wombatboter

I'm a huge Bona fan and I am always amazed by his playing... What bothers me sometimes is that I don't have a clue what he's singing.. Although you can feel the emotion in his voice it would be nice if I would be able to understand what he is singing about. After fifteen minutes of "yousoulouka nbugu es tgolla" or something (?) in that high voice I'm a little bit bored actually. He could be singing about the lack of garlic when he's cooking something and it still would be ok... But as a bass-player he is one of the strongest voices ever. That Fodera !

I still wouldn't be surprised if it would turn out to be Eddy Murphy who would pop up from under Anthony's latex skin disguise...

Nice to hear that I drew some attention on someone who seems to deserve it a lot...Respect !

Tourist traps ? I went to the bass shops over there twice in my life when I visited London and everytime it struck me that it's not an advantage to be a Belgian bassplayer. I'm sorry to say but most of the time I was treated like some foreign disease they had to endure. I had the money in my pocket but I wasn't very eager to take it out when I saw the reactions whenever I asked something. I think I'm a rather polite easy going person but I want to be treated with respect and that was hard to find. I'm sorry to say but also in the Bass Centre in Wapping I wasn't taken serious and no one showed any intrest in helping me out...

The band was so tight that I got through that....I also gave Robin a bit more credit, together with his brothers he made a lot of classic songs. He gets my respect for that. You missed something if you switched off during Robin.....I've played Disco Inferno with various coverbands and I can't stand the song anymore but the version of the song during this show was éxcellent... "You should be dancing" (played with a pick) featured a great bassline too... I really get energy from performances like this.. Just proves the power of pop when you least expect it.

Thanks a lot for the quick response....it was indeed this bassplayer I saw and heard. Great tone, excellent musician and really smooth and groovy playing...a joy for the ear.

I don't know if this is the right place to post this question but I watched a TV show on the BBC last saturday night when I came home from a gig. It was around midnight and it featured some artists unknown to me here in Belgium but they did songs from Saturday Night Fever with a big orchestra. Guests I did know were Robin Gibb and Sharleen Spiteri. The band was superb and they showed how complex the arrangements of these popsongs were.. Does anyone know who the bassplayer was...already in his 40ties (fifties ?) but he played really well on a red Fender Precision. The bass-sound he had on "Jive Talkin'" was mindblowing and was the best "synth"bass-sound I have heard on an electric bass. I heard a really good version of "Disco Inferno" by an unknown singer (Christopher ?) but in fact everyone was good...Pity it was interrupted by Razorlight... So if anyone knows who the bassplayer was ?

Finally ! I already thought it was unbelievable that someone from Belgium had to add Paul McCartney on a British bass-forum ! Paul McCartney Mark King Pino Palladino on fretless

I really enjoyed the "live in Verona"- dvd until I noticed that at a certain moment the bass just goes on while Nick is holding his hands clapping... It just spoils the fun when I realised that probably the bass parts are done again in the studio.. Was already thinking that it sounded too good to be true. Great gig though and I admired Jaykay's act in the pouring rain..

[quote name='acidbass' post='301591' date='Oct 7 2008, 05:29 PM']Alan Partridge! Brilliant show, that clip still cracks me up [/quote] Although I'm Belgian and my language is Flemish I do appreciate British comedy (got the complete "League of Gentlemen" "Fast Show" etc...) I do not suggest Belgian Comedy !

I grew up with the fretless Pino like so many other bass-players... Since his "change" to fretted bass I have been trying to connect but he sounds like somebody else to me. I listened to his work with John Mayer, D'Angelo, Paul Simon, etc...but not once was I touched like I used to be when I heard him play.. Sure it's all well played and there is some serious groove playing going on but his phrasing seems to touch me more on a fretless with all the glissandos, harmonics...His Precision sounds like so many other Precisions and you couldn't say that about his fretless work. In an interview he was saying that he started to repeat himself on fretless and I can understand that dilemma. Although he is still a strong voice in bass-land I still prefer the other Pino... I recently listened to "I Assasin" (Gary Numan) which features a very busy fretless Pino and I loved it (was introduced to this album through a tv thing with Steve Coogan in which he plays a dj : Not really obvious stuff for Belgian viewers...:-))

I came home late at night just in time to catch the very last song of David Gilmour... I went to bed after hearing one of the best guitar solo's I have ever heard in my life.. I think the song was called Mr. Blue and the sound, the phrasing and the intensity were mind-boggling...What a fantastic musician he is and he only gets better and better.

