wombatboter Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 Back in the eighties this single came out and it blew me away... This bassline carried the whole song and the sound was just superb. It sounded like nothing I had ever heard before and it dragged my attention to a bass which I didn't know at the time : Wal. This is still one of my all-time favourite songs and I had the opportunity to see Eurythmics with their bass-player Dean Garcia during the eighties : live he was just as great as on this record. After Eurythmics I know he played bass on "A Good Heart" by Feargul Sharkey but I lost track of him.. I even wrote a letter at the time to Wal to know what kind of bass Garcia used and I got a letter back from Ian Waller..I started saving and finally I was able to get my own Wal bass. I've owned twelve of them since then but it was thanks to this song that I got into them. Listening to this single I still get blown away by the punchy sound and the original phrasing of Garcia... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 (edited) You've never heard anything by [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curve_(band)"]Curve[/url]? BTW are you sure that it's Garcia on "This is the House"? He wasn't part of the band for the Sweet Dreams tour... Edited June 26, 2011 by BigRedX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvin Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 [quote name='BigRedX' post='1282799' date='Jun 26 2011, 09:16 AM']You've never heard anything by [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curve_(band)"]Curve[/url]? BTW are you sure that it's Garcia on "This is the House"? He wasn't part of the band for the Sweet Dreams tour...[/quote] Great band, loved them. Reminds me that I need to get my copy of Doppleganger back off of someone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wombatboter Posted June 26, 2011 Author Share Posted June 26, 2011 [quote name='BigRedX' post='1282799' date='Jun 26 2011, 09:16 AM']You've never heard anything by [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curve_(band)"]Curve[/url]? BTW are you sure that it's Garcia on "This is the House"? He wasn't part of the band for the Sweet Dreams tour...[/quote] I saw Eurythmics at Werchter in Belgium with Dean Garcia...I know they had Chucho Merchan on bass after Dean. Sorry but never heard of "Curve".. probably didn't make it to Belgian radio. On the internet I've read that Andy Brown is quoted as being the bass player but I've always thought it was Garcia, watching him live he sounded and played with the same phrasing as on the record.. I could be wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 Curve were (are still?) fantastic. There's a good 'best of' [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Way-Curve/dp/B0006330QC/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1309078913&sr=1-1"]The Way Of Curve[/url] which is a great introduction to the band if you haven't heard of them before. Gracia was the main songwriter and producer for all of their work as well as playing bass live - on the occasions I saw them in the early 90s he was using a Stingray rather than a Wal. I know quite a bit about the "Sweet Dreams" album because at that time a friend's band were recording their debut single in the Eurythmics studio with Dave Stewart producing and they also played support on some of the tour dates for the album. AFAIK most of the instruments on the Sweet Dreams album were played or programmed by Dave Stewart, although Adam Williams the studio engineer had previously been the bass player with The Selector so there is a possibility that he did the bass part. From what I remember of the gigs I attended on the accompanying tour (doing the live sound for my friend's band), despite having a big all star band - including Mickey Gallagher, Clem Burke, Eddie Reader - the bass parts were all done on keyboards. I have a vague recollection of seeing Dave Stewart playing bass guitar on TV during "This Is The House" but they might have been miming. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hubrad Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 Corking track, ta for reminding me! The early Eurythmics stff in particular was just so different! According to cduniverse on Sweet Dreams : 'Additional personnel: Vic Martin (keyboards); Dean Garcia (bass); Pete Phipps (drums); Maggie Ryder, Gill O'Donovan, Susie O'List (background vocals).' [url="http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/6448053/a/Sweet+Dreams+%28Are+Made+Of+This%29.htm"]http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/...+Of+This%29.htm[/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 [quote name='hubrad' post='1282904' date='Jun 26 2011, 11:46 AM']Corking track, ta for reminding me! The early Eurythmics stff in particular was just so different! According to cduniverse on Sweet Dreams : 'Additional personnel: Vic Martin (keyboards); Dean Garcia (bass); Pete Phipps (drums); Maggie Ryder, Gill O'Donovan, Susie O'List (background vocals).' [url="http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/6448053/a/Sweet+Dreams+%28Are+Made+Of+This%29.htm"]http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/...+Of+This%29.htm[/url][/quote] Sorry I don't think that information is right at all. From what I can find Dean Garcia didn't join the band until the Touch album. All of Sweet Dreams was recorded in a small studio with an 8-track machine. My friend who used the same studio for the recording he did with Dave Stewart said that there wasn't anywhere to record a full band and the drums were done on the Movement Drum Computer synced to tape. Live the drumming was done by Clem Burke of Blondie who had played on the previous Eurythmics album which was recorded in Koln with Conny Plank, so I would have thought if there had been any real drums on the album he would have provided them. [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_the_House#Personnel"]Further investigation has thrown up this line up for the recording of This Is The House[/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hubrad Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 [quote name='BigRedX' post='1282931' date='Jun 26 2011, 12:13 PM']Sorry I don't think that information is right at all. From what I can find Dean Garcia didn't join the band until the Touch album. All of Sweet Dreams was recorded in a small studio with an 8-track machine. My friend who used the same studio for the recording he did with Dave Stewart said that there wasn't anywhere to record a full band and the drums were done on the Movement Drum Computer synced to tape. Live the drumming was done by Clem Burke of Blondie who had played on the previous Eurythmics album which was recorded in Koln with Conny Plank, so I would have thought if there had been any real drums on the album he would have provided them. [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_the_House#Personnel"]Further investigation has thrown up this line up for the recording of This Is The House[/url][/quote] Haha! The plot thickens! Quite so.. I don't fully trust the cd selling websites, and really don't trust Wikipedia either when it comes to it! P'raps a bit of amateur sleuthing / calling in of favours from those in the know is called for... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wombatboter Posted June 26, 2011 Author Share Posted June 26, 2011 When I saw Garcia live with his Wal bass at Werchter his way of playing totally fitted the bass playing on the album.. It's possible that I'm wrong but it fitted like a glove and it didn't sound like he was playing someone else's parts.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 (edited) Well... this clip from The Tube was how I remember the live band being (except they had added a second backing vocalist) when I saw them on the Sweet Dreams tour: Since IIRC all the other bass parts on the Sweet Dreams album were very obviously synthesiser, I don't suppose it made sense for them to have a bassist for just this song and the ones they did from the previous album (which I believe were played on the recordings by Holger Czukay and Dave Stewart). However I have found this clip from later in 1983 with an expanded band and what looks like Dean Garcia playing an Ibanez Musician Bass? Of course that still doesn't answer the question of who actually played the bass part on the recording but my feeling is that it was more likely to be Dave Stewart, Adam Williams or Andy Brown rather than Dean Garcia. Edited June 26, 2011 by BigRedX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wombatboter Posted June 26, 2011 Author Share Posted June 26, 2011 I had already seen these clips as I was looking for a clip of this song for ages... I do think that it's a bassplayer playing this song and a réally good one (I doubt if Stewart can make this sort of thing up, it is a bassplayers masterpiece imo) and again : when I saw Garcia playing it it made sense to me that he was the one providing that line.. But it's just a gut-feeling, I don't have any proof.. Whatever : it's a great song and I still enjoy it :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hubrad Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 I dug out my LP of Sweet Dreams.. sleeve notes amounted to zilch! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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