Frank Blank

I found it quite quaint, like watching a really bad old 80s film and thanking god you never had hair like the dude with the mullet.

As someone who has recently started playing fretless it is very hard to find your own style or ‘voice’ without sounding like these players.

I watched all four episodes and really enjoyed the series. Apart from Gene Krupa none of my favourite drummers were included but that’s no surprise as most of the drummers I love come from punk and new wave. I’m not surprised he wasn’t on the final list but the exclusion of Bill Bruford from the whole series was a surprise.

It was, he is.

Soul Coughing - Ruby Vroom, Irresistible Bliss and El Oso. Sebastian Steinberg on DB, very cool and paired with the drumming of a brilliant player like Yuval Gabay it is just a thing of beauty. Cake - any album with Gabe Nelson. He plays, imho, some of the best bass lines in modern music and by best I don’t mean selfish show-off virtuosity, I mean song-serving restraint and a genuine sense of swing. Sometimes you hardly notice the bass in Cake songs but when you analyse why you are digging it so much..? Gabe Nelson is the answer. Japan - Gentleman Take Polaroids and Tin Drum. Mick Karn, fretless maverick and pastry artist, what’s not to like? Killing Joke - any album with Paul Raven on bass, an underrated master of song-serving yet absolutely and fundamentally anchoring the foundation of the music. Thanks @TheGreek for mentioning one of the greatest albums of all time, Handsworth Revolution by Steel Pulse, it’s simply a very beautifully crafted album, forty minutes of bliss. In the same vein I recommend Linton Kwesi Johnson’s Forces of Victory and Bass Culture, unparalleled restraint and great playing from Floyd Lawson and Vivian Weathers.

Again I assumed this but it is apparently also to do with the mass of the E string.

Ah yes, I have compression built in to my amp! Why didn’t I think of theat, duh.

Apparently not, this is exactly what I thought would remedy the problem but apparently not.

The E string on my Ibanez is louder than the other strings. I emailed my luthier expecting it to be a simple pickup tweak, it seems not. The problem appears to be too much of a radius on the pole and the fingerboard having a quite flat radius. There was talk of placing a metal disk over the pole to reduce the magnetic pull. Please excuse my ignorance but it’s apparently a known thing on some Ibanez/Bartolini basses. Anyone else had such a thing?

I saw @bassace‘s preamp at the Bass Bash and now I really want one despite having no idea what they do or if I need one.

Here...

Must be the iPad but she’s going to make me a what..?

Just found this thread, which is cool as both my Fender leads have packed up after less that a years very light use! OBBM it is then

Yes, it was odd to see a pig’s head on a Budgie!

I like very little music that isn’t moany, happiness is for dolts. I have to say I particularly liked that track because it grooved.

I forget occasionally just how uniquely good 10cc were, but I’m rewatching the BBC4 documentary just to remind myself...

You are absolutely bang on, in the first instance obv, we’ll just have to disagree about the excellent JG.

Mine too. I blundered drunkenly into the wrong rehearsal room one afternoon and rather than the band I was working for I ended up in the Banshees rehearsal room, empty apart from Budgie. Being emboldened by the booze I asked him to play Land’s End (a drum pattern I much admire) which he did in exchange for a swig of Mezcal, top dude.

John Grant, excellent as always and with Budgie on drums, double treat.

It was a hilarious disaster essentially.

Christ that gig is a legend.

Do it, do it now!