darkandrew

Ultravox were a huge influence on me and true pioneers when it came to combining electronic instruments into rock and pop - they took the avant-garde electronica of Eno and Kraftwerk (even working with Brian Eno at one point), and mixing it with more traditional "rock" instrumentation (and even a bit of classical viola) they sign-posted the way for music to move out of the 70s and into the 80s and beyond. Whether it was electric bass or synth bass (can you even imagine Vienna without *that* synth bassline?), it was always under-stated and never flashy but always exactly the right thing for the song.

I'm sitting in a park where they are currently setting up for a mini-festival and just noticed that they appear to be playing Tears for Fears' Songs from the Big Chair through the PA to check it. This reminded me of an interview that I saw on MTV once with Andrew Eldritch (Sisters of Mercy) where he mentioned that they used to play Talk Talk's Colour of Spring through the PA for this purpose, and wondered what songs / albums other people have used as a reference either while setting up for a live show or mixing in the studio?

I'll just leave this abomination here ...

I'm soon going to hit 50 and I'd say that probably 75% of music I buy is by older bands from the 80s and 90s - either new releases or re-releases but that does mean that about 25% of what i buy is by more current bands. I'm a secondary school teacher and a lot of new stuff is recommended to me by the students but something I've found surprising over the years is how many kids listen to older music these days - when I was their age there was no way that I'd listen to something that my parents might have listened to but a lot of today's kids love it, one artist that was really popular with them before lockdown was Neil Diamond (?!)

I could get some stick for this but although I really love the music of Magazine, I really can't stand Howard Devoto's voice.

"These are the days of our lives" by Queen

"Duran Duran social channels"? - Does this mean YouTube?

A teacher at a mixed comprehensive secondary school. Main subject is Computing / ICT and I also used to teach music as well.

Not sure if it's a repeat and been on before but BBC 4 are showing "Tina Weymouth on Bass" tonight at 10:30 if you're in to that sort of thing (which I guess one or two of you might be).

I'm going to go against the flow here I'm afraid. I had an encore guitar (not a bass) in the late 80s and it was almost entirely unplayable.

Sorry, I know it's infantile and I should be able to ignore it but all those "jazz faces" just put me right off. Sorry ...

This was shared by Martin Ware on his Facebook page and although I've never heard of the band, I'm loving this cover.

This happened to my Fender Showmaster. I fitted a Tremelno system into it and it absolutely killed the tone - it became boomy and sounded awful, and so was removed pretty swiftly. These days I just use it with the arm removed and have all but forgotten that it's actually got a working trem.

Do you know, I've never ever looked at the MSG line. Having looked now though, they look really good - and just when I thought I was going to have a GAS free 2020 - Damn you!