Barking Spiders

I've not played any gigs for two and a half years and if anything as I've put more practice in over the last three months than for the whole of 2019, and improved my playing to boot, I'm itching to get back into gigging again. Not that I would want to join any old band and play any old stuff. I'm still particular about what I like and would choose to play, i.e. funk and dance based stuff, so I might have to carrying on itching for a fair while longer.

Just seen this Alembic on EBay for nearly £11k. Has anyone come across a bass that tops even this price? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1980-Alembic-Series-II-SSB-Short-Scale-Bass-the-Ultimate-Stanley-bass/174034172591?hash=item28853ebaaf:g:qisAAOSwaPNb6Zzs

Would love to have a Jaydee and for a boutique manufacturer the prices are pretty reasonable with the top end at under £3k compared to Wals at around £6k

Wish I could have one but not being a pro player I can't justify around £3k plus on an instrument. BTW wondering whether the folk at Overwater are aware there's a mistake on the Players Past and Present tab. The names in the left column need to be shifted down by one step. At the moment John Entwistle played with Gary Numan and Rick Kemp rather than Martin was in Spandau Ballet

Good stuff but depends on which DJ mix you mean

Last time I heard they burnt people at the stake for making music and other general merriment

When playing funk I do a quite a bit of double thumbing and use my ring finger along with the index and middle ones when plucking triplets. Also use it quite a lot when playing New Wave type rock that needs the attacking sound you can only get with picks

An assortment from three underrated combos from the days of classic funk and not forgetting and here's a cracker from Z Factor aka Joey Negro etc

Never got all the fuss about the dull fare from The Smiths while this came out in '88 but never got the same kudos.

Cheers. I was there and this was the best performance of the weekend even though there were excellent sets by Groove Armada, Massive Attack, Balkan Beat Box, Ozomatli and Fun Lovin Criminals.

Yes, most of my gear is culled at a young age before it can get old. I did have a blue Aria Pro II bass for nearly 20 years before it ended up in a branch of Sue Ryder. Both the basses I still have are less than 2 years old

Dunno why but I love the recorder solo in this gem at 1.41 from Julian Cope in his slightly barmy phase pre-off his trolley period.

We like music for different reasons, when we're broken hearted, doped up, in the mood for lurve, etc but what would you put on to really lift your mood. For me it's Manu Chao and Radio Bemba Sound System doing their thing live

Yeah, big fan here of Fela Kuti and Tony Allen. I also play drums and Tony Allen is a huge inspiration. Here's summat from the very excellent Antibalas And let's have some love for the great King Sunny Ade way back from the 80s

Basswise I mostly play funk and disco and find among the best for slapping are D'Addario EXL 170 round wounds, as these give a full on, in yer face attack. Used to have a couple of fretless and then preferred flatwounds as these allow for a smoother sliding action.

Abso-'kin-lutely. Who can remember, even knows or cares about the hyper fast pentatonic scales produced by errm? All this glorification up of hyper technical shred seems to mostly be gushed over by American teenage nerds hiding away from girls in their bedrooms. I'm no Queen fan but old Brian has certainly dished out plenty of tasty riffage and soloing in his time.

We Are Family by Sister Sledge, possibly Chic's best album and in particular this little beaut. Check out Nile's nifty little guitar solo from 1.55. Also as usual the bass is always on the money

agreed, specially when the tapping is at the 8th fret and higher on the high strings. 'Sheer technical brilliance rarely makes brilliant music - ask Nuno Bettencourt' and Steve Vai, Eddie van Halen, Stuart Hamm, Michael Manring and all those tip top players knocking out that fusion c@ck

Seeing as my recent thread on slapping got a big response, let's see how opinions are divided on tapping. On the Talking Bass site, I thought I'd give the tapping/ bass shredding lesson a go even though it's not my bag. After about 6 minutes I stopped, thinking I really have no interest in learning how to tap on the bass as it doesn't fit into what I like to play. So I went back to essential slap riffs instead. I've watched YT vids of Billy Sheehan and other rock virtuoso bassists doing live shredding solos and TBH all that stuff bores the t1tz off me. To my ears tapping on the bass sounds a bit meh. So, over to youse..

Is it bad technique? Louis Johnson often used his thumb for fretting. That's something about formal music tuition that bugs me i.e. there being a right way or a wrong way. Surely whatever works for the individual is good technique. I'm sure a lot of the way Hendrix played was 'wrong' but who cares when it ended up being original?

Aaaargh! lt's only early morning and my brain isn't ready for this 18 rated horror

'Why do you need more than one bass?' asked an ex mrs Spiders when she caught me furtively lurking outside a guitar store?Why do you need more than one pair of shoes? I replied. Back of the net!

I'm a sucker for a bit of bluesy harmonica plus some tasteful shred. Here's a tasty bit of blues harp from Joe Satriani on Big Bad Moon at 2.14. As an aside also some nifty slide guitar . Back from around the same time I was also well into piano led house music (sad old ageing raver that i am). Here's a classic from back in the day. Not a solo as such but the piano is throughout.

form me the jury's still out on which is better... or

I've got a lot of time for but it's this that really cuts the mustard