Barking Spiders

Over the last six months I've occasionally been depping on bass in a mate's band, well not his band but he got me the gig. Unfortunately much of their material comprises many of the offending articles already mentioned i.e. Mr Brightside, Dont Look Back in Anger, Sex on Fire..yawn. Other than the Oasis c@ck I don't have any problems with these songs per se. As others have said it's the predictably moronic response we get from large parts of the audience..the tuneless chanting along etc.

Many basses and guitars are works of art in their own right, never mind being played, and warrant display space in the home even if they're never played. Of course some are downright fugly although as with people beauty, beholding and all that jazz. I wonder if there's anyone who buys them solely as decorative furnishings even if they can't play. If I were rich but didn't (try to) play them I think I'd still have some on the wall in place of pictures, definitely this for starters... IMO guitars and basses are much more interesting to have on the wall than pictures...apart from that poster of the tennis girl scratching her 'arris... My old lady also thinks my basses and guitars are beautiful and let's me hang my 8-strong collection on the living room wall. over to you 👉

Oh go on, everyone else is. And 'pointless' is the name of the game, well not THAT game

Trance and drum n 'bass were praps the most instrumental of the dance/electronic genres in the 90s-early 00s as House and techno mostly had vocals. But, trance only crossed over into the singles charts once producers got in female models to warble some bland lyrics over the tunes. For me lot of good tunes were ruined by pointless vocals.

I find the thrash stuff unlistenable and MoP's rep as the greatest metal album ever puzzles me, then again there aren't many contenders TBH. Load and Reload are better as they do largely do away with rote guitar solos and keep things shortish but really they should've just put the best 10 tracks on one album.

As a fan of Wire's early albums I fully concur there. Not an original idea in JF's head. Sonya Madan was the only reason I had any interest in Echobelly too.

I think 'we' succeeded in ruining it thanks very much😉 . 'Tried'! Tsk.

That was a pretty entertaining vid. CB is alright. I like him. I've come round to Davie504. Both guys have a light hearted approach to their channels as well as being excellent players

Rather than boiling, my solution now to keeping strings in top playing condition is to keep the bass in the corner of the room just as a piece of furniture. They now never get gunked up.

Yes indeed fkin Wonderwall, chant along dreck for football fans, which leads me to ShBritpop, a low in pop music history if ever, partly due it's association with Tony Bliar and that pathetic Cool Britannia schlock . Pulp were good and Jarvis is a top geezer but the rest of it was unmitigated c@ck. If I ever wanted to be American it was then.

I guess it depends on whether you make a living out of playing bass or not. If I were a full time pro I guess I'd buy new rather than boil. It's not a source of income for me so it doesn't matter if the tone isn't quite as good as with new strings

I coil them and then drop them in boiling water

+ 1 here. I really don't like his tone, nor Elvises' (both) for that matter.

Yep, I always do with roundwounds, just long enough until you seen the bits of dirt seep out, probably 10 mins or so. I've been doing this for years as i don't wanna shell out for new sets every time the tone starts getting dull. In my experience, it works well, almost as good as new, not quite but 90% there

Viz Bowie I really can't see what the fuss was all about re the albums from Hunky Dory to Diamond Dogs. Station to Station still sounds great though and by a zillion miles it's his best album. Looking at the album sales data on Wiki I'm surprised to see how many of his albums only went gold, particularly in the US, while none went multi-platinum in the UK . His sales tally isn't bad but by supposed superstar status they're modest compared to e.g. Garth Brooks, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Madonna.. As for the Stone Roses supposedly classic/iconic debut album, it's ok but nothing special. It's just like someone took a bunch of 60s tracks by the likes of The Byrds and attached a groove

I hadn't realised they'd half reformed until I saw this post! I like this track very much. A Secret Wish is definitely an all time top 10 album for me and would've been a hard one to follow up.

He's definitely the weak link. Not just that, his vocal is primarily why I didn't like them for many years. It's only recently I've partly come round to them mainly due to learning many Flea basslines

In my 20s I was living in London on a graduate salary which just about covered the essentials and debt repayment I did quite a lot of depping and function band work which essentially paid for having my lifestyle. From my 30s i did less and less partly as I was then on a decent salary and partly because I became more picky about what gigs I did.

Not for me personally, but there are many so-called rated bands of the last 20 years that are far worse.

Not heard of him before so I clicked the linked and then checked out a few more YT clips. 👍 . Very much my kind of player.

He probably has the dullest back catalogue of any rock and pop musician that came out of the 60s/70s

In both the UK and US, scientists are usually portrayed on TV and in films like the Big Bang Theory characters, 'Doc' in Back to the Future. In both US and UK, the 'cool' kids are the ones that con the system (e.g. Ferris Bueller) or who don't play the system (e.g. Danny Zuko in Grease). The studious kids in US dramas are usually referred to as 'Pointdexter'. Trying to educate the masses is an uphill struggle.

I'd better qualify what i said. I mostly like playing funk and disco bass and particularly like the sounds coming out of the Rays LJ and BE had. After I'd got LJ's Star Licks vid and heard the tone he got out of it I knew that was the right bass for me. I had other brands but slapping never sounded as good on them as it does on the Stingray and its less costly versions

I wouldn't disagree with you at all about the lack of appreciation of complex music down to failure in music education and it not being treated as a proper subject. Then again throughout English speaking societies there's a prejudice against all 'higher' art forms as being 'snobbish' or just for the middle classes. When you have governments that cut funding for the arts - as with the current shower the UK suffers - this reinforces the view they're not important. I say English speaking as this is definitely not the case in countries such as France, Italy, Germany, China and Japan where there's a lot more respect for their own cultures. Let's be honest, in Britain there's a cultural vacuum where it's seen as smart to be anti-intellectual.

Basswise I mostly favour Stingrays, or rather the cheaper Sterling versions, partly because two fave players, Louis Johnson and Bernard Edwards, played them. Conversely, I steer away from Rickies as I associate them strongly with prog and metal (e.g. Chris Squire, Geddy Lee, Cliff Burton, Glenn Hughes). Similarly guitar-wise I don't consider Strats and Les Pauls. Partly this is because they're commonplace and also I don't much care for those players strongly associated with them. On the other hand, as I like many country chickin pickin stylists the Tele is a goto. Sure this might seem flaky but there you go.