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Everything posted by Old Man Riva
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I’m really intrigued by these. Can you give someone who knows nothing about fan-fret basses a crash course in what they’re like?! The OW P-Bass version looks great, btw!
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Not necessarily the best looking I’ve seen (that was a worn 1968 sunburst with pre TV logo and lollipop tuners) but I love this - it’s a Fender CS Masterbuilt currently at Peach Guitars (for an insane price).
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Young Americans by Bowie is generally the track that can elevate me, whatever my mood. Mountains by Prince is another. Though the thing that is raising the spirits music-wise at the moment is watching the Leland Sklar Phil Collins videos. (The music isn’t really the sort of thing I’d normally listen to, but) Watching Mr Sklar do his thing in the way that he does - and the way he comes across as a person - lifts my spirits no end.
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I stumbled across this just now and thought I’d share... Not seen it before - and I’m still not sure how on earth he came up with it - but it made me smile all the way through! I know it won’t be to everybody’s taste, but well worth a look as we find bass-related things to fill the time and get us through to the other side. Keep well and (hopefully!) enjoy... https://youtu.be/q9UCBsXI4LI
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Ron Carter did play some fine electric bass on Gil Scott Heron’s The Revolution Will Not Be Televised just a few years later, mind!
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Indeed. Some of the stories made for uncomfortable listening/viewing. I knew a little of his life previously, but the film was genuinely eye-opening and inspiring, certainly from a musical perspective. I hadn’t realised at all how he went about doing the (improvisational) soundtrack to Ascenseur pour l’echafaud and how it pretty much changed his approach thereafter - less charts and more improvisational; requiring the players to step up and deliver themselves. An excellent film...
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Sean Hurley - great P & flats tone / solo
Old Man Riva replied to wateroftyne's topic in General Discussion
Try the link on Ricky 4000 post... That’s what worked for me. -
Sean Hurley - great P & flats tone / solo
Old Man Riva replied to wateroftyne's topic in General Discussion
... and a mighty fine device it is too, sir! Lovely playing in the clip, and yes, reminiscent of Willie Weeks. -
Colemine Records is definitely a label worth checking out. I really like the Neal Francis album, and the Ghost Funk Orchestra album A Song for Paul blew me away when I heard it (they’ve a new LP out in the near future that promises to be just as good). Yeah, a really interesting label...
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Bands/Songs that should never be covered.
Old Man Riva replied to spectoremg's topic in General Discussion
Ah, okay. Speaking of Department S, there was a song out a few years ago (The Hives?) that I couldn’t hear without thinking of Is Vic There - it was the vocal that did it... -
Bands/Songs that should never be covered.
Old Man Riva replied to spectoremg's topic in General Discussion
The guitar part sounds similar on the Oyster Band version..? -
Bands/Songs that should never be covered.
Old Man Riva replied to spectoremg's topic in General Discussion
I like that... -
Bands/Songs that should never be covered.
Old Man Riva replied to spectoremg's topic in General Discussion
I'd forgotten he did that. I like some of his other covers (Love of the Common People and I was In Chains I really like) but he's a bit hit and miss for me. Anyway, it all pales into into insignificance when assessed against Simple Minds version of Prince's Sign o' the Times. What on earth were they thinking?! -
Bands/Songs that should never be covered.
Old Man Riva replied to spectoremg's topic in General Discussion
I can see where you're coming from, but... I still can't quite get there! With that particular song I think the original is as near as damn it as close to any definitive version of a song you'll get (only in my opinion of course!). I'd also add a song like Bowie's Life on Mars to that list also - I just can't imagine anyone being able to offer a version that adds in any way to the original. Funnily enough (and I don't know why it should be any different) if a band was down the pub doing a version of Waiting in Vain I'd probably dig it, if it was half decent, whereas Annie Lennox version made me want to reach for sharp objects! -
Bands/Songs that should never be covered.
Old Man Riva replied to spectoremg's topic in General Discussion
I feel confident that your alt country approach is infinitely more sympathetic to the song and its sentiment than the early-80s over-produced, leaden, sanitised version from our Paul - and I say that as a fan of the early-80s over-produced No Parlez album and Paul Young in general! That said, I’m sure he’ll not be losing any sleep over what some fella on a bass guitar forum thinks about it nearly forty years later!! -
Bands/Songs that should never be covered.
