John Entwistle

[Beedster]

5 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

 

Here's a 'live' Airplane full album to get some idea for Casady... (The intro is the end of the lightshow 'prequel', showing the end of the b/w 'King Kong' film, then the band kick in. Listen carefully to the very first notes from the drums, already up to speed; great stuff...)

 

 

 

Thanks @Dad3353 I'll listen 🙏

[Alanko]

2 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

 

Here's a 'live' Airplane full album to get some idea for Casady... (The intro is the end of the lightshow 'prequel', showing the end of the b/w 'King Kong' film, then the band kick in. Listen carefully to the very first notes from the drums, already up to speed; great stuff...)

 

 

How Casady got that tone out of a shortscale Starfire strung with flats is beyond me. So much authoritative bark and grind. I know his Starfires were modded, but apparently they were still passive and just had a few extra tweaks here and there.

 

I think Jack Casady is overlooked as a bassist, both for locking into grooves and for harmonic knowledge and creativity. John Entwistle did many things, but grooves weren't in his musical vocabulary at all, and he's never as harmonically inventive either. Jack's playing on the song Crown of Creation is amazing. Stomping along through the versus, adding chugging triplets here and there, through to the eerie outro with long held notes on the verge of feedback.
 

Jack's playing sort of lopes along, through all the Airplane stuff. Interestingly as their drummer(s?) always seemed quite light-footed and skimpy, rather than pounding out a robust rhythmic grid for Jack to lock into.

[Dad3353]

16 minutes ago, Alanko said:

... their drummer(s?) always seemed quite light-footed and skimpy, rather than pounding out a robust rhythmic grid for Jack to lock into.

 

Spencer Dryden, for the most part, with a very different approach to 'rock' drumming. Superb inventive notions of rhythm and sound. RIP, a great loss.

 

 

[Alanko]

A new archival Who album to be released this year!

 

 https://shop.thewho.com/products/live-at-the-oval-1971-cd

 

1971 would be Thunderbirds and Hiwatts from John?

[Cosmo Valdemar]

11 hours ago, Alanko said:

A new archival Who album to be released this year!

 

 https://shop.thewho.com/products/live-at-the-oval-1971-cd

 

1971 would be Thunderbirds and Hiwatts from John?

Probably Thunderbirds and Sunn by then.

[BassTool]

I quite enjoyed that, had no idea he was a guitar collector mind, amazing 😳

 

I liked the way he tries to improve his collection by swapping out guitars with dings and dents for a similar model that's in better condition.

 

Safe to say he's not a fan of the relic look then 😆

 

[spongebob]

6 hours ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

Probably Thunderbirds and Sunn by then.

Was he gigging a T’bird in ‘71? 

Only ask as he makes a point in the video of recording Who’s Next with the iconic Precision. 😀

[Wolverinebass]

24 minutes ago, spongebob said:

Was he gigging a T’bird in ‘71? 

Only ask as he makes a point in the video of recording Who’s Next with the iconic Precision. 😀

He'd started using the Non-Reverse Thunderbirds at the Young Vic when they were workshopping the Lifehouse shows. That was before Who's Next was recorded. He still recorded Who's Next with Frankenstein.

[Cosmo Valdemar]

2 hours ago, spongebob said:

Was he gigging a T’bird in ‘71? 

Only ask as he makes a point in the video of recording Who’s Next with the iconic Precision. 😀

 

1 hour ago, Wolverinebass said:

He'd started using the Non-Reverse Thunderbirds at the Young Vic when they were workshopping the Lifehouse shows. That was before Who's Next was recorded. He still recorded Who's Next with Frankenstein.

I think John's memory was tricking him, Who's Next sounds totally like a Thunderbird to me. He might have used Frankenstein for some of it, but I can't think where. Maybe on WGFA as the recording quality isn't as good as the rest of the album, he could be playing anything... although on the other New York sessions of the time it still sounds like a Thunderbird to me.

