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[quote name='Linus27' post='423961' date='Mar 3 2009, 10:41 AM']I would be interested in hearing what music/bands you do consider good/great.[/quote] How about The Funk Brothers?

Very few people who hang off every album by U2 and aren't musicians have heard of Jaco, much less have heard and listened to Portrait of Tracy. It's sad but true, so to state that the 4 notes of the b-line to With or Without You means more than something they probably never heard is a bit silly, I mean its a fair point in some respects, but then I doubt most of them could even tell you thos four notes either, cos they are concentrating solely on the vocal in fact. Like with every other normal punter listening to pop, its ALL about the vocal. I agree that they wrote a couple of decent songs early on, they are absolute masters of playing the media game to best effect, or their record company are. I don't agree that the average pop listener pays any attention to Adam Clayton at all. Why would they, he deliberately does nothing noticeable, thats, if anything, his style, and it clearly works for them. I reserve the right to have an opinion that apart from one or two reasonable (though not staggering) early songs which I thought were OK when I was 14 or however old, they have done literally nothing that I have enjoyed, liked, thought of as great music or whatever. In that regard then I feel that they are generally over rated. We will all have to agree to disagree, since no amount of your personal enjoyment, or there frankly staggering (in light of their, IMO, mediocre product) record sales will change my mind for a moment. The fact is I clearly have different (not necessarily right or better, just different) criteria for what I consider good/great or simply decent pop music, for me that really isn't U2, and never will be. If you think they are modern messiahs of musical performance and expression I'm pleased you have found what you are looking for. I have found mine elsewhere.

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='423409' date='Mar 2 2009, 04:53 PM']That's over-simplifying because the bass frequencies lose more than the higher ranges, of course, but that just gives you a perfect reason to turn up a bit ...[/quote] Really?? I always find the top end loses more than the bass with every set of ear plugs I've ever worn. The ER20s certainly do that, is it that different with the custom er15s then?

[quote name='johnnylager' post='423358' date='Mar 2 2009, 04:12 PM']Or the cheap & cheerful ER20's...[/quote] +1 I can hear well enough during a gig, take em out afterwards and my hearing is better than before we started. Also I find I am far less tired after the gig too.

+1 for senn md421 or on a different tack I've heard the Heil PR-40 is staggeringly good too if you want something that is of similar quality to the EV RE20 but about half the price. If I had the cash I'd get an EV RE20, failing that I'd go for the PR40, after that the Senn and lastly an SM57. Senn E835 is a very cheap SM57 alike thats rock solid IMO. Certainly good enough for chucking in front of a bass cab, you know since that can be any old rubbish

Try one of these - its Tapco by Mackie, and £50 by it now 4 mono + 4 stereo inputs:- [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Tapco-Mix100-Mixer-Mixing-Desk-By-Mackie_W0QQitemZ250382077404QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Mixers?hash=item250382077404&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1688|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318"]Tapco by Mackie Mix100[/url]

Total personal opinion, cant stand U2, never have. Although the first two songs I heard from them (Sunday Bloody Sunday and something else) I thought were OK at the time, I never felt they really did anything particularly great or all that worthy of amazement. Not once. Having said that I never liked the Smiths either (gets asbestos coat on and ducks). And Bono does his very best to come across as a t*t every time I see or hear anything from him. Last point, just having a huge number of sales doesn't make anything good in this industry - really. It is, and always was, very much a self perpetuating marketing machine, thats why they were on the JR show in the first place, no doubt billed as the saviours of rock and roll. ANd the vast majority of the public have historically bought what they were told to by said marketing machine. So don't quote sales figures to me as they are no indication of musical quality whatsoever. Anyone care to judge the output of Stock Aitkin and Waterman purely on sales? And now apply some musical taste and discretion to you judgment; still the same? Then you sir are IMHO a philistine.

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[quote name='The Funk' post='420855' date='Feb 27 2009, 01:15 PM']I'm going to disagree with your theory: Crap bassist + great drummer = sh*te rhythm section + no groove = no funk.[/quote] +LOTS Its definitely the pair of them, Garibaldi is superb though, but some of the stuff he does with the groove even he has stated he thinks he can only do because Rocco is absolutely solid.

