Barking Spiders

I like very muchly indeed, the mix of electronica and funky jazz tinged grooves. Great stuff 👌

It's a dealbreaker IMO. I wouldn't wanna play in any band that's just a background muzak machine in human form. The band would need to be central to the evening's merriment and treated accordingly with a couple of glasses of the old sparkling and an all you can eat buffet with chicken hot wings, spicy spare ribs, those spicy cajun potato wedges, a few tubs of guacamole and salsa dips plus a basket of homemade tortilla chips. Owt less and it'd be a no-show from me😋

And often brilliance is in pure simplicity. It's some of the simplest of lines that make the song. I'm thinking of tunes like Ball of Confusion, Peaches, The Chain and Once In A Lifetime. Try playing along to these and put in a few extra notes and you'll hear how this fooks up the song.

I'd never dare degrade those who make a living from playing by calling myself a musician 😊.

Bowie always had a knack for getting fine bassists on his albums. Never a fan of pre Station stuff but I always liked the basslines . George Murray was great on DB's best albums (IMO) from S to S through to Scary Monsters

Reminds me when a friend took me to see G3 at the NIA , with Satriani, Vai and Fripp. The sense of communal boredom was palpable as many of us in our row kept looking at eachother to see who'd make the first move to leave. Me and my mate did and then half a dozen more immediately followed. We all agreed that this was possible one of the dullest music events any of us had ever suffered. It was was an interminable widdleathon devoid of banter and any entertainment.

Hmm I thought the Pareto Principle was pretty well known . It's widely used in production management in factories. Anyway it's also applied to a lot of things e.g. people's clothes collections i.e. we praps wear the same fave 20% of items 80% of the time while the other 80% just sit in cupboards. It doesn't have to rigidly stick to 80/20 but the idea holds up pretty well for many areas f life.

...do most of you here really listen to a broad selection of music or do you truly listen in accordance with the 80/20-20/80 rule? I have a pretty eclectic music collection but in truth 80% of the time I just listen to stuff that falls under the electronica umbrella, the other 20% being split between everything else

+1 here for Mind Bomb though I do prefer Infected especially the banging title track. The version to get is the 2 CD one which includes the 12" version.

No, leave the thread here. After all this forum is not just about bass but music in general. Anyway, I used to like bluegrass so took up the 5 string about 20 years ago. Though I no longer care for bluegrass I still like to keep my hand in and see if i can incorporate into experimental stuff. Mine is a Chinese made Ozark which cost £300 and it's pretty decent. If it's bluegrass you wanna play then you need the 5 string cos of the fifth which has the tuning peg half way down the neck.

I really couldn't care less about virtuosity although that said a lot of my fave lines aren't basic roots stuff . Still I 'd rather hear summat like the line on PFloyd's 'One of These Days' than any anything on a Vic Wootten solo album . Same goes for electric guitar. For me one of the most deservedly ignored sub-genres is neo-classical metal whatever , which is typified by Yngwie Malmsteen and his disciples. Honestly ,I'd sooner listen to Little Mix.

Never mind the £500+ market, Same goes for the sub £500 market for both basses and guitars. I've been trying to shift several decent bits of gear priced at below £300 but nary a sniff of interest. Seems clear to me that those who could be interested have got enough gear while among the under 30s most don't give a monkeys about learning to play. I know some blokes will say ' my 14 year old son is a huge fan of Hendrix etc and is a fiend on the xx' but many dealers I've spoken to say different and that fewer and fewer teens and 20 somethings are going into their stores.

