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Richard Sinclair Jazz Bass mod

#41
Chrisk-K said:
It’s a Jazz Bass mutation rather than mod.
Click to expand...

Well put. Another Canterbury player and singer, the great John Greaves also had his white Jazz "mutated" quite radically:
1978_john__pip.jpeg


Not to sidetrack the thread ('though it's my party and...) but I've always loved John's songwriting and feel that his song "Squarer For Maud" is probably the best tune National Health did. The album "Kew Rhone" with Peter Blegvad and Lisa Herman is also great.
 
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#43
SDC1-ClickClack said:
Their medley of "Your Majesty Is Like A Cream Donut/Oh What A Lonely Lifetime/Big John Wayne Socks Psychology On The Jaw," recorded around the same time as the sessions for The Rotters Club, remains 6:09 of pure bliss for me after all these years. Turn it up to be sure you don't miss the quiet stuff.


Pip Pyle and Phil Miller, R.I.P.
Click to expand...


It's available on the Esoteric Records reissue of the first album, not on the second as I wrote earlier.
The "Hatwise Choise" and "Hattitude" live and radio session compilations are great too and recommended.
I wish there were more recordings of the Sinclair And The South gig he did with Bill Bruford, John Murphy on guitar, cousin Dave on keyes and Dave Arbus on violin (IIRC).
The video is a compilation from different sources but the audio is very good and it's clearly Bruford on drums:
 
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#44
CAMEL | IconicPix Music Archive

Looks like the body has a darker wood "strip" in the middle so maybe this is the original body and when Richard has settled on a pickup configuration the strip has been put on to cover the old pickup holes. And later the whole body has been refinished?
The "Breathless" inner sleeve photo I posted has the original body with all the holes from pickup experiments and the neck defretted. The link's picture is from "Breathless" tour but the neck has frets. Maybe he installed the frets again for the tour or had another Jazz neck?
 
#45
PhR75 said:
One of my favourite bass sounds is on Hatfield & The North's "The Rotters' Club" album from 1975. The bassist is Richard Sinclair and I used to wonder about his sound compared to the recordings he did before and after that album (Caravan, Hatfield's debut, Camel etc.). He usually had a prominent Jazz Bass bridge pickup sound in his tone but on this album it sounds more like a P-bass but with a nod towards a Rickenbacker bridge pickup.
Eventually I found out that he had assembled a Gibson minihumbucker between the usual J pickups (and removing the J pickups altogether)
:View attachment 4974646 View attachment 4974647

Here is how it sounds on the album:


Well, I have a hacked cheap J bass body so I gave it a go. The pickup is an OBL J-humbucker, the assembly is still rough but the sound is very much there. The location is about 30,5 cm from 12th fret to the edge of a pickup, a bit more north were a Stingray pickup would be.
View attachment 4974650


Here's a soundclip of a very approximately played Hatfield bassline. With a harder touch you can get a very good Ric bridge pickup simulation (the location is about the same).
Click to expand...

You’re aware that he plays fretless?

Was introduced to ‘Caravan’ back in ‘81. And then later discovered he was on a few ‘Camel’ albums.

Got all the old vinyl. Always preferred his singing to Pye Hastings.
 
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#48
B-Mac said:
You’re aware that he plays fretless?

Was introduced to ‘Caravan’ back in ‘81. And then later discovered he was on a few ‘Camel’ albums.

Got all the old vinyl. Always preferred his singing to Pye Hastings.
Click to expand...

Yes, of course. He started to play fretless (on albums) about when he joined Camel and went full on to fretless in the 80's I think.

I prefer his singing too to Pye or Andy Latimer. Or sometimes to anyones.
 
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#49
PhR75 said:
CAMEL | IconicPix Music Archive

Looks like the body has a darker wood "strip" in the middle so maybe this is the original body and when Richard has settled on a pickup configuration the strip has been put on to cover the old pickup holes. And later the whole body has been refinished?
The "Breathless" inner sleeve photo I posted has the original body with all the holes from pickup experiments and the neck defretted. The link's picture is from "Breathless" tour but the neck has frets. Maybe he installed the frets again for the tour or had another Jazz neck?
Click to expand...


I'm thinking he took his Hatfield-era Jazz Bass and routed out the centre section of the body, then inlaid the centre block. That body appeared to gain a second clear lacquer prior to this as well. Richard's parents apparently had a carpentry business, so they probably had all the tools and knowledge to make it work.
 
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#50
PhR75 said:
Great story! Did he still have the Kramer SB350 or the fretless Hagström Jazz (as seen in the cover of "A Live Record")?

About the light touch: that's also what Neil Murray told me but most likely he meant that Richard did have a lighter touch than him and didn't "dug in" as aggressively as he did back then. There's definitely some stuff where he plays forcefully. I just found I got the same kind of sound he got on "The Rotter's Club" by playing rather lightly.
Click to expand...
I unfortunately did not see those basses... sadly, only the two I mentioned. But I guess they were the only ones kicking around at home. The self-defretted one was just resting against a wall leading up his stairs... like an afterthought! I go the impression he tended to have a current favourite and that all were a mix of bodies and parts from here and there.

