Jah Wobble

[MR PC]

Can anyone comment on MR PC's assertion that the company was not making amps in 1980?

Relax....it's just trivia, after all. From the Wilki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warwick_(bass_guitar)

"Warwick is a bass guitar company from Germany that's founded in 1982 by Hans-Peter Wilfer."

The "W" on the amp could have been an "M" upside down.

I'm more interested in the fact that the man has survived some pretty crazy social scenes playing music.

 

[geezerjpj]

Anybody familiar with the Damage Manual? Jah Wobble with Martin Atknison and Geordie Walker from Killing Joke plus Chris Connelly of Revco, Ministry, Pigface fame all together as an industrial super group.

This song fairly kills..the other stuff is kind of meh.



Edit: It has a cool "When The Levee Breaks" quality to it sort of.

Jah Wobble rules!

 

[The Lurker]

So far as I know, he used the Ampeg and a series of Pbasses with PiL and until the mid-80s, when he took his hiatus from music.

He got the Ovations in the late 80s, and those have been his main instruments since then.

His preferred amp/recording setup is to have an SVT with 8x10" put so the speakers are facing a wall, and putting the mic behind the cab.

His autobiography comes out in November.....

 

[MakiSupaStar]

I like his Damage Manual stuff.

 

[MR PC]

His preferred amp/recording setup is to have an SVT with 8x10" put so the speakers are facing a wall, and putting the mic behind the cab.

His autobiography comes out in November.....

Both very useful bits of info! thanks.

 

[The Lurker]

Both very useful bits of info! thanks.

I should rephrase that-- he used to do it that way. More recently, from an interview on the 30Hz website, he DIs stuff because it's quicker.

Also, I got most of what I said above from a Bass Guitar (the UK one) magazine interview from aInvalid Link Removed

 

[The Lurker]

Incidentally, I'm reading his book right now. It's fascinating. It's a proper autobiography with a lot of stuff about growing up in postwar East London, abusive Catholic schools, how hard it was to get a job under Thatcher because of the union busting, etc., and not just the "made a record, adoring crowds, debauchery, someone dies, rehab" cycle that's the spine of most musician bios.

When he dropped out of music in the mid-80s (after making twelve records in eight years!) the first thing he did was sell his bass and put the money through his wife's mail-slot while he went off to get sober. The second thing he did was get a job. Ozzy could have learned from this.

I'm trying to find some of his early '80s stuff-- Psalms, Neon Moon, etc-- but they've been out of print so long that most people don't even know they exist.

 

[dorfmeister]

Anybody know if he used roundwound or flatwound strings. Would seem to me that flatwounds would help get the tone he gets but I don't know.

 

[getbent]

I'd guess that he's using flatwounds, but it's ultimately all in the hands. I saw him play in Chicago around 2005 and he had a rented P bass and SVT and it sounded just like him. Met him after the show and he was the very definition of "affable bloke".

 

[cracked_machine]

The Psychic Life record he did with Julie Campbell in 2011 was excellent, in case anyone is wondering.

 

[leegreenman]

I've only really heard his stuff with PIL. Pretty intense stuff. Maybe the lines are technically simple, but there's nothing easy about accurately coping that feel.

 

[Michedelic]

Big Wobble fan here. I first saw him around '81 with a fairly large band that included trombonist Annie Whitehead. He was using an Ovation Magnum bass IIRC, and had broken a string, and had no spares. A friend of mine who was in the opening band came to the rescue by taking one off of his bass! Amplification was SVT. The venue was a VFW hall in Kansas City. JW had done some brilliant EP's around that time with the guys from Krautrock icons Can and U2's Edge. I later saw him at a WOMAD festival in 1993 near LA. Still great; he was on a roll during that time period. Did an interesting album with Brian Eno called "Spinner". There's hours of stuff on Youtube, of course; here's something with Dolores from the Cranberries to get you started...

 

[Killed_by_Death]

11-Aug-58
Wobble is born John Wardle: