Nigel Harisson, may contain Blondie

[Phil Starr]

My new project is a covers band that only play female led songs. I got so bored playing Sex On Fire and Mr Brightside when there were just so many other songs equally iconic which almost nobody was doing. Why have a female singer if all you play is 70's male fronted rock plus a couple of 25 year old bangers to show you aren't really 70 years old?

 

Anywaty after the first couple of gigs together we discovered that our drummers idol was Clem Burke and one thing led to another and we decided to look at including a Tribute to Blondie into our set. The boot was suddenly on the other foot. I'd been pressuring (gently I hope) the new guitarist and drummer to learn our existing set but now I had to learn a dozen Blondie songs. I'm struggling with a couple but I'm absolutely loving it.

 

I'm thinking tributes might be a thing for me. Looking at a set of songs with the same bassist you find they re-use certain tricks and play in a certain way. It's a real education. These Blondie songs have such tighly written bass lines, there's usually a trademark key change but the fills aren't just fills they usually take you somewhere and it's all thought out or at least worked out. Whether that's Harrison or Chapman I don't know but for me its a real discipline learning a song from start to finish note for note. Picture This is a little bass gem four verses all start the same with some interesting bits of timing but then there are four different 'turnarounds' each with different chords and with a varying number of bars. I hadn't realised this project would be so much fun. I'm just hoping the audiences respond. We aren't planning on going the whole tribute band route just offering a Blondie and Friends set alongside our Female Anthems set but I'm loving being made to learn songs properly. Respect For Nigel Harrison too.

[Phil Starr]

Ooh "May Contain Blondie" that could be a band name

[dave_bass5]

We started doing Picture this, and yeah, it took me a few goes to get it right. Love playing that song. It seems to jump around a bit, but in a good way. 

 

Hanging on the Telephone is another one that we kept getting wrong for quite a while. mainly the singer. It's one of my favs to plat though. We even use a sample of the phone ringing at the start. 

 

We already do One way or another, but even with two guitarists we still have to get the keys player (me) to platy the guitar line at the end of the verses. They just can't get it. 

 

About to start Call me as well. Looking forward to that. 

 

Good luck with the songs, as you say, great fun to play. 

[Pow_22]

One of my favourite songs to play is Dreaming.  Great bassline and great tone on the original recording

[cetera]

As anyone who saw Glen Matlock playing with Blondie will confirm - he couldn't play the basslines correctly, so don't worry if it's taking a while to crack the intricacies. Some great basslines there!

[Lozz196]

Yep, and Glen Matlock isn’t exactly a slouch when it comes to bass so it shows those lines are well crafted and more intricate than would be expected. 

[dave_bass5]

52 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Yep, and Glen Matlock isn’t exactly a slouch when it comes to bass so it shows those lines are well crafted and more intricate than would be expected. 

Or, as with many of us, he just wanted to put his mark on them?

[Pow_22]

When I saw Blondie the bassist was a spector toting beast called Leigh Foxx, amazing tone albeit very 'front and centre' of the mix

[cetera]

58 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Or, as with many of us, he just wanted to put his mark on them?

If simplifying them and leaving out key phrases is putting his mark on them, then he certainly did that....

[dave_bass5]

12 minutes ago, cetera said:

If simplifying them and leaving out key phrases is putting his mark on them, then he certainly did that....

Well he is a punk bassist 😀

[Phil Starr]

3 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

We started doing Picture this, and yeah, it took me a few goes to get it right. Love playing that song. It seems to jump around a bit, but in a good way. 

 

Hanging on the Telephone is another one that we kept getting wrong for quite a while. mainly the singer. It's one of my favs to plat though. We even use a sample of the phone ringing at the start. 

 

We already do One way or another, but even with two guitarists we still have to get the keys player (me) to platy the guitar line at the end of the verses. They just can't get it. 

 

About to start Call me as well. Looking forward to that. 

 

Good luck with the songs, as you say, great fun to play. 

Call Me is one I've done for years, really tough on the singer, Debbie Harry has an unusual range so . It's lots of fun to play for the rest of us.

 

I love the complete switch to A-D in the guitar solo but keeping the rhythm from the verses in Picture This, dropping down to open strings at this point makes it feel like a bit of a break in intensity too. It just feels right. Throughout the songs there are so many tiny details. Interestingly he plays far more freely in their live performances. The other thing I'm enjoying is that so much of the playing is four to the bar. I've played so much indie stuff over the years that it's fun just to make the change and it then makes the 8-beat more exciting when you bring it in for a couple of bars then drop out again. I think I'm getting slightly obsessed here

 

My big issue is that run on the F#m in Atomic, so many hand shifts, I'm still dropping the octaves at that point in rehearsals and working it at 2/3 speed in practice whilst gradually speeding up. Interestingly my opera singer/director friend tells me classical players slow things down a lot more than that and play really strict tempo on pieces where the tempo is an issue. It's kind of reassuring really that we are all human and effortless playing is hard work.

