Wonky2

Thanks jack, just read your thread on this…..

Some one once asked me if jimi Hendrix was gay….. i asked why, because of his flamboyant sense of dressing? “No” came the response, “because of that line in purple haze, scuse me, while is kiss this guy”……. Song ruined, you can now never not hear this.

For many years I just could not play the bass and sing, I’ve always had a great admiration for anyone who can…. i can play guitar and sing no problem, but bass, for some reason I just could never do it. that is, untill recent years. I somehow, eventually just found the knack and could do it. now, with the band i play in, this is great BUT the lead guitarist is not only tone deaf but I’m sure he’s actually tone dead 😂👍 the drummer, is not much better too. and so, carrying the weight of delivering all bvs i have to really consider what I sing or play…. im thinking of trying one of them vocal harmoniser pedals to help out, so I’m not so much a lone voice. does anyone else use one for bv thickening or are they just to god damn hideously awful ? all comments are welcomed 👍

My 76 jazz……all original, every bit….

😍

1)Restraint - drummers tend to always overplay it, fills and shuffles anywhere and everywhere. Having self control to keep it simple or Play it straight comes with experience, eventually. 2) turning up ahead of soundcheck or rehearsal time to set up , having some degree of or sense of urgency I. Setting up too, and not doing it like a stoned sloth on its day off. 3) playing the same thing they played last time. I swear our drummer just busks it every time? (And yes, you can tell…) they’re all batshit crazy. Never met one that isn’t.

I always act really keen, go along with it and encourage them to come Over quickly. shortly after they’ve gotten them selves all excited because they think they’ve got a live one, I then send them a picture of some large cable Ties, a roll of gaffa tape, a ball Pien hammer and tell Them I’ll be waiting in the garage for you, come right in…… they never do show up? Cant think why? 😂😂😂

1) Being able to illustrate how every next song starts in 3 words or less or with facial expressions alone. 2)having a proper grasp on Goldilocks volume , being not too loud and not too quiet……. Jusssst right. 3) being considerably more reliable with timing than they are, but never ever mentioning or suggesting it. drummers…… I’ve never met one that wasn’t an absolute crank. Anyone who is prepared to undertake what is only second to a full house move every time they set up to play, isn’t of sound mind. 😂👍

I must have made a good impression , he messaged me today on Instagram to say nice meeting 👍 such a nice guy ….

Absolutely spot on ….

Absolutely spot on ….

Some really great replies to my post guys, thanks for your comments they all are a great heart warming read and some excellent Other tales in there too…..

Ahhhh it’s great to hear that buddy…. im glad it’s switched you back on to it !

Yep, and like I said , at the time of that first album he’d been playing less than two years. I actually asked him was that right when we chatted, and he said yeah he was 19 at the time and would spend every waking minute playing jaco lines to practice….. I told him same for me but it was stu zender lines I played along too….. and sometimes flea, but mostly always stu 😂👍 and like I say, back then , that fact that he’d only been playing that short time really switched me on to the fact that if I practiced hard enough perhaps I could be as good. each and every track taught me something new. i still to this day absolutely love the feel of punctuated stops in the line on the verse parts of “if I like it, I just do it”….. like i Say, without sounding like a 12 year old school girl with a crush, he literally was my inspiration, and it was his influence that made me aspire to be and eventualy come to the point of identifying as a bass player. not a musician, I play guitar and banjo and other things too but I don’t identify as any of them other things and would never profess to be a guitarist or such…. Nope , I’m a bass player….it’s who I’ve been for pretty much 30 years , what people who know me know me for…. Who knows, without his influence I may have been just another self obsessed guitarist 😂👍

Same here, for me, he was jamiroquai, even more so than the man in the hat…. when stu left I tried to give their first album without him a go, I just couldn’t. the “new” guy …. (Been there a ling time now) is an excellent player but like me playing those stu zender lines it just feels like the kareeoke version of a bass line if you know what I mean? he’s good, very good, a million miles better than me for sure but …. It’s kareeoke bass.

Oh absolutley yes….. the band I play in today plays very different music to that, but that influence , it’s still there in my own playing and means the lines are more than just bottom end girth of chord progressions… nope, they’re lines.

Leftyp, he’s the original bass player from Jamiroquai ….. and has played around the world with many other super cool artists too….. those first two albums were absolutely STONKING and at that time of the first, he’d only been playing for around two years. That in it self was outrageous given not only the skill in the hands but also the width of feels in writing those perfect lines….. his short term level of experience at his tender age of 19 impressed on me (I was 17) that if I practiced day and night I could be that good. it’s what pushed me on to live the bass, to firmly accept my role as a musician but namely, a bass player. As if a formal line in the sand to say, nope, not guitar, not drums, not keys…. It’s bass. And further more, it’s groove. now…. Whilst I could play like him (not really, but yes to some degree) back then I was simply copying him and his style….. could I have written lines like his? Not on your nelly mate, they’re something else entirely. Next level stinky poo. maybe even a few levels above that. So yep, I get not everyone will inow him or his lines, but if I tell you he literally woke me up to what bass is about , that should cover it… 😍👍

It sure was……. strange thing is, I only went there by chance as my son was at an open day at Lancaster uni, trains were a bit off so I drove him up there, I dropped him off and took advantage of the time to go to promenade, it’s a great shop and I actually traded my last amp there a few years back. im near Liverpool so it’s a good drive up there , and no way I’d have been there otherwise. we were delayed too by a broken down bus on the M6 so timeing was perfect…. destiny You might say… manifest destiny 😂👍

To be fair I’m surprised I never as his lines are always in there somewhere when I’m noodling away….. I stopped listening to Jamiroquai when he parted company with the band but those first two albums are still as great today as they were way back them… these days I thump away like Jamerson or duck Dunn, funny how things change for you as you get older but his dug in funk finger and thumb style shaped the flavour of my playing today……

Yeah we also talked about our early days influences and how he would run home from school to play jaco lines any minute of the day…. I said “funny that, for me ,it was stu zender lines !” which he found heart warming. said fame and money was nothing next to that feeling of having inspired people….. when I talk to anyone about that first album I usually mention how my mum bought me the album on cassette and how I literally wore the tape out playing it back and forth , the music just seemed to fade off the tape. same with blood sugar sex magic.

not a bit! and he’s older than me as when we were talking gear he told me he plays a 74 jazz which jay bought him for his 21st birthday….. I told him I play a 76 jazz so great we were both using YOB jazz’s….. I asked him bout Warwick and he said nahhh he was hankering to go back to Alembic. never thought I’d be shooting the stinky poo with stu zender, it was crazy bonkers yet completely normal hahah

Thanks guys, a long post I know but just had to tell someone who would understand!