talkbass =no humility

[Alanko]

I think a fair number of guys over there have aspergers. I'm not using that as a criticism, to belittle syndrome, or anything like that. Simply put there just seems to be a fair number of folks with limited-to-no self awareness over there, who completely fail to pick up on the tone of a thread before thundering in. These guys have some theoretical knowledge and some heartfelt, unwavering opinions and they just have to drone on and on at will. Some guy picked up a 6-string SX Jazz bass and was then roasted out by another poster who thought they should have purchased a Carvin, and didn't see the value of the mods the OP was performing. This seems to be the model over there; glance over the original post, go on a bomb-dropping exercise to impart your knowledge on topic X even if it is only tangentially related to the original post and likely to cause offense due to the harshly didactic wording, and then start moaning when people call you out on your remarks. The place really sets the benchmark for petulant grievance politics on Internet forums.

Another exchange I saw was basically this:

1) Poster wants to know if the hollowbody basses on Rondo Music are any good as they are in a casual Jefferson Airplane cover band project.
2) Second poster suggests they get a new Epiphone Jack Casady instead (only 2X OP's budget).
3) Third poster suggests the new Guild Starfire reissue, as it is closer to what Jack played (only about 8X OP's budget).
4) More posters share their opinions on the new Starfires in terms of fit or finish.
5) Somebody points out there is a used Jack Casady Epi in the classifieds.

How much of that is actually helpful? How many posters had actually played the Douglas-branded hollow body bass? How many of those guys just want to say their bit because they have to be heard?

When I did post over there, I did always wonder why some idiot on the other side of the world was so emotionally invested in what I happened to spend my money on. 

I lurk on a couple of aviation forums, and I'm always amused and disheartened in equal measure when I see a new poster get chewed out for mis-identifying an aircraft. Aviation spotters seem to always moan about the decline in museum attendance, airshow attendance and the lack of interest in historic aviation in younger generations... they fail to see that they are the cause of some of this! Talkbass is the exact same.

[uwe]

"Another exchange I saw was basically this:

1) Poster wants to know if the hollowbody basses on Rondo Music are any good as they are in a casual Jefferson Airplane cover band project.
2) Second poster suggests they get a new Epiphone Jack Casady instead (only 2X OP's budget).
3) Third poster suggests the new Guild Starfire reissue, as it is closer to what Jack played (only about 8X OP's budget).
4) More posters share their opinions on the new Starfires in terms of fit or finish.
5) Somebody points out there is a used Jack Casady Epi in the classifieds."

Wot?! And no derail to anal sex, model trains, Gwyneth P, WW II planes, Eric Clapton's wives, the many faults of Led Zeppelin or, dare I say, Ritchie Blackmore?!  Not even Nofi pulling the rug from underneath someone with a classic disparaging oneliner voiced in apodictic conviction?

That is one weird forum you guys moonlight at, I have to say. 

[Alanko]

When it is roundly encouraged then I'm all for it.  This forum delivers where necessary (mainly the specs of obscure Gibson basses and the back catalogues of unloved hardrock bands apparently!) but the off-topic stuff is genuinely entertaining.

I thought the mods were