 

Edited 21 hours ago by Phil Starr

[Lozz196]

2 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

Or, as with many of us, he just wanted to put his mark on them?

 

1 hour ago, cetera said:

If simplifying them and leaving out key phrases is putting his mark on them, then he certainly did that....

 

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

Well he is a punk bassist 😀

Maybe he thought seeing as Debbie Harry doesn`t/can`t sing them properly anymore why should he play them properly 🤣

[dave_bass5]

1 hour ago, Lozz196 said:

 

 

Maybe he thought seeing as Debbie Harry doesn`t/can`t sing them properly anymore why should he play them properly 🤣

I think even Nigel Harisson clocked that one back in the day.....😇

[ezbass]

2 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

My big issue is that run on the F#m in Atomic, so many hand shifts,

My old band used to do this and I can testify that it is indeed quite the workout.

[lozkerr]

1 hour ago, ezbass said:

My old band used to do this and I can testify that it is indeed quite the workout.

 

My 80s band had a go at Atomic and I found those runs harder than the bass solo. ISRT it was slightly easier on the five-string but it was still a toughie.

 

We ditched it after we couldn't agree on the structure. The 7" version seemed a bit short, the full-length one just went on and on and on, and we couldn't find a happy medium.

[ezbass]

26 minutes ago, lozkerr said:

The 7" version seemed a bit short, the full-length one just went on and on and on, and we couldn't find a happy medium.

We added a verse to give it a more cohesive feel.
 

I always found the shortened 1st octave section out of the solo tricky to feel (IIRC it was a 6 count as opposed to an 8).

[Lozz196]

Just took a look at this on YouTube, much more complex than I would have thought given the pop-factor of the band. Think this will be added to my list of songs to do.

[BassAdder60]

I’m just learning One Way or Another for the band 👍 

[tauzero]

42 minutes ago, BassAdder60 said:

I’m just learning One Way or Another for the band 👍 

 

Coincidentally, the guitarist that Mrs Zero and I are collaborating with for open mics has suggested One Way or Another, which Mrs Zero and I used to do in the old band (the stalking song). So I've been brushing up on that today.

[MacDaddy]

2 hours ago, BassAdder60 said:

I’m just learning One Way or Another for the band 👍 

 

1 hour ago, tauzero said:

 

Coincidentally, the guitarist that Mrs Zero and I are collaborating with for open mics has suggested One Way or Another, which Mrs Zero and I used to do in the old band (the stalking song). So I've been brushing up on that today.

 

Must be something in the air, the vocalist in one of my bands suggested doing it.

I like the version by Sabrina Teenage Witch ☺️

[dave_bass5]

Since getting back from the Broken Peach gig my singer wasnts to cover their version/mash up of One way. Not sure the band are going to grasp it. Too stuck in their ways to want to be entertaining. 

[Beedster]

Blondie basslines are like ABBA basslines, sound simple until you try to play them 👍

[Phil Starr]

16 hours ago, lozkerr said:

 

My 80s band had a go at Atomic and I found those runs harder than the bass solo. ISRT it was slightly easier on the five-string but it was still a toughie.

 

We ditched it after we couldn't agree on the structure. The 7" version seemed a bit short, the full-length one just went on and on and on, and we couldn't find a happy medium.

I'm a fascist when it comes to this. So many covers bands waste huge amounts of time at rehearsal by not pre-agreeing an arrangement. It's a bit like sending your bus driver out without deciding where to put the bus stops.

 

I send out a spotify list with a version I think is OK, if people object I'll go with the majority feeling but if someone objects once we get to the rehearsal room it's too late, the rest of us have spent time learning the 'original' from the spotify list. You've let the band down, let yourself down, let your parents down  basically it's up to the person who has done an alternate version who will have to adapt. Once we've got the basic song working we will always look at starts and endings and often make decisions about taking bits out or more often adding extra choruses and we may then come up with an own, arrangement. The guitarist and I live close to each other so we've usually met up by this stage to iron out issues. For instance theres a little decending scale in Maria played on bells that I do. I also try and reflect the piano part at the beginning of One Way or Another.

[Phil Starr]

52 minutes ago, Beedster said:

Blondie basslines are like ABBA basslines, sound simple until you try to play them 👍

Yeah next level in some cases. It's why I enjoy playing pop, there's often a load of work gone in by people who are anonymous session players but with huge musical knowledge. The best of them do what is right without needing to show off. I've looked at a lot of Abba but their songs do look challenging. I've only managed Does Your Mother Know to date.

Edited 27 minutes ago by Phil Starr

[BassAdder60]

3 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

Yeah next level in some cases. It's why I enjoy playing pop, there's often a load of work gone in by people who are anonymous session players but with huge musical knowledge. The best of them do what is right without needing to show off. I've looked at a lot of Abba but their songs do look challenging. I've only managed Does Your Mother Know to date.

Does your mother know is in our set ! 
Fun song to play and having two female vocalists in my band helps