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Overrated bass players
- Thread starter Bryan
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Avant-Garde is not a way of describing "stuff I'm not getting". It's a term generally used to describe a realm of art which is outside the current popular genre. What you are percieving as blurry notes are best expressed as "blurry notes". That's all.
I personally think Jaco is a little overated.
He's very good, don't get me wrong. He's slightly overated.
He's very good, don't get me wrong. He's slightly overated.No. Sorry, he's really influential on a certain faction of bass players, but in the mainstream sense of playing bass he has definitely not been one of the most influential. It is very easy to play bass in most styles without having been influenced by Victor Wooten to any substantial degree.
I don't like him, but I agree with you that his talent is indisputable. His influence on most everyday bassists? Ehhhh... not so much.
My god, what is everyone's problem with flurries of notes? Some people like playing really fast and you don't always HAVE to groove. I love grooving and playing flurries of notes. Lay off.
Some things sound better slower and some things sound better really fast, you don't have to go calling people useless players because they can play faster then you. You REALLY seem like a jackass.
Hey thanks!!
I'll put that in with "the greatest compliment" thread. Almost as good as when someone referred to me as a "butthole."
In whatever you do, you can play whatever you like, however you like. However, don't expect that what you're doing is always going to suit what everyone else is playing, and don't expect everyone to dig what you're playing when you're off indulging yourself.
As I've stated several times... in a pop/rock context, playing flurries of notes doesn't make you a great bass player. Playing fast does not make you a great bass player. When you're off playing your little flurries- what's holding down the bottom end? What's holding things together?
A good bass player, IMO, is not a frustrated lead guitarist. A good bass player isn't trying to show off how badass he is. A good bass player has command of the instrument and the taste to utilize his abilities in a... umm... tasteful manner.
I met Victor Wooten at Berklee back in '85. I was doing my laundry, and he was sitting there playing a Gibson Victory bass, slapping and popping and tapping and snippity-pippiting. He was a pleasant, bright, slightly buck-toothed kid- and a good deal smaller than he became a few years later! He was apologetic about his Victory bass!
Said he was saving up for something better... So I had heard of him before you told everyone who he was. FWIW.As far as your remarks, I'm also going to chime in here: It seems that all pop songs, that I can think of anyway, are played in some kind of "time", or "meter". Even Blink 182 pop songs!
And Mike Dirnt is still a sharp player even though you don't like the new material (fine). I wouldn't call him overrated- he's earned his own cred, even though he plays (*chuckle*) with a pick... like Chris Squire, Bobby Vega, Wolfgang Schmidt, Jeff Porcaro,...
And what's your point anyway? Go practice!
My Generation- a very oft-copped bass solo, and a crowd-pleaser mostly, therefore memorable... The bass line to Substitute may be simple but it carries the song... Who Are You... a good bass line is often a supportive melody, and Entwhistle has a ton of memorable ones. You (I mean the OP!
Calling Entwhistle overrated is a bit rash, and sounds uninformed- and just a bit ornery. It's like calling Jack Bruce overrated, who was one of the first (I believe I said this one time before...) guys to take the bass to a new level as a player, and deserves his cred. No, he's not God, but for some of us he got close!
It's not uninformed. It's not rash- I've given it years of listening and trying to figure out what's so genius about what he does. Perhaps a little bit of crabby old man ornery though...
In looking at the songs you've mentioned... My Generation... while it may be something as far as the first prominent bass guitar solo in a pop/rock hit... melodically, there's nothing particularly memorable about it. What he's playing during the song fits- nothing particularly groundbreaking- even for the time.
Substitute... it just rolls right with the changes- yes, it suits the song- best part is during the solo section. Nice tone though.
Who Are You... again, during the verse- it just rolls with the changes... during the chorus- it's just octaves. Yes, there's slightly more to it- but no more than Wyman pulls off in Tumblin' Dice.
To say he's got tons of memorable melodic lines, but to not be able to remember any of them? Where's his Penny Lane, or Tom Sawyer or I Was Made To Love Her or even Freebird ending?
I'm not saying Entwistle was a bad bass player- just that his rep comes from playing extraneous bits, and not playing melodic parts that support the song or move the song along.
I do actually feel Jack Bruce is overrated. I loathe his tone- but that's neither here nor there. He was an innovater in the busy bass player model, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. People tend to remember that he played very busy, and tend to ignore he played a lot of things that leave the listeners scratching their heads. Big thing with Bruce is that he played for the songs. He was great with working with Baker in creating movement. I think it would be very difficult to play with Ginger Baker- there's a whole fluid time thing there that I don't totally understand. My favorite Bruce line is from the chorus section of Deserted Cities Of The Heart. There's lots of pieces and parts that I take influence from Bruce- but I'd never want to play like him, or play with someone that plays like him. I'd also love to be able to sing in one time and play in another like he does.
