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Punk changed music as we know it. It blew the kneecaps off the overly pretentious 20 minute solo prog rock crap that was becoming extremely popular, and brought music back down to earth for the everyman. It introduced (maybe reintroduced to a new generation) short, sharp and extremely powerful songs that people could get behind, and defined music for a whole generation and more. Admittedly there was a lot of crap in there too, but that could be said about any genre and is pretty much down to personal taste. I'd hate to think where music would be now if it wasn't for punk.

Yep. They're called 'The Jazz', 'The P', 'The Fretless' and 'The Washburn'.

Quite captivating I think.

No. What a ridiculous thing to do.

My view on the concept of practising is that it is our individual decisions as to what we practice that determine what kind of player we become. There appears to be a belief, for instance, that 'educated' players lack feel, or that 'groove players' do not know theory etc. The reality is that we are all a mixture of all of the things that we learn and all of the different ways in which we learn them. The art, if that is the right word, is probably in establishing the most efficient means of learning our craft. There are a myriad questions we need to answer before we determine what it is that we need to incorporate into our 'practice' time (I put that into inverted commas for reasons that will become apparent). Firstly, what is it that we are trying to achieve? Are we trying to be the best player that we can be or is our playing subservient to our ambitions as, say, a composer or entertainer? Someone like Stevie Wonder who can play lots of instruments to a competent level, may only need to be a 'good enough' bass player or drummer to meet his needs in terms of demoing his songs. A player like Victor Wooten makes his living by being the go to guy for clinics so will need to ensure that his bass chops are top drawer. Billy Sheehan has an approach that allows him to entertain the kinds of audiences that his playing attracts, as would (in their very different ways), say, Gene Simmonds, Les Claypool or Peter Hook. Secondly, what are we practising? Are we practising playing the bass or are we working on composing tunes? Are we learning to play the bass or are we learning tunes? Are we learning to sight read or are we learning to play by ear? Most of us will be prioritising different things at different times depending on where we are or what we are doing at any given point in our career. Our choices at any given time are, over the length of our careers (to date and on-going), going to add up to a knowledge base that is entirely our own. If we spend a lot of time doing the wrong things (subjective) we will undermine our own progress whereas, if we spend our time doing the right things, we will be more successful in achieving our goals. Looking at the music world over the four decades I have been playing, I have determined that I have probably spent most of my practice time poorly. I have a certain skill set but, compared to 'the cats', I lack polish in the detail. My problem, as I see it, is that I have a, spent too much time practising other instruments than the bass (guitar, bass, double bass arco and pizz, saxophone) or techniques I will not use (slapping or tapping), b, failed to decide whether I want to play well or compose well, c, have failed to 'deal with' extended harmony in anything other than a superficial way and, d, have failed to sustain the progress I have made in reading dots (I take two steps forward and one step back). In addition, I have always lived away from the best scenes so cannot find players (or teachers) to share my enthusiasm for that which I like and never had the courage to commit to the life of a professional musician so have only ever been able to 'snatch' time for practice. My shortcomings as a player are, to my mind, an absolute consequence of my choices including and especially my practice priorities. Scales or arpeggios? I think that the thing that matters is not what you practice, per se, but why you practice what you practice. If you know what you are trying to achieve, you just need to make sure that your practice regime is targeting the right things. And that takes wisdom.

Irrespective of the so-called politics and shock factor, listen to some of the early punk bands, Buzzcocks, Undertones, Blondie. The Jam etc, and you simply have great 3 minute pop songs. Punk is still around today, it`s a nice little scene, with gigs going on all over the place, and loads of new great bands coming through. Yes there are the shouty brigade, but there`s much more than just that. Regrettably it seems punk is more associated with studded leather jackets and mohawks with shouted lyrics than how it started.

