darkandrew

Have you thought of using coated strings? I tried the Warwick coated ones (I've forgotten what they were called) and they were really rough and abrasive on my fingers, but then tried DR Silver Stars / Black Beauties and they have a lovely texture - just slippery enough and just enough bite but without being rough on your fingers. They also have a really punchy tone which is great, especially on brighter basses.

Absolutely! I think, sometimes his electric bass playing is forgotten about due to Ultravox's reputation of being a synth band.

I'm not so keen on the first two albums but Systems of Romance is a great album as is Foxx's second solo album, The Garden, both of which feature the highly under-rated Robin Simon on guitar. At the risk of dipping a foot or two into Guitar Chat territory, Robin Simon's playing on "Systems" added a whole new dimension to Ultravox's sound and he also did a surprisingly competent job of filling the uniquely talented John McGeoch's shoes not once but twice in Magazine and then Visage.

Duran Duran's John Taylor, Kajagoogoo's Nick Beggs and Japan's Mick Karn all receive mentions on here quite regularly but I don't recall ever seeing Ultravox's Chris Cross mentioned. Listening through Ultravox's "Systems of Romance", "Vienna", "Rage in Eden" and "Quartet" over the past week (yes, I've had a bit of an Ultravox binge recently) I was wondering if Cross's lack of presence on here is because there's a certain snobbery due to his frequent use of synth bass, of which he was probably one of the early pioneers (the bassline from "Vienna", for example, is probably one of the 80's most instantly recognisable basslines). Any thoughts?

I new I should have posted the version of Propaganda's "P. Machinery" with Steve Jansen on drums.

Derek Forbes has said on more than one occasion that this is his favourite own bassline: It's amazing what you can do with one note

I like DR Silver Stars / Black Beauties for this reason. They don't sound "dead" as such, in fact they are very tuneful and lively, but what they don't have is that metallic "zing" of most fresh roundwounds and instead have a really healthy punch.

I remember reading a story that Bernard Edwards never changed the strings on his Stingray, and they stayed on there even after his death and the bass had been passed on to John Taylor - until the unfortunate day when JT's guitar tech changed them without realising their significance.

I came across the articles about caffeine and hearing after I'd been to the GP; I think the GP herself was making a connection between blood pressure (which is in turn affected by caffeine) and how that can affect hearing. Anyway, I've got to go back next week for a follow up appointment and hopefully all will be good by then.

I was travelling home on a long drive at the weekend and took a couple of caffeine tablets during the journey to help stay alert. When I reached home, I noticed that my hearing was odd and also that I'd almost completely lost the hearing in my left ear. 3 days later and my hearing still isn't right so I made an appointment to see my GP and since I have no sign of an ear infection she's blaming a combination of a lifetime of abusing my hearing (loud concerts, playing in bands, etc) and combined with too much caffeine. I've been told that if I cut out the caffeine, there may be a chance that my hearing will return to normal (or maybe not 😦 ). When I got back, I Googled "caffeine and hearing loss", and apparently research has suggested that caffeine can stop the ears from recovering from the effects of short term exposure to moderately loud noise, which is something that I never knew. So, seeing as most people here will be exposed to this sort of noise through bass playing, etc, it might be something that you want to bear in mind before having that post-gig Red Bull. BTW ... can anybody recommend a particular brand of decaf tea bags? The Tetley ones I've bought are OK but don't have a lot of flavour.

That would be a tough one to audition for since a lot of his live parts were produced in the studio and sampled for live use, playing them back on his Kurzweil K series synth / sampler. To be honest, I can't see a lot wrong with doing that; I don't think it's being dishonest or duping the audience for example, after all these multi-layered textures are an intrinsic part of the songs and the songs wouldn't be the same without them. There's also some intersting YouTube clips that Alan Wilder (Depeche Mode keyboard player for most of the 80s and early 90s) posted when he was having a clear-out of his old gear, where he demos his Emax samplers and you see exactly what parts were sampled for live use, and you can see that even with samples, loops, etc mapped out on the keyboard, there's a lot more to playing it live than just pressing a button.

Unfortunately my experience of local music shops has always been a bit mixed - they often mean well but their range of instruments is always pretty poor and focused almost entirely on the budget end of the market.

Free to anyone who can collect them, a pair of Britax "Kidfix" group 2-3 isofix child seats suitable for children between 15 and 36 kg (approximately 4 to 12 years old). Both seats are out of my wife's Yaris, in very good, clean condition and have never been in an accident. Collection from Chatham, Kent.

I remember being quite unimpressed with that when it first came out (recording too dry?) but it has grown on me since and gets played quite often now.

I hope that's not in reply to the urinal post above yours ...

Just a heads up, BBC 4 are doing an evening of Duran Duran tomorrow, 29th June.

I think I remember reading somewhere that when Prince recorded "When doves cry" it originally had a bassline but he thought it sounded better without and so it was taken off. I was wondering, in that case, whether there are any versions of the original with the bassline floating around? Similarly, if anyone here covers this song, do you play it with or without a bassline (I would imagine that a "Word up" style bassline would fit in quite nicely)?

Yes, that's her. I never got to see Toyah with this line up (could you call them prog punk?) but I did see Toyah Wilcox in the 90s at the Marquee Club in London although the band were nothing like these guys (but Toyah did pat me on the head which kind of made up for it a little bit).

I couldn't agree more - Warrior Rock is one of the best live albums ever (even though the CD version is a little butchered and misses out on most of the band / audience interaction). I also agree with your comments about Phil Spalding - one of those almost anonymous musicians that popped up on everyhing from Mike Oldfield to Heaven 17 and, of course, Toyah. By a slight coincidence, my wife taught Keith Hale's (producer, keyboard player and song writer of "It's a mystery") daughter.

One of my kids at school was telling me about his "huey" graphics tablet today - I just nodded and went with it. It was only later that I realised that what he was probably talking about was his "huawei" graphics tablet, which I've always pronounced "how-why". How do you pronounce it?

I've just been listening to The Art of Fallling Apart and This Last Night by Soft Cell, a band who during my teen years were seen by many as one of the most subversive and depraved bands around, yet despite the recurring themes of sex, drugs, emmotional abuse and self destruction there was not a single swear word in any of the lyrics. Just goes to show that some wit and badly worn mascara can be much more threatening than any four letter word.

And my other bugbear whilst we're on the topic of Squier - I recently thought I'd have a look around ebay and gumtree to see if there were any decent FENDER Teles and Strats around, and even though I specifically searched for FENDER, I'd say that more than half the guitars that were being advertised as FENDER were actually Squiers.

Please don't get me started on "could of / should of" - it's HAVE as in could HAVE, should HAVE, etc. Grrrrrrrrrr! (turns green and starts ripping his jeans and shirt).