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rushbo

⭐Supporting Member⭐
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Everything posted by rushbo

  1. 10CC were the first band I ever saw - in 1978, with "Dreadlock Holiday" in the charts. They are still a fantastic live band and I'm off to see them for the 20th(?) time at the Royal Albert Hall later this month. GG is rightly renowned for his incredible songwriting, but his Bass playing ain't too shabby, neither. All of the "classic" era material was recorded using his trusty R!ckenb*cker which sounds glorious. If you only know 10CC for the hits, check out the albums - the best Pop/Rock album of the 70's IMHO was "Sheet Music", but all of the first five albums are essential. Here's the band getting all Proggy with an ace little Bass solo around 9.15... [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xlqS3X-TUo"]<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5xlqS3X-TUo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/url]
  2. Japanese Fenders are gorgeous. I bought one from here a while back and loved it, apart from the wider neck. My dainty, girlish hands are more suited to Jazz necks, it seems. I've got a superb Mexi P Bass special (the Cowpoke model) which I picked up for just over £200. Amazing instrument. Really versatile. I swapped out the actives for a set of Entwistle pups (the actives were great, by the way, but I LOVE Entwistle pups...) and I've got a beautiful, well made instrument with a Jazz width neck, a striking appearance and a whole range of tones. You can't go wrong.
  3. As much as I like showing off, I'm with Steve Kilbey of The Church on this..."Any guy who takes more than two instruments to a gig is just showing you his Bass collection". As Bassists, we agonise over nuances of tone, but we're the only people who really notice. As long as the tone suits the song, punters don't mind. I've seen guys play Jamerson lines with a pick and Stranglers tunes with their fingers and it's sounded good. Maybe I'm blessed, as my main Bass for that sort of cover work is an amazingly versatile Mexican P Bass, modded with superb (and cheap!) Entwistle pups and a pup selector switch in place of the blend pot. I have a couple of settings on my Zoom B9.1 for fingers and pick playing with slightly different E.Q settings, too. Get yourself a good, solid Bass sound, don't screw up the groove and the adoring millions (and your bandmates) will love you forever. Possibly.
  4. ...am I seeing this right - there's cowhide in the pick-up routing?
  5. If the guy had stopped relicing this a third of the way into the process, this would be a nice instrument. I like basses with character, but this looks more like "fire salvage" than "mojo".
  6. Sad, sad news. The internet will be full of plaudits for the man and quite right too, but I really feel I need to say "thanks"...When I played with Heartbreaker - an excellent Paul Rodgers tribute band - of course, I played a stack of songs by Free. This meant that I had to sit down and really listen to what Fraser was doing. What an education. Powerful, melodic, inventive and funky. He was unique. I saw him play a while ago in a half empty venue in the Black Country and time had not diminished his musical prowess. One by one, the legends slip away, but it's always more poignant when that person has been an inspiration to you. The skinny kid with the cherry red Gibson bass and the wry smile has gone. His legacy is peerless. Thanks Andy. Thanks a lot.
  7. ead, feel free to pop in for a cuppa, but the bass is now sold....
  8. Roll up ladies and gentlemen and gasp in awe at my lovely Spector 5 string… It’s a bit of a rare best – made in Korea in the mid 90’s. Check out the unusual (for Spector) headstock. It’s active and beautifully made and very comfortable. It’s got a brass nut and sexy black hardware. The back has that lovely Spector contour which makes it a joy to play. The neck join is absolutely flawless. Lots of tonal possibilities – yeah Spector’s sound great for rock, but this machine can also sound pretty funky too. Condition? Pretty decent. A few little scratches, but nothing that a bottle of black nail polish and some T Cut couldn’t put right. I’ve had it for about a year and gigged it once. Through my Genz Benz Contour rig, it sounded HUGE. I put some new Rotosounds on it at Christmas and it’s had about 30 mins play since then… I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not a five string player, so it has to go…and I’ve also got terrible GAS for a BC Rich Mockingbird… £300 gets it posted to you in a tatty but usable hard case. Or you can pick it up from Halesowen in the Wild West Midlands. Feel free to come over and have a twang- the kettle is always on, but bring biscuits… [attachment=186034:spector.jpg] [attachment=186032:headstock.jpg] [attachment=186033:back.jpg] [attachment=186035:neck.jpg] [attachment=186036:pups.jpg]
  9. The only time I've ever had a problem was when a keys player wanted to do "Superstition" in the original key. Other than that, the beauty of playing a (generally) non-chordal instrument is that transposition is fairly straightforward.
