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best bass lines in punk

and Walk on by (best cover in the world ...ever,
ever, ever)

However The Stranglers were not necessarily a punk band !
Just because a band got famous between 1976-1979 it does not make them punk!

all decent music comes from blues anyway
Listen to zeppelin, hendrix, squeeze, ian dury, the who, the doors ALL PUNK!

i would listen to punk over westlife anyday!
 
Originally posted by bggeezer

However The Stranglers were not necessarily a punk band !
Just because a band got famous between 1976-1979 it does not make them punk!

all decent music comes from blues anyway
Listen to zeppelin, hendrix, squeeze, ian dury, the who, the doors ALL PUNK!

i would listen to punk over westlife anyday!

Well, this sort of continues what I was saying - all those bands you mention have good musicians and are quite clearly not punk bands - punk is about an "anti" attitude which includes being anti- musicianship.

In fact the punks in the UK would have said that bands like Led Zeppelin were exactly what they were rebelling against with their twenty-minute guitar solos etc. Punk was about, let's get up and play short fast songs, without caring about musicianship, huge sets, light shows etc.
 
Originally posted by Funk Warts
On the subject of punk rock bass players being pants - Flea defines himself as a punk rock player.

Well when the RHCPs were formed in the early 80s when Flea joined the band, he had never played bass before and they were just a punk band who couldn't play. Their first album is a bit like that and even Flea says, "the groove was missing".

So after many years of playing and getting funk influences into the music, they have clearly moved on from that and can't really be considered punk any more.
 
some of you guys have some good songs, maxwell murder by rancid... I mean you can't beat rancid for bass in punk. If you all want a kickass punk band then I'd say check out the MC5 or Velvet underground, like the founders of punk, but their from the 60s which is way back like the very begining. Really though check those bands out because they dont get credit and they were so ****ing great. (lou reed= singer of V underground, you might know some of his solo stuff.)
 
New Found Glory is awesome. Ok now to the thread, I think anything off the Pennywise cd Full Circle has good bass lines, and MXPX is great, they have so many good songs with sweet basslines that it would take me forever to list them, and even though some of you do not consider Blink 182 "punk" the bassline for Carousel is really good too. Greed Day has some very nice bass lines too, like Longview, When I Come Around and a bunch of others I'm not going to state. SO there I'm done. Now to Bruce maybe this is me being too skeptical but your attitude towards punk changed in this thread quiet severly. Before you said you wouldnt listen to any of the punk stuff someone listed because you had better things to do with your time... but then you went on to say how "punk" you were and what the music was about in the 70s (which has changed by the way). Thats just my 2 cents or whatever if anyone even cares.
 
Originally posted by Gandolf Bassist
Now to Bruce maybe this is me being too skeptical but your attitude towards punk changed in this thread quiet severly. Before you said you wouldnt listen to any of the punk stuff someone listed because you had better things to do with your time... but then you went on to say how "punk" you were and what the music was about in the 70s (which has changed by the way.

Not at all - my position hasn't changed in any way. In the 70s I played in punk bands! But nowadays I listen to Jazz, Funk, Classical Avant Garde, Afro Cuban - all sorts of world music and I can find many better things to listen to!

I thought that punk gave the music scene a big and much-needed "kick up the arse" in the late 70s, and it got me up on stage instead of standing in the audience, but that doesn't mean I need to listen to it now! :rolleyes:

It's had its 15 minutes!! :D
 
to anyone who questions the musicianship of punk bands, new or old, have a listen to "meatpuppets II" or "double nickels on the dime" by the minutemen. i think i read someone earlier who said that punks about sucking, so a good punk bassist is a contradiction in terms. i dont know where you got the idea punk rocks about being bad on your instruments, its not, its about being different, its trying new things and not doing what everyone one else is doing, you know, the mainstream.
 
I gotta agree with most of these guys.. I can't listen to much punk music.. it just wears on me.. but I can understand what its purpose is (some punks bands.. the ones I can stand) but as far as musicianship.. most of it is really bassic and just.. well. noise... But, Freemen from Rancid is an amzing bass player.. All I had to hear was Maxwell Murder to know how good he was.. case in point: I am 17, my mom is 40... she HATES punk music.. she actually likes Maxwell murder because of that bass solo... Granted she said that the genre of music he chose was a waste of his talents.. but well.. just goes to show that even in all that crap there are some pretty talented people out there who are just angry :) :eek:
 
I think that the issue here has changed from what's the best bassline in punk to one of the most commonly asked questions in modern music - What constitutes punk?

For me, what's common in all 'punk' music is a real passion for what your playing, and the band always try to be as different as possible. I don't really think that the talent has anything to do with it, when you consider that the Sex Pistols (very untalented) had a real passion, as did Jimi Hendrix (extremely talented, of course).

As far as the music goes - I think punk is a more general term now than it was when it first came out in the late 70s. Today it can be anything from NOFX to Vision Of Disorder so the best way I can think of classifying punk music is that it's guitar based, usually based around 3 or 4 chords (usually - not always I know) and is normally lyrically saying 'f**k off'. If punk rock was one thing, it would be a middle finger stuck up in the direction of society.

On the subject of punk bass players - Matt Freeman is amazing. Best punk player in my opinion.
 

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