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Flea....


gpw5150

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BSSM was his 1st major progression into writing melodically driven basslines, I think Rick Rubin gave him an acoustic guitar at the time and said "try writing songs on this" or something.

"Mellowship Slinky" is probably my favourite bassline off that album. Love it.

For me though Stadium Arcadium is a big collection of everything that Flea can do, its got some slap in there (that isn't too balls to the wall) as well as some gorgeous lines like "If". 
And I'm damned if I can muster the stamina up to play "C'Mon Girl" all the way through.

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5 hours ago, ChrisLovatt said:

BSSM was his 1st major progression into writing melodically driven basslines, I think Rick Rubin gave him an acoustic guitar at the time and said "try writing songs on this" or something.

"Mellowship Slinky" is probably my favourite bassline off that album. Love it.

For me though Stadium Arcadium is a big collection of everything that Flea can do, its got some slap in there (that isn't too balls to the wall) as well as some gorgeous lines like "If". 
And I'm damned if I can muster the stamina up to play "C'Mon Girl" all the way through.

There is a lot of good stuff on Stadium Arcadium. It does get a bit samey in places but it has some of Frusciante's best playing in my opinion after he abandoned the 'less is more' approach on By The Way. It is also the album where Flea started to use a passive jazz bass for most of the album, so it is a much different tone to his previous albums.

By The Way has some of my favourite RHCP tracks (This is the place, Can't Stop and Don't Forget Me, even though the latter is basically Other Side pt ii in terms of chord structure) but also most of my least favourite/meh RHCP tracks (Cabron, Universally Speaking, Throw Away Your Television, I Could Die for You, most of it actually).

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8 minutes ago, thodrik said:

There is a lot of good stuff on Stadium Arcadium. It does get a bit samey in places but it has some of Frusciante's best playing in my opinion after he abandoned the 'less is more' approach on By The Way. It is also the album where Flea started to use a passive jazz bass for most of the album, so it is a much different tone to his previous albums.

By The Way has some of my favourite RHCP tracks (This is the place, Can't Stop and Don't Forget Me, even though the latter is basically Other Side pt ii in terms of chord structure) but also most of my least favourite/meh RHCP tracks (Cabron, Universally Speaking, Throw Away Your Television, I Could Die for You, most of it actually).

I love jamming to Throw Away Your Television though, got a nice minor groove in the verses.

Yeah some tracks on By The Way and Californication leave a lot to be desired, sometimes I like the simplicity of them, as I understand it Frusciante had literally just gotten clean for Californication and had "lost" his skill level. 

 

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On 07/03/2019 at 16:17, gpw5150 said:

Re-listening to Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik (which did not leave my car in the early 90's.....).

He was definitely at his peak on this album.  I have not heard anything by them since that is this ferocious, funky, complex yet simple and good.......

Carry on!

Three musicians at their absolute peak...and Anthony Kiedis. I've enjoyed everything they've released since, despite their flaws, but BSSM will never be topped. I don't think I'd be playing now if it hadn't been for the inspiration I got from this album. 

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On ‎08‎/‎03‎/‎2019 at 00:53, Burns-bass said:

That video is everything that bass shouldn’t be. My wife thought I’d dropped some pans in the kitchen all that clanking!

It's funny how so many bass players absolutely hate skilful bass playing,  and seem to have the idea that bass should be sitting in the background doffing its cap to the "lead" instruments while respectfully muttering "yes sir, no sir"!

Bass is whatever the player wants it to be. If you don't like what the player's doing, that's fine; but that's just taste, not what should or shouldn't be played...

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13 hours ago, PJ-Bassist said:

Anyone else watching the live stream from Egypt?

Yeah it was alright. Flea and Chad still know how to hold it together, Anthony seems to be losing it lately, he needs a break imo 

And Josh just seemed to be in his own world lmao, he's much better on the songs he's actually written (or helped write)

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2 hours ago, ChrisLovatt said:

Yeah it was alright. Flea and Chad still know how to hold it together, Anthony seems to be losing it lately, he needs a break imo 

And Josh just seemed to be in his own world lmao, he's much better on the songs he's actually written (or helped write)

Chad was by far the stand out performance.  I only got to watch the first 20 mins or so but he was excellent.

2 hours ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

This is the thing for me with the Chili's, If I was in a band at my level of exposure and people within the band that sang that badly, they would be history. It really was dire in places. Flea singing 'Pea' was probably the most consistent piece of vocals in the whole gig and that wasn't great. Love the songs and the musicianship, but man those lead vox and harmonies suck at times. Not as bad as Marc Almond on a good day, but still bad - not that they care I'm sure 😀

Agreed, vocally it was appalling.  In every live performance I've seen Kiedis sounds awful and Josh's harmonies were equally terrible.

I've never seen them live but I don't think I would ever rush out to do so. Much better listening to the recorded versions.

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1 hour ago, Barking Spiders said:

terrible vocals and the thin guitar sound.

That's why I always preferred Chillis from before BSSM. There were fewer attempts at singing, and I like Hillel's and even Jack Sherman's guitar playing more than Frusciante's...

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8 hours ago, bartelby said:

My favourite bits of Flea's work are him in the films Suburbia and The Big Lebowski

Nearly stole the show in Back To The Future 2 as well 😃

I saw rhcp live a few times in the noughties, Reading's Mad Stad gig in 2006 being the least inspiring. Always loved the support bands though, aren't they hand picked by the band? James Brown, Mars Volta, !!!, Ben Harper, among them. 

BSSM clearly a high point in their career but I like them all pretty much apart from Stadium Arcadium, not sure why that warranted about a dozen or so 'b' sides. 

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31 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I remember one of them saying at the time of release, it may well have been Flea, that if you didn’t like Stadium Arcadium, you didn’t like the RHCP. 

Haha... I did go off them a bit after trying to like the album several times.

They should've had a competition, ask fans to whittle SA down to a decent 45 mins. 

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8 hours ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Sorry to keep banging on about this (and slightly derailing the thread), but at one point during the Giza gig they had 6 people on stage: two bassists, one guitarist, one drummer, one lead vox, one keyboard/percussion. Why not go just one better and get someone who can, singing backing vocals in tune?

Or go even further and get someone who can sing lead vocals in tune... And remember the lyrics 👌

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Thanks to everyone who mentioned the Mars Volta. Decided to buy de-loused last night and am really enjoying it. All round good music, I like the guitar style, the feel of the songs, and of course the bass... Decent album. It's a band I'd never have given much thought to if not for this thread. Thank you all

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43 minutes ago, uk_lefty said:

Thanks to everyone who mentioned the Mars Volta. Decided to buy de-loused last night and am really enjoying it. All round good music, I like the guitar style, the feel of the songs, and of course the bass... Decent album. It's a band I'd never have given much thought to if not for this thread. Thank you all

Quite a strange experience to see them live (they supported rhcp in '03), didn't know about them so 1st time hearing them. They sounded like 2 different bands playing simultaneously at times and there was only 5 of them I think!

Got the album deloused on the strength of that strange performance, nuts!

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