Tina Weymouth BBC bass programme in Jan

[Japhet]

I enjoyed it. Watched it on the night and would still be watching it now if all of the people mentioned so far in the thread had been included in the programme. Not sure what people actually expect from a one hour programme.

[cetera]

I guess I just have high standards...... but I expected more of both programmes so far. I understand they were only one hour episodes but too many influential names etc were left unsaid/unappreciated........
I really could have done without Joy Division/New Order appearing in both. Eurghh...

As Nancy Johnson said, I can think of a million more passionate, entertaining, experienced and influential musicians to present the shows too....

I appreciate that ANY TV programme about real musical instruments/musicians should be welcomed.... I just feel that, imho, it was another wasted opportunity.
 

[casapete]

6 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

I think this is it in a nutshell.  It's just BBC populism tripe; the omissions speak louder than the people who were in it.

The upcoming guitar one, it would have been great if Dave Grohl had done it; much as I dislike Nirvana/Foo Fighters as an individual I find the guy endearing, engaging and passionate about his subject matter in equal measure. 

I suspect the guitar one will follow the same right-on format favoured by Auntie; heavily weighted delta blues for the first 15 minutes, featuring loads of (black) blues players that no one has heard of, a bit about Elvis stealing his entire act from aforementioned blues players, Sun Records, Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Hendrix, Woodstock, a short piece on Page/Clapton/The Who/Fleetwood Mac, perhaps a few seconds on Eddie Van Halen, a bit of Steve Jones.

From the BBC website - 

Lenny Kaye, Patti Smith’s guitarist, explains how the quest for new guitar sounds has driven the history of popular music, from Les Paul’s first guitar to Bo Diddley’s tremolo, Duane Eddy’s whammy bar, Keith Richards’s fuzz pedal, The Who’s feedback, The Byrds’ 12-string, Hendrix’s wah-wah pedal, Uli Roth and Van Halen’s shredding, The Edge’s digital delay, Ry Cooder’s slide, and KT Tunstall and Ed Sheeran’s looper pedals. With Duane Eddy, Roger McGuinn, The Edge, Bonnie Raitt, Seasick Steve, KT Tunstall, Joe Bonamassa, Uli Roth, Vernon Reid, Heart’s Nancy Wilson, The Runaways’ Lita Ford and producer Shel Talmy.

[prowla]

9 hours ago, oldslapper said:

There are Rickenbackers and then the rest are rubbish.

[SpondonBassed]

6 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

It's just BBC populism tripe;

Gosh.

I thought it was light entertainment.  Silly me.

[spectoremg]

23 hours ago, casapete said:

From the BBC website - 

Lenny Kaye, Patti Smith’s guitarist, explains how the quest for new guitar sounds has driven the history of popular music, from Les Paul’s first guitar to Bo Diddley’s tremolo, Duane Eddy’s whammy bar, Keith Richards’s fuzz pedal, The Who’s feedback, The Byrds’ 12-string, Hendrix’s wah-wah pedal, Uli Roth and Van Halen’s shredding, The Edge’s digital delay, Ry Cooder’s slide, and KT Tunstall and Ed Sheeran’s looper pedals. With Duane Eddy, Roger McGuinn, The Edge, Bonnie Raitt, Seasick Steve, KT Tunstall, Joe Bonamassa, Uli Roth, Vernon Reid, Heart’s Nancy Wilson, The Runaways’ Lita Ford and producer Shel Talmy.

That pioneer of the looper pedal, Ed Sheeran!

[spectoremg]

On 22/01/2019 at 12:11, EMG456 said:

Well, just watched the first two of these and have to say like a few others, preferred the drum one.

I think essentially the difference between the two is the influence of the presenter.

In Stuart Copeland, you have someone who has lived and breathed music and drums from a very early age and has worked at the highest levels both in terms of sales/ popularity and all round musical credibility.

In Tina Weymouth, you have someone who was handed a bass at the age of 24 and told to learn it. I'm not belittling her talent here- she has sustained a music biz career for many years so she's obviously doing something right- but more pointing out that her musical experiences seem to me to be much more limited than the likes of Copeland and I think the choices of who/ what to feature reflected that.

A programme about bass that misses out Squire, Entwhistle, JPJ? No Stanley Clarke, Jaco, Mick Karnes, Pino? No Larry Graham/ Louis Johnson? No Tony Levin/ Lee sklar? But wastes a few minutes on Dizee Rascal...mmm?

On the plus side, she was very personable and had a nice easy way in front of the camera - just needed a more widely informed editorial direction.

Anyone know who's doing the guitar one? Hopefully someone like Dave Grohl.

+1, well said sir.

Basically Tina Weymouth's knowledge was too limited for this. 

And it is possible to do this in an hour if you exclude trivia like New Order and Mr Rascal. 

[tauzero]

Perhaps they should have had Sting do the bass programme and Andy Summers do the guitar programme, then have a fourth programme in the series which examines the nature of a band, with all three presenting it and ambulances in attendance.

[prowla]

15 minutes ago, tauzero said:

Perhaps they should have had Sting do the bass programme and Andy Summers do the guitar programme, then have a fourth programme in the series which examines the nature of a band, with all three presenting it and ambulances in attendance.

And the police too?

[Skinnyman]

34 minutes ago, tauzero said:

Perhaps they should have had Sting do the bass programme and Andy Summers do the guitar programme, then have a fourth programme in the series which examines the nature of a band, with all three presenting it and ambulances in attendance.

Only if they gave Andy Summers appearance fee to Sting....

[SpondonBassed]

1 hour ago, spectoremg said:

trivia like New Order and Mr Rascal.

Interesting view point.