I never have the feeling that I 'm actually watching a music-show whenever Madonna's on stage. It always looks like some sort of dance competition and the emphasis is certainly not on the musicians or the music.. When I watched the "In bed with Madonna"-thing it was all around herself and her dancers but the musicians are just dark shadows in the back... Meanwhile there's Madonna in the front trying hard to sing while she's performing some tune which is constructed by a hip producer who had to take care of the emperor's new clothes... There used to be some nice tunes though like "Cherish", "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer".. The new stuff is just an insult to my ears and a pathetic attempt to stay "in touch" with modern "music".. Could be any bass-player in the back..his musical personality certainly doesn't count.

I do often forget how much Bernard Edwards influenced my playing....He was one of the best bassplayers there has ever been. Killer sound, tremendous grooves, great technique (the slap bass on Baby Doll).. Like someone already mentioned : hurray for Nile Rodgers too... Saw him a couple of years ago in a Belgian TV show where he had to play some live songs.. Probably he wasn't too pleased with the local rythm section and decided to play the Chic songs only with his guitar and his two backing singers... His groove was so tight and tasteful that he managed to pull it off by himself and even without bass and drums "Le Freak" was incredible.. Some musicians like Rodgers/Edwards for instance are truly blessed...

I bought one about twenty years ago.... I was motivated but still found it a really hard instrument to master : the different tuning (in fifths on the one hand), the combination of the two hands working seperately, two amps for each signal.. I played it for a year but found out that if you want to play it really well that you have to sacrifice a lot of time which you normally use to play bass..I sold it. If you want to be a good stick-player you should make it your main instrument...Sure you can play like Tony Levin which is great but then you' re not using the full potential of the instrument since he mainly uses the bass-side... I also think that it might be an easier start for a keyboardplayer or a guitarplayer who have the advantage of working with chords or two hands working individually... I found myself playing mainly on the bass side of the stick which was nice (totally different tuning though) until I thought to myself that I could do the tapping on my normal basses too without the difficulty of the stick. Sure, the sound of a Stick is great and sounds punchy and percussive but the question remains if this is so big an advantage that you have to sacrifice your bass for that... And on top of all : do you have a band or the music to fit a Stick in ? I tried it again two years ago and bought another Stick and sold it again after six months, too much for me and I'd rather play bass than a Stick... Think well before you buy one because it is really difficult imho and it might end a lot quicker in a corner than you would think and that would be a waste of money...

Yesterday I drove to the south of Belgium to pick up a fretless Status bass which I had bought on ebay.. I arrived at a beautiful house in a valley and I was welcomed by the seller.. He showed me the Status S2 which I had bought and I asked him why he was selling it.. He said that he had bought it but had never used it since he had another bass which he loved and mainly used.. He opened a case and showed me a fretless '63 Fender Jazz...beautiful. He asked me if I wanted to try it and I was very eager off course.. While he handed it over he asked me if I knew who had played this bass... I didn't know and then he told me that Jaco Pastorius had played it when he came to Brussels for a concert in 1985... The seller himself had bought it for 520 Euros... I was struck by the karma of the instrument and felt really honoured to play this instrument for a while.. I have to admit that it actually didn't sound too good because of the terrible amp the seller had ànd the strings which were too thin to give a good sustain and tone. But it made my day ànd my week and my month...

Thanks a lot ... Hope you don't mind me using it... I'm recording my fourth solo-cd and I was looking for a plain pulsating drum track to put some stuff on and this worked really well.. It really inspired me (bass drum patterns alter a bit which made it less standard...)

What surprised me a lot is the additional demo on one of the cd-releases... You hear early tapes of some songs without the production of Quincy Jones and they are really close to the original...I thought that Quincy's influence would be massive but those early demo's just show that Michael Jackson had already a lot of the production and arranging in an early stage..Great album though.

I've been playing bass for the last 26 years and I have owned around 85 basses... Last year I had around 29 basses and I realised it was just too much...I started selling and now I have 19 basses...Two years I was an ebay-addict and bought a new bass every month (Sadowsky, 7 Wal basses in one year, Status, etc...). I finally realised that a lot of basses were not used enough and that they deserved to be played.. Now I think I could do with my Fender Marcus Miller, Wal MK I, Lefay Fretless and my Rickenbacker 4001..the others I have are great but I hardly use them (I have a Wal MKII 5 string which I haven't played for more than an hour during the past year, I think that is a shame though)

I saw Steve Swallow live with Carla Bley twice in concert in Brussels...incredible bassplayer and great music to listen to..And what a charisma...