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Colin Moulding anyone?

#21
2 more thumbs up for Colin here!!!!
His arrangements are always beautifully thought out and melodic and his actual playing as well as his singing and writing is amazing.
I have a real soft spot for all the "McCartney'ish" players (I just use that term because Paul was the first person I heard play that way).
Other players in that type of style if you have not heard them are,

Bruce Thomas (from Elvis Costello & the Attractions).
Graham Maby (with Joe Jackson, Nick Lowe or Marshall Crenshaw).
Dee Murray (on the earlier Elton John albums).
The guy from the band "Squeeze" (his name escapes me at present).
These guys all have their own take on that style but they're all worth a listen.
I'm sure there are many greats that I am missing
 
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#22
Moulding all the way...I only recently noticed the great basslines (starting with 'Greenman' from their first Apple Venus album), though I've been listening to XTC for many years. And maybe that's the thing: He doesn't show off, but if you really listen to it, his playing is always inventive while perfectly complementing and carrying the tune. He also writes great songs, of course.
 
#25
The quiet man of XTC, very inventive and melodic and a great updated kind of McCartney approach (though Colin has his own style), Oranges and Lemons is a psychedelic feast of goodness and top notch writing IMO.
 
#29
Colin is a consumate bass player. A lot of 1980's New Wave and late Punk players get overlooked because so many dismiss the style of music.

I'm having a senior moment right now, and can't remember his name, but Huey Lewis' bass player also played on Elvis Costello stuff as well and he has just about everything going for him that a bass player would want. Darn I'm jealous...
 
#30
TRichardsbass said:
Colin is a consumate bass player. A lot of 1980's New Wave and late Punk players get overlooked because so many dismiss the style of music.

I'm having a senior moment right now, and can't remember his name, but Huey Lewis' bass player also played on Elvis Costello stuff as well and he has just about everything going for him that a bass player would want. Darn I'm jealous...
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+1 Do you mean Bruce Thomas from Elvis Costello? He was/is excellent, 'Olivers Army' amongst others has some interesting harmony on bass and is/was a tricky little line to remember when I used to play it live (a while ago now).
 
#35
Keeping the thread alive, I've been listening to Colin Moulding since '78.
When the 'Black Sea' lp came out, I was paying strict attention. While its difficult to pick any one effort over another, I envy his work on 'Nonsuch' most. Second, would be the Apple Venus box, followed by Skylarking. He is a player who truly inspires those who are listening carefully. Incredibly, he is mostly overlooked, not unlike his former bandmate, guitarist Dave Gregory. I truly would like to see these 3 collaborate once again.
 
#36
Sorry for resuscitating this thread (although Mr. Moulding does deserve more recognition than he gets), but I see it mentioned here that he played an Ibanez Musician fretless. I'd always thought it was a fretless Pbass - can anyone corraoborate/confirm what kind of fretless he used on English Settlement?
 
#37
jaywa said:
"Mayor of Simpleton," nuff said. There's about three years worth of practical bass lessons in that song alone if you really dig into it.
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Even just the little ideas in that song are great, such as a descending figure at one point. Each note is doubled up for extra subtle spice and swung nicely. It's only four different pitches, just so well done.
 
#39
-Asdfgh- said:
Even just the little ideas in that song are great, such as a descending figure at one point. Each note is doubled up for extra subtle spice and swung nicely. It's only four different pitches, just so well done.
Click to expand...


Sorry to burst the bubble here...as it was to me last week teading an interview with A. Partridge. Ready?....Mr. Partridge wrote and played the bass line to "Mayor of Simpleton. " I'll look for the interview later and share link.
Colin Moulding is definitely in the top 5 of MY most inspiring bassists. But the bass line brought up most of XTC is not Colin nor Carol Kaye for that matter.
 
#40
Dan80sMan said:
Sorry to burst the bubble here...as it was to me last week teading an interview with A. Partridge. Ready?....Mr. Partridge wrote and played the bass line to "Mayor of Simpleton. " I'll look for the interview later and share link.
Colin Moulding is definitely in the top 5 of MY most inspiring bassists. But the bass line brought up most of XTC is not Colin nor Carol Kaye for that matter.
Click to expand...
Actually, it is indeed Moulding playing the MoS bassline but Andy did indeed write it:

Todd Bernhardt: Back to the song -- let's talk about the bass line.

Andy Partridge: Yeah! I'm going to be immodest, because this is part of my drive toward immodesty this year...

TB: Well, the line is yours, after all! It's obvious -- it's there on the demo.

AP: [chuckles] People do these survey things, and say, "Let's vote for Colin's best bass line" or something, and they don't realize that the two bass lines they vote for -- "Vanishing Girl" and "Mayor of Simpleton" -- it's me playing bass on "Vanishing Girl"...

TB: Oh, I didn't know that.

AP: Yeah. Or "What in the World?" -- that's me playing bass as well.

TB: Get out of here!

AP: That's me on bass -- Colin's on rhythm guitar.

TB: And you came up with that bass line?

AP: Yeah.

TB: That's funny -- I've always thought that was him channeling McCartney.

AP: No, we had to cut it live. He obviously couldn't play the bass and the rhythm guitar, and I didn't know how the chords went, so instead of him teaching me the chords, I said, "Look, you play the chords, I'll play the bass, and we'll get this thing done before lunchtime!"

But the one they mention is "Mayor," and Colin had to work very hard to get that bass line. It's very precise. It took me a long time to work it out, because I wanted to get into the J.S. Bach mode of each note being the perfect counterpoint to where the chords are and where the melody is. The bass is the third part in the puzzle.

TB: You do that a lot in your songs.

AP: Yeah, it's a compulsion. On many of the songs I don't tell him which exact notes to play, but with this one, I said, "You have to play this bass line, because it's taken me weeks to work this out." I went through and worked it out a note at a time, to go with where the vocal note was at, where the implied guitar chords were, where the actual notes of the guitar being twanged to make that implied chord were. It was built scientifically, it was [laughs] precision-engineered so that every note is in the perfect place. And I think Colin liked the bass line, because we talked about it sounding like a collegiate peal of bells.

TB: Why did you feel you needed that kind of driving bass line in there?

AP: To keep the song moving, moving, moving. I wanted it to have a fleetness of foot, a joyousness to it. I used to love running as a kid -- in fact, I still dream of running. If I ran now, I'd die of a heart attack in about 30 steps [laughs], but I used to love running, and got really high on it as a kid. I wanted this track to have a sense of fleet forward movement, so the bass had to be very propulsive. The guitars are doing that kind of [sings guitar pattern] -- they almost sound sequenced, but they're not. They're played. I wanted the bass to move against that continuous arpeggio. And of course the drums locked into that as well, with the bass drum really hammering along.

So yeah, it was tough for Colin to get, but he did get it, because we played it live during the radio tour we did, where he would play that line on the acoustic guitar.
 
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