Old Man Riva replied to spectoremg's topic in General Discussion
In my younger days this used to be a ‘three-pint problem’ - the point at which the discussion would descend into chaos and acrimony! That said, general consensus was that Bob Marley was the only artist we could agree on whose songs should never be covered. It should be pointed out that the topic would normally have been inspired by collective thoughts on Paul Young’s cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart... -
Steely Dan, aja, where's the good bit?
Old Man Riva replied to spectoremg's topic in General Discussion
Get out of my head, sir... Get out now, with your erudite poppy/jazzy stream of consciousness!! -
Again, Sparks were great! That’s why Top of the Pops was such a fun but important programme growing up - seeing them for the first time doing ‘This Town...’ was something else. The look of Ron, and the sound of Russell. The guitar riff/playing. The gunshots!! Great pop music...
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Blimey, yeah, the Top of the Pops albums. My dad would occasionally buy one (they were fairly cheap, in relative terms, as I recall) and I’d then be telling my mates I’d got the singles, albeit as part of an album! Until the day a mate’s all-knowing older brother informed us that they weren’t actually the actual bands performing - which is why Marc Bolan didn’t sound like, erm, Marc Bolan! Probably the same older brother who gladly informed us all that George Best didn’t actually take the time to sign the bottom of every column he did for Shoot!. “Apologies, Miss World, I cant make it tonight, I’ve got to sign every copy of a kids footie magazine” - yep, sounds feasible enough. On the subject of those Music for Pleasure type albums, my dad (again) entered and won a crossword competition in the local paper (Coventry Evening Telegraph) and the prize on that occasion was a selection of MFP LPs - ‘Greatest War Themes’, ‘Classic Western Themes’ etc. There were a couple of pieces in there that I really clicked with, even as a kid. The Lonely Bull by Herb Alpert’s Sounds of Tijuana Brass was something I played over and over - “it sounds like a lonely bull!?!”, and Beck’s Bolero (contained as part of a compilation I don’t recall the name of) sounded like it came from another planet. In truth there was probably something on all of the LPs that I found appealing, just because it was recorded music, and at that age there wasn’t that much I could get my hands on...
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Oh no, Andrew Weatherall has just died!
Old Man Riva replied to Barking Spiders's topic in General Discussion
This is a good read... https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/feb/18/andrew-weatherall-10-greatest-tracks?CMP=share_btn_link -
What are you listening to right now?
Old Man Riva replied to Sarah5string's topic in General Discussion
I have, I was having a reminisce about how the whole Screamadelica album and how much it changed my view of music at that time and thought of the track. I think the album was released on the same day as Nevermind, which never had an impact on me at all - just didn't 'get it'! Screamadelica, on the other hand, was something else. Still is, in fact. In a previous life I worked with someone who had been produced by Weatherall and they absolutely raved ('scuse the choice of word) about him. Properly creative and 'out there'! -
What are you listening to right now?
Old Man Riva replied to Sarah5string's topic in General Discussion
Bit of a game-changer this, when I were a younger man... Never heard anything like it at the time. -
Slade - where it all began for me. Bowie - Starman on TotP started it, and he's been a constant ever since. Prince - from 1999 through to Lovesexy he was the "Bowie of his time". As an aside, one of the most influential/ albums I've ever heard (and that was a bit of a game-changer for me and my mates at the time) was Screamadelica. I'll give it a spin tonight and have a think about Mr A Weatherall who departed us today...
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Off to see ‘Tubby Hayes - A Celebration of his Music‘ by the Simon Spillett Quartet in about half-an-hour just round the corner at Loughton Methodist Church. Bought tickets on Thursday to see Jeff Beck at Albert Hall in May.
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Show Yer Age! Name an EPIC song from your teens...
Old Man Riva replied to binky_bass's topic in General Discussion
It’s an age thing!! Also to add... an honourable mention would have to go to Bohemian Rhapsody. I remember to this day how I felt the first time I ever heard that via Radio 1.