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brad smith of blind melon

steviecsg

steviecsg

Aug 16, 2002
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#1
you gotta check this guy out,
his bass lines are so funky and well thought of.

does anyone know what his gear and playing style is?
does he play with a pick?

on the blind album bee girl sleeve, hes playing a fender jazz and a jazz special (aka duff mckagan).
 
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#5
blind melon is and was a great band. brad smith is an excellent bass player. he played jazz basses mostly, never seen him with a p-bass. he may have a tele bass, not sure and then he played some kind of hollowbody gibson bass and a standup bass for acoustic stuff. he used to have trace elliot amps and cabs, then got ampeg gear. he used some kind of distortion and he plays both plec and fingers. get their dvd letter from a porcupine, some very good shots of him and his gear.
 
#6
zongeek said:
blind melon is and was a great band. brad smith is an excellent bass player. he played jazz basses mostly, never seen him with a p-bass. he may have a tele bass, not sure and then he played some kind of hollowbody gibson bass and a standup bass for acoustic stuff. he used to have trace elliot amps and cabs, then got ampeg gear. he used some kind of distortion and he plays both plec and fingers. get their dvd letter from a porcupine, some very good shots of him and his gear.
Click to expand...


He also played in Unified Theory after the passing of Shannon. They made one album, excellent by the way. After that he wrote and recorded for his band, Abandon Jalopy.

Blind Melon was a huge influence on my expansion of my musical ear. Great, great band. I can't say enough about them.
 
#9
BM does "No Rain" on the SNL 25 Years Of Music 5-DVD set.
That is one tune I keep re-visiting whenever I feel the urge to pop this set in.

On this DVD, Smith is playing a natural wood Jazz w/ no pickguard. He's playing with his fingers near the bridge.
I was impressed with BM in that they seemed to be a throwback to the '60s/early '70s Hippie-Era of jamming...a lost art, IMO.

It's also eerie listening/watching Hoon do his thing on this performance.
I guess he was serious when he said "My life is pretty lame" & "Escape...we all need one".
 
#10
Great to hear some Blind Melon shouts out there. I thought they were a long forgotten band. I couldn't hear enough of Soup when it came out. Brads playing was so funky and tight. Well thought out lines. Our band used to cover 2x4 at my suggestion and at first the other guys were saying stuff like "Not that Bee girl thing!" but when they listened to the album they really appreciated it and got on board with the idea. I gotta dig through my old tapes now...........
 
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#11
for some reason his tone was more in your face in the first album. trebly if you would say, almost slap like. check out 'tones of home' and 'time' (the last song)...if i might assume, those songs were played with a pick?

ive checked out the nico album, it has videos of him playing jazz basses on dear ol dad and no rain.

my favorite BM song is 'changes' which is also one of my all time favorite songs.
 
#13
not to sidetrack, but i popped "Blind Melon" back in and I also forgotten how much I love the guitarists. I remember hearing them warm up when they were Unified Theory and just hearing them jam. It was so amazing to hear how well they played with each other, complimenting each other instead of trying to draw attention and the skill...wow...such versatility throughout the whole band.

Below is probably the most comprehensive and my FAVORITE Blind Melon web site, it has more than you'll expect.
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"And as we all play parts of tomorrow,
some ways will work and other ways we’ll play
But I know we all can’t stay here forever,
so I want to write my words on the face of today and then they’ll paint it..."
 
#15
Well, Unified Theory was a different front. Without Shannon you can't rightly carry on anything like Blind Melon. It just wouldn't be right. There are some great tracks on there and they took me some getting used to, just like Blind Melon did when I first heard them. "Not Dead" and "Cessna" are two great songs from that album.
 
#16
i think unified theory were a great band. i got to see them live 3 times and that really sealed the deal for me. chris shinn is an amazing singer.

in unified theory brad favored a gibson lespaul recording bass. he used an ampeg svt 4 pro and a custom loaded 8x10 cab.
 
#17
I think one of the things that made Melon so likeable was the fact that they were able to appeal to jam-heads and "alternative" (the term used at the time) music fans alike. Their sound was very organic and they possessed the spirit of some of the better jam-oriented bands, but they never went full blown into a "spacey" or noodly jam, choosing instead to keep things tight, even during the solos. Maybe you could say that they did more with a 3 minute jam than a lot of bands do with a 15-minute jam.
 

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