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The "real" punk bass....
- Thread starter TRichardsbass
- Start date
Kind of like prog... I cannot define it but I know it when I see it. Some multi-megawatt Peavey amp sitting on a chair for extra projection is punk to the max.
Especially if the logo's upside-down.
+1 on anything being used. I'm speaking more of the sound than being "punk". Real punk is in the heart as we all know.
If you're G.G. Allin's bassist you would certainly want an inexpensive axe incase you get bodily fluids flying around stage.
If you're G.G. Allin's bassist you would certainly want an inexpensive axe incase you get bodily fluids flying around stage.
Billy a.k.a. Bass Wolf (R.I.P.) got the memo:
Personally.... i LIKE the P, but i usually play other things. My only FENDER P is strung with flats and has foam and some '62 RI pups in it... for my punk bands i've used: Peavey T-20, moded Squier Bronco, SX P/J, Ibanez ATK300, Fender P/J, Peavey T-45, Peavey T-40, Spector Legend 4, and an Ibanez SRX390.
I've only used the straight-up FENDER P BASS for a show or 2.
Personally.... i LIKE the P, but i usually play other things. My only FENDER P is strung with flats and has foam and some '62 RI pups in it... for my punk bands i've used: Peavey T-20, moded Squier Bronco, SX P/J, Ibanez ATK300, Fender P/J, Peavey T-45, Peavey T-40, Spector Legend 4, and an Ibanez SRX390.
I've only used the straight-up FENDER P BASS for a show or 2.
Here's the hard truth about whatever bass was most popular during the genesis and evolution of punk until it got big (read moneyed) enough to begin splitting into sub genres.
Whatever bass was being used the most in that era was the cheapest bass some snot rocket devote found at the local pawnshop, or snagged from some established player dumping their old worn out POS so they could use the cash to service their GAS problem. That the P bass shows up in so many old shots of early punk bands simply tells us the P bass was the cheapest and most plentiful used instrument available at that time in the suburban areas where punk really got it's start.
I'm talking the period when your average punk band member was 13~17 and didn't know what a punk band was because the music press had yet to figure out what to name the disturbing trend of non musicians forming music groups who could give two $&!+& about anything accepted or established and were focused more on doing whatever it took to draw attention back to their young azzes while simultaneously shaming society for marginalizing them due to circumstances beyond their control.
Keep in mind real true punk is most definitely the purview of that first real "lost" generation of children. Kids growing up with no dad, or worse a new "dad" every thursday morning after mom went to nickel beer night at the local knife and stab on wednesday, and from what could only be loosely described as a family, usually existing right on the financial split between impoverished and destitute. Polite society blew them off as no account, lost souls, and like any other group of societal outcasts, they gravitated to one another because they were all each other had.
Every generation claims ownership of at least one thing specifically designed to demonstrate to the elders just how little the youngers care for or about said elders. With the first generation of offspring from a society too busy contemplating their collective navel to pay any attention to their kids, was an attitude which said "FU!! If you don't care about me, I don't care about ANYTHING", and continued to say it loud enough and often enough until it coalesced into what became known as punk.
Whatever bass was being used the most in that era was the cheapest bass some snot rocket devote found at the local pawnshop, or snagged from some established player dumping their old worn out POS so they could use the cash to service their GAS problem. That the P bass shows up in so many old shots of early punk bands simply tells us the P bass was the cheapest and most plentiful used instrument available at that time in the suburban areas where punk really got it's start.
I'm talking the period when your average punk band member was 13~17 and didn't know what a punk band was because the music press had yet to figure out what to name the disturbing trend of non musicians forming music groups who could give two $&!+& about anything accepted or established and were focused more on doing whatever it took to draw attention back to their young azzes while simultaneously shaming society for marginalizing them due to circumstances beyond their control.
Keep in mind real true punk is most definitely the purview of that first real "lost" generation of children. Kids growing up with no dad, or worse a new "dad" every thursday morning after mom went to nickel beer night at the local knife and stab on wednesday, and from what could only be loosely described as a family, usually existing right on the financial split between impoverished and destitute. Polite society blew them off as no account, lost souls, and like any other group of societal outcasts, they gravitated to one another because they were all each other had.
Every generation claims ownership of at least one thing specifically designed to demonstrate to the elders just how little the youngers care for or about said elders. With the first generation of offspring from a society too busy contemplating their collective navel to pay any attention to their kids, was an attitude which said "FU!! If you don't care about me, I don't care about ANYTHING", and continued to say it loud enough and often enough until it coalesced into what became known as punk.
I know what you mean, but I only recall Simonon using white pickup covers, and only on occasion.
But yeah, the oly white black guard combo was all over the place. Simonon, Dee Dee, Sid, Pete Farndon (not really punk, but still)...
