skankdelvar

Although I'm a bit of a gear head I often find myself listening to the instrument rather than focussing on the song I'm playing. That's more in the context of solo acoustic guitar (which is my main focus atm) than in the context of bass playing in an ensemble where the minutiae of tone gets lost anyway. Sometimes I have to force myself not to think about the [i]nature[/i] of the sounds coming out of the instrument and concentrate instead on what the sounds are actually [i]doing[/i] in a musical sense. After a little while I settle down into the song and everything's fine. Gear can sometimes be an impediment to forming a communication. The danger lies in sitting there playing a particularly scrumptious chord and thinking 'Doesn't this sound nice and Gibson-y'. Two hours later the missus calls up the stairs and the song you meant to write remains entirely unfinished.

I mean, it's all very well saying 'But what about the epiphany I had when I saw the Housemartins at the Piper Club in Hull in 19-er-something? That's valid!' Well, yes, one's epiphanies and experiences are always valid. But when considered in a historical context it's like the difference between World War 2 and the Falklands conflict. It is not a question of validity. It is a question of scale and scope. Tie this in with the social possibilities inherent to a disruption of The American Way and you can see why the establishment and the counter-culture alike saw the Beatles as a Big Thing. See below - FBI file from August 1964 detailing Beatles concert appearance as '[i]a perfect vehicle for riots if racial elements or organisation subversive or otherwise were to capitalise on this vehicle[/i]'. And that's even before things got really trippy and anti-war:

Painy bought my old Pearl noise gate pedal. Nice easy deal, clear comms, swift payment and a complete gentleman. Trade with confidence! (Edit for speling). [color=#ffffff].[/color]

'Drinking My Own Sperm' By [url="http://www.don-alvaro.net/"]Alvaro The Chilean With The Singing Nose[/url]

I think we have to put this all in context. You are ten years old. It is February 1964 but - frankly - it could be 1954. You are in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Barely three months earlier President Kennedy was assassinated and a pall still hangs over the nation. It is the depths of winter and your fellow citizens of Milwaukee have little to cheer them. The only recent local event of note has been the production of the world's largest cheese (15,723kg) for the New York World's Fair. Last week there was a military coup in some place called Vietnam but American troops are already there in small numbers so no cause for alarm. As January turned to February the somewhat 'tired' Mr Bobby Vee sat atop the singles charts but this week it's the Beatles. The mania has already begun to build. One month earlier 'Meet The Beatles' went gold and manufacturer Baskin Robbins released 'Beatle Nut Ice Cream'. It is a cold Sunday night and the nation's most popular TV show comes on air. Most people have just heard the rumours so they tune in out of habit or curiosity.Ed turns to the camera, delivers a brief intro and there they are. Sixty per cent of the nation's TV audience is watching as the Beatles open and close the show. Next day, the talk in school is of nothing but the Beatles. And they'll be back on Ed Sullivan next week and the week after. They will eventually play ten or so different songs and get the biggest exposure since Elvis in 1956 With these performances the Beatles will assist at the birth of the sixties as a 'decade' and - in so doing help to detonate counter-cultural attitudes which will survive into the 21st century. For four years the Beatles will be the most important pop group in the world. They will lead their worldwide audience of tens of millions into considerations about politics, fashion, protest, drugs, war and peace. By the mid-late sixties the Beatles will be the reclusive elder statesmen of the gentle, hopeful flower-power generation. They have helped to give birth to a way of life and are - in some ways - its public face. But as the decade ends amidst the bleakness of Altamont and Nixon's first term the Beatles will sign out and leave the building, taking their optimism with them. The Sixties are over and for many the world will seem a greyer place. Doubtless we have each had our musical epiphanies and valid they will have been, dear reader. But we have not shared an epiphany with so many other people and in such a profoundly all-encompassing way as did the American Beatles generation. We cannot possibly comprehend what it was like to live in America from 1963 to 1970 and to have been experiencing the music, the films, the books, the colours, the ideas, the Vietnam war and the politics as they happened. It is of this [i]totality[/i] which Blue speaks when he expresses the importance of the Beatles in kindling young peoples' response to the challenges of the Sixties. Frankly, I am envious. I was there in the sixties but I wasn't [i]there[/i]. Everything else is white noise.

