Ah, mighty BÖC. But that is not Joe playing the bass on the recording, it was Buck on that particular track. Buck demoed it at home, played it to the others and everyone (well, Eric Bloom mostly, the others thought some of Buck's songwriting "too commercial", but Bloom was pragmativ "we have families to support and shouldn't watch Journey being in the charts all the time") liked it so much they just stuck with the demo and used that for the record. It sounds a bit like a demo too feelwise. There is probably no other BÖC member featured.
Whether Buck used a Stingray for the recording is anybody's guess, he certainly played with a pick though.
Of course you can dig out Stingray pick players and they might even be picking away from the bridge (in a Stingray you kind of have to!), but they are exceptions to the rule of the finger playing Stingrayer. And most pick players on bass rest their hands where most guitarists would rest them (unless the bass is too low to rest the hand at all).
Nikki Sixx is an extreme and the pinkie anchoring in the optigrap probably a convenient means to still have some control over the TBird while having it slung so low, but you don't have to be Nikki to generally prefer to have more more "rebound" on the string as a pick player by not playing it too much towards the neck unless you are going for a special sound. I generally play a hand (my hand) away from the bridge because that is where the side of my palm rests as I do a lot of righthand muting, basically all the time. That works with most basses, notably not with the Stingray (those darn pole pieces ...) and the Ric 4001/4003 where the bridge pup cover forces me to play farther back to the bridge than would be natural for me. Why not do away with the pup cover then? I find the cavernous routing around the bridge pup of a Ric hideously ugly so I compromise.
Dave, you listen to At the Drive-in? That's almost prog!