[scrumpymike]

I just took it on face value - and liked it!  It will be nice if some of the alternative prog's suggested on here get made too.

[phil.c60]

I enjoyed it. I think some people appear to have missed the point - the programme was about "bass" not bass players, bass guitars, bass guitarists, bass playing icons, just bass. Hence Dizzee Rascal talking about "drum and bass". And The Marcels. And other things "bass". I thought it was an entertaining hour for a mainstream audience, not a 23 part series for purists, professionals, specialists and nerds. And I like Tina too.

[cetera]

1 hour ago, phil.c60 said:

I enjoyed it. I think some people appear to have missed the point - the programme was about "bass" not bass players, bass guitars, bass guitarists, bass playing icons, just bass. Hence Dizzee Rascal talking about "drum and bass". And The Marcels. And other things "bass". I thought it was an entertaining hour for a mainstream audience, not a 23 part series for purists, professionals, specialists and nerds. And I like Tina too.

No 'Tubby The Tuba'..... no proper bass programme......

[mikel]

It was great stuff, a programme about bass and a much needed one about music. Whats not to like if you are even a little bit into music? Oh sorry I forgot, someone's favorite or "most influential" bassist was not included. 

[operative451]

I thought it was fab! Even the bit where they shoe-horned in the Most Influential Band Ever That Everyone Likes Except me* went 'So P*** McFrogchorus had been listening to soul records and decided instead of nicking ideas off of Chuck Berry he'd nick them off Motown instead...'

Paraphrasing obvs..

Mr Rascal was a great addition also. I'm disappointed they left out Meghan Trainor though..

[Daz39]

12 minutes ago, operative451 said:

I thought it was fab! Even the bit where they shoe-horned in the Most Influential Band Ever That Everyone Likes Except me* went 'So P*** McFrogchorus had been listening to soul records and decided instead of nicking ideas off of Chuck Berry he'd nick them off Motown instead...'

Paraphrasing obvs..

Mr Rascal was a great addition also. I'm disappointed they left out Meghan Trainor though..

I hate the Beatles too!!

 

[bassace]

3 hours ago, cetera said:

No 'Tubby The Tuba'..... no proper bass programme......

Or Tuba Smarties, by Mr Flowers if I’m not mistaken.

[mikel]

2 hours ago, Daz39 said:

I hate the Beatles too!!

 

Thing is it was about influential people involved with bass. Love or loath the Beatles, it's personal taste, but to say Macca was not influential is simply wrong. "Shoe horned in"? Get real, that's like saying you don't like Buddy Rich so he was not an influential drummer.

[tauzero]

On 20/01/2019 at 10:57, SpondonBassed said:

Behave yourself or I'll have her go all Mrs T on you.

 

That wasn't Mrs T, it was a different female leader of the Tory party who did the dance moves.

[Geek99]

I might even watch the guitar one. I watched a clip of the drums one and that Sheila E is a good drummer 

 

 

and hot...

[Marvin]

It was watchable, to a point. The production and research staff clearly couldn't be bothered to do their job properly. Basics like the fact the electric bass had been around before the 60's and the Fender P bass was almost 10 years old by 1960. It wasn't as good as Steward Copeland's film about drums.

From the description of the guitar film it's seems to be more about effects pedals than the guitar itself.

Fairly standard for what passes as TV these days, chopping and changing and a lack of attention to detail and facts.

[Monkey Steve]

Caught up on iPlayer the other night. 

Have to say, I too much preferred the drums episode, simply because SC (who's energy and enthusiasm I loved) focused on what the drums bring to music, and how they got there - marching bands to jazz to rock n roll and jazz's lasting influence.  It was also much less about him.  While the bass episode started off like that, it soon lost interest, and we got the evolution of Paul McCartney's choice of bass rather than, as others have pointed out, the evolution of upright players to electric bass via the Fender Precision - love or hate them, their historical importance is far greater than Hofners, which only seemed to be there because Tina W has one and that's a like to McCartney.  No explanation of what the bass brings to the band or the music.  Bit like Almost Famous, what does the bass player bring?  Er...the bass... 

Happy that it featured bass in a wider context, but again, without explaining the role of bass, this seemed a little redundant.  But I loved the bit with the DJ on his Amiga.  Dizzy Rascal didn't seem to add much other than "I really like the bass" - he even admitted that he had nothing to do with the bass drop on the song of his that featured.  Mind you, there were a lot of guitarists talking about bass players, whereas the drum show had a lot of drummers talking about drummers.

Still, entertaining, if not especially enlightening for me.  Oddly, I got an e-mail from my dad about it, who loved the bass one and was left indifferent by the drums.  It may help if you don't have a special interest in bass to begin with

Edited January 24, 2019 by Monkey Steve

[steantval]

On 20/01/2019 at 10:57, SpondonBassed said:

Oi!

I'll not sit silent while there is any hint of Tina bashing here.  She's fine by me.  I was interested to hear a bit more about her and less about David Byrne or Chris Frantz.  What happened to Tina was a bit like what happened to me in Dublin at the time.  I was pulled into a band before I knew it was something I'd enjoy by friends who needed a bassist.

Behave yourself or I'll have her go all Mrs T on you.

 

Reminds me of the Space Invaders game in the late 70’s.

[spongebob]

I'm in agreement with many of the above - the Stuart Copeland episode was much better, more informative.

Tina's programme I found a little bit, well, trivial. Seemed to be a lot more about her than SC's, and as has been said, his career could fill hours by itself.

The hour skirted around the edges, when there was far more to say. The should have used Stuart's hour as the template and followed that!

We saw Stuart drumming a fair bit in his show - don't think we say Tina play once, bar the odd vintage clip......🙄