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The Sex Pistols were the Backstreet Boys of punk.
Punk Rock=Playing Crappy Music with even crappier instruments.
End thread.
Depends how you define Punk. Do you mean the wanky homoerotic New York arthaus stuff like the New York Dolls and Patti Smith banging on about horses? The cartoon Phil Spector lame brain bludgeonings of The Ramones? The Clash spent a little bit too much time hanging around artschool smoking weed, Sandista?!?! The Sex Pistols were another cartoon band made up by Malcolm Mclaren to suit his closetted sexual and monetary desires.... errr.... The Buzzcocks were limp-wristed tunesmiths... The Stranglers were old men hacking away... Sham 69 were a pub rock band chancing it... The Damned were a goth band in disguise (though Rat Scabies used some sort of Violin bass back in the day). The Velvet Underground are again a blugeoning Phil Spector style band who were the play-things of Andy Warhol. Everything after 1980 is not punk but some subset of punk resulting in horrific punk pop. Ah so we must look at those obscure bands on the Nuggets compilation albums, they are punk right? Or maybe The Monks from Germany....
So... you must mean the uber principled bands of all sorts of styles on SST? Those dudes who lived in vans for ten years and made $2 a week from selling merch... Bad Brains? Sorry but they dug up roots reggae and dub influences half the time... errr....What was Mike Watt using in the Minutemen prior to the SG basses? Is that a P bass on Meat Puppets I?
Basically see what "punk" bassists were using and don't do that. Don't play Ricks, the market has driven right up since Kim Gordon was uselessly hacking away at one in the 1980s (with a screwdriver probably). Don't buy those apparently no longer inferior 1970s P basses (because the market has driven those right up because in this economic climate and if you drink enough before playing them you might not notice the worse workmanship). Errrrr, even those lucite Ampeg Dan Armstrong basses are expensive. You are doomed.
Haha brilliant!A stray, mongrel Danelectro/Coral Wasp was the ultimate punk bass. I got one for free after somebody found it in the bathtub in an abandoned house. It was black, with damaged paint, and it had a mother of toiletseat pearlescent pickguard that was huge. And a lot of switches that didn't make any noticeable difference. It didn't have a name on the headstock, a serial number, or any other identifying marks, so most of the time I owned it, I didn't even know what it was or who made it. The neck was non-adjustable and was shimmed up with matchbooks when I got it. I reshimmed it with pennies, and it sounded much better. I ended up selling it on St. Mark's Place in the early 1980s because some guy had to have it and offered me money. So, I took the money. What a sell-out! While I had it, I played it through a record player, a cheap solid state practice amp that should have blown up, and a much bigger combo amp that caused a beer stein to explode and make a huge mess. All highly punk phenomena.
So, there you have it. A P-Bass isn't the ultimate punk bass, especially not a white one. I don't care what anybody else played. If I still had the FreeBass, I would hit you or some other random person with it, just to prove the point.
There's two minutes of my life I'll never get back....Depends how you define Punk. Do you mean the wanky homoerotic New York arthaus stuff like the New York Dolls and Patti Smith banging on about horses? The cartoon Phil Spector lame brain bludgeonings of The Ramones? The Clash spent a little bit too much time hanging around artschool smoking weed, Sandista?!?! The Sex Pistols were another cartoon band made up by Malcolm Mclaren to suit his closetted sexual and monetary desires.... errr.... The Buzzcocks were limp-wristed tunesmiths... The Stranglers were old men hacking away... Sham 69 were a pub rock band chancing it... The Damned were a goth band in disguise (though Rat Scabies used some sort of Violin bass back in the day). The Velvet Underground are again a blugeoning Phil Spector style band who were the play-things of Andy Warhol. Everything after 1980 is not punk but some subset of punk resulting in horrific punk pop. Ah so we must look at those obscure bands on the Nuggets compilation albums, they are punk right? Or maybe The Monks from Germany....
So... you must mean the uber principled bands of all sorts of styles on SST? Those dudes who lived in vans for ten years and made $2 a week from selling merch... Bad Brains? Sorry but they dug up roots reggae and dub influences half the time... errr....What was Mike Watt using in the Minutemen prior to the SG basses? Is that a P bass on Meat Puppets I?
Basically see what "punk" bassists were using and don't do that. Don't play Ricks, the market has driven right up since Kim Gordon was uselessly hacking away at one in the 1980s (with a screwdriver probably). Don't buy those apparently no longer inferior 1970s P basses (because the market has driven those right up because in this economic climate and if you drink enough before playing them you might not notice the worse workmanship). Errrrr, even those lucite Ampeg Dan Armstrong basses are expensive. You are doomed.
Yes. Clash too. Now, question is maple or rosewood. Sid- rosewood. Dee Dee- maple. Paul Simonon- seen him with both.I have been doing some serious research into my punk roots again. Was looking through a whole bunch of books, album sleeves, and even a ton of my old pictures from back in the day.
After noting a few things, this one stands out for all. The majority of all the pictures I have or saw had one bass standing out:
Fender Precision, Olympic White, Black pickguard, white pickups.
Dee Dee, Sid, yada yada. Just a whole lot of pics of tons of bands with this particular bass. I'm guessing they were readily available and cheap back in the day, although I never owned one....
Maple for me...takes a beating and cuts right through!Yes. Clash too. Now, question is maple or rosewood. Sid- rosewood. Dee Dee- maple. Paul Simonon- seen him with both.
My favorite P colors schemes are: white/black guard and black/black guard. Close behind is blond, the transparent cream on ash/tortoise shell guard. I kind of liked the black/gold guard, but tired of it.
i have read this thread to this point.. and it's glaringly apparent who the idiots are.. and who actually have digested and defecated the false stereotypes associated with punk and the sub-genres.. and those who have lived it..
The Sex Pistols were the Backstreet Boys of punk.
The Sex Pistols were the Backstreet Boys of punk.
No, totally not accurate. The Pistols were more like The Monkees of punk. Blink 182 were the Backstreet Boys of it.