Indeed. I've tried getting outside my comfort zone of funk, electronica and hip hop to check out acclaimed players in metal, prog, jazz, classic rock and fusion but I just can't get my head around the music they or their their bands make to get to grips with the basswork. In the end I decided that as I've got limited music listening time I might as well use it to listen to stuff I actually like. It'a a shame many of the technically advanced players -e.g. Clarke, Wootten, Bill Dickins etc -play some of the most anodyne guff that would shame an elevator - There's much to be said for being narrowminded 😀

Yeah Mark'll let you try any bass you fancy even if he thinks you probably won't buy. I've had a go on Ken Smiths and Pedullas and no way had i any intention of buying one. The price tags are way too hefty for me. Indeed three is a crowd in there but as you'll be given headphones it doesn't matter

I'm sure Ed Sheeran, Adele etc are doing quite nicely from their multi-platinum album sales

When people say 'rock is dead' they mean as a significant commercial force where the big name bands of yesteryear sold shedloads e.g. PFloyd, Led Zep, Metallica, Van Halen , Eagles blah etc. It's an inescapable fact that even current biggish name rock bands like the Foos don't sell multi-platinum albums in the US or UK . The only big name rock bands currently still doing business are all at least in their mid 50s and mostly making their dosh from gigging and not album sales

and then the band should be thrown in after it

I raise you an Ian Hunter and give you Harry from One Direction...... Err i 'll get me coat. Viz Geri Halliwell should I be sectioned for actually quite fancying her back in the day? I've more of a soft spot for Mel C though. She's a good laugh and I find her very attractive. Never that fussed on the other three !

and that's not flattering either!

Based on the genres I wouldn't bother with any of them. 1. in my experience start-ups quickly turn into dead ends. No one generally has much idea of where they're going so tend to resort to 12 bar jams at the end of the first practice and we all resolve never to see eachother again 2. they sound like a load of fun! ... 'serious' , 'total professionalism', 'no...allowed' . It's just music FFS. Anyone who posts this type of ad really needs to lighten up. OK i don't hold with drugs but I do like my booze and don't like being told what I can or cant do 3. shoite name . That's enough to put me off 4. power trio. the very term makes me shudder

I know it well having lived there for 6 months. In the summer it's rammed with Japanese, German, American and Italian tourists. Not so many Brits as it happens. Normally the honey pots like the Charles Bridge, the clock tower and Nove Mesto in general are chocka but in December they're much less so. The tram system is excellent. If you wanna do the less obvious I well recommend Vysehrad (closest spelling i can get here, the s is pronounced 'sh') and the cementary there which is just for cultural greats like Dvorak. No soldiers or politicians can be buried there. There's a lovely park /arboretum called Stromovka where tourists don't seem to go, just the locals. Also particularly interesting is the National Monument in Vitkov Park, which has a museum giving an interesting history about the communist times. Back in the city centre along side the Vltava is the Dancing House where there's a nice little bar at the top. On the subject of bars check out any of the three Beer Museums pubs. The sheer range of beers on draught will blow your mind. I hope neither you or your wife are veggies as Czech cuisine doesn't cater well for them. You'd better like pork knees and dumplings 🙂. I know it's wintertime but you've gotta try a trdelnik, which is a cross between a doughnut and an ice cream. The best ones are to be had in some of the parlours on the hill in Mala Strana leading up to the castle

My approach is to improving is to master my bucket list of bass. This is around 150 tunes which includes Rhythm Stick and Sir Duke. I'd recommend a few more Stevie Wonder tunes like Masterblaster and I Wish. Other great ones to have under your belt are Club Country by The Associates, Kajagoogoo's Too Shy, Level 42's Love Games & Hot Water, Life in Tokyo & European Son by Japan and some lines that were actually done on a Fairlight esp Hyperactive by Thomas Dolby

some old school jazz, world influenced grooves from the early 2000s. Nice!!!

'n' cheese

For me 50% of the time it's fingerstyle , 25% slap n pop, 10% plec, 5% thumb only, 5% sticks n' tings, 5% teeth/feet... approx that is. I also prefer fingerstyle for guitar too. Just not a fan of plecs unless it's playing certain tunes where the bass is to the fore and fingerstyle doesn't have the attack needed. I mean early Stranglers songs probably sound a bit tame without that bass tone