Yeah but yeah but... when did this mythical event occur? When did the money men muscle in? When was punk honest?
Malcolm McLaren was hanging around the Freak Scene when CBGBs was a little dive bar trying to become the New York Dolls' manager. That scene goes back to early Alice Cooper, Frank Zappa.... has links with Andy Warhol's factory. McLaren was a London boy chancing it and not getting far but he was already trying to make money off these little junkie bands.
As much as punk was meant to be hardcore face-smashing and spitting it also must have had a naivity worse than the hippies if it was ever completely devoit of monetary influence.
- Jun 3, 2009
- 3,330
- 398
- Disclosures
- Bassgearu, Music Industry Consulting and Sales. Tech 21, NBE Corp, Sonosphere.
I love all the "punk wasn't" discussion. I was in that scene, or at least the scene defined as punk, the mid to late '70s, New York based scene. Truthfully, a lot of people who were in those bands didn't even have the attitude. It was really just a movement away from all the over produced, guitar hero crap coming out of bands like ELO, Boston, all that darn "pro" stuff as well as just a movement away from all things label. But we all wanted to be on that label.
As for Malcolm, well I've said and written it a million times. Malcolm took what was a great, fresh musical moment and destroyed it for all time by introducing Sid Vicious and his really crappy sex clothing line. Punk was never the Pistols. The Pistols were just a bad caricature of what was going on and got called punk (sorry Johnny L, but its the truth, and you know I've said it to you before personally.)
It was just an observation, not meaning to begin one more round of what punk was or wasn't. I know what it was, I lived it. I know what it wasn't, I lived it. I was just surprised to look back and see the white and black combo so prevalent.
Oh well, off to record some more music no one will care to hear...
As for Malcolm, well I've said and written it a million times. Malcolm took what was a great, fresh musical moment and destroyed it for all time by introducing Sid Vicious and his really crappy sex clothing line. Punk was never the Pistols. The Pistols were just a bad caricature of what was going on and got called punk (sorry Johnny L, but its the truth, and you know I've said it to you before personally.)
It was just an observation, not meaning to begin one more round of what punk was or wasn't. I know what it was, I lived it. I know what it wasn't, I lived it. I was just surprised to look back and see the white and black combo so prevalent.
Oh well, off to record some more music no one will care to hear...
John Lydon went on to make sub-standard music that combined the worst aspects of Krautrock and Prog whilst still moaning on about how creative he was/is and how Malcolm was a tyrant. Oh and that all other bands were self-indulgent but PIL was somehow a creative hotbed and not a poorly rehearsed, poorly disciplined bunch of druggies making sub-Amon Duul II noises.
These days he flogs butter on the telly box. Nice one Johnny!
These days he flogs butter on the telly box. Nice one Johnny!
RaginRog
Last guy you want to see is Employee Relations guy
Ok question 2 would be, is Punk an aesthetic now? Should a lot of people be denied from playing it? I'm on a local forum I chanced upon, and some guy is chewing out a punk band with members whose parents are involved in the oil industry, and who have bank accounts containing actual money. This annoys me a little. Those old SST bands might have roughed it out of necessity, but now it is a lot easier to achieve a lot more for a lot less compromise. If you are a punk band get a myspace and you will get gigs if you are half decent. Should you go back to living in a van with Bad Brains, several dogs and a bunch of solid state Peavey gear?
Oh, and white P bass with maple neck and black guard all the way. John Entwistle rocked those things.
Oh, and white P bass with maple neck and black guard all the way. John Entwistle rocked those things.
- Jun 3, 2009
- 3,330
- 398
- Disclosures
- Bassgearu, Music Industry Consulting and Sales. Tech 21, NBE Corp, Sonosphere.
All most kids and people know of punk now is what they read or hear, written by most of the snares who never were there. I will make Richard Hell the exception, but sometimes I find Richard boorish.
I know a few of those old guys whose bank accounts to this day are quite fluffy. We all wanted the money and the babes. We just wanted to do it our way, not the way some guy at a label who knew nothing about music wanted it.
If the label had insisted certain things, Bruce Springsteen would still be recording critically acclaimed, poor selling acoustic albums in the vein of Bob Dylan.
Last I looked Belinda Carlisle was polished, hot and rich. Not too bad for a chick who started as a real Cali punk chick....
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This is a "real" punk bass. Squier VM fretless with a Squier P neck. I play "real" punk with it.
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This is a "real" punk bass. Squier VM fretless with a Squier P neck. I play "real" punk with it.
And doesn't Hank Williams IV (I think thats what he is, maybe its the III?) use a jazz bass in his hardcore/punk stuff?
But I will say, the first and best punk bass player 
D) John Entwistle used the white pbass with black pg. lol
D) John Entwistle used the white pbass with black pg. lol
