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Most pitiful thing youve ever seen a bassist do live

#242
kevteop said:
Mr Derek Smalls - he wrote this!
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Handyman said:
Speak of the devil...



Whether this is our beloved JimmyM, we can only speculate. :p
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I gotta love it when a thread about pitiful things bassists have done includes--out of the blue--a link to a live clip of me from July 1987! Love the Spinal Tap quote I saw later, too. :D

Why the F that clip is on YouTube, I have no idea. A lot of people love to live in the past, apparently. I was 21 at the time and had a long way to go to figure out which was my ass and which was page eight--as a player and a person. I'm there in both regards today.

Thanks for the chuckle!
 
#243
Slapping! 90% of players that attempt it should not... even if they have some skill, the tone is usually awful or it just doesn't fit the song at all... It is so often awful that it has made me entirely self-conscious about ever attempting slap parts unless I have every aspect of the tone dialed in perfectly. Just thinking about the loud clanking cutting through the mix makes my skin crawl.
 
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#248
totallyfrozen said:
Another example of why I'm never impressed when someone brags about being "self taught".
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Just as Im not impressed by those who think they're better than someone who hasn't had formal training. Most of the guys I play with are degreed, music educators, and working musicians. They dont seem to mind my being "self taught"(although not very well).
Not being able to tune your own bass is kind of pathetic though.
 
#252
ko stradivarius said:
Just as Im not impressed by those who think they're better than someone who hasn't had formal training. Most of the guys I play with are degreed, music educators, and working musicians. They dont seem to mind my being "self taught"(although not very well).
Not being able to tune your own bass is kind of pathetic though.
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Agreed. I had lessons on the bass when I was young because the music store wouldn't let me rent their bass if I didn't take lessons. I learned how to read, how to position my left hand and to use all 4 fingers. Good stuff. My poor sight reading ability was still good enough to get me the bass chair in the high school's concert band, something I'm glad I took part in for 3 years.

But I also spent a LOT of time at home with that bass learning the fretboard while trying to play along with everything that came up on the radio (ear training). If you're ate up with the bass bug and you have at least a bit of sense, you'll find some way to get good on it!

Formal training notwithstanding, if you can't tune your bass by ear when your tuner's battery dies, that tells me there's a piece of the puzzle missing.
 
#254
Jim Miller said:
I gotta love it when a thread about pitiful things bassists have done includes--out of the blue--a link to a live clip of me from July 1987! Love the Spinal Tap quote I saw later, too. :D

Why the F that clip is on YouTube, I have no idea. A lot of people love to live in the past, apparently. I was 21 at the time and had a long way to go to figure out which was my ass and which was page eight--as a player and a person. I'm there in both regards today.

Thanks for the chuckle!
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Ah, no worries, Bro. I think all live music in the late 1980's consisted entirely of tapping, lip-synch, or both! :D

Also, giant cage drum rack for the `80's metal win!
 
#255
funkytoe said:
I was judging a Battle of the Bands competition in the mid 1980's. Three piece band looking very serious (leather/chains/eye liner) made an attempt at a cover of Rush's YYZ. Half way through the song, the bassist, who was maybe 19-20 years old, became so clearly frustrated that his face began to contort. Not bass face - but like he was about to cry. Then, one minute later, he did start to cry and promptly unplugged his bass and walked off stage, leaving the guitarist and the drummer to finish the song by themselves. Of course, the other bands erupted in laughter. Never felt so bad for another bassist in my life.
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Poor guy...YYZ isn't an easy song though, and 'trying' to play it is a little stupid. You either do it properly or don't do it.
 

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