Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

[ugly_bassplayer]

I had a good friend who guided me through my entry into the death metal world, and he always looked at producers and engineers to guide his future purchases. At the time I thought he was nuts, and that the band made all the magic. I wish I had paid attention sooner.

Or the "cassette or CD" .....depending on the $$ saved up......

7$ extra for the cd.....I'll take the cassette.....

 

[steubig]

the following a thread of associations and “schools” was really an important thing for me. found out about a lot of amazing music that way.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

the following a thread of associations and “schools” was really an important thing for me. found out about a lotmod amazing music that way.

Definitely some detective work involved if you where passionate about finding new stuff.
I had a blast doing that. Nerd ta cu lar.
I was the go to guy for mixtapes.
Had one of the first double speed tape recorders.

 

[dukeorock]

different strokes.

phil alvin sang well. i saw rhe blasters, who i think were okay, but they had hollywood fats sitting in. he was the real deal.

but them you had top jimmy, who imo was terrible.

yeah, Jimmy was just a funny character on the scene. I have a certain affection for the Blasters and love Phil’s voice. Fats was next level

Been away on vacation (imagine that! In the year of the plague/quarantine, my wife found the one place with a lower infection rate than NYC that was both a bona fide vacation town and accessible without having to fly or take public transportation!) so I'm just catching up on this thread. Apologies if these topics are already antiquated...but fwiw:

I too was a prog nerd in my early teens, who then transformed into fusion nerd by the end of high school...but in my freshman year at the Berklee College of Music I became so disgusted with the judgmental "Chops Are Good...But Only Certain Chops" attitude that seemed to prevail that out of mostly defiance I embraced the punk rock stuff that was starting to get some traction. (I think the straw that broke the camel's back for me was when my Harmony 102 professor took an impromptu poll to find out what everyone listened to, and the most popular acts by a long shot were Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers.) The thing is, yeah, some of that late 70s punk rock was primitive musically...and some of it was brilliantly sophisticated in spite of itself. The saying "You Need To Know The Rules Before You Can Break The Rules" was laughed at by the best of the punk and post-punk artists, and so while my initial embrace of the genre was mostly to thumb my nose at academic authority, I became quite enamored of some of the acts because their music held its own on multiple levels with the academically sanctioned acts [sic] that I'd thought punk was supposed to be rebelling against.

Oh, and here's my favorite Bad Brains story: Sometime in the late 1970s -- I'm pretty sure it was '77, but it might have been '78 -- my buddy Geoff, who was the oldest one of my stoner friends and so the only one who had his own car and unlimited access to it, said "Hey, we should drive into Manhattan and check out one of these punk-rock bands!" (We'd grown up in suburbia 20 miles north of Manhattan; a trip to NYC was always an event. A trip to NYC without parental accompaniment, at night, to see a band, was like the Holy Grail.)
I immediately say "Sure. What band?"
Geoff had somehow found a copy of The Village Voice, and purely based on the name, we decided to go see a band called Noise R Us.
We'd never heard anything by them, just figured with a name like Noise R Us it should be epic. They were scheduled to play a club (bar?) called The Botony Talkhouse. (If you Google that now every hit is an excerpt from some book about Sonic Youth.)
So we drive down to Manhattan in Geoff's turd-brown land yacht and go to the Botony Talkhouse and saddle up to the bar -- btw, regardless of whether this was ''77 or '78 I was still under the legal drinking age in New York at the time -- we order up some adult beverages, and sit back to see what Noise R Us is all about.
We never found out. Because apparently the Voice ad was wrong, or the booking folks screwed up, something, Noise R Us were not going to play that night.
Instead it was some act we'd (also) never heard of, a quartet from Washington DC called Bad Brains.

Ho.
Lee.
Crap.

The Botony Talkhouse was maybe 15 feet wide and 35 feet long. Stage is on the narrow wall. There couldn't have been more than 20 people in the entire audience...because they couldn't have fit more than 30 total. And Bad Brains just blew that little room apart ...as well as blowing the top of everyone's head clean off. I have extremely vivid recollections of Dr. Know and HR literally scaling the walls of the Botony, like they had found a way to defy gravity and were doing so as a way to escape the confines of that tiny space. My wee teenage brain had never experienced an energy like that. Driving home from Manhattan the only words Geoff could say were "Damn... damn..." Over and over and over.

awesome story! Love Bad Brains

aja for me starts to get into gaucho territory.

never dug pink floyd, especially after dark side.

Steely Dan? Yeah, I dunno. Can think of a couple clever tunes, but overall just too clinical to me.

Pink Floyd? As a long time recording/production nerd I had to give them their due. Dark Side is a masterpiece from a production point of view. That said, I’ve listened to it all the way through maybe three times. I think I admire it more than enjoy it. Thought Animals and Wish You Were Here we’re good too. Hated The Wall when it came out and haven’t paid attention since, though I’m sure there’s some good stuff in there.
I remember really liking Roger Waters “The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking” when it came out, but not sure I’d feel the same way now. I wonder a lot about that. How does certain music currently hold up to my memories of it from 30+ years ago? Oregon? Gonna go look em up to see

 

[Spectrum]

When I was growing up in the 80s I got sick of Pink Floyd due to overplay on the radio. Later I was introduced to their earlier stuff, like Atom Heart Mother, Medal, and so on, and became a huge fan. I was then able to give Dark Side another chance and now I really love it and understand why their mid 70s stuff was so good. The Wall is...well...it's impressive but I don't get much enjoyment out of listening to it. Roger's daddy issues were taking over the band and it started getting insufferable. By the time Animals came out the music was still good but the themes were so depressing, and the mood-lifting magic of the pre-Dark Side era was well and truly dead. But their catalog has lots of great stuff buried in it, including unreleased stuff.

