OK, I'll try this one again.

Is Tina Weymouth any good? I can't tell ... I've been watching the Talking Heads' "Stop Making Sense" DVD, and it really bugs me the way the fingers on her left hand flail around like that. She seems to have a groove, but her technique is suspect. She was having trouble with articulating note lengths on a couple of the tunes. Help me out here.

I love Tina Weymouth, but if you are watching her for tips on technique, you're missing the point. I love her grooves, and how she is very selfless in her playing. She is not worried about showing off or playing the killer fill. You will never hear her playing "Donna Lee" or tapping with her tongue or whatever, but she lays down a good groove. I try to judge bassists with my ears and not my eyes. If they can play inspiring music, be it simple or complex, I think they are good.

i started out not likeing tina, but after speaking in tongues, i had to give her props!
great grooves! anybody remember busta cherry
jones?

------------------
aloha, jerry

I agree with Bruce, in fact, both Fear of Music and More Songs About Building and Food are absolutely brilliant. None of the players really do anything all that impressive (except maybe Adrian Beliew) but it's the whole that is so fantastic.

My favorite T. Head's album is Remain in Light which has the coolest, deepest grooves! But I remember hearing something that due to a spat with Byrne, Weymouth didn't cut all the tracks on that album if any. Does anyone know about this?

I've said this before, but if you are interested, check out "Fear of Music" for some of the most original and inventive bass lines in rock music. Who cares about technique, for sheer musical intelligence and taste, she has to be considered a very good bassist and innovator.

OK, I can go with that.

i started out not likeing tina, but after speaking in tongues, i had to give her props!great grooves! anybody remember busta cherry
jones?

------------------
aloha, jerry


Yeah, Busta Jones (great name for a funk bassist BTW! :D ) was pulled into the Talking Heads for the Remain In Light tour (though AFAIK, Tina did cut the bass tracks on the original album), but Tina was less than thrilled at the idea of 2 bassists in the same band, so she would play extra synth or guitar parts out of necessity so Busta had room to play. She liked his playing but she was royally ticked at David Byrne for making her take a back seat (she once described the situation as like 2 kings trying to occupy the same palace).

Busta Jones recorded and toured with a ton of folks (Eno, Sharks, Gang of Four, Alvin Lee and more). He was quite the cokehead too I hear and ultimately, it cost him his life (he died sometime in the 90's)

http://www.chrisspedding.com/session/bj/bj.htm

Check out their last album, "Naked". If it's her playing, I say she is pretty great by my standards.

In my opinion technique is sometimes overated. Jamerson used only one finger on his right hand. Prestia uses basically two on his left! I'll admit great technique is impressive to watch, but I'll take listening to a great groove eveytime!

Wow - over a 5 -year gap in posts!! :eek:

That has to be a record for ressurrecting the dead!! ;)

I just like the way she moves her hips ...

I love her playing. She created her own type of -thumpy funk- that many, many a bassist are still copying to this day.

necromancing old threads is fun

In my opinion technique is sometimes overated. Jamerson used only one finger on his right hand. Prestia uses basically two on his left! I'll admit great technique is impressive to watch, but I'll take listening to a great groove eveytime!

exactly!

Tina is amazing!! She put me over the top on being a versitile player by using a pick. On "Stop Making Sense" the best groove is "Making Flippy Floppy" IMHO. She has groove for days. Isn't that what bass is about?
;)

I remember her saying in an interview that she approaches fingerstyle like classical guitar. Sometimes using the thumb if that answers your question about her unorthadox style.

Im starting to really get into Talking Heads, and I love Tina's funky grooving bass lines. I especially dig her bass line on the song called Life During Wartime.

I read an interview with her some years back. Snippets
of it return.

"I never played bass before ... I let David mold me ... I played
whatever he told me to."

I guess the genius was the puppet master.

I started listening to the talking heads not to long after I started playing bass and she was probably the most influencial on me at that time. Simple , yet funky lines. Contrary to alot of belief , she did play on Remain in Light. She said one night she came in the studio after a bunch of people had left and the producer or engineer begged her to record new parts instead of Eno's and Byrne's cause they werent getting the feel right. Thats from a story she tells on bassplayer magazine site.

