The Last Bass Outpost
Main Forums => The Bass Zone => Topic started by: lowend1 on April 14, 2016, 09:25:14 AM
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8itum6etNcM&ab_channel=MatheusMoreira :rolleyes:
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Wait, he's wearing a hat while playing the national anthem? Even after the announcer said to remove hats (LOL)? Serious faux pas, non?
As for his actual playing, I mostly liked it - just not the few fuzzed out bits that seemed to kill the pacing and mood.
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What a missed opportunity! If he had performed wearing only his sock, accompanied by Roseanne Barr doing the vocals, it would have been memorable.
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I love Flea, but this was not good. Crap tone, poor wah technique. He seemed kind of unprepared too. When you're doing the national anthem at a major sporting event, you better be ON! I'm guessing he was trying to channel Hendrix, but it didn't really come out that way. :-\
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When Hendrix did it, it had been done. Later versions need not apply.
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Well, the good news is, people will think twice about asking for a bass solo at a sporting event for while :)
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Make...it...stop. Flea used to be able to play bass. WTF happened?
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Make...it...stop. Flea used to be able to play bass. WTF happened?
Maybe he landed an endorsement deal with a fuzz pedal builder.
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"Drums must never stop! Drums must never stop...!" :mrgreen:
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Yeeesh! :o Can we just go back to having high school choir groups do the national anthem? For every "good" celebrity/offbeat version of the song there are 10 terrible ones. I'd rather listen to slightly off-key kids.
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i'm not curious enough to listen. i just know it can't be good.
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i'm not curious enough to listen. i just know it can't be good.
If you like the sound of a 14-year-old kid trying out his new off-brand fuzz pedal, you'll love it. Otherwise, you're better off not listening.
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I haven't checked but over on TB they're probably tsk-tsk-ing because he mixed a 1x15" and a 4x10".
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Russia wins this one I'm sorry to say.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqh-rnowJn0
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whadda' pantload. that was barley recognizable as ANYTHING. :P
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Russia wins this one I'm sorry to say.
Except he has to play it on a beautiful Capitalist-Imperialist instrument.
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"That was barley recognizable as ANYTHING."
Which still makes it infinitely better than Flea's abomination of a performance. I'm on record for thinking that your very dear national anthem is not the greatest melody on earth nor one that really echoes the dynamics of your wonderful country, but even it (the anthem, not the country, well, both ...) deserved better. Those horrible chromatic runs he did would get you kicked out of any decent Guitar Center. Keeping his hat on wasn't Flea's only insult nor the most severe one. Borat would have done better. Those poor athletes, they could barely wait for it to be over.
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Fans Bite Back (http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2016/04/14/fans-bite-back-after-flea-plays-star-spangled-banner-at-kobe-bryant-last-game/)
Best tweet: "I couldn't hear Flea over the sound of Francis Scott Key clawing at the lid of his casket" :mrgreen:
And Mr. Flea appears to be delusional (http://wxrt.cbslocal.com/2016/04/15/flea-responds-to-national-anthem-critics-i-really-dont-have-any-concern-for-little-small-minds-that-get-frustrated-when-they-get-blown/).
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i guess the most appalling part of this whole thing is flea's Monster ego. to actually think 20,000 basketball fans would enjoy any kind of bass solo he could spit out is nuts. i guess i'll have to listen to it now. :sad:
postscript. twenty seconds in and i had to stop. my sympathy to everyone who was there and everyone who has listened to this mess so far. :-[
you were right about the russian 'version',uwe. much better entertainment than watching this geezer deconstructing his abilities in public. is abomination too strong a word?
maybe i'll try again later. :bored:
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20 seconds is about as far in as I could stomach it.
What a crock.
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More than I did... :mrgreen:
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After this I think I would rather watch him act in movies than watch him play bass.
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Back To The Theatre... ;)
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Flea seems a good percussive, rhythmic player. He doesn't seem to be such a good melodic player. His choice of notes for harmonising and fleshing out the little licks and runs he improvises on this video are fairly banal if not entirely wrong. His terrible on/off wah, fuzz and blended clean signal tone is really appalling as well. To use that much equipment to produce that bloodless quacking tone in the high register is surprising. Perhaps they simply used a DI off of his pedalboard and the stadium heard something much more bombastic?
