6stringbassist

[quote name='Bassmanc' post='370161' date='Jan 4 2009, 06:06 PM']A very interesting discussion and perhaps one that has been predictably tainted by people voting for their favourite bands and just adding the guy playing bass to the list. I accept that great bass paying means putting the right note in the right place and even in musical genres where the skill required to do this is not comparable with rocket science or brain surgery, there are still exponents who demonstrate unmistakable skill. This is the list with Sting, Paul Macartny, John Paul Jones, Roger Glover and many other more recent examples in there. Then there's a group who innovated above and beyond the cause, who pushed bass playing out from skillful feel and foundation territory and up a notch into the limelight. This group is a wider span, staring perhaps with the like of Jack Bruce and including so many others, John Entwistle (OF COURSE!), How about Flea anyone?, Mike Rutherford, yes etc etc You need a group for the pure technical excellence brigade - just put in all the Jazz players here! No lack of respect intended, just that I'm, well out of touch and listened to mostly american jazz players myself and missed all the UK fusion stuff and much that followed. Then you might need a class for people who created a whole new sound, but the problem here is knowing how original they were, I mean, was Palladino not heavily influenced by Mick Kahn? But you can probably put him in here for the influence he had on British bass playing. Then I have one class left. There's a guy out there who simply reinvented the role of the bass in music, and developed an entirely new way to play it by adapting skills from many that had gone before and pushing the boundarieds to new limits. He had better technique than anyone who ever went before and in a live concert many a time included 'tribute's' to the greats (Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, Jaco Pastorious etc etc) and proved he could match them all. I don't really care what you think of Level 42's pop songs, but best bassist in Britain? Be serious, there is no contest![/quote] I totally agree with you, I'm a huge fan of Mark King, he's probably the biggest influence on many players aged 35 upwards. He's also acknowleged by players like Stanley and Marcus as being inovative, and taking the slap thing further. He also influenced Matt Garrison to take up bass !. For some reason though, there's always a huge crowd of people waiting to criticise him. Usually the same people who criticise anyone who can actually play.

DR Lo-rider nickels, they last for ages and ages, and sound better than Elixirs, in my opinion.

[quote name='steve-soar' post='365729' date='Dec 29 2008, 08:16 PM']Same here, get a load of angled jacks, some decent cable and have a night in of joyous fun. [/quote] I'm too dangerous with a soldering iron to do that. I bought a soldering iron last year to repair a faulty jacket socket in a preamp, I ended up taking it to a guy in Nottingham to have repaired properly, he couldn't stop laughing at what I'd done. I'd also burned my finger, and burned the top of the kitchen work surface.

I was looking at that, it does look cool, and very tempting. I prefer the look of the older design 1950's style precisions to the newer ones, they just look cooler.

Don't forget Paul Turner, I don't think he's already been mentioned.

These look kind of cool. Let me explain..... I have regular gigs in a number of various bands, all play original music except for the jazz standards one. I play in a 70's style funk band, a jazzy/soulful trio with a fantastic female singer, a singer/songwriters band heavily influenced by Mark Hollis/Talk talk and the aforementioned jazz trio. I've always been of the opinion that my one main bass can cover all situations, which is sort of right. But so many people nowadays 'hear with their eyes', and me turning up for a 70's style funk band, or an indie type rock band with a single cut 6 string bass, doesn't really cut it. But other peoples short sightedness, gives me an excuse to increase the number of guitars in my ownership. I've just bought a Fender Marcus Miller jazz bass, I'd also like a Musicman Stingray fretless, but I really fancy a precision type bass, and these, like I said in the opening statement look really cool. I'm not too keen on the Sting signature inlay though.

I know I sort of wandered what he's saying, I got a Dominic Miller album yesterday from 2006 that he plays on, unless he's just 'ghosting' on it.

I guess it's some sort of Fender precision.

I saw bits and thought most of it was awful, but I don't listen to the radio because I don't like that sort of music, Annie Lennox was great though and Duffy was pretty good. The bass player with Annie was great.

And don't forget Steve Lawson, looping aside he's fantastic, his solo playing is amazing to watch, he plays bass, rhythm and melody at the same time. Not everyones idea of great I admit, but I like to consider myself open minded when it comes to music and bass playing.

[quote name='Stingray5' post='365962' date='Dec 30 2008, 02:57 AM']'Best of' lists will always be subjective though usually good for an argument or two! I would widen the scope here by adding: - Percy Jones (Brand X) - Colin Hodgkinson (Back Door) - Danny Thompson (John Martyn a.o.)[/quote] Percy Jones is great, I've been listening to a cool album by Richard Barbieri recently, he's ex keyboard player with Japan, and currently plays with Porcupine tree, Percy Jones plays some beautiful fretless on about 5 tracks.

Makes me kind of fancy getting a Stingray fretless.

I'd sort of agree with some of your top 10, but Lemmy and John Taylor...mmm, not really what I'd call 'great', Shouldn't Jack Bruce sort of change places with one of them ?.

The Gallery possibly don't have them in, I don't recall seeing any last week when I was there, and the way the dollar has gone up recently that's probably the price now. Two Tri112's sound amazing. I bought one back from the US two years, I bought it from the Grooveshoppe, I flew via CDG in Paris and consequently when I landed home in Birmingham didn't pay any import taxes, I guess the customs people thought I'd bought the big box in Paris. Have you considered buying a used one from Talkbass perhaps, they do come up for sale occasionally.

Is that a fairly recent gig ?. Nice to see him playing fretless again.

I've put up with comments about the height of my bass for years, I've never heard of Mark King.