EliasMooseblaster

I stumbled across this in today's Graun, and apart from being alarmed that Spotify had been around for 10 years already, I found both cases quite interesting: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/oct/05/10-years-of-spotify-should-we-celebrate-or-despair For a bit of fun - or some stiff debate if you prefer - which side of the fence do you find yourself on? Ten years on, is Spotify ultimately a force for good or evil?

I believe they had a session player in for the studio albums (none other than Jerry Scheff played on LA Woman, their last album before Morrison died). Most of the live footage I've seen, it's Manzarek's left hand on a separate bass keyboard. Another more contemporary example is the Matt Schofield Trio. Jonny Henderson has a similar setup to Ray Manzarek. Admittedly the band is mostly a vehicle for Schofield's superb guitar playing, but I must admit I was not distracted by the absence of a dedicated bass guitar or double bass player when I saw them.

It's still a variation on the guitar though, isn't it? They might all serve different roles and be played differently, but a violin, viola, cello (or violoncello, to give it its full name) and double bass (bass viol, for the pedants) are all in the violin family. Similarly the guitar family includes tenor, baritone and bass variants on its more common form. I don't mean to touch a nerve; I just vividly remember Talkbass absolutely exploding down the middle into two camps of people yelling "IT'S A BASS" and "ERM, NO, IT'S A BASS GUITAR" at each other.

You're right, and I've missed the subtle but important distinction, that people are aware of our presence, but not what we're doing musically to hold everything together.

What do you mean, "a high opinion"? I am a GOD, and great shall be the wrath that I do vent upon those who do not fall, yea, even unto my feet, in fealty and worship.

It's clearly very dependent on the circumstance. My role requires me to lock in with our drummer (of course), fling myself around the stage as a visual foil for our singer, and "busy up" the bassline when our guitarist is soloing. But then I also get a bass solo during the first song in our set, so people definitely know I'm there!

I was very sorely tempted by those a few years ago, but I never got a chance to try one - anyone know what they were like? I imagine a tone with more "grunt" than a Jazz bass, but not quite as dark as a Thunderbird - how many miles off the mark am I?

Or an Excision?

I guess every so often you strike a bargain - I had a similar experience six or seven years ago when my combo gave up the ghost, and I needed another at short notice for a gig. I spotted a 1x15 (Laney, on this occasion) which hadn't attracted much attention, put in a similarly low bid and went to the pub. When I woke up, there was an email telling me my stupidly low bid had won! Presumably there weren't many people looking for SS combos that week. You could say I've seen the market saturate itself in real-time: when I was trying to get my hands on a particular Focusrite interface, I set a maximum price in my head and let two of them go when I was outbid, but the third one I was watching came in well within my budget. Clearly there weren't that many people looking for a 2i2 that week.

It's a CN212, which I bought from chris_b a couple of years ago. Wonderful bit of kit.

I feel like I've been quite restrained for the last couple of years. Last big purchase was a Telecaster, which would have been spring 2017. Also bought some recording gear that year, but that hardly broke the bank. Then it's been a couple of pedals this year...a Behringer BDI for the bass and a Joyo Tremolo pedal for guitar stuff, both in the last couple of months. Last substantial bass purchase must have been the Tony Franklin, which must have been...good god, summer 2016. Bugger me, no wonder I've started eyeing up Sandbergs and Shukers... Best purchase? The move into valve amps has been a very satisfying journey, but the Bergantino cab might have been the most transformational. I guess you never fully appreciate what a high-quality cab can do to your live sound until you try one. (Clear enough projection that the guy right back of a huge beer garden comes over afterwards to ask if John Entwistle was an influence? I'll take that.)

Ey up - did Geddy have a Precision phase as well? I always had him down as a Jazz man (when he wasn't dabbling with Ricks and Wals, at least)

You may have heard this old American lullaby performed by Nick Cave & Current 93; you may know Odetta's version. Or one of the many others that Wikipedia tells me exist. But for now, here's my take on it: http://ralphbeeby.bandcamp.com/track/all-the-pretty-little-horses

Excellent work on "hiding" the unusual time signature - it doesn't have the awkwardness of some tunes I've heard which make it very obvious they're in an odd metre. The groove makes it sound perfectly natural. And a superb cat!

Out of curiosity, does anybody have a comparable EQ curve for a typical 100W tube bass amp? I hasten to add that I'm not trying to derail this into yet another valve-vs-SS debate, but in the same way that the bottles naturally compress the signal a little, I'd be interested to see what their frequency response is like.

Christ almighty, can you imagine if you slapped your way through an entire set and insisted that was "just how you played"? Rim-shots can be a great effect for adding emphasis in the right places, but they should surely just be that, an effect. If not used sparingly, it tires the ears pretty chuffing quickly.