I never would have agreed with that statement until a year or so ago.
I got the job playing in a Stones "tribute" band. I figured it would be a milk run, and I'd get to play those songs the way they should be played. Once you start playing those songs, you really start to comprehend the concept of "space." It's so easy to overplay Stones songs, and the kicker is- if you overplay them, you kill the song. It's an odd thing I'd never experienced before. I still constantly find myself fighting my own instinct to play more.
all bassists everywhere always
any bassist who has ever made a mistake is obviously overrated
but not nearly as overrated as musician hate threads.
IBTL?
any bassist who has ever made a mistake is obviously overrated
but not nearly as overrated as musician hate threads.
IBTL?
Melody... even the bass line to Substitute is a melody- or enough of a suggestion of one within it's context- that that's partly how I identify with it. I guess we call that a motive or a figure in practice- a melodic fragment, to be liberal!
So I guess in an argument you have me called up short on my abbreviated "memorable" list, but finally I don't think that melody is necessarily what makes a bass line; it's merely an attribute to one's playing that may or may not be outstanding. Even though "Tommy" has a nice ditty moving along on the bass... ("Tommy can you see me?...")
But the thing that made the Who work in the rhythm section was the way Entwhistle and Moon worked together- like a cripple and his helper winning a three-legged race in the Olympics. Personally I think Moon was most responsible for the sound of the Who- but that's another instrument, isn't it...
Come to think of it, I agree with you at least in part. The Ox noodled, though he was very good at it. He even said he wanted to make the bass sound like a guitar- but I still like the propulsive and forward-feeling notes of the line to Substitute. And even the octave pattern in Who Are You pushes the thing along. Despite the static ostinato, it doesn't feel static- it runs.
As far as Jack the Bruce, there's no accounting for taste. And the fact is that, like him or not, he's still going to get credit for being a groundbreaker in the suddenly expanded role of the bass, because he was a groundbreaker. It's difficult to overrate that, I think. Dig the live "Crossroads". It's good jam.
I love Jack Bruce, but some friends and I were listening to a live recording of him doing a solo. He must have been "off his horse"
, by virtue of the addling, pedestrian triplet pattern he'd gotten himself stuck in...twice... one of us finally shouted from the couch, as if from the front row of the audience, "Finish up!" 
Rate 'em high as you want, nobody's perfect. These guys still deserve their fame!
Keith Richard is also responsible for some of that Stones stuff. But I know what you mean about the economy there. It's not even the space that surprised me as much as the note choices- and where they went! Jumpin' Jack Flash ain't no garage-band sing-along. Yep, Wyman is a bad dude. So is Keith Richards, Ron Wood, and the Faces' Ronnie Lane! Check out "You're my Girl, and I Don't Want to Discuss it!" on Gasoline Alley... I digress...
Of course everything is subjective. In what you hear, how you hear, how you hear what you do...
When I listen to stuff, I listen to what's there and what I'd do, what ideas I can take, and what I'd change according to my sensibilities- regardless of my talent to do so.
Regarding melody and basslines... It's not a requirement, nor is creating movement, nor holding time or even being there. But the good ones do.
What I hear in Entwistle is that he plays pretty ordinary lines, punctuated by his little "solo" bits and extraneous flourishes... In doing so, he leaves the guitar and drums out alone on changes, robbing changes of their power for the sake of the the standout solo bits.
Imagine a painter that's a decent artist, but he excels at painting... dogs. The artist is provided with breathtaking backdrops that he could add all kinds of detail to and really relate that to the canvas and bring it to life... but then paints an OK picture of the scenery and puts most of his effort into putting dogs into the pictures he paints... Regardless of whether there's supposed to be a dog there or not.
But they're really nice looking dogs.
Keith Richards is mostly responsible for that weird Stones groove- in the construction of the songs. With "JJF" you can't play the riff and have the song move like it does- If you do- it ends up like Peter Frampton's version of it. Conversely, the run during the chorus is really important in keeping that moving.
Really? I don't think there is a bass player alive who doesn't know who Victor Wooten is or atleast know his name. You can't say that about most professional bassists. Even if he hasn't inluenced you personally (which doesn't mean being a VW cloan) he has influenced the bass community in one way or another like no one since Jaco. If not Vic please tell me who?
I've been playing rock music for nearly 30 years.
I couldn't tell you a single Victor Wooten tune. A single song Wooten played on. I know what he looks like. He's a complete non-factor in anything I have ever done.
So mainstream popularity has to do with talent? That's what I'm basically getting from your posts.
Hell, I know a ton of people who don't know who Jaco is still.
Hell, I know a ton of people who don't know who Jaco is still.
Me. lol. Everyone i know thinks im better than i am.
but gosh...um, Flea and Sheehan. Sheehan just a tad, he's still tons awesome
but gosh...um, Flea and Sheehan. Sheehan just a tad, he's still tons awesome
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