I've been looking at a few different valve options recently. Happy as I am with the various heads at my disposal, I got badly bitten when my bass tutor let me plug into his Ampeg a little while ago. It got hold of something inside me and would not let go. So I decided to sell some gear and put the cash towards a valve amp. See what all the fuss was really about. Then the svt classic came up here and I bought it with money I don't have thinking I could sell it on if I didn't like it or keep it and recoup the cash by selling other stuff later. Tonight I hauled it into the rehearsal room, terrified I'd do something wrong and break it. Hooked up to two BF cabs (15 and a 10), let it warm up, plugged in and proceeded to Richard around with the controls. What did I learn about my new amp this evening? 1: Don't waste time dicking around with tone controls, just leave it flat, 2: Ignore first impressions formed while playing to an empty room. 3: Wait till the thing is nice and warm and you're playing in context, i.e. with the rest of the band. Then make your judgement. 4: while it may be true that new gear can't improve your playing it can certainly make a massive difference. I heard parts I'd thought I didn't play that well and they sounded like someone else, someone better than me, was playing them. Every note was beautifully articulated. 5: Even though I wasn't playing at massively high levels the sound filled the room and yet sat perfectly, beautifully in the mix. It was actually quite spooky how clear I heard every nuance of what I played and yet had a warm fat tone. 6: I'm going to be selling some very nice amps very soon. 7: I should have known these amps were absolutely amazing before trying one. After all, why would anyone put themselves through carrying something marginally heavier than the sun if it didn't sound awesome? 8: I'm in love. I'm a valve convert. I'm so very very happy.

I call my Squier Jaguar "The Ugly Wife", because it's OK to be quite fond of it in the house, but I wouldn't want to be seen with it in public.

She was very good as Basil’s wife I thought. I play a five string: my 10-15 min warm up is mostly arpeggios across two octaves and then moving from minor to major scales on each string, again over two octaves. After that onto the choon of the week (I am not a gigging player but am slowly building my own set list for that eventual gig covering blues / metal / rock and jazz in each set!). Not sure why I posted that but I have.

Bless him. He was called “Mr Toob” - we also had a nickname for other regulars. ”Nicky Vimto” was my favourite.

One thing that consistently baffles me is the 'either/or' mentality I see from people. 'Punk/whatever is great, prog/whatever is crap', or vice versa. I love Yes, Floyd and Genesis. I love The Beatles and ABBA. I love the Stranglers, The Pistols and the Damned. I love Ellington and Basie. To use someone's earlier example, I love both Never Mind the Bollocks and Bat Out of Hell. Why does it always have to be one or the other?

Sorry but this is simply wrong. 1) Punk didn't stop extended live songs. They just didn't play them themselves. They didn't stop long solos in other genres. 2) The 3 minute song wasn't invented by punk! Pop songs in the 50's and 60's all had 3 minute limits due to radio airplay demanding 3 minute songs as that was the amount of time a listener would stick with a song they didn't like before switching to another station! Punk was fine, a good genre, but let's not pretend it was anything except another genre. It didn't have magical superpowers to influence any other genres. Any influence it did have was simply because the bands in the other genres liked punk and wanted to incorporate some of its elements in their own music. It wasn't forced at all.

To be fair - that includes delivery.

I think that Punk was and is still musically significant, at least as much so as any other genre. I still like a lot of punk music that has been made over the past 40 years as well as much that has been influenced by it. But I do think a more pertinent question is whether Danny Baker is significant or not? He certainly isn't from where I'm looking, the cockney gobshyte. And what's with his hair?

In the late 70's Abba were shifting millions of albums, dwarfing the number sold by the Sex Pistols! Disco shifted more records than punk ever did, and probably had a longer and deeper impact on subsequent music, and still influences dance music today. It wasn't ever an either/or situation, but rather both/and. I bought albums by Abba, Queen, Blondie, Eric Clapton, Ian Dury, The Clash, The Ramones, Meatloaf and Stevie-Ray Vaughan, to name a few, in the late 70's and early 80's. I'm currently reading Spike Milligan's wartime memoirs. In those he makes the point that in the 20's through to the 50's, jazz was the counter-culture music, banned by the Nazi's and despised by the middle-of-the-road public who preferred Joseph Locke and Gracie Fields to Duke Ellington. To paraphrase Frank Zappa - Shut Up and Listen To Loads of Stuff. There's good stuff in everything, in spite of the snobishness that pervades music. It's so ironic that punk garners its own snobs, who look down on, for example, Meatloaf, when Bat Out of Hell was objectively a fantastic album. The danger of such snobbishness is of course, that those snobs who sneer at Meatloaf whilst claiming that The Sex Pistols were better because they were more "real" or whatever, are in danger of being sneered at themselves by an even more select group who will claim that most Pistols fans are johnny-come-lately's, and that they did their best work before they were famous! There's always a bigger fish (or rather a smaller, more select group).

Pretty much the whole 'press your own record' ethic started with punk which led to countless independent labels starting up. I'd consider that significant.

Punk allowed people the freedom to pick up an instrument and play it regardless of whether they knew how. Some of the music they produced was good, most of it was shyte.