[quote name='lurksalot' timestamp='1440897343' post='2854652'] It matters not that everyone might not have an epiphany in a musical sense , as long as some do. [/quote] [size=5][b]The Scandal of 'Epiphany Cutbacks'[/b][/size] [size=5][b]by Piers Corbyn[/b][/size] [size=5][b][/b][/size] [b][size=3]Guardian Science News: [/size][/b][size=3]30/8/2015 - 14:48 GMT (copyright Corbyn Omniglobal Weather)[/size] [font=georgia,serif][size=4]If [/size]we are ever to build a fair society founded on equality, compassion and - above all - [i]hope[/i] then it behoves us each to strive for the day when [i]everyone[/i] has the opportunity for a musical epiphany. [/font] [font=georgia,serif]To blithely accept that some may never have a musical epiphany is morally unconscionable at a time when literally [i]tens of millions[/i] of little people at kitchen tables up and down the country are deprived of the right to a musical epiphany by the brutal policies of a tiny hegemony. Will we tolerate a situation where musical epiphanies are for the privileged few rather than the striving many?[/font] [font=georgia,serif]Never.[/font] [font=georgia,serif]I shall not rest nor shall my sword sleep in my hand till we have universal free epiphanies in England's green and pleasant land.[/font] [font=georgia,serif]Oh, and that global warming thing? Complete bosh. Polar bears? They're all fine. ([i]continues anti-climate change rant to visible discomfort of his sibling Jeremy[/i])[/font]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1440884036' post='2854588'] Well, the boy has floppy hair if it helps. [/quote] I'll take any help I can get.

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1440876193' post='2854535'] The last time West Ham beat Liverpool at Anfield the top of the Hit Parade (ask your Mum) was She Loves You. Until today. It's a sign, I tells ye, a sign! [/quote] The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all your piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it. [i]The Rubber Yacht of Hymie Cohen[/i] [quote name='TimR' timestamp='1440882228' post='2854583'] Oh yes. My kids have been trained never to say "It's not fair." So your observation is a fairly general one. [/quote] Quite so. Yet - as within the plum lies the stone then so in the general lies the specific. Truthfully, I doubt very many yoof are floppy-haired, tattooed, alcopop-swilling narcissists on a white-knuckle ride to Self-Entitlement City. But let's just say for the sake of argument that they [i]are[/i]. Satire works better that way.

[quote name='lurksalot' timestamp='1440837132' post='2854180'] lots of people will have had musical epiphanies at various stages of their lives [/quote] Quite so. And Los Beatles will probably have accounted for more of these epiphanies than all the other bands or artists put together. Not for much longer though. The Grim Reaper crooks his spectral, bony finger for the older generation and today's lazy, self-entitled, narcissistic floppy-haired youngsters are mostly too busy getting tattooed and drinking alcopops and indignantly protesting about the [i]desperate[/i] [i]unfairness[/i] of modern life to identify music as anything but a cheap, disposable personal soundtrack. In this misapprehension the young are greatly to be pitied; verily, it is a curse which will render the balance of their lives a barren, soul-less wasteland wherein they will wander in direction-less melancholy. But when they lay the sod over the last of the Beatles generation we shall be whistling 'She Loves You' through our decomposing lips; the last laugh shall be ours.

One of the great pleasures of this thread has been a broadening of the usual debate to include not only a more detailed assessment of the Beatles' music but also some well considered refutations of the initial contention. Another pleasure has been the polite serenity with which the OP has made his argument, sometimes in the face of idiotically chippy personal ad-homs which would have many of us reaching for our profanisaurus. The thread has gone far beyond the Beatles and serves now more as a record of what happens when an oppressively vocal minority fail to impose their will on an individual. The conclusion posterity may draw is that it is inadvisable to stamp one's foot at the same time one is sh*tting one's pants.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1440712564' post='2853312'] Mr Bowie also covered 'Try some, buy some', one of the worst songs that George Harrison ever wrote (IMHO). And Mr Bowie did not improve it. [/quote] Who among us has not at some juncture essayed an interpretation of a Beatles' composition? Many is the time that some fool has cried to me: 'Let's do "Get Back", Skank - It's really easy!' and proceeded to slaughter said ditty. [color=#ffffff].[/color]

