EssentialTension

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1450008430' post='2928692'] It's a bass forum, so obviously the people on here will have a vastly overinflated idea of how important/popular/well known bass players are. [/quote] Not all of us have a vastly overinflated idea of how important/popular/well known bass players are.

[quote name='Woodinblack' timestamp='1450007979' post='2928681'] I guess you can see how known they are by the answeres on pointless: [url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p019b7fk"]http://www.bbc.co.uk...rammes/p019b7fk[/url] [/quote] Well spotted. Is that a real programme that people actually watch?

[quote name='colgraff' timestamp='1450007270' post='2928666'] ... Bushels undoubtedly a bass player who is a household name. [/quote] Who?

[quote name='Delberthot' timestamp='1449971531' post='2928522'] I'm sorry but I could pull a better song out of my a$$. [/quote] I think you'll find that's a different website.

[quote name='sunburstjazz1967' timestamp='1450005749' post='2928648'] I think this is being overthought, imagine showing a group of various people a flip book with pictures of various bass players, singing or not, mindless noodling, rocking out, whatever. Answers like "yes thats Paul McCartney from the Beatles, wings and the frog chorus" is a 100% hit, but I'll take a "ah thats the boys are back in town guy" or a "him with the tantric sex thing" as 50/50s etc, chris Squire for example, no chance really is there? [/quote] Sting might be a 50/50 but I'd say the back in town guy get's a 'who?' With any random group of 10, 20, or 100 people, there's not even a guarantee for McCartney.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1449961927' post='2928470'] For those not familar with the tune, here's 'Teen Town', live ... Quite good, as noodling goes, and it gets better as it progresses right up to a blistering climax. Hot stuff, from all of 'em ... [/quote] The studio version is substantially shorter.

[quote name='sunburstjazz1967' timestamp='1449941438' post='2928256'] Did anyone read my OP? I did say that knowing what a bass guitar was or indeed that is what they played was secondary, Kim Kardashian is a household name and she does nothing at all! [/quote] So playing bass was secondary but not irrelevant. I still say only two of your names have any chance of being recognised, and that's McCartney and Sting. Otherwise you are most probably looking for someone who is on X-Voice or The Factor.

[quote name='The-Ox' timestamp='1449952564' post='2928393'] please elaborate [/quote] Chris Squire is no kind of household name. Even most of the musicians I play with wouldn't know who he is.

[quote name='neilp' timestamp='1449954063' post='2928401'] Where's the like button? [/quote] We voted and we didn't like the like button. So no like button.

[quote name='The-Ox' timestamp='1449951263' post='2928377'] Chris Squire also? [/quote] Are you serious?

[quote name='Maude' timestamp='1449951160' post='2928374'] ... How many more times can a comedy genius point out that "that's a big violin"? [/quote] I think you'll find that it is many many times.

[quote name='pfretrock' timestamp='1449948513' post='2928343'] You can have fun with Google Ngram viewer which shows when things came out of the wood work (in books). You can set the date range and corpus and enter multiple names (case sensitive, get the spelling right). I tried a few bassists I could think of. McCartney does not work - too famous and there must be another famous John Paul Jones.- may apply to other names if not unique (ish) Here is my bassists list: [url="http://bit.ly/1QbeSYu"]http://bit.ly/1QbeSYu[/url] EDIT - only seems to accept 12 inputs at a time. [/quote] ... and if you use British English the results are quite different ... but still, being in some books doesn't make you a household name.

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1449948818' post='2928347'] I think he was a pope. [/quote] Maybe you're confusing him with Francis Rossi the First - who is not a bassist.

[quote name='sunburstjazz1967' timestamp='1449948696' post='2928346'] Dave peacock if you show them a picture of chas and dave? [/quote] Most of the people who know Chas & Dave, which in fact is not most people, don't know which one is Chas and which one is Dave.

[quote name='walshy' timestamp='1449947058' post='2928323'] Flea? [/quote] Who? He's in RHCP. Who? The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Who? Never mind.

[quote name='LayDownThaFunk' timestamp='1449949401' post='2928354'] Except Paul McCartney. [/quote] McCartney probably is (or is near to) a 'household name' but not as a bassist nor because of being a bassist - 1 Beatle, 2 singer, 3 musician and 4 guitarist and that includes bass.

It's the guitarists not the pickups. You just need a different guitarist(s).

[quote name='Dandelion' timestamp='1449945623' post='2928299'] Look! A Dwarf with a violin. [/quote] No, I don't know that one either.

Some of the people being named I am wholly unfamiliar with. And as for Brian May, surely at best (or at worst) he would be 'the other bloke in Queen' because there is only the two of them.

[url="http://www.notreble.com/buzz/2012/04/26/stories-behind-the-songs-jerry-jemmott/"]http://www.notreble.com/buzz/2012/04/26/stories-behind-the-songs-jerry-jemmott/[/url]

Pastorius: 'I’m just an imitator man. I’m doing a very bad imitation of Jerry Jemmott…' I prefer Jemmott. http://youtu.be/4Sm9n-6hy6M

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1449937060' post='2928188'] Ten doors in a cul-de-sac..? You'd be lucky if any of them could name a single bass player. If you pointed out that McCartney was a bass player they'd know the name, but McCartney was a singer, a songwriter and a Beatle first, second and third and a bass player fourth. [/quote] ... and almost everyone would call his bass guitar, a guitar.

There are no people who are 'household names' as bassists.

I just now listened to the Jaco Pastorius album. I gave up half way through. It does not hold my interest and all those harmonics are extremely annoying. YMMV.

[quote name='sunburstjazz1967' timestamp='1449933858' post='2928138'] +1 Like many of the [i]names[/i] that come up on here I have to google them, even then they are often only known to a certain group of people, how many bassists are true household names? Jaco is not one of them, knock on all the doors in your street and check, I would put a genuine £50 of my own money on this being fact! Macca and Sting, Lemmy, Mark king if they are over 40 years old after that they are mostly only household names in households where 50 plus year old bassists live. [/quote] No one is a 'household name', by which I take you to mean commonly known, for being a bassist, not even McCartney. Insofar as McCartney is a 'household name' it's for being a Beatle, a singer, a musician, but most people don't even know what a bass is, and there is no reason why they should. Same goes for Sting. Pastorius is, in those terms, an obscurity.