The Last Bass Outpost
Main Forums => The Bass Zone => Topic started by: ilan on September 11, 2008, 09:53:12 PM
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* I posted this also in the RRF (http://www.rickresource.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=384127&st=0&sk=t&sd=a). The video link seems to work only with IE and not with Firefox.
I'm posting this from London Heathrow airport. This afternoon me and Danny Cushmaro, Channel 2 News (Israel) anchorman, held a 13 minutes interview with Sir Paul, in a rehearsal studio in London, for his Sept. 25 Tel Aviv concert. The interview will be aired Saturday in Israel Channel 2.
After the interview was over, we were told to turn off the cameras, and prepared to leave. I said to McCartney, can I ask you a question about your bass. He said, come on, and led me and Danny into the rehearsal space where we had seen them prior to the interview playing three songs.
He took us to his guitar rack. There were the '59 LP Standard, a Hofner Cavern reissue, the '64 Hofner (he assured me it wasn't a replica, that it was the real thing), another new Les Paul, his Martin acoustic, and the Epiphone acoustic. He also showed us a brown ukelele that George gave him.
Then he took the Hofner bass, and showed us that the switches were glued to position (neck pickup soloe'd) with black plastic insets.
And then he handed the bass over to me.
I did not play it because it is left handed, and because I simply couldn't.
It was a bit heavier than I thought it would be, but Paul said it was because of the wireless transmitter attached to the strap. It was a wide black strap, not the vintage kind. He said that he feels that a light bass changes the way he plays. He added that the new Hofner sounded nice but not as good as his old Hofner, and he attributed this to the fact that it is old and has been played a lot. Like a Stradivarius, he said.
The action was medium-low. I couldn't bring myself to fret a note.
I forgot to ask about the Jazz bass.
Then he handed me the '59 Gibson. Now this is heavy, he said. It was really heavy. But I was more interested in the bass.
He said that engineers and producers always compliment the sound of the old Hofner.
Next he took the ukulele and played 'Something'. I asked about the bass part, and he said it was an interesting bass part. I replied that in my mind it's a piece of art.
Then I told him about the first time I'd heard the beatles and how it changed my life.
Next he took the Epi from the rack. This is the 'Yesterday' guitar and it has a lot of wear. He strummed the opening chord to Yesterday, and said that the guitar is tuned a step lower, so that he can play Yesterday in G and it sounded in F. He said he liked the open strings in the G chord. I didn't get to hold the Epi.
Sadly, all this was not on camera. But I was not alone there...
My first impression is that Paul McCartney isn't just a great bass player, he's also one of the nicest persons on earth. He went out of his way to make us feel good. Even when an assistant came to say that time is up and they want to go back to rehearsal, Paul said, no, I think we have some more time, and continued to show us the guitars.
He had a Gibson LP that he said he ordered just to have it custom painted, but then, he said, he realized that he likes it a lot because it played very well.
Here is a link to a short part of the interview. This is Danny's question. but in the reaction shots you can see me next to him, I'm the long haired guy.
http://www.keshet-tv.com/VideoPage.aspx?MediaID=45146&SourceID=23
I took with me two pickguards (C64 and Strat) and a TRC, but we were told before we arrived, no pictures and no autographs.
My flight leaves soon so I have to log off. More when I get back to Israel.
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What a great story and a great experience. We'll be waiting for more, and hopefully some more video of the interview.
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Just amazing. I'm not worthy... :)
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Long ago I fell in love with bass just listening to Paul's bass on Sgt. Pepper. It literally changed my life and I'm sure many, many others have had similar experiences. All of this is incredibly interesting. This message board is quite unique.
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Man, this is one of the best stories I read here!!! Great!!
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Cool story! Thanx for posting :)
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Heart-moving, sehr schön. You'll never again hear a Beatles track like you did before, Ilan.
Uwe
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Wow ! Only in my dreams could that happen ! I have always wanted to meet him and thank him for his music and bass playing. It is because of Paul and The Beatles that I took up bass. Still have my '65 Hofner.
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yeah, great story. cherish the memory!
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Wow. Just wow...
Thanks for sharing that!
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That is a great story! I probably wouldn't have been able to speak at all if put in your position.
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Man doing an interview with him is one thing, but getting to hang out and play some guitars (THE guitars!) afterwards is out of this world! There could not have been a reporter more appropriate for that job. Very, very cool.
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Man, I would have been trembling. Congrats, that is almost unbelievable. :o
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That is really cool, thank you for sharing it with us.
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That is an incredible story--once in a lifetime...
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Nice story!
I see the visual formula for news anchors is similar world 'round...attractive lady with at least two blouse buttons unbuttoned.
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AWESOME! I'm a lefty....so I might have played something, but I'm not sure what!
I agree with Gearhed~ I'd be trembling. ...maybe get some good vibrato. :mrgreen:
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AWESOME! I'm a lefty....so I might have played something, but I'm not sure what!
I agree with Gearhed~ I'd be trembling. ...maybe get some good vibrato. :mrgreen:
I did make sure I had 3 picks in my pocket, just in case the unbelievable does happen... but he didn't say I could play it, so I didn't. Had it been a righty, I'd probably pick a few notes, but it was upside down. I held it like a righty, because that's how he handed it to me and also because that's how I can hold a bass and be sure I will not drop it... body in the right hand, neck in the left.