[quote name='dlloyd' post='420653' date='Feb 27 2009, 09:55 AM']+1 Rocco's lines [i]sound[/i] simple... It's amazing how difficult they sound when other people play them.[/quote] Absolutely, part of it is his bizarre left hand approach; uses only two fingers and damps/chokes with the rest, moves his hand around waaaay more than you're supposed to. According to an interview in BassPlayer (I think it was) in the 90's he could run his stuff up at 140bpm absolutely on it, no fluffs, still grooving . Anyone out there think he hasn't got technique please post a link to you playing Rub Off, On The Serious Side, Squib Cakes, Stroke or even What Is Hip at that speed as good as he does and I'll eat my hat if you still think it doesn't require serious chops . They may not be the modern version of super chops, but I think you'd be mistaken in thinking those chops equate to that kind of playing as well as his technique does. He is the absolute master of the 16th note fingerstyle funk groove, Bar none. His entire approach to the instrument is based upon that style of playing for a 2 hour set night after night. That changes how you play. Also has anyone seen how hard he plucks the strings?? He certainly likes to whack them compared to most modern fast players IMO, none of that ramp nonsense for Rocco, if he isn't "beatin' on that bass" he ain't feeling it I think....

Ooooh you all beat me to it, I was going to do list part 2 today (in which as u can see there is definitely some Roy Ayers) Roy Ayers: Party Sex (ultimate funky vibes), The Boogie Back (love this one too, and the b-line is as simple as it can possibly get) Trouble Funk: Say What Shotgun: Mutha Funk (old school heavy slappin on this one - lovely) Rhythm Heritage: Theme from S.W.A.T Pleasure: Glide (nuther slap classic - maybe too much?) Ohio Players: Funky Worm (utterly bonkers!) Headhunters: God Made Me Funky Soul Searchers: Funk For The Folks Vibrettes: Humpty Dump Tower Of Power: Maybe It'll Rub Off (dont tell me he aint go no technique, it may not be pretty but he's lightening fast and super accurate) Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band: Apache Theme from Starsky and Hutch (zero street cred I imagine, but funky as hell) Wow, that'll do. Listen to everything everyone has put into the thread so far on repeat for six months, you'll be a totally different bassist.

[quote name='thepurpleblob' post='420082' date='Feb 26 2009, 02:05 PM']Set everything flat, plug it in, switch it on, does it make a noise. Good.... my sound. Everybody thinks I'm joking when I say this. I'm not..... [/quote] Thats my ethos too. I do tend to favor the bridge pickup, but in any event I usually pluck at the bridge rather than neck (exception being very slow mellow stuff) so even the neck pickup is nice and tight sounding compared to most. I have eq - I use it to help when the room sucks. Sometimes I break away from my own modus operandi though....

[quote name='dlloyd' post='420184' date='Feb 26 2009, 04:24 PM'][b]Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)[/b] Ha-ah, ha-ah, ha-ah! I am Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk I can't swim EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT (Hit me!) Bioaquadooloop (Ah ho! Ha ha, get down!) Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadooloops A motion picture underwater starring most of you-loops Ha-ah Ha-ah Ha-ah! (x6)[/quote] Probably the most misunderstood protest song of the 20th Century :wacko:

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='420182' date='Feb 26 2009, 04:22 PM']is it possible to be a Funk Geek?[/quote] Guilty :blush:

[quote name='alexclaber' post='420148' date='Feb 26 2009, 03:28 PM']Mandate my ass. I think if you really want to get funk then you need to listen to the lyrics. As you may have noticed I ain't so black but I am totally into the attitude and message that drove the funk revolution - "I don't want nobody to get me nothing", "They call it the White House but that's a temporary condition", "But since John Wayne was no longer available, they settled for Ronald Reagan". Almost nothing annoys me more than cheesy whiteboy lameass funk covers bands. Where is the dirt, where is the grease, where is the message? This might sound like party music but it is protest music! "You don't need the bullet when you got the ballot." Alex P.S. Dig your inner afro.[/quote] In all seriousness Alex is spot on. Its too often watered down by the later disco thing, and 80's pop use of slapping to excess by well turned out middle class white boys from the Isle of Wight (mentioning no names here). Real funk is very much the urban protest music of its day. Disco was an anomaly and in some ways an appalling one at that. Funk morphed into hip hop; check out Beat Street by Grandmaster Flash, the b-line is Doug Wimbish I think, and as funky as hell, the whole track is an amazing lyrical protest poem - staggeringly beautiful rhyming about incredibly real and gritty subjects. At least as good as Rappers Delight and Its Like a Jungle. ANd they all owe the sound to funk in the biggest way you can imagine. I was into hip hop in '82 and considered very odd by everyone at school as a result (we were all middle class and white for what its worth, about 3 of us were into hip hop and early electro), think it went downhill as soon as it started being about gangstas and hoes personally rather than real people suffering real life... Would happily play in a funk or hip hop live act any day if the week. Rather than any other style of music, it just moves me. But it would have to be old school either way....

