Ash's Mark Hamilton

[cytania]

Just woken up to Ash, via Shining Light and their singles CD. Why did I have them pegged as terminal 90s shoegazers? Great music for the car. Sounds fresh and punky unlike alot of 90s acts.

Love the bass sound Mark Hamilton is getting, which gear sites tell me are Gibson Thunderbirds and Ampeg SVTs. Sounds to me like he's really trashing the strings with a pick. Incredible ring, does he change the strings alot? Indeed I get the impression he leaves the G off entirely. Anyone seen the Hamilton bass hurricane in action?

[Born 2B Mild]

Yep. Great band. Saw their first gig back in the UK as a trio (since the guitarist left) at Preston (Student Union). He was belting out his T-Bird with a pick all right.

[lemmywinks]

Read an interview that said he took the G string off all together. His tech also said that he pours water over himself on stage a lot, leading to the pickups in his TBird losing output.

I thnk his tech was a bit annoyed with him for that as he said the pickups are hard to source. He also said Mark's not very good in music stores and refuses to try out pedals he suggests. He said Mark only uses a certain Boss pedal (forget which) but won't use the new ones, meaning his tech has to constantly look for old pedals as he goes through a few every tour

[elom]

Allegedly when he first started playing bass he would often break the G string. His local music shop only sold bass strings as a full set so he soon decided to do without it and has stayed a 3 string bassist ever since.

One of my favourite bands Ash. New material on the way soon apparently and their last album from a couple of years ago 'Twilight of the Innocents' was pretty damn good.

[cytania]

Been trying to play 'Shining Light' right and it struck me today (driving in sun, CD blasting) that it sounds like one bass playing a straight propulsive line whilst on another track Hamilton's playing for treble ring, possibly down two strings or down the neck. Or perhaps it's the one track in a live room, one track DI-ed trick. No wonder it's hard to pin down!

[alexclaber]

My wife's favourite band so I've seen them quite a few times - he does have a remarkably huge tone. And there is no G-string tuning peg on his bass, it is very much a 3-string. Really suits the power trio line-up. They seem to do one good album and then one mediocre album - 1977, Free All Angels and Twilight of the Innocents being the good ones. The last track on TotI is incredible - they closed the set with it when we saw them in that strange old theatre in Camden whose name escapes me and it was so happening - just epic bombast and emotion.

Interesting fact - Ash have never made any money from album/single sales - they're just big enough to sell enough to cover all their costs and then they make their living from touring. Of course if the record company weren't taking their very hefty slice it would be a different matter entirely.

Alex

[AndrewU]

On 16/04/2009 at 19:09, lemmywinks said:

Read an interview that said he took the G string off all together. His tech also said that he pours water over himself on stage a lot, leading to the pickups in his TBird losing output.

I thnk his tech was a bit annoyed with him for that as he said the pickups are hard to source. He also said Mark's not very good in music stores and refuses to try out pedals he suggests. He said Mark only uses a certain Boss pedal (forget which) but won't use the new ones, meaning his tech has to constantly look for old pedals as he goes through a few every tour

 

December 2023, Mark uses just 3 devices on his Pedal-Board:

Left: BOSS OverDrive/Distortion OS-2
Middle: BOSS Line Selector LS-2 (turned facing the audience)
Right: BOSS Chromatic Tuner TU-3W

All pedals receive their power from one power supply.  

 

[AndrewU]

[rOB]

I saw Ash play recently at Rock City in Nottingham. It had been a good few years since I'd seen them last but it was a really great night. Great sounds. Great vibes.

[Rich]

7 hours ago, AndrewU said:

Middle: BOSS Line Selector LS-2 (turned facing the audience)
 

 

7 hours ago, AndrewU said:

 

OK, I would be intrigued to know why.

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

On 16/04/2009 at 18:09, lemmywinks said:

Read an interview that said he took the G string off all together. His tech also said that he pours water over himself on stage a lot, leading to the pickups in his TBird losing output.

I thnk his tech was a bit annoyed with him for that as he said the pickups are hard to source. He also said Mark's not very good in music stores and refuses to try out pedals he suggests. He said Mark only uses a certain Boss pedal (forget which) but won't use the new ones, meaning his tech has to constantly look for old pedals as he goes through a few every tour

He sounds like a bit of a ****, but then he did give Charlotte her marching orders so that fits 🤷‍♂️

[dudewheresmybass]

On 09/01/2024 at 18:24, Rich said:

 

 

OK, I would be intrigued to know why.

Blend function perhaps?

[Rich]

I meant, why is it turned facing the audience.

[borntohang]

We did a festival with Ash in summer 2019 and I spoke to Mark briefly - seemed like a personable enough guy. I told him Burn Baby Burn was the first song I ever learned on bass, which was perhaps not the compliment I intended it to be. 

 

The real gem was Tim Wheeler, who was an absolute darling. He watched our set from sidestage and then afterwards came and chatted guitar nerd stuff with me for ages. I was actually having a bit of a Moment after I got offstage because the stage was directly in baking sun and we'd all overheated, so I was laying on the grass with my head under a wet towel when a very polite voice went "Mind if I have a look at your pedalboards while you're busy down there?" He took us up to where their rig was being set up so I could check out the infamous Vee and his new EGC acryclic/aluminium SG and then we watched the set from there later. Sometimes you can meet your heroes, although preferably not while alarmingly red and sunburned. 

 

[borntohang]

And one more of Mark giving it the pose later on. 

 

[MartinB]

1 hour ago, Rich said:

I meant, why is it turned facing the audience.

Harder to step on by accident maybe?

[ezbass]

On 09/01/2024 at 18:24, Rich said:

 

 

OK, I would be intrigued to know why.

I had an LS2 many, many years ago and I swapped a couple of the jack sockets to facilitate better/easier cable runs. Perhaps this is his solution or maybe he bought my old one