Here's the thing. It's easy to dismiss the general population as Heathens because they don't like live music, or what you would see as great music. The problem is music, even moreso than most things is massively subjective. You could have the greatest Jazz band in the world (I couldn't even name you one) playing at my local and I'd leave before they finished the first song. To me it's just noise. Conversely if it was an Iron Maiden cover band I would be in my element, but the rest of the pub would probably leave. Then you have the regulars, for whom live music is just an inconvenience and interruption to their normal schedule. Nothing worse than going out for a chat and having your conversation drowned out by music, live or otherwise. This is one of the reasons I could never understand the appeal of nightclubs. Sure they could be "world class" musicians but if it's something you've never heard then for most of the general population outside of musos it would barely even register, or even worse just become background noise. Sad but unfortunately true.

The OP and thread title is "good", not "big worldwide". I've been lucky enough to spend some time in Santa Cruz de Tenerife over a few years and the standard of street and small club music is awesome. I don't even know the name of some of the bands I've spent hours on a park bench entranced by.

All of my basses have come with names on them, I sometimes add a little to make them more distinctive, so we have had 'the black Precision'. 'the white Precision' 'the new Ibanez', 'the Ibanez I bought last month', etc.

For me it was The Sex Pistols, as an 11 year old their sound was like something I`d not heard before, at that point I knew what type of music I wanted to make when I got older, and that`s what I did once I turned 15 and got a bass. Started a band, playing punk songs, wearing DMs and Fred Perrys. And at 53 not a lot has changed, pretty much zero development. Which is nice.

Wellllll.........I walked into a crappy bar in New York where a band were playing. I sat down with a pint and listened to them playing pretty good Jazz Rock. I said to myself, that guitarist is obviously a big fan of Jeff Beck. I later found out that the girl on drums was Kim Thompson (Beyonce's drummer), The bassist was the one and only anthony Jackson, (steely Dan, Madonna, Buddy Rich) and the guitarist was Mike Stern (Miles Davis). They would have probably have gone down like cold sick in the Dog & Duck (can you not play any Oasis?).

In Finland no one EVER talks during a Sibelius concert. Then again they don't talk much the rest of the time either...

Yeah a bit. Never really go for the 'hype' though. One thing struck me as amusing though - the Chinese company who make copies of loads of basses had a stand there... one copy they produce is a Rickenbacker. I hope they were near the Rickenbacker stand. I'd love to have seen JH's face.

Here’s my 1967 Jazz. Bass. Got compensation from a car crash and spent the lot on her, the week before the referendum. From Paris..

I have no reason to imagine I would ever have picked up an instrument if it wasn't for punk. In 1978, at the age of 15, me and a bunch of schoolmates sneaked into a pub to watch a punky/pub rock act who'd been making a bit of a name for themselves locally. On the way home, ears ringing, little minds comprehensively blown, and emboldened by a pint or two of shandy, we formed our first band. None of us could play or had ever thought about being in a band before, but we chose our instruments and (eventually) went ahead, bought them & learned to play. I chose bass because I didn't think I'd get away with asking my parents to help me buy a drum kit - and because I was a big Stranglers fan & wanted to make "that" sound. Me & my schoolmates never played together (although we all carried on playing) and I've never played punk rock. Some of the music was great (at the time, I'd say) but more than anything else it was a gateway. The bands weren't "rock stars" or millionaires, they looked the same as the kids in the audience & spoke the same language. The music was straightforward and accessible - previously I'd been into the likes of Alice Cooper and The Who, I would never, ever have entertained the idea I could ever pick up an instrument and actually play Halo Of Flies, or The Real Me - but thrashing along to Pretty Vacant or Peaches was no bother. I always struggled (and still do) with tribalisation of music & genres - good music's good music whether it's 2.33 of three chords and shouting, or whether it's 17 minutes of existentialism arranged in four movements, with varying time signatures derived from the Fibonacci Sequence. And my metric of what's "good" is what I happen to like. Doesn't make anyone else's taste wrong but I do question some of the entrenched attitudes.

No problem, and while I admit your post gave me food for thought, it WAS what I asked for and it was definitely done in a more than constructive manner Thanks, we have been thinking of adding backing vocals. I could easily do it - in the mechanical sense that I can sing and play bass at the same time. I'm just not a good singer As for the nasal bass, well it's a fretless and I do quite like this particular bass' tone. Having said that, I will revisit its sound, to hear if I agree or not To be fair, I do not feel like there was any dog-piling taking place. I will admit that I would have preferred heaps of praise but in fairness, I have my mom for that This gives me things to ponder, about the band as a whole, myself in particular and my Audacity-editing skills for this sort of intentions. So yeah, I think this thread is working pretty well for me!