Don't Tell The Bride Yep, that awful program off BBC3. One of my bands should have been playing in the background of an episode years ago. It's not the kind of telly that I'd normally touch with a 60-ft remote control, but it would have been a telly appearance for a band playing originals, on a relatively mainstream channel, and so it seemed like a potentially good opportunity when first touted to us. It turned out our singer knew somebody who had put in a successful application to lay on a UFO/Roswell-themed wedding for his (very patient) betrothed, and decided he wanted us to play during the reception. Suits us, we thought, we can cheekily squeeze our more accessible material in between the standard covers. One of the things about programs like this is that they do like to pack out the venues, so every Tom, Richard and Harry was invited to make up the numbers. Even if being barely visible in the final TV edit didn't do wonders for our career, we'd have easily had 100+ impressionable punters to play to. Naively, we even pressed ahead with it when the groom told us that he'd blown all the budget on this ridiculous setup and had no money for the band. Sound familiar? One of the other things about programs like this is what an absolute logistical mess they are to film: the first take is never good enough; the cameramen missed certain angles that time; something's stopped working, bear with us; FFS Terry why didn't you hit 'record'?; and so on. Nothing runs to time. We were asked to drive up to an old airfield somewhere near Ipswich for filming. We knew we wouldn't be needed until after the first dance, but they asked us to get there for something like 10am anyway. Both the singer and guitarist had done TV before, and warned the rest of us that this was the reality of it: a lot of waiting around. Every so often, information would trickle through. They're just doing one last take of the vows; can you be ready in an hour? This becomes worse than standard waiting around - every so often somebody drops in to make sure you're on tenterhooks. Sorry, they need to reshoot a couple more snippets; we'll be back for you in another half-an-hour. Eventually, we were invited into the venue to soundcheck. It was an old wind tunnel - an aircraft hangar with some very effective acoustic treatment lining the walls and the roof. That's a weird sonic experience if ever you've had one. Our guitarist played some riffs to soundcheck while I walked maybe 100m from his amp to see how things would sound in the middle of the audience. It sounded exactly the same as when I was on the stage. Very impressive, but also incredibly sterile-sounding - you don't realise how much you miss room ambience until it's gone! Anyway, the soundcheck complete, they served a meal, about three hours later than planned. At least we got a good lunch out of them. We sit through the speeches. The couple finally have their first dance, and we get ready to play as soon as they've finished...until a producer wanders over and tells us they just want to reshoot a scene from earlier. Also, can the DJ put some music on so they can get some shots of the guests dancing? The latter request seemed odd to us. Surely the guests could dance to our music? And surely they'd continue to dance when the DJ took over after our set? It all became apparent after the first dance: after a day of filming, all the guests are knackered. The DJ piped in some music but even he couldn't corral more than half a dozen people up to the floor. Most of the assembled party looked like they just want a quiet cup of tea and/or a nap. The camera crew make do with what they can get, and we're given the all-clear to start playing. As we hit the opening bars, we look over to see the camera crew packing up and walking brazenly out the door. We are not going to be on television, we all realised. And the 100+ punters manage some polite applause from the comfort of their seats, but are too tired to give a rat's fundament. We decide to call it quits after five or six songs. The DJ fares no better as we load all our gear out of the hangar and into a van hired at no small expense to ourselves. The best man tries to call a half-arsed apology to us as we leave. We drive home, ruing the day we ever agreed to appear on Don't Tell The Bride.

You're absolutely spot on. Their management contacted [A Band I have Worked With*], and at the same time their frontman decided to connect with the band on FB, at which point it became very obvious, very quickly, that they were a couple, and the only constant members of the band. (I have seen semi-regular posts advertising vacancies for a new drummer to tour with them - did someone say Spinal Tap?) Still, they'd got in touch regarding a buy-on as supports to their European tour, so we did our research. It wasn't just that their music wasn't our cup of tea, it would have been the most horrendous mismatch with the music we were making: using loose analogies to try and preserve a veneer of anonymity, imagine if Stevie Ray Vaughan had been invited to open for Limp Bizkit. They also wanted a small fortune to buy on; offered a very restrictive financial arrangements which would have made it nigh on impossible for us to recoup said cost; and were very explicit that we should absolutely, under no circumstances whatsoever, presumably on pain of death, bring any amps with us - we had to plug into their Helix / AxeFX setup, whether we liked it or not. We politely declined. But they still tour Europe quite regularly from what I see.

I haven't needed that level of attenuation since I was working on an airfield...

From the same LP... On a scale of one to chuffing superb, how chuffing superb is Paul Chambers' bassline on this one?

I've heard that Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee still openly joke about Neil Peart being "the new kid," though I gather it's a lot more good-natured than it is in some groups.

"Goddammit, I knew I should have gone for a leak before the set started..."

It's the perfect gateway album. I've come to love the rest of their stuff, but it takes some time to grow on you, especially if you don't listen to a lot of the new wave, funk and assorted world music that influenced their sound. You gradually realise that a lot of their other albums are more interesting, and more challenging, but I still think LC is a solid album of well-written pop songs. Just to put the cat among the pigeons, my favourite is Speaking in Tongues...

Surprised to see the comments about the weight...my T-bird is as light as a very light thing. A positive waif compared to my SG bass - now that one's a back-breaker.

Is anybody else unable to say or read the name "Lynne" without hearing fat Alan Partridge yelling it in distress through a mouth full of half-chewed Toblerone?