Not to hijack the thread too much, but: At the SXSW festival last week, I saw David Byrne and Jerry Harrison hanging out together at a club. Granted, they weren't speaking to each other when I saw them, but they were separated by only a few feet, and I saw them for about 15 minutes at this spot (couldn't be a coincidence, right?). Given the legal issues Byrne had in the '90s with the other three, maybe this indicates that the rift is really between Byrne and Weymouth/Frantz. But that's mere speculation...

check her playing on "I Zimbra" i love that line.

Anybody notice how old this thread is?

BTW, the single most successful pop song to come out of the Talking Heads universe is arguably the Tom Tom Club's "Genius Of Love". Great singing and playing on that song by Tina.

BTW, the single most successful pop song to come out of the Talking Heads universe is arguably the Tom Tom Club's "Genius Of Love". Great singing and playing on that song by Tina.

That song, incidentally, was written by Adrian Belew, who never got any royalties for it. Grr.

Munji--

I met Tina in 1978 when the Talking Heads played a wedding reception for 2 of my friends. They were NOT famous yet. :ninja:

She was nice, but very unskilled technically on the bass (the white mustang). However, her simple lines were very effective, and I complemented her on the bass parts. She said she had a "bit of help," but just ultimately went with what felt right. I always admired her friendly presence and effective bass work. I wish I had gotten to know her better. :cool:

That song, incidentally, was written by Adrian Belew, who never got any royalties for it. Grr.That is co-written by Belew from the information I googled, and he does have credit for it in some instances. I wonder if he gets royalties, that song's been sampled umpteen times on hiphop and pop records. It's got to be second only to the James Brown "Funky Drummer".

I was one of the original posters on Tina way back in 2000.... Dang, I'm old.....

I was a psych major as an undergrad in the early '80's (I told you I was old!), and a book I studied back then was called "In a Different Voice" by Carol Gilligan. Gilligan postulated that women were somewhat different psychologically than men, in that they tended to form networks, whereas men tended to be more individualistic.

Listening to Tina, I heard a bassist that obviously wasn't a master of her instrument, but viewed her role in the band as being a part of a network, rather than someone who was trying to draw attention to herself. She played simple, repetitive lines that served the groove and the song.

The insight that I gained from Tina leads me to rank her in the list of my mentors, alongside Jaco, Chris Squire, Geddy Lee, John Coltrane, etc......

I started listening to the talking heads not to long after I started playing bass and she was probably the most influencial on me at that time. Simple , yet funky lines. Contrary to alot of belief , she did play on Remain in Light. She said one night she came in the studio after a bunch of people had left and the producer or engineer begged her to record new parts instead of Eno's and Byrne's cause they werent getting the feel right. Thats from a story she tells on bassplayer magazine site.

It must have been an engineer because Eno was the producer. Although, he may have begged her to redo the parts I guess. Perhaps he drew one of his cards and it said, "have somebody replay a part already redcorded by me or David"?;)

i am very interested in tina weymouth and i am obsessed with talking heads and their bass lines. as far as i am aware, tina did not compose the bass lines, david byrne told her what to play. but this does not go against her because tom tom club were slick and she must have composed the bass on those tracks.

incidentally, i instinctively played the bass with my thumb and forefinger from the moment i picked it up. then a year thereafter i saw that this is how tina played in the 70s before she switched to using a plectrum for nearly every song.

i don't really know anything about technique. the important thing to me is that is sounds good.

it is interesting to read the posts about their 1980 period with busta. i have read quotes from tina online bitching about david byrne. my guess is that by the time they were doing remain in light, tina and byrne hated each other. as we can all see in the credits of remain in light, byrne, harrison, eno and tina are all credited as having played the bass lines. david byrne was in charge of talking heads stage shows and i would hazzard a guess that he recruited busta as a provocation of war hoping that tina would be so offended that she would leave the band. watching some videos on youtube of "drugs", "i zimbra" and others from 1980, tina is not even visible! on some of the songs she's playing some weak ass little keyboard parts or just maracas and stuff. then in other cuts like "born under punches" or "the great curve" she owns the stage. very odd- i find it hilarious.

