Rich Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 (edited) Recently joined a ska band and am loving it. Ska is the sound of my youth but I've never played it before and it's a real blast, especially Horace's work with the Specials. We also do a couple of reggae tunes, and one in particular -- Bob Marley's 'Is This Love?' -- is really floating my boat. It's the highlight of the set for me. Family Man's bassline is just beautiful, there's so much space in it that every note really means something. I hesitate to say 'less is more' because it's such a cliché, but... yeah 😄 Any love for reggae and ska bass out there? Edited February 4, 2018 by Rich Can't type for toffee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nilebodgers Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 HPs playing with the Specials is great. I've been playing Niteklub recently and I love that bassline. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skidder652003 Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 Now you've made me need to go and learn Niteklub, thanks... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leftybassman392 Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 (edited) Bit of a namedrop, but I used to know Horace back in the day. Lovely bloke and a great player. Before they broke through they used to gig fairly regularly at Warwick uni school of education (or that's how I remember it at least...). They had a sizeable and very loyal following even then. Always been a fan of the music although I don't get the chance to listen much these days. +1 for Aston Barrett as well - very understated but a key element in the Wailers' sound. (Bit of trivia; although the 'Family Man' moniker wasn't about his domestic status at the time it was coined, he has apparently fathered 41 children since ). Edited February 4, 2018 by leftybassman392 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewblack Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 Yeah a lot of love from me. Spent many years in a Specials tribute. Great band great times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lowdown Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 3 hours ago, leftybassman392 said: he has apparently fathered 41 children since ). I think he has so many children, people have lost count. No wonder he left a lot of space in his playing, he had no energy!! (Although below says different). Jas Obrecht says during an interview with him in 2013 "But that’s just the best-known part of Barrett’s story. He also found the energy to father 42 children". But it gets better......................... "It would have been enough to give each of his 52 children a little more than £1m for their father's unacknowledged contribution to the immortal sound of Bob Marley and the Wailers." https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/may/16/topstories3.arts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lozz196 Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 For me the bass was the essential ingredient in ska, seemed to provide a lot of counter melodies to the vocals as the guitars were just doing that ska-rhythm-thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barking Spiders Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 Yea big fan of Two Tone here though not of ska proper as such and esp like the bass in The Specials and The Beat. Not a big fan of reggae except for 70s Dub, mainly King Tubby productions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gary mac Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 A band I was in a few years back did Is this Love, like you, I loved playing it. Simple enough but yes the space is a lovely thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Japhet Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 Used to play in a band which did a ska version of It's Not Unusual by Tom Jones. Absolute stonking song to play which was a real crowd pleaser. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjones Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 I played in a Ska band for a while. We played the odd Reggae song too. This is such a great video by Devon Bradshaw which makes it all seem so easy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Highfox Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 Nice. I love it too, one of the bands I'm in we do some ska , reggae stuff, been fun for me because none of the other guys in the band have done anything like that before but have taken to it really well Some Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, even turn a few pop tunes a bit ska's-ville! Enjoy, it's great for the rhythm section. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monkey Steve Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 love ska, and especially the influence in ska-punk - Mighty Mighty Bosstones, (early) Flatliners, Sonic Boom 6, etc, as well as Two Tone. like (rather than love) reggae, but don't know much beyond Bob Marley. However, the singer in an old 70's/80's punk covers band of mine absolutely loved it, and he refused to let us do any reggae songs from the period that we suggested on the grounds that the rest of us were white men who liked heavy metal and would undoubtedly make a horrible mess of it. He was probably right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Blank Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 (edited) Floyd Lawson and Vivian Weathers who share the bass playing on Linton Kwesi Johnson’s first three albums... Dread, Beat an’ Blood Forces of Victory Bass Culture ...especially the last two. Simple, austere, sparse playing but just perfect. Edited February 5, 2018 by Frank Blank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bootros Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 (edited) On and off played in the same originals ska/2-Tone/reggae band for 20 something years (family and work got in the way on occasion). Love it. A big part of my upbringing as 2-Tone was the sound of the council estate way back when, after 77 punk had lost its flavour. Had the pleasure of meeting, supporting and playing with plenty of heroes from the 2-Tone era but these days I listen more and more to '69 era Reggae. You can't go far wrong with a copy of Trojan's sampler Tighten Up Volume 2 and then just follow your nose from there. Edited February 5, 2018 by bootros Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrDaveTheBass Posted February 6, 2018 Share Posted February 6, 2018 19 hours ago, Frank Blank said: Bass Culture Bass Culture's one of my favourite albums - it really does exactly what it says on the tin! My originals band have got one ska-influenced number, and I'm trying to get us to lean a bit more in that direction. Ever since my 20s, my ambition's been to play bass in a full-on roots reggae band - unfortunately though, they seem to be very few and far between. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Blank Posted February 6, 2018 Share Posted February 6, 2018 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Posted February 6, 2018 Author Share Posted February 6, 2018 On 04/02/2018 at 13:20, nilebodgers said: I've been playing Niteklub recently and I love that bassline. And that's my second favourite song in our set 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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