Will grant... there are parts were he played with a lighter touch, but from what I saw, he dug in a bit when the bass was coming to the fore. He just made it seem an effortless transition! And I was just learning, and thought you were only supposed to play with a pick!! Well, learning from my then (and now) heroes of Chris Squire, Phil Lynott and Sting... I thought EVERYONE only played with a pick!
 
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#51
Again just thinking now about how underrated Richard is as a bassist! Maybe the Caravan stuff is just too pleasant and affable to listen to? Nine Feet Underground isn't exactly a Black Sabbath deep cut, despite being seen as 'Caravan with teeth' in some places.

The Hatfields had a similar pleasantness that then dipped straight into flat out weirdness without warning. There is something trance-like in Shaving is Boring, for example. Where did that come from? Then you dig a bit deeper and the Monty Python humour becomes apparent and it is all a bit 'chaps having a jolly lark', while playing deftly complex thru-composed passages of music in weird metres. Guys making the exact music they want to make, free of external pressure or influence.... which is a bit punk?

Richard was a fairly early finger style player with an advanced harmonic ear. I'm not surprised he didn't dig in consistently; he presumably would change his attack to suit the section of the composition. A bit like Hugh Hopper I suppose, but less fond of harmonic angularity and dissonance. Again that pleasantness seems to mask a level of complexity.
 
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#52
PhR75 said:
Well put. Another Canterbury player and singer, the great John Greaves also had his white Jazz "mutated" quite radically:
1978_john__pip.jpeg


Not to sidetrack the thread ('though it's my party and...) but I've always loved John's songwriting and feel that his song "Squarer For Maud" is probably the best tune National Health did. The album "Kew Rhone" with Peter Blegvad and Lisa Herman is also great.
Click to expand...

Agreed, with one minor quibble: The album "kew.rhone." is not great. It is freaking brilliant, remarkable, and unique, incorporating progressive rock complexity with a jazzy sensibility, a wry sense of humor, great playing, and visual aids to be perused in conjunction with the songs.

Of course, one would expect nothing less than excellence from Greaves based on his contributions as a musician and a composer with the band Henry Cow, or from Blegvad, who was one-third of the almost indescribable Slapp Happy and then went on to release phenomenal albums as a singer-songwriter accompanied by Greaves on bass and Chris Cutler on drums (Henry Cow, Art Bears, Aksak Maboul, Cassiber, News From Babel, Pere Ubu, and on & on...).

"The pen of the tongue should be dipped into the inkwell of the heart."
"Peel's foe, not a set animal, laminates a tone of sleep." (< pangram)
 
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#55
October 1974:
Worthing, Saturn Recording Studios - recording "Let's Eat (Real Soon)" and "Fitter Stoke Has A Bath" (for single) and "Your Majesty Is Like A Cream Donut" [incl. "O What A Lonely Lifetime"] (for Virgin "V" compilation)

Hatfield and the North-Chronology

Both the single and the "V" track have "The Rotters' Club" bass sound so the mod or mutation had been done at that point.

Now I have to dig the info when exactly "Lything and Gracing" live track from '74 was recorded. It was released on "Afters" and also as a bonus track on "Rotters' " cd editions. Seque with another Matching Mole chestnut "Oh, Len's Nature" which was recorded live sometime in 1975. Both have the bass sound of this thread.
 
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#56
SDC1-ClickClack said:
Agreed, with one minor quibble: The album "kew.rhone." is not great. It is freaking brilliant, remarkable, and unique, incorporating progressive rock complexity with a jazzy sensibility, a wry sense of humor, great playing, and visual aids to be perused in conjunction with the songs.

Of course, one would expect nothing less than excellence from Greaves based on his contributions as a musician and a composer with the band Henry Cow, or from Blegvad, who was one-third of the almost indescribable Slapp Happy and then went on to release phenomenal albums as a singer-songwriter accompanied by Greaves on bass and Chris Cutler on drums (Henry Cow, Art Bears, Aksak Maboul, Cassiber, News From Babel, Pere Ubu, and on & on...).

"The pen of the tongue should be dipped into the inkwell of the heart."
"Peel's foe, not a set animal, laminates a tone of sleep." (< pangram)
Click to expand...


Took the album to a morning drive and since it's been a while I listened to it I was reminded of both Carla Bley's and Mike Mantler's music. Not as warm as Carla's not as bleak as Mantler's. Then I was wondering who the players were on the album (I usually remember these things as I study the liners sometimes more than listen the music...) as the trumpet had a familiar sound and saw the names in the back cover...

I wonder if John was the connection why Carla hired Elton Dean and Hugh Hopper for her "European Tour '77" album and tour?
Could have been Wyatt too.
Anyway, great stuff, all of them.

@SDC1-ClickClack , could you recommend me some Blegvad albums?
 
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#58
Found this In Cahoots recording from 1983, with almost a Hatfield line-up (-Stewart, + Peter Lemer). Rather good cassette recording apparently straight from the desk. Sinclair's bass loud and clear with occasional chorus effect.
In Cahoots London 1983

Plenty of other Sinclair related recordings at the same site, for example some Delivery stuff with the proto-Hatfield line-up (Steve Miller on keys).
 
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