[quote name='alexclaber' post='420148' date='Feb 26 2009, 03:28 PM']As you may have noticed I ain't so black[/quote] Nooooo, tell me it aint so bruther

[quote name='spike' post='420100' date='Feb 26 2009, 02:34 PM']Shouldn't that be The Television Will Not Be Revolutionised? [/quote] Theres as song in there somewhere dammit

[quote name='mathewsanchez' post='418430' date='Feb 24 2009, 02:54 PM']I played a white one of these a while back and despite being fretless it didn't sound fretless (?) and the fret lines were unusually thick. It didn't give that lovely 'mwwahh' sound I get from my fretless status. But I guess at £65 it would just be a muck about bass anyway.[/quote] I would imagine that if you got the action lower it might well start to mwaaah??? Or am I just being hopeful?

Priceless stuff. Thank you!

[quote name='silddx' post='420034' date='Feb 26 2009, 12:59 PM']Did she have an album called Nasty Gal? I remember seeing it in the Album Cover Album at school, and liking that cover rather too much [/quote] [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nasty-Gal-Betty-Davis/dp/B000059Z41"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nasty-Gal-Betty-Davis/dp/B000059Z41[/url] Dont know what you're taking about mate Some other crackers (this list ventures into some pretty soul stuff, some gets pretty disco- sue me!) include:- Slave: Seperated Jimmy Castor Bunch: A Groove Will Make You Move (funky as f...!) 100% Pure Poison: Windy C Aaron Neville: Hercules Brothers Johnson: Get the funk out ma face 24 carat black: Ghetto Misfortunes Wealth, The 24 Carat Black Charles Wright: Express Yourself (bit more soul this one) chuck brown & the soul searchers: bustin' loose Dennis Coffey: Getting It On Dyke And the Blazers: Let a Woman Be a Woman Quazar: Funk With A Capital G Gil Scott-Heron: The Television Will Not Be Televised Hamilton Bohannon: Lets Star Ike Turner's Kings Of Rhythm: Funky Mule Positive Force: We've Got The Funk (Bernard Edwards on bass here I think) There you go, find em (youtube should help), they are not so often on the tip of people's tongues, I deliberately avoided PFunk, JB, The Meters etc since they've been mentioned ad nauseum... Damn, nearly forgot:- Patrice Rushen: Forget Me Nots (for when you want to hear really really classy slapping)

Thats gorgeous. Nice nice take on vox accompanied with bass. Love it!

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='419981' date='Feb 26 2009, 11:45 AM']Funk's moved on a bit since Bootsy and James Brown, thankfully.[/quote] True its moved on, but thats the beginning of it, and if you want to really get into it thats where you should be starting IMO. I wouldnt have put the thnkfully on the end of that sentence though, that early stuff is raw as hell, nothing like the sacharine smooth 'funk' you hear now. Which is bulls p155 IMO. Like I said Meshell really gets it, I think a lot of supposedly funky acts these days dont really. I saw one recently supporting Dr John, they really thought they were funky as could be, they had the right gear, all the right poses and posturing but they just did not have a funky groove in the set. Not one. Lot of notes, lot of slapping, lot of chocka-wocka guitar and zero funk. Dr John came on and the funk was all there, tons of it. And you right nothing like Bootsy & James either, but damn funky nevertheless.

Listen to the stuff. All the time. Real funk, uncut funt, the Bomb. Nothing later than 1980 counts if you want to understand real funk IMO. (Meshell is a real exception to this 'rule' IMO) The one is everything. I took a decision to really get into the funk in the biggest way I could around 97. I literally listened to the stuff all the time. Allow youself to walk down the street like Travolta whilst listening to PFunk's "P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)". The gait you will walk with is the swing of laid back funk. The one is everything. Unless you want to get as technical as Rocco (Tower of Power) then space is your friend. Very few people really do pull off the TOP Rocco 16th note groove in a funky way - thats why hes so good. Stick to Bootsy style one-ness for months, whilst trying to get your fingers so fast they can play those sixteenth note grooves swung super hard and still sound relaxed. The one is everything. Dont slap at all until you have dispelled all 80's slapathonic nonsense from your system. Larry Graham Louise Johnson Bootsy. They are righteously funky when they slap. Mark King and even Flea aren't IMO, they may sound cool but they aint funky as a rule (and I am guilty or more so than the next man for copping their stuff). This thread:- [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=314342&highlight=Funk+101"]http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.p...hlight=Funk+101[/url] Is gold dust....... Oh, did I say, the one is everything.

Punchy, punchier, punchiest....

Just checked out the vid of Glitch - thats freakin mental!