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1440710493' post='2853294'] Here's a bit of Beatle influence, what with the title and the "Strawberry Fields Forever" quote. Apparently John Lennon was quite enthusiastic about the Captain's first album, so this song may have been an attempt to annoy him. [/quote] Thank you, my dear Beer, for your kind effort in locating and publishing that 'link'. Moving on... For the avoidance of confusion, people, I have not owned a Beatles record since 1979 and - for myself - consider the [i]fons et origo[/i] of modern popular music to be The Carter Family. Nevertheless I am filled with admiration at Mr Blues stoic - nay, Spartan - defence of his opinion at a time when it is neither profitable nor popular. It rather puts me in mind of Mr Blue's countryman US Army Brig. Gen McAuliffe who in 1944 when called upon by the encircling Nazis to surrender at Bastogne dispatched the immortal reply: 'Nuts'. From such tenacity are legends born. That is the case here. We are witnessing something very special. [color=#ffffff].[/color]

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1440709811' post='2853279'] Man, I love The Sweet! Blue [/quote] Great band. Mr Scott has put on a bit of weight since the glory days, though.

[b]From the NME May 1998 - 'Oasis: Just A Beatles Rip-Off?[/b] Noel: He'll f**king tell you he's a totally f**king unique talent but he had a f**king picture of John f**king Lennon pinned over his f**king bed 'til he f**king left home Liam; That's a f**king lie. It was f**king McCartney and it were f**king over your f**king bed. Noel: It were a f**king bunk bed you f**king toerag liar and it were f**king Lennon. Liam: F**king f**k you, you f**king f**ker Noel: Stop f**king whining, our kid. Liam: I f**king told you I didn't f**king want to f**king cover f**king 'I Am The F**king Walrus'.

In re: Bolan, Bowie, Slade and the Sweet being influenced by the Beatles: * Mr Bowie collaborated with John Lennon on 'Fame', sampled 'A Day in The Life' and covered 'Across the Universe'. * Marc Bolan worked with Ringo Starr in the movie Born To Boogie while - in return - inspired Mr Starr's single 'Back Off Boogaloo'. They also went on holiday together and had a lovely time. * Mr Noddy Holder's most recent stage appearance on March 27th (his first in many years, afaik) was a performance at Walsall town hall with Beatles tribute band 'The Born Again Beatles'. * I cannot report on the Beatles influence on The Sweet, but Mr Andy Scott of that band lives in the next village over from me. If and when I see him I shall ask him to vouchsafe the facts in the matter. [i].[/i] Such intelligence as I have garnered may not be conclusive proof of any influence but is certainly[i] suggestive.[/i]

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1440694011' post='2853071'] Time to increase the med's dosage..? [/quote] Where have [i]you[/i] been for the last while? I was concerned that you'd dropped off the twig or run away to sea or something.

HI bAsschatterz! I am newb here so sory if stupid question? I read on internet will buttck stand affect finish on my Percision bass?? I worry if lacquer start peel off? Thank you, Cody Simkins. Scunthorpe?

What we have here is the DB player thinking along 'community' lines and the band thinking along - er - 'band' lines. The DB player thinks: 'Ooh! A public performance within a community of which I am a member. Why [i]shouldn't[/i] I turn up?' Band thinks: 'We are a discrete performance group charged with the responsibility of providing a service to agreed and reasonable standards. So bugger off'. You can see how the misunderstanding might occur. That said, I am firmly with the OP on this one, though I doubt my preferred 'signature' solution would meet with his community's approval, i.e. deserted warehouse, shoot in face.

Or it could simply end with Soundcloud paying over such money it can be legally proven to owe working musicians (a principle we all might support). In any case, m'learned friends are on the case which means complete stasis for a year or two.