 

Listen to this - a Thunderbird without a doubt (ignore the pic! 😆)

 

 

[Alanko]

24 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

 

I think John's memory was tricking him, Who's Next sounds totally like a Thunderbird to me. He might have used Frankenstein for some of it, but I can't think where. Maybe on WGFA as the recording quality isn't as good as the rest of the album, he could be playing anything... although on the other New York sessions of the time it still sounds like a Thunderbird to me.

 

Listen to this - a Thunderbird without a doubt (ignore the pic! 😆)

 

 

Definitely Thunderbird. Has that 'ring' to it while still sounding darker than a Fender.

[Wolverinebass]

The problem is that Glyn Johns made him roll all the treble and most of distortion off his signal. Then he took a high pass to it and cut all the remaining bits above about 3kHz. So it makes it more difficult to tell. To me, most of the stuff on Who’s Next the bass sound is garbage because of that.   There's no sustain to it or harmonics and it's virtually dead.

 

Though to be fair, the Who By Numbers bass sound is a travesty even further. Glyn Johns gets so much praise for things, yet he managed to undermix and ruin the sound of arguably one of the greatest rhythm sections in rock ever by making them stylistically go against what they naturally did. Let's make John play with less treble! Let's take away half of Keith's drum kit! Tosser.

[spongebob]

Maybe that’s why Live at Leeds stands alone for me……bass and drums sound great on that. 👍

[ezbass]

3 minutes ago, spongebob said:

Maybe that’s why Live at Leeds stands alone for me……bass and drums sound great on that. 👍

The bass sound on Leeds is great. I also like the way bass sounds in the mix on Quadrophenia, although I think it’s horrible in isolation and was a complete shock when I heard The Real Me with the Ox front and centre and everyone else dropped right back.

[Beedster]

3 minutes ago, ezbass said:

The bass sound on Leeds is great. I also like the way bass sounds in the mix on Quadrophenia, although I think it’s horrible in isolation and was a complete shock when I heard The Real Me with the Ox front and centre and everyone else dropped right back.

 

Funny isn't it, shit tone isolated = great tone in the mix  

[Wolverinebass]

13 minutes ago, Beedster said:

 

Funny isn't it, shit tone isolated = great tone in the mix  

There's nothing funny about it. It's a fact. The secret of a great bass tone is that on it's own it should be almost unlistenable. Check out any band in the rock fraternity who the bass player is renowned for their tone. It'll be much, much harsher than you think when you inevitably find it on YouTube isolated.

 

When I've recorded bass players in the studio you'd be surprised how many don't know this and even when they want a "clean" tone are surprised when I make it sound like an overdrive tube amp. Even a dirty tone if you want to hear thr top end is way more crazy than most people think.

 

This is why I despise Glyn Johns as he took Entwistle's tone from him for arguably the best material The Who ever did.

[Cosmo Valdemar]

51 minutes ago, ezbass said:

The bass sound on Leeds is great. I also like the way bass sounds in the mix on Quadrophenia, although I think it’s horrible in isolation and was a complete shock when I heard The Real Me with the Ox front and centre and everyone else dropped right back.

I think the Quadrophenia bass tone is absolutely beautiful. I'd love to hear an isolated track. There's an awful isolated Real Me on YouTube but it sounds like one of those dodgy ones where the individual tracks have been picked out by computer rather than the actual track, it's extremely poor quality and not what we hear on the album.

 

Mind you, the mix on Quadrophenia is so biased toward the bass (at least on the vinyl) that there isn't that much mystery as to what he sounds like.

[ezbass]

2 hours ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

There's an awful isolated Real Me on YouTube

That’s probably the one I’ve heard then. However, @Wolverinebass makes a good point. I remember when I first bought my Schroeder cab, that everyone was raving about back the. I got it home and hated it. But I trusted the words of others, stuck with it and took it to rehearsal, where it just sat in the mix and was sweet as a sweet thing. I did many gigs with that cab and only once did it not sound good, due the lousy venue acoustics (basically a glass box with a carpeted floor). All that said, The Ox’s tone at the end of his career, didn’t even sound good in the mix to me, just all fizz, but he liked it and he was who was and who I’ll never be, so what do I know, other than what I like?