See...Now you're thinking of Michael Jackson, and he just mostly picked up young boys...Until his secrets were revealed.
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Let's spread some musical misinformation
- Thread starter pklima
- Start date
Sometimes off-white, sometimes pearlescent, sometimes even looks metallic gray...really depends on the light...kinda comes in spurts.
So, Richard Simmons took the job and he taught Sweating to the Oldies 101
The 5-string bass was not, as some think, developed from the use of synth-bass in foppish New Romantic 80s bands. Quite the opposite; it came from the dark obsession with mind-alteration in Thrash Metal. Whereas the guitarists spent heavily on amphetamines, which made the riffs sound quite melodic to the player at least, the bassists found that just playing the thick string no further than the 3rd fret - while pushing the body of the instrument into their groin - allowed them to drool in a world of their own (usually at far left of the stage behind the PA cab).
Like any substance abuse, tolerance set in and Hipshot extended the depravity by releasing the D'Tuner. The scrotal flobbling caused by the reduction from 41Hz to 37Hz allowed them to corner the market. That was until some unscrupulous lab geeks came up with the idea of a 5th, even thicker string that wasn't limited to D but could go right down to 31Hz. Cleverly, they marketed the invention as "B C Rich" to promote the two extra-low notes.
Hipshot sent out their bulls to take down the geeky rivals invading their patch but the shadowy nerds simply created the plausible sounding character "Bernardo Chavez Rico" as their Boss Man that Hipshot, of course, never found. Still, the turf wars - and the gonadal injuries suffered by stupefied Thrash bassists - alarmed the Senate, who passed the Needlessly Pointy Bass Bodies Act, which (like Bitrex in meths) discouraged pressing the BC Rich into the groin. Soon, the 5th string fell into disuse and became a handy thumbrest.
Like any substance abuse, tolerance set in and Hipshot extended the depravity by releasing the D'Tuner. The scrotal flobbling caused by the reduction from 41Hz to 37Hz allowed them to corner the market. That was until some unscrupulous lab geeks came up with the idea of a 5th, even thicker string that wasn't limited to D but could go right down to 31Hz. Cleverly, they marketed the invention as "B C Rich" to promote the two extra-low notes.
Hipshot sent out their bulls to take down the geeky rivals invading their patch but the shadowy nerds simply created the plausible sounding character "Bernardo Chavez Rico" as their Boss Man that Hipshot, of course, never found. Still, the turf wars - and the gonadal injuries suffered by stupefied Thrash bassists - alarmed the Senate, who passed the Needlessly Pointy Bass Bodies Act, which (like Bitrex in meths) discouraged pressing the BC Rich into the groin. Soon, the 5th string fell into disuse and became a handy thumbrest.
The down-tuning craze was driven by guitar players.
As noted, it was metal guitar players that pushed bass players to move to five strings. Then down-tuning put bass players into A standard 5 string basses (ADGCF). From there, bass players have been pushed into Drop G 5 strings. Some have moved back to four strings but have kept the drop G tuning.
All of these down tunings have meant that amps and PAs could no longer carry the bass frequencies (and were unlikely to be heard even if they could). Guitar players have promulgated the fiction that "you can never hear the fundamental; psycho-acoustics means that your brain fills it in".
This has relieved drummers from sitting beside the mixer and instructing that "the bass should be another 3db lower"
Finally, the true story can be told: Bill Wyman was fired by the Rolling Stones for marching to the beat of Van Halen's drummer.
Eddie Van Halen always wanted to play bass. As did Alex. They compromised; neither would play bass.
When the Van Halen family were still living in The Netherlands, Eddie and Alex both played the kazoo. When they moved to the US, they had to drop the kazoo, as those weren't allowed in the US back then.
On an old video I can't find anymore, Eddie did a kazoo solo that was ....well, it was like an eruption or something!
Kazoo is one of the traditional Dutch folk instruments. The other traditional Dutch folk instrument is, of course, the bagpipes. The Scots claim the bagpipes as their own but they were imported from the Netherlands.