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1440690640' post='2853033'] What in marketing a series of guitar stands aesthetically based on various famous posteriors? [/quote] Not 'based on'. The owners of said famous posteriors would make themselves available on a 'per gig' basis, their remuneration being based on their relative fame and the accomodative nature of their buttocks. Well, you can pay these people to come and open a supermarket or turn on the Christmas lights. Why on earth [i]wouldn't[/i] they want to hire out their butt-cleft as a neck rest?

[quote name='the boy' timestamp='1440684200' post='2852947'] I think to say that every band would list the Beatles as an influence would be stretching the theory however I think it reasonable that you could link every modern bands influences to the Beatles by 3 degrees of separation. I think the tsunami created by the Beatles was so far reaching that it left very little in its path unaffected, and anything that wasn't affected by the initial blast almost certainly got a bump from the after tremors. [/quote] A view around which we all might unite. Though there might be some post-Beatlemania artistes whose Beatlefluences are less immediately detectable; Captain Beefheart springs to mind.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1440689768' post='2853020'] Such as, er... Drew Barrymore's buttocks. [/quote] Functionally useless as an amp stand. But [i]could[/i] work as a guitar stand... H'mmm.... There might be some money in this.

Ah! Seems like you're well acquainted with the technicalities surrounding this tiresome issue. Perhaps the Vox ztomp may be the way forward after all! Good luck, Sir :-)

[quote name='tauzero' timestamp='1440579456' post='2852032'] Actually, what he's said is that young people shouldn't express their opinions: "Just like when I say young folk should keep their negative uninformed opinion to themselves, because I still opinion if you weren't there you don't understand stand what happened or what the Beatles did. It's not a matter of right or wrong." [/quote] But I posted my observation about 10 hours [i]before[/i] Mr Blue's post (that you quote). Not being a gypsy fortune teller I could not have anticipated the contents. There being no connection between the two posts, your 'actually' doesn't really count. Not that I mind; but accuracy is everything [quote name='tauzero' timestamp='1440579456' post='2852032']Whether or not you were there, you can still have an opinion. [/quote] Indeed so. Everyone is entitled to hold an opinion however rum or blithering. But in the matter of the Beatles influence on his times Mr Blue's opinion will carry more weight with me than the worthless burblings of the ill-informed or the casual 'provocateur' out to buff his self-regard to a high gloss. In truth, it is a kindness to suppress the animadversions of those who know not of which they speak. A hapless proponent who goes too far in his erroneous adumbrations risks being followed down the street by a crowd of small boys, each pointing a finger and crying 'Look at that silly duffer! Thinks the Beatles don't matter that much. What a perfect chump!' It is an honourable tradition that some people say [i]very silly things[/i] and more knowledgeable people laugh at them for doing so. It is a necessary component in the acquisition of wisdom. To disrupt the process is to go against Mother Nature herself.

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1440517594' post='2851474'] Initially, but then it was shipments of American music post-war to those GIs where McCartney said he first got to hear the likes of Arthur Alexander. It was the GIs who spread Jazz, Blues and RnB, bringing Black music to white audiences which opened the door to the Beatles with their new take on this sound. OK, it may not have been so instant but it may well have been equally, or even more significant. [/quote] Quite so. The cultural importation of the 1940's should not be underestimated. Even so, the Jazz, Blues, Swing artists etc of the period had their own antecedents. In the same way that Elvis was influenced by Arthur Crudup and Hank Williams, so Charlie Christian may have been influenced - perhaps - by Tampa Red and he in turn by WC Handy whose influences stretch back to African-American field hollers brought from what is now the Gambia. Similarly, white country music was influenced by Hungarian polkas and Scots / Irish balladry, both forms which have discernible roots in Indian music. All music can trace its roots back to the principle cradles of civilisation, namely Africa, India, China and what we call 'The Middle East'. In a folkloric sense millions have contributed to the development of the form. In this sense, the question of 'influence' is moot. But if we are to consider the sub-genre of Western pop music we must account the Beatles to have had the fastest and most comprehensive effect on the largest number of people, if only because they surfed the power of the media as had no other before. That they were uniquely talented is the factor that separates them from subsequent 'constructs'.