I ended up giving one of those picks - a white Carol Kaye pick - to a senior producer at Sky News in London, where we went to send the material via satellite to Israel. She turned out to be a bass player too, plays a '68 Fender Mustang bass in LPB with competition stripes. She's a Carol Kaye fan so the pick made her happy... It seems that bass players in general are very nice people. As if we didn't know that already...
Pilgrim: she's not only attractive, but also super intelligent and has a great sense of humor. When she interviewed President Clinton, you could see that he was impressed too...
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Ilan, will more of the interview be available online?
BTW, your anchorwoman looks much too slender to attract Clinton. ;D
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That is so cool. :mrgreen:
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Dave, the full piece will be online tonight. I'll post a link. The whole story is about 18:30 long, out of which about 12:30 is the interview itself, the rest is Hebrew narration segments.
I think Pilgrim meant the anchor woman! ;D
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Thanks, Ilan, I'm looking forward to it.
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Here's a link to the full interview. For some reason unknown to me, the video link works only in IE but not Firefox.
http://www.keshet-tv.com/VideoPage.aspx?MediaID=45243&CatID=250&CurrentCatID=5155
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You know, from my standpoint it's remarkable how open and talkative he was. After all, he certainly doesn't have to be. Maybe you just put him more at ease than some Hollywood or London celebrity reporter would have, but still, it means he's that way when he's comfortable with the interviewers.
Also, he comes across as very intelligent. Not that I thought he wasn't, it's just that you don't know one way or other when all you hear are short sound bites or short quotes.
Well done. :toast:
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Ilan, you asked such good questions, although the other person did fine, too. However, I think you asked much the same I would have asked if I had been there. What's really on my mind at the moment is what I've just read earlier today about Paul being pressured to not play in Tel Aviv. Of course, that is the first issue you addressed. Then possibly the biggest question of all is why the Beatles broke up. I really thought Paul gave quite a good answer to that without even mentioning John or Yoko. Of most interest to me was the songwriting process question. To top it off, there was the question about his attitude about the future. I wanted to know that, too. This was just a great interview. The selection of songs was outstanding, too, although it would be very difficult to go wrong on that.
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Update: in 2 hours I'm meeting with Keith, Paul McCartney's guitar tech. Anything that you think I should ask him? Other than what's it like to take care of such historically significant instruments, and doesn't he sometimes wish Sir Paul got some new basses with less maintenance than a certain 45 years old German bass that needs neck resets and refrets... And why does Paul hang to his old guitars, is he a sentimental guy or is it to please the crowd that wants to see him with the Beatle bass. I can't get into technical stuff (this is for TV...) but I'll ask anyway if there's something you want to know and can post here in the next hour. Thanks
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Wow, I want to be you someday! Seriously, I am very envious right now. You lead a blessed life for sure. Thanks for sharing this with us!
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Just got home, I'm going to crash now... the concert was great. Will post more about the interview tomorrow. The highlight from Keith is that Paul still uses the old Ric - "occasionally" was the word he used.
Another good look at the Hofner, the lacquer is cracked but it's very "deep", the bass looks amazing. Keith said it doesn't need much maintenance except for repositioning the bridge from time to time when it slips, for good intonation. The black insets that hold the switches permanently in place are in fact rolled gaffer tape. Cool trick! The "Flip Action" control plate is held in place with four screws in the corners, instead of the two original holes, and it's a righty unit with the lettering upside down from the player's point of view (never noticed that before). One of the teacup knob metal discs looks new.
Keith showed us the original Epi Texan ("Yesterday" guitar) next to a US-made replica - and they look almost identical. The pickguard is the giveaway: Old tort is hard to reproduce.
We talked a bit about the '59 Les Paul Standard. Keith confirmed that only 3 lefties were made that year. This was Paul's #1 guitar for many years (now the new pink LP with the custom paint job is his favorite). He said that in the 90's a guy came to them with another lefty '59 Sunburst - another one of the three - and offered to sell for $65,000. But Paul wasn't interested.
One last bass-related thing about the concert - the bass player had a Gibson SG bass, the new one with three knobs and mudbucker-lookalikes - and it sounded great (and by that I mean far away from an EB3) both for covering "Hofner songs" and "Ric songs".
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Thanks so much for the report, Ilan. As much as we've read over the years, you've told us things we've never heard.
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Update: today I have edited the TV interview with Keith Smith, Paul's technical manager. It's almost 9:00 minutes long. We talked about the '63 Hofner, the "Cavern" reissue, Epi Texan, Gibson Uke, the '59 Gibson LP... and the old Ric. It will probably take a couple more days before it's uploaded, then I'll post a link. I have two opening sentences in Hebrew, then the interview itself is in English.
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Nine minutes? That's probably longer than anyone's ever talked on the record about Paul's gear. I hope you get it up on YouTube too.
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Nine minutes? That's probably longer than anyone's ever talked on the record about Paul's gear. I hope you get it up on YouTube too.
That is because it's basically raw footage. I had a news story just prior to the Tel Aviv concert, it had one soundbite from Keith, approximately 5-6 seconds - that's what was broadcast. The general public here isn't that interested in why Paul doesn't like the "Cavern" reissue or why he turned down an offer to buy a lefty '59 Sunburst.
The rest of the 9 minutes is just is for the bass playing community...
It will also be up on YouTube some time after the Channel 2 News website. I'll ask them to upload a version without the Hebrew subtitles.
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Can't wait!
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Wait no longer Chris... I am posting a link in a new thread (http://bassoutpost.com/index.php?topic=1337.0).