The Last Bass Outpost

So it makes total sense; the mkII if you will.... actually considering the very earliest EBs with the single coil sidewinder lets make that mkIII.

I see DP references coming... No thread without it

Of course Geddy muted. When you play fingerstyle you mute adjacent strings with your picking fingers. They just land on them and deaden unwanted sympathetic vibration. This is done almost unconsciously but it's very effective. Try playing without anchoring the thumb on the E string and landing on the string above the one you're picking, you'll see why it doesn't work. It's not just noisy, it's unmusical.

That's one of the things I like about Geddy. Busy playing but really clean and tidy at the same time. All over the place but never gets lost.

Besides replacing the corroded Strat jack I'm not too sure what I'm gonna do with this one.

Optograb!

I'd be worried to unintentionally hit those buttons while playing.

Same here. I rest my thumb at the end of the neck or at the neck pickup, so that area needs to be clean. Other than that, a fine looking bass👍

You don't get to play with Bill Bruford and Allan Holdsworth (and Dave Stewart) by being a slouch on the bass. 

Thanks, I don't think I have seen this one before!

Yet he has never really considered himself either a jazz- or prog-rocker. He no doubt could.

Neil confessed that when he worked with Allan (Allan's band, not Bruford) he was really struggling to keep afloat.
In bands like Bruford, or National Health I suppose, you have tricky songs but there will probably be sheet music for the players
to learn. Allan's songs however, were constructed as platforms for improvisations and I suppose you'd need to really dig into his mind to follow. Paul Carmichael did a great job on the IOU album, and of course Jimmy Johnson is a natural force in this context. When Allan goes for a cosmic ride with a great drummer, it must be a near impossible task to hold the song together. I saw Jimmy Haslip sink like a stone on a few songs live; with nothing solid to cling to for the next few minutes you just have to play lots of 16th note chromatic runs and hope nobody takes a notice I was lucky enough to meet Allan a couple of times, but he only talked about drummers and ale

So who's your favorite WS bassist?

Don't forget that the bass on 1987 (the album) is largely keyboards!

There were more than one?

The band I'm in actually called me because Neil Murray gave me lessons last time I was in England. I did repair work on the guitarist's collection Marshall heads, which had been used for recording and touring with a hard rock band in the 80's. At some point he mentioned Whitesnake and I told him I met Neil, although I was only interested in expanding my prog horizon. It seemed to amuse Neil that I had studied his early work (National Health, anyone?) but only ever heard three Whitesnake songs 

It was my wife who suggested I said yes to join them, she thought it was silly to have 15 basses and not being in a band.
Now I enjoy it very much, they do have a lot of good songs (before they became a hair metal band, at least) and Neil's work is indeed top notch. As a big Jack Bruce fan, busy playing is always a good thing. And like Jack, Neil can play 'proper' rock fretless bass too!
And I have an excuse to use my full Musicman HD stack, so I'm a real happy camper these days

Maybe Tiny Tim was not so tiny after all...