another thing about the 1980 shows on youtube- some of dollette mcdonald's vocals are awful. it might be the fault of whoever is on the mixing desk but it just doesn't sound right at all. tina's voice really complements the few songs that feature her backing vocals (especially "houses in motion", but "crosseyed and painless" and "once in a lifetime" too). anyone who agrees with me should check out the videos on youtube from about the time of stop making sense. it appears to be about a year before they recruited mabry and holt. tina and mcdonald sing "crosseyed and painless" and tina's voice is very complementary. they also sing the chorus of "once in a lifetime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOOhfS1hZVo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Be2WpaIWA8

tom tom club have a few stinkers but a track called "suboceana" is a diamond in the rough

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXOrbR6mocs

I always felt very affectionate towards Tina Weymouth, she seems like a really nice person. i've sometimes thought that she kind of got tricked into being a really cool bass player. Talking Heads were so different early on: very sparse artsy-fartsy with David Byrne playing a lot of acoustic. They were an art school band, and then the became a downtown New York art- scene band. Next thing you know, David Byrne decides they are going to get funky. The results were great, but it's not exactly what Tina originally signed up for and she adjusted with aplomb.

......And third necro of this thread. Way to go, champs!!

Yikes! After five years this thread is still ticking

G

five? I saw 2000 on the first post

A thread that is nearly 10 years old...that's ancient in internet years.

http://www.ravenswood.ws/hero/magic/images/Thread_Necromancy.jpg

Getting back to that mid-90s "Bass Player" interview referenced earlier...
If I remember correctly, the interviewer asked her about a particular track that had a signature bass line of hers, and she admitted that it was actually played by a studio assistant because her hands were too tired! I give lots of credit for admitting that. Anyway, it's hard for me to watch her play in the concert film "Stop Making Sense" without acknowledging her excellent sound, time and feel. (Even if Byrne did tell her what to play!)

If a player SOUNDS good, the player IS good - regardless of hand geometery.

OK, I'll try this one again.

Is Tina Weymouth any good? I can't tell ... I've been watching the Talking Heads' "Stop Making Sense" DVD, and it really bugs me the way the fingers on her left hand flail around like that. She seems to have a groove, but her technique is suspect. She was having trouble with articulating note lengths on a couple of the tunes. Help me out here.

Getting back to that mid-90s "Bass Player" interview referenced earlier...
If I remember correctly, the interviewer asked her about a particular track that had a signature bass line of hers, and she admitted that it was actually played by a studio assistant because her hands were too tired! I give lots of credit for admitting that. Anyway, it's hard for me to watch her play in the concert film "Stop Making Sense" without acknowledging her excellent sound, time and feel. (Even if Byrne did tell her what to play!)

There is a Bob Babbitt interview around where he says he ghosted on the first Talking Heads album.

This IS a old thread, I was still trying to preserve bandwidth when it started.:eek:

This thread is so old it has lost my avatar!! :eek:

But I did listen to "Fear of Music" the other day and I love every bass line - it still sounds great! :)

Wow, Bob Babbitt ghosted on 77? Jeez.

As far as if she recorded them or live or what, Kim Gorden from Sonic Youth said "Punk's style of bass playing was not meant to be played for over 5 years". So for Tina to maybe have a little help here and there I think if fine, especially if she did it live, which really is where it matters the most.

That being said, I dare anyone to watch Stop Making Sense and not be floored, not only by musicianship but also stage presence of all the musicians. You try running in places playing a pretty tough syncopated ostinato for 5 minutes straight and not mess up once!

Wow, Bob Babbitt ghosted on 77? Jeez.
Yeah that freaks me out too. I used to play along with that album (on vinyl) all the time. Always imagined it with Tina.:)