Part of me says he messed up, and part of me thinks Americans take their national pride and national symbology scarily seriously for such an apparently free minded and independently spirited nation. It was a sports game, for crying out loud, and after years of saturated media coverage and faux-gravitas you need to dress up something as mundane as a sports game with all of this nationalistic tomfoolery and sideshow entertainment?!? :bored:
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for me its not about the flag per se. its about an endless supply of 'singers' putting their stamp on the song. it usually ends up badly for all concerned. you seem to think you know something about our country. you don't. do we have a 'shut your pie hole' emoticon? :rolleyes:
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If anybody enjoys hearing a couple guys geek out about pop music and WAY overthinking disposable pop songs, I always enjoy the "Switched on Pop" podcast. They have an episode about the evolution of the Star Spangled Banner, with a focus on its interpretation at public events by pop divas, here: http://www.switchedonpop.com/?p=185
I'm curious what they would have had to say about Flea's rather dull attempt ...
And while I'm capable of tearing up at a particularly heartfelt rendition, I must admit that my favorite national anthem performance will probably always be this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtvYwtAz8OQ
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...you seem to think you know something about our country. you don't. do we have a 'shut your pie hole' emoticon? :rolleyes:
A bit tetchy, no? You can insult my country all day long and I won't take it as personally as that! You are sort of feeding my argument here. :bored:
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i would never insult your country out of respect for ken.
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In fact, kvetching about the performance of whoever sang or performed the national anthem before sporting events is a well-observed privilege of us 'Murricans. Few performers emerge unscathed from performing that rather difficult piece of music. Best bet is to get a bunch of big-eyed kids to sing it, because no one will be mean enough to bitch about their tune-challenged performance.
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i would never insult your country out of respect for ken.
I pledge my allegiance to the 'Post... being married to one of you good folks I keep my feet firmly planted in both camps... ;)
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http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/listen-to-an-egyptian-army-band-hilariously-butcher-the-1771659234?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link (http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/listen-to-an-egyptian-army-band-hilariously-butcher-the-1771659234?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link)
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Flea seems a good percussive, rhythmic player. He doesn't seem to be such a good melodic player.
...which is ultimate irony because the breakthrough album for the Chili Peppers, Blood Sugar Sex Magic, saw Flea stop being a mindless thumb popper and play melodically very seriously. He's held to that pretty closely on all their following work (with diminishing returns, IMO.) He's gone on for years in the music press about how his start playing trumpet as child informed his concept of melody that he grew into as a bass player.
His choice of notes for harmonising and fleshing out the little licks and runs he improvises on this video are fairly banal if not entirely wrong. His terrible on/off wah, fuzz and blended clean signal tone is really appalling as well. To use that much equipment to produce that bloodless quacking tone in the high register is surprising. Perhaps they simply used a DI off of his pedalboard and the stadium heard something much more bombastic?
His tone was terrible, but that was the least of his musical offenses. If you're going to play that hokey anthem and NOT simply play it straight, then your "hook" had better be stellar because you'll have nowhere to hide musically. Attempting "The Star Spangled Banner" solo on a bass is ill-advised to begin with; playing it like that and screwing the pooch but refusing to acknowledge said bestiality is total hubris. I expected MUCH better. If someone like Les Claypool were to play the national anthem, it might not be universally admired but would at least be interesting, and prior to this I would have though the same about Flea.
Part of me says he messed up, and part of me thinks Americans take their national pride and national symbology scarily seriously for such an apparently free minded and independently spirited nation.
Bitching about national anthem performances is a past time unto itself. We as a country are well aware of just how BAD our national anthem truly is, but like our politics, we usually shoot (/occasionally praise) the messenger and don't change the message. ...and there probably IS a xenophobic nationalist segment of the population who would enjoy a something more akin to Amerika Über Alles, but they're not going to be watching Lakers basketball.
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http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/listen-to-an-egyptian-army-band-hilariously-butcher-the-1771659234?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link (http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/listen-to-an-egyptian-army-band-hilariously-butcher-the-1771659234?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link)
Ouch! :o
In their defense, they were trying to do an accurate rendition, they were just bad at it.
Flea has no excuse.
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" ... and there probably IS a xenophobic nationalist segment of the population who would enjoy a something more akin to Amerika Über Alles ..."
I know, the Nazi's projected it that way, but the lyric was actually written as a rallying cry for national unification, not world domination. "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles ... " (btw, that verse and the one following are no longer sung, we now start with the third verse "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit", which more agreeably means "unity, rule of law and freedom"). Deutschland was late on its feet for national unification because of continuous mini-states bickering of the individual German states, the Catholic/Protestant schism plus the watchful eyes of neighbor countries that were already united and had an appetite for more (Austria, France, Denmark/Sweden and Russia), Hoffmann von Fallersleben, the lyricist,
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Hoffmann_von_Fallersleben.jpg)
wanted to do away with the "Kleinstaaterei" (small fry states), he didn't have a series of Blitzkriege and subjugation of nearly all of Continental Europe in mind.