In particular, their two soundtrack albums, "Obscured by Clouds" and "More" are basically two "secret" PF albums that I love.

 

[Passinwind]

Oregon? Gonna go look em up to see

I saw them play live several years ago and they were easily as great as ever, or at least as great as the post-Collin Wolcott bands.

 

[dukeorock]

I saw them play live several years ago and they were easily as great as ever, or at least as great as the post-Collin Wolcott bands.

I just watched a live show from 1975 and listened to a couple album tracks. It’s kinda like I remembered...really good, but rarely something I’d want to listen too. Always loved the guitar player (Ralph Towner?)

 

[dukeorock]

Also revisited that Roger Waters record I mentioned. It’s pretty terrible to me now

 

[Passinwind]

I just watched a live show from 1975 and listened to a couple album tracks. It’s kinda like I remembered...really good, but rarely something I’d want to listen too. Always loved the guitar player (Ralph Towner?)

Yeah, I don't really listen to a lot of their recorded stuff these days, but I loved them live for the aspect of doing actual improv at a really high level. Towner was always a pretty legit keyboard player too, and he used synths a fair bit in the later years of Oregon as a band. I've probably mentioned mixing Paul McCandless in a tiny club with a newgrass band, that was truly mind blowing.

 

[Passinwind]

Also revisited that Roger Waters record I mentioned. It’s pretty terrible to me now

Funny how that works. I loved Floyd pre-DSOTM, saw the pre-release tour when it was still called Eclipse, then eventually two more shows featuring it. By the third time I found it extremely boring, and the fact that they were using tracks didn't help any.

And truth be told, I find that way too many bands seem to wear out their welcome by their third album, which may say more about me than them!

 

[steubig]

yeah, Jimmy was just a funny character on the scene. I have a certain affection for the Blasters and love Phil’s voice. Fats was next level



Steely Dan? Yeah, I dunno. Can think of a couple clever tunes, but overall just too clinical to me.
Oregon? Gonna go look em up to see

i wasn’t into the scenester aspect of jimmy and his guys “playing blues.”

phil: great voice.

i saw fats sit in with albert king when he was 16. played both sets. being 13-14, i was very impressed. a friend knew him from rehab. had a sad end.

i get the dan being too clean. especially as then went along. my fave is royal scam, a lot of that has to do with rainey and purdie being all over it.

i didn’t like oregon as much as some of my friends. glen moore is a badass, though. great bass player. i’m more into ralph’s solstice albums (with eberhard weber).

 

[steubig]

and i need to check out early floyd.

 

[Passinwind]

i didn’t like oregon as much as some of my friends. glen moore is a badass, though. great bass player. i’m more into ralph’s solstice albums (with eberhard weber).

Both Glen and Eberhard were and still are big influences for me. A few of my friends studied with Glen when he was living in Portland and one guy in particular really blossomed from the experience.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

and i need to check out early floyd.

 

[steubig]

lol

 

[dukeorock]

i wasn’t into the scenester aspect of jimmy and his guys “playing blues.”

phil: great voice.

i saw fats sit in with albert king when he was 16. played both sets. being 13-14, i was very impressed. a friend knew him from rehab. had a sad end.

Fats w/ Albert King?! That would be amazing. I saw Fats play with James Harmon at a little club in Pasadena called The Ice House. My first job was at that club

 

[emjazz]

When I was growing up in the 80s I got sick of Pink Floyd due to overplay on the radio. Later I was introduced to their earlier stuff, like Atom Heart Mother, Medal, and so on, and became a huge fan. I was then able to give Dark Side another chance and now I really love it and understand why their mid 70s stuff was so good. The Wall is...well...it's impressive but I don't get much enjoyment out of listening to it. Roger's daddy issues were taking over the band and it started getting insufferable. By the time Animals came out the music was still good but the themes were so depressing, and the mood-lifting magic of the pre-Dark Side era was well and truly dead. But their catalog has lots of great stuff buried in it, including unreleased stuff.

In particular, their two soundtrack albums, "Obscured by Clouds" and "More" are basically two "secret" PF albums that I love.

I did NOT know about this. This is great!

 

[steubig]

Fats w/ Albert King?! That would be amazing. I saw Fats play with James Harmon at a little club in Pasadena called The Ice House. My first job was at that club

it was at a small club called the ash grove (the og one on melrose, not the one on the pier), so we were about 20 feet away.

the ash grove had most of the blues acts come through (though bb king was too big for them) as well as folk pickers and so forth. a real education.

 

[HotelX]

and i need to check out early floyd.

Their first album sounds completely different than anything else they ever released. I like it a lot overall.

 

[steubig]

yeah. i’m aware. i saw some live at pompei (?) thing on pbs when i was a teenager. remember it seemed interesting, but didn’t follow up in it.