Is this your first time on the internet?

I'm not arguing with anyone. Not even with you when you try to put words into my mouth. Don't confuse personal preferences with facts. A band or artist who has world wide success for decades is never "rubbish", or any other negative word you can think of. You may not like them but that has no impact on whether they are good or not. If anyone wants 3 minute songs with no faff, that get to the point and have changed the world of music? Check out Chuck Berry.

Now available, the very best of punk. Side B is blank.

Filling dozens of 90,000 + seat stadiums puts all the silly anti Led Zep comments into perspective. Punk didn't replace anything. It temporarily displaced some stuff and then joined the mainstream. After that it was business as usual.

I was a small child when Proper Punk tm kicked off... But it definitely stirred up the pop music i would listen to in the 80s - I totally agree that it brought in the idea of 'you don't have to start playing at 12 and spend 10 years in your bedroom learning stairway'. Like for instance, i think synth pop wouldn't have happened as synths were only 'proper' instruments if you dressed up as a wizard while playing them. Guns n Roses considered themselves punk. Punk meant that if Blondie felt like doing disco they could. Punk filtered down to the Jesus and Mary chain saying 'a guitar is like a chisel' which got me playing, when everyone else who 'knew about proper music' told me not to bother because i'd previously broken all the fingers on my left hand, so i'd never be able to play like Eddie Van Halen. Grunge was punk. Acid house was punk. Arguable skiffle was punk, even Glenn Miller was punk...

For me, and I realise I'm in a muso-snob minority, it's the actual music that counts most... After all, I can go to many places at pub chucking-out time and see people jumping about stupidly. But I'd prefer to see Jonas Hellborg and his band concentrating their little heads off in an almost motionless way apart from the blur of fingers, hands and toes than to see some very average musician posturing using every rock cliché. However, Jonas would be even better if he had his foot on the monitor, leapt from the drum riser, did the devil's horns after every crazy bass-run, then bit the head off a bat...

Like all art forms the status quo is challenged from time to time. I believe this breathes new life into music, painting, sculpture and prevents things stagnating. It happened for example with skiffle in a very similar way as it did with punk. Giving people with little or no formal musical education or experience a voice is always a good thing. Cezanne had a similar impact on the complacency of the art world. Shook things up and much good came from the shaking. I suspect if Mr Baker was a few years younger he'd hold a significantly different view. Like the rest of us he holds a strong affection for music which hit him at a certain age. Punk appeared to challenge the very validity of that music and he took this personally. As to the question posed in the title, well it depends on what music you listen to. A lot of bands and musicians who have enriched my life were picked up and bunged into the mixer as a result of the punk phenomenon so I for one an grateful for it.

I reckon if there was any footage they would've released it. May and Taylor would not have missed an opportunity to make more money. On a side note, how come most of the best basslines of theirs are in the songs I don't particularly like? John was a very under-rated bassist. he has a great melodic style.

Quick update - the bass' previous owner has been in touch. He'd owned it since 1982 - he was glad to see that I'm gigging it, and it's not just hanging it on a wall. It was nice to find out a bit more about its history.

OK then: Yes, I have indeed played in several pubs. No, I wasn't recognised. 😐

Valve amps have to be pushed a bit ... that’s why the ctm-30 sounds so good

It's even more moronic than naming your dog. I can assure everybody that saying "would you like a biscuit, dog" gets exactly the same response as "would you like a biscuit, Winston Churchill" or whatever.

Except it's not an "Ohm" sign. It is the sign for "Om" (or "Aum"), which as you say is a sacred syllable in Hinduism and Buddhism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om The symbol for "Ohm", however, is Ω - which is the Greek letter Omega. "Ohm" is the SI-derived unit of electrical resistance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohm Sorry to appear a fussy git.

I have both. My band's PA subs have lived in vinyl covers for about 5 years and they are still in great condition. My Markbass cab has the canvas covering and, although it's only a year old, it still looks as good as new. I wouldn't hesitate to use either, although if I had to choose I prefer the aesthetic of the canvas.

