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Norman Watt Roy's HMWYRS Precision


miles'tone

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I'm in the process of building a bitsa PJ and fancied putting the bridge pickup really close to the bridge like Norman did so I can get a bit of that cool Rhythm Stick sound. 

Upon sleuthing around on the net I've discovered that his trusty P bass was still just that at the time, no J pickup! 

The pickguard is gone and the brass plate is in situ but still just the sole P pickup. 

Really surprised me! 

Here he is miming with the band to HMWYRS on TOTP:

Here's what I was going for, not so sure I need to now! 😄.. 

 

BBM Rhythm Stick Paddy 01a.jpg

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17 minutes ago, Doctor J said:

Bass playing aside, that is such a bloody good song. It's nice to just have a reason to listen to it again and enjoy the bejesus out of it 😎

Very true. 

We all go on about Norman Watt Roy's bass playing, and rightly so, but the entire band really were a cut above, extremely creative and Ian Dury's lyrics were just sublime, poetic and beautiful, yet slightly seedy with some market trader swagger. 

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1 hour ago, Steve Browning said:

Yes. He played an Alembic when my band supported Wilko back in the 80's. I believe the Alembic was used for the sample used for Relax.

Yes, that’s right. I was at Goldsmiths a couple of years ago, J J Jeczalik did a guest lecture the one week, he spoke at length about the recording of Relax.

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On 01/06/2019 at 10:55, ambient said:

Yes, that’s right. I was at Goldsmiths a couple of years ago, J J Jeczalik did a guest lecture the one week, he spoke at length about the recording of Relax.

Didn't know JJ had anything to do with that recording session? Am interested. Care to expand?

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1 hour ago, NikNik said:

Didn't know JJ had anything to do with that recording session? Am interested. Care to expand?

Apparently, from what I remember (it was three years ago, I’d never heard of JJ, I was a little miffed about travelling to London for my MMus lecture, only to find it cancelled and JJ was doing a guest talk), any they’d spent hours and hours trying to get the sound right for the track. They’d tried loads of session players, but it wasn’t working. They’d decided to actually scrap it, having invested a fortune. JJ was in the studio late after everyone else had gone, he’d continued working on the track, and he’d got it sequenced, Horn came back and liked it, so the two of carried on working on it. 

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58 minutes ago, ambient said:

Apparently, from what I remember (it was three years ago, I’d never heard of JJ, I was a little miffed about travelling to London for my MMus lecture, only to find it cancelled and JJ was doing a guest talk), any they’d spent hours and hours trying to get the sound right for the track. They’d tried loads of session players, but it wasn’t working. They’d decided to actually scrap it, having invested a fortune. JJ was in the studio late after everyone else had gone, he’d continued working on the track, and he’d got it sequenced, Horn came back and liked it, so the two of carried on working on it. 

Wonder whose Fairlight JJ used? The studios? I know the Art of Noise used one extensively.

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4 minutes ago, NikNik said:

Wonder whose Fairlight JJ used? The studios? I know the Art of Noise used one extensively.

From memory of interviews it was Trevor Horn's, cost something like £18,000 back in the early 80s.

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29 minutes ago, NikNik said:

Wonder whose Fairlight JJ used? The studios? I know the Art of Noise used one extensively.

Trevor Horn’s. It was one of the first in the country, he used to kind of rent it out, and JJ was the operator. 

I said in my earlier post about being a bit miffed at the time, it was actually a really interesting talk.

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  • 6 months later...
On 01/06/2019 at 10:09, Marky L said:

I'm sure I read somewhere that Norman played quite a lot of the bass on the earlier Clash albums. Slight off topic but still Norm related 😄

He certainly played on The Magnificent Seven as Paul Simonon was away filming. Possibly more tracks too.

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On 01/06/2019 at 10:09, Marky L said:

I'm sure I read somewhere that Norman played quite a lot of the bass on the earlier Clash albums. Slight off topic but still Norm related 😄

 

6 minutes ago, BrunoBass said:

He certainly played on The Magnificent Seven as Paul Simonon was away filming. Possibly more tracks too.

I never knew nothing about that. 👍

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On 31/05/2019 at 21:04, Doctor J said:

Bass playing aside, that is such a bloody good song. It's nice to just have a reason to listen to it again and enjoy the bejesus out of it 😎

Don't forget the B side (or double A as I believe it was) for some of the finest rhyming couplets to ever grace a pop song!

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