  10. Entwistle pups are amazing. I swapped my active Fender pups in my Precision special for the Neos and I don't regret it all. Really versatile, ballsy pick ups. And obscenely cheap.
  11. Maybe I’m missing something here, but I don’t see the wording of the advert as a slight on bassists or what they do – it seems to be saying (to me, anyway) that a love of that style of music and a commitment to improve is more important than technical competency. And I agree wholeheartedly. I joined my first band because the guitar/vocalist and drummer were great guys to be with and I really loved the material. I sucked big time at our first rehearsal, but because they could see how much I wanted to be in the band and how committed I would be, they asked me to join. I worked my nuts off for months, learning the songs, practicing, improving. It was hard, frustrating work and I lost count of how many times my Hondo Ric copy went flying across the bedroom (onto the bed – I wasn’t stupid!) in a hail of obscenities. But I persevered. And I turned into a reasonable bassist. To me, the ad says “You don’t need to be Geddy Lee to join our band as long as you love the music we play and work hard at it”. Take, for example, Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads. A complete novice when she joined the band (convinced by boyfriend/drummer Chris Frantz she could do it), she turned into a superb, innovative bassist. How good were you when you joined your first band?
  12. By "jobbing musician" at this level, I meant the person who will join a regularly gigging band just for experience and the (very) occasional few quid - people who are playing with a band "until the right one comes along".
  13. I can see what the person who wrote the ad is getting at. Aside from the grammar issues and the possible over use of the ellipses, this seems like a sensible way to find someone who really loves the music rather than a jobbing musician who may lack drive and enthusiasm. When I joined my first band, I could barely tune my bass, but I was a huge fan of the genre and got on really well with the guys in the band. That meant that I worked really hard to improve and my learning curve was massive and by the time that band folded, I was a semi-decent player. A few bands have formed in this rather ad hoc way - UB40 being a prime example. Who would you rather have in your band - the bored, uncommitted but competent guy or the devoted, driven beginner?
  14. Someone asked the seller for his "buy it now" price. £375. Free postage tho'.
  15. Never has looking at a Bass made me feel so sad.
  16. Aside from the inexplicable hole (?) and the battery box, that looks OK. Possibly a tad overpriced, but I bet those EMGs sound lovely.
  17. My favourite bass is an Aria bitsa which has been severly modded - EMG pups, gold hardware, new tort plate. Nearly all secondhand. Total cost...maybe just shy of £100 if you count the neck block decals and my Steve Jones "Saucy Lady" decal on the front. It sounds great. And it's unique. I've gigged with other bands whose bassists have "proper" gear and I'd put my mongrel next to boutique any day of the week. You have a cool looking bass. If it plays well and sounds good, then rock it live. In the words of Oscar Wilde - " A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing".
  18. I can't remember the bass challenge, but I was amazed when a guy could name any Pet Shop Boys tune just by looking at the flickering of the LEDs on the HiFi amp....
  19. Just a feeler at the mo, but I'm hoping to go on Sunday and as the trains don't start until too late in the day, I'm driving. Anybody in the Halesowen/Dudley/Black Country up for a car share?
  20. The item is located in Hiroshima.
  21. Just a little background....this is my band - King Rocker. We're one of those "classic rock cover bands" that polarises opinions on this here forum. Our USP is that we have a bona fide Elvis impersonator on vocals - King Rocker, geddit? So if you've ever wondered what "Back In Black", "Mr Brownstone" and a heap of other youth club classics would sound like, if sung by Mr E.A.Presley (deceased), then we are the band for you. This was one of our Christmas tunes - the other being "Merry Christmas Everybody", natch. We did the basic track in the rehearsal room and the Guitarists did all manner of clever stuff on Cubase. Enjoy - and Merry christmas from The KIng. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgHkXtnrm34
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