David Bowie

[steve-soar]

Just been listening to Bowies "Singles" album, absolutely mesmerising bass lines, Ashes to Ashes, Fashion, Boys, China Girl..... WOW.
Production, amazing.
This may lead on to a great producers thread.
So here goes....

Edited September 3, 2008 by steve-soar

[Doddy]

The song 'David Bowie' by Phish has a great bassline too.

[thepurpleblob]

My band plays (older stuff) Moonage Daydream and Ziggy Stardust. Neither are bass playing rocket science, but a bit more interesting than the usual all the same.

[SteveK]

[quote]Just been listening to Bowies "Singles" album, absolutely mesmerising bass lines, Ashes to Ashes, Fashion, Boys, China Girl..... WOW.
Production, amazing.[/quote]
Had the pleasure of working on an album with Tony Visconti (produced Ashes to Ashes and Fashion) in 1981.

At the time it was kinda like working with God - knowing that this guy had produced some of the great records of the 70s.
It was also my first time with a "Name" producer.

I remember the buzz when he suggested that, "maybe this track could feature a multi-tracked bass section".

I also remember being mightily impressed at his ability to score a vocal arrangement for one track while listening to another.

As it turned out, he probably wouldn't regard the album as the defining moment of his career ... I sure as hell learnt a lot though.

Steve

[silverfoxnik]

[quote name='steve-soar' post='276594' date='Sep 3 2008, 11:02 PM']Just been listening to Bowies "Singles" album, absolutely mesmerising bass lines, Ashes to Ashes, Fashion, Boys, China Girl..... WOW.
Production, amazing.
This may lead on to a great producers thread.
So here goes....[/quote]
+1

Bowie's my absolute all-time favourite artist and I started listening to his stuff in 1972, a few years before I first picked up a bass. So the early playing of The Spiders From Mars bassist, Trevor Boulder really influenced me, along with Dennis Dunnaway Alice Cooper's bassist. In both cases, their bass playing was always very musical and creative, doing much more than just playing root-note stuff so that the bass lines were really integral parts of the song.

There's lots of other great bass lines on Bowie records too.. For example, the descending bass line in the chorus of 'Changes' absolutely makes it for me and is a great hook in itself.. And later on, when Bowie had Dennis Davis on drums and George Murray on bass, some of the bass lines on 'Station to Station' and 'Low' in particular are brilliant!

Another +1 for Tony Visconti as well...

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

As well as producing it didn't Tony Visconti also play Bass on "the man who sold the world" - I've always love that album especially the fuzz bass on "she shook me cold". I must dig the CD out and give it listen tonight.

[BassMunkee]

Heroes - in addition to being one of my very favourite songs and a fine example of Frippertronics in action also has an excellent bassline in it IMHO.

[Happy Jack]

[quote name='silverfoxnik' post='276629' date='Sep 4 2008, 12:02 AM']Trevor Boulder really influenced me, along with Dennis Dunnaway Alice Cooper's bassist. In both cases, their bass playing was always very musical and creative, doing much more than just playing root-note stuff so that the bass lines were really integral parts of the song.[/quote]

Good to see I'm not the only one who still rates Dunaway. Alice Cooper had a cracking band in the 70s and it was largely built around Dennis.

[Galilee]

Boulder is a monster, some of his lines are very tough indeed. Hang onto Yourself is a real killer at full speed.

[molan]

Not that I'm being pedantic but it's "Bolder" as opposed to Boulder : [url="http://www.myspace.com/trevorbolder"]http://www.myspace.com/trevorbolder[/url]

Herbie Flowers played some neat stuff in earlier Bowie stuff as well and, of course, there's Gail Ann Dorsey as well [url="http://www.gailanndorsey.com/"]http://www.gailanndorsey.com/[/url]

[silverfoxnik]

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='276905' date='Sep 4 2008, 12:48 PM']Good to see I'm not the only one who still rates Dunaway. Alice Cooper had a cracking band in the 70s and it was largely built around Dennis.[/quote]
There's a few of us lurking around here I think!

[quote]Not that I'm being pedantic but it's "Bolder" as opposed to Boulder[/quote]

Oops - sorry molan..

Must look at the My Space later and +1 on Gail Ann Dorsey!

[acidbass]

John (I'm Only Dancing) has a fantastic melodic bassline too, I can't believe no one has mentioned it so far! The runs in the chorus are very McCartney-esque

+1 to this thread

[bassicinstinct]

[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='276795' date='Sep 4 2008, 10:56 AM']As well as producing it didn't Tony Visconti also play Bass on "the man who sold the world" - I've always love that album especially the fuzz bass on "she shook me cold". I must dig the CD out and give it listen tonight.[/quote]

Agreed.

I've always thought it was [b]VERY [/b]apparent that album was produced by the person who played bass on it!!

[Marky L]

[quote name='acidbass' post='277104' date='Sep 4 2008, 03:39 PM']John (I'm Only Dancing) has a fantastic melodic bassline too, I can't believe no one has mentioned it so far! The runs in the chorus are very McCartney-esque

+1 to this thread [/quote]

You beat me to it! I have always loved that bass line

Hang On To Yourself is one of my all time fav Bowie tracks, and of course Laughing Gnome

Oh, and huge kudos to Trev Bolder's monster sideburns What a pair of chops!

[Bay Splayer]

[quote name='molan' post='276985' date='Sep 4 2008, 01:46 PM']Not that I'm being pedantic but it's "Bolder" as opposed to Boulder[/quote]


guess he is a [b]fearless[/b] bloke
and his fave genre is [b]heavy rock [/b]

[Monz]

Sound and Vision does it for me...

[chrisba]

We do "Slip Away" from Heathen in our set. Nice bass line with a few twiddly bits that I copy shamelessly. Would sound better on a fretless if...
a: I had one
b: I could play it

[silverfoxnik]

[quote name='Monz' post='277684' date='Sep 5 2008, 11:12 AM']Sound and Vision does it for me...[/quote]
+1

And 'A New Career In A New Town' from the same album...

[parker_muse]

Very much into Bowie at the moment, i'm addicted to China Girl. Great song, wonderful bassline and great hooks. Great music.

Heroes also has 157 plays in my itunes! Jesus christ!

[SJA]

the bassline on "Criminal world" on Let's Dance is a favourite- both the playing (by Carmine Rojas) and the tone- I think he used a Spector NS2 or a Fender with PJ pickups.

[nick]

[quote name='silverfoxnik' post='277791' date='Sep 5 2008, 01:32 PM']+1

And 'A New Career In A New Town' from the same album...[/quote]

A brilliant song, up there in my own top ten of all time favourite songs.

George Murray was the bass player on that album & the other 'Berlin Trilogy' ones.

[BassBomber414]

[quote name='BassMunkee' post='276823' date='Sep 4 2008, 11:32 AM']Heroes - in addition to being one of my very favourite songs and a fine example of Frippertronics in action also has an excellent bassline in it IMHO.[/quote]


Plus One for Heroes - not the studio track - the live version on their Far East Tour, it's on Vid. I don't know who the Asian looking Bass Man was but he was superb and the bass was cranked right up to become the feature of the track.

Anyone tell me who the bass player was ?

[KevB]

I really enjoyed learning Suffragette City with the hope my band at the time would put it in the set - they never did though

[clauster]

Another Bowie fan here!

12 years ago I was in a band that was doing a cover of Ziggy Stardust when I started the segue into Suffragette City and the lead guitarist and drummer flowed suit. After that it stayed in our set list. Great fun!