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New Wave has thrown up some cracking bass lines


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I guess under my understanding of new wave quite a few of the excellent bass players mentioned above would get pushed into punk or post-punk, perhaps leaving Colin Moulding, Graham Maby and Pete Thomas as new wave. And Foxton maybe. Slippery subject!

How about Brian Ritchie of the Violent Femmes?

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2 hours ago, Nail Soup said:

I guess under my understanding of new wave quite a few of the excellent bass players mentioned above would get pushed into punk or post-punk, perhaps leaving Colin Moulding, Graham Maby and Pete Thomas as new wave. And Foxton maybe. Slippery subject!

I agree, but where does Punk end and Post Punk and New Wave start, and where's the boundary between Post Punk and New Wave, then where does New Wave become Synth Pop, and Post Punk become Goth, and all of it become Indie? 

A debate that can go on and on, but labels are as relevant as the one in the back of my pants. Good music is good music. 

That said, I offered Gang of Four's Dave Allen up and I would say they are Post Punk, not New Wave. 😆

 

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Bruce Foxton and Bruce Thomas both fantastic bass players who defined the music of The Jam and The Attractions, both already mentioned. 
 

I am surprised that no one has commented on Youth’s bass playing on Killing Joke’s first album. A post-punk masterpiece. 

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On 23/05/2021 at 18:27, P-Belly Evans said:

Phil Brown of the Records?

“Shades in Bed” is one of my favourite albums. Great songs and great playing.

Phil Brown was a superb bassist. 

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For me it wasn’t just great bass lines. Several new wave bands took the bass from being a melodic and sometimes twee “behind the scenes” instrument and brought it into the foreground. Hence my Gallop/Hook nomination. Motörhead (not new wave) but Lemmy gets massive kudos for this as well.

Edited by tegs07
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10 hours ago, JollyRoger said:

Bruce Foxton and Bruce Thomas both fantastic bass players who defined the music of The Jam and The Attractions, both already mentioned. 
 

I am surprised that no one has commented on Youth’s bass playing on Killing Joke’s first album. A post-punk masterpiece. 

All good, but my definition of New Wave would exclude the Jam and Killing Joke.

Just shows how vague 'new wave' was at the time and how much vaguer it is now!

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On 22/05/2021 at 16:01, Sonic_Groove said:

Gary Tibbs with the Vibrators

 

Gary Tibbs was interesting, stepped out of New Wave straight into Prog, or however you'd define the Roxy Music of that era. Love his playing on the Manifesto album, especially this one, tight as a badgers orifice 

 

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2 minutes ago, Beedster said:

Gary Tibbs was interesting, stepped out of New Wave straight into Prog, or however you'd define the Roxy Music of that era. Love his playing on the Manifesto album, especially this one, tight as a badgers orifice 

 

Roxy Music are a band I hated at the time but am only just beginning to appreciate how great they actually were.

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13 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

All good, but my definition of New Wave would exclude the Jam and Killing Joke.

Just shows how vague 'new wave' was at the time and how much vaguer it is now!

What is a genre, how is it defined, by whom, and what relevance does it have?

Some can be (relatively) clear such and punk and reggae (where does Guns of Brixton fit?).  Then we have bands that span genre. 

Can a band in 2021 be New Wave or did it have to be around in 1979-1982? Was it about fashion, musical style, structure, attitude, equipment......?

Having lived through those years and having been heavily into the ‘alternative’ bands of the time I am just interested.

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7 minutes ago, JollyRoger said:

What is a genre, how is it defined, by whom, and what relevance does it have?

Some can be (relatively) clear such and punk and reggae (where does Guns of Brixton fit?).  Then we have bands that span genre. 

Can a band in 2021 be New Wave or did it have to be around in 1979-1982? Was it about fashion, musical style, structure, attitude, equipment......?

Having lived through those years and having been heavily into the ‘alternative’ bands of the time I am just interested.

punk and new wave must the most widely defined of all the genres, early punk has very little to do with the shouty shouty hard core stuff that came later, originally  New Wave started just after the explosion of punk, any band that was a bit more musical was put in that bracket, but the lines are very blurred, the genres continue to this day

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20 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

Do Killing Joke count as new wave?

 

5 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

punk.....................................................or New Wave 😊

 

2 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Deserve their own genre, like Primus 🙂

Jaz would describe them as Punk, Paul Raven used to describe them as Post-Punk, Geordie looked aloof whilst smoking menthol cigarettes and Big Paul agreed with Raven.

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7 minutes ago, Muzz said:

We can debate genres and inclusion and exclusion all day, but I'll just leave this here...

 

☝☝☝This, all day long. JJ kind of knocked everyone else into a cocked hat (apart from Mick Karn). Those first two notes, I want to give up bass and collect stamps as soon as I hear them.

Edited by Frank Blank
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1 hour ago, tegs07 said:

Roxy Music are a band I hated at the time but am only just beginning to appreciate how great they actually were.

Check out the bass lines on Bête Noire, a Bryan Ferry solo album rather than Roxy, superb album with cracking bass.

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