an interesting player, but he never makes me sit up and take notice the way Casady can.
[/quote]

Back then, it was more a case of 'lay back and let it all flow'. The Dead fulfilled that role to perfection. :D

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spongebob Mentor

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[quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1454076950' post='2966199']
... and in other news, Paul Kantner dead.
[/quote]

Sad news. A very talented player and writer.

Listening to the Woodstock gig again, I'm just awestruck at the performance - played in the morning, so no massive light-shows or pyrotechnics (don't think there was any of that at that weekend!), it's just a great band really working it....songs being stretched out, but retaining vitality and power. JC on fire.

In the days where the Glasto headliners 'show' is almost bigger than the songs themselves, it is quite sad, an era and idealism in music from a time long gone that we're unlikely to ever experience again.

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