Name your favorite Bass players and why.

[ForeverAutumn]

I couldn't resist.

[Rich-n-Texas]

That Youtube video

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! I knew what the words "All your base are belong to us" were all about but that's honestly the very first time I've seen the video. Good stuff.

Never did like those rolling papers though because you'd have to stick two together.

And yes GM I'm bored here, and that's because my boss is in.... you guessed it... Japan.

[Brett A]

I too am not terribly interested in busy bass players. The ability I appreciate most in a bass player is the ability to support the song without getting in the way.

...But the frets are there for a reason. I have nothing against skill. But my feeling is that a performer should be focused on what it is that they're playing, not the hoops they have to jump through to play it. What's the point? It's an unnecessary multitasking exercise that only players are going to truly appreciate in the first place. I noticed a long time ago that people who play such things never seem to make music that I think is any damn good.

You don't see frets on any of the instruments in classical music and there are thousands of twelve year-olds doing a great job without them.
I think to say that rock-n-rollers need frets in order to focus on the music is a little insulting.

[Davey]

Lately for me it's gotta be the Sandman with that two-string slide bass guitar. Really gets deep down and nasty sounding when Dana Colley gets cranking on that baritone sax, like in that Sounds Good thread ...

We used to meet every
Thursday Thursday Thursday in the afternoon
For a couple of beers and a game of pool
We used to go to a motel a motel a motel across the street
And the name of the motel
Was the Wagon Wheel

[Swish]

Lately for me it's gotta be the Sandman with that two-string slide bass guitar. Really gets deep down and nasty sounding when Dana Colley gets cranking on that baritone sax, like in that Sounds Good thread ...

We used to meet every
Thursday Thursday Thursday in the afternoon
For a couple of beers and a game of pool
We used to go to a motel a motel a motel across the street
And the name of the motel
Was the Wagon Wheel

My wife pulls out their cds more often than I do, but it's always pure bliss.

Swish

[MindGoneHaywire]

You don't see frets on any of the instruments in classical music and there are thousands of twelve year-olds doing a great job without them.
I think to say that rock-n-rollers need frets in order to focus on the music is a little insulting.

Insulting to who? If you train someone younger than 12 on something, it's far more likely they'll be adapt to a more difficult task, as opposed to someone who's older. There's a curve for learning that declines over time. Players are creatures of habit, for the most part, and they're going to be more comfortable with what they know.

If a rock'n'roller gets insulted because I think it'd be more challenging for them to move to a fretless instrument, that's their problem. Any such move requires an adjustment, and, no matter how minor, the better players will work through it easily, the lesser ones, less so. And the ones who'd want to do it, would find a way.

Most rock'n'rollers learn on fretted instruments & fretless ones are, in my experience, used mostly by musicians who, whether 'overplaying' or not, are working with music that is outside most blues-based pop and rock structures. Plenty of examples to the contrary, I'm sure, but it's not the point. Years after this thread began, I still think that frets are a guide that would loom larger if you put a fretless instrument in the hands of a player who's never played one. When faced with that sort of adjustment, I think a lot of players would find it more difficult to focus on the music. In time, of course, they'd get over the hump, if they wanted to.

But it'd be a skill they'd have to develop, and that's what I meant when I referred to jumping through hoops. And I used that term because, in my experience, most pop and rock music (that uses guitars and non-doghouse basses, rockabilly & retro-swing & -Western Swing being significant exceptions) is played by players using fretted instruments. If someone else's experience differs from mine in that they've seen more fretless players in bands that didn't lean towards fusion and/or jazz, then they'd probably have a different perspective. I do think we see far more fretted instruments in pop and rock music for a very good reason. And it has nothing to do with training younger people on far more difficult instruments.

[Swish]

Insulting to who? If you train someone younger than 12 on something, it's far more likely they'll be adapt to a more difficult task, as opposed to someone who's older. There's a curve for learning that declines over time. Players are creatures of habit, for the most part, and they're going to be more comfortable with what they know.

...take care of it quite nicely. Couldn't agree more.

So, are you going to get me some Echo tickets or what? Heck, you should go too J! Either way, we'll be staying in the city if we're lucky enough to get tickets, so I'll be sure to give you a holler so we can grab a pint or two. That was a blast the last time.

Swish