Well this was unexpected! A tax rebate, a few things going well and a quick trip to Denmark street led me to acquiring a brand new, 3 EQ USA stingray! it's a bass I'd always lusted after, but like so many you see your hero's play it but you don't know if it's going to be practical for yourself. I played a Sterling by Ernie Ball a few years ago and didn't think much of it. This USA Stingray has such a punchy and rounded sound, it's like a recorded and processed bass sound but coming from your fingers. As I said to the guys in the shop you can drive yourself mad looking at a plethora of options online, sometimes you just want to play something and go "yep! That's the one". I played a USA Jazz too and really enjoyed that, but felt the Stingray was better suited to playing live in my covers band which is leaning towards becoming an 80's cover band. So here it is. I also have to say the guys in Wunjo are superb. No pressure sales, gave me a good trade in on my old jazz bass too. Top marks for customer service!

It's been interesting to look at how different people practice, I wonder sometimes if I have it all wrong and a lot of bad habits, probably. I practice for about an hour a day fairly consistently sometimes more, sometimes less. I do wonder if I'd started with a more academic approach ten years ago whether I'd be further on now. Would I have a better grasp of harmony and be a proper reader? If so would that make me a better bassist? Within a few months of starting I was already in a covers band and I've been on a treadmill of learning new songs ever since. Every new band seems to involve learning 20-30 new songs over a 3 month period and once I 'learned' 30 songs in a fortnight. I stopped counting after hitting my 500th song. I'm guessing that a lot of us have a similar experience in covers bands and the practicalities of doing the job takes over from almost anything else. It becomes about short cuts though, check if there is a decent You Tube video? Download chord sheets and tabs. Anything to shorten the time between choosing a song and gigging it. How many root notes can I get away with? I love it but it ain't art. So practice routine? Load all the songs onto an Ipod (I know, how quaint) and listen to them on repeat in the car and out walking/working until the bass line is driven into my skull. Download any tabs/Chords, break down the song into parts and for any tricky bits make my own tabs. Then most of my actual practice is with headphones on playing alongside the originals. Nailing arrangements is usually more of a problem than the musical content of most cover band fare. I must admit I sometimes feel the need to break out of this cycle. It has given me a lot of pleasure getting out on stage and entertaining people and this was certainly a very quick way of getting there. There's always the next song though....

...presumably he doesn’t slum it in the bus though. He will be in the private jet.

When punk came out I was still listening to Three Billy Goats Gruff (being an infant rather than backward!) so was unable to appreciate it. In hindsight I can see how it gave a stale music scene a healthy, albeit a swift, kick in the cojones. I've seen reruns of 1976 editions of TOTP and man they're dire. Not prog but the 'kin awful pop of the time, though reruns of pre 1976 issues of the OGWT on BBC4 show the flip side of fluffy pop was just as bad; overly earnest singer songwriters, plodding proggers and dull noodly blues rock combos. Recently I've been listening to some punk and new wave compilations and to my ears many of the tunes sound fresher and more vibrant than most music released this month let alone what was around in 75-76. Sure there were loads of shoite punk bands , especially from the 2nd+ waves, but for me most of the best music made since the 70s can be traced back to the original punk scene.

Oh no we don't!

To me, there's a fundamental difference in learning, or writing, songs, and learning Music. To me, rudiments, scales, chord tones, time signatures are the basics, the bread and butter, the meat and veg, the Lego blocks. The more different Lego bricks one has, the more varied structures one can create. The more different produce is in the larder, the more interesting recipes one can cook. If one only ever wants bacon sandwiches, it's not necessary to have tons of herbs and spices. If one is only going to build fire engines, red bricks would be what to have lots of. I'm quite pleased to have spent all those years studying and playing rudiments, it has made me a better drummer, which is what I wanted. I'm equally pleased to have worked out for myself, then extended that meagre knowledge of scales, chords, harmony and solfège, as it enables me (I was going to type 'empowers me'; both are true...) in playing guitar, keys, bass and many other virtual instruments. Is what I 'create' Good Stuff..? A moot point, but rather irrelevant. It's what I create, and that suffices in itself. My recipes are varied, too; although I have the staples covered, I can improvise a meal in many different flavours, all very tasty (well, mostly...). I'm currently concentrating on ornery 6x2 Lego bricks, as I use 'em when building my balsa 'planes, but Our Littl'un uses any and all the various bricks to make all sorts of Stuff. Scales are useful to those wishing to do more than just 'songs'. It's a different approach to Music, Life and Everything. Your Method May Vary; we're all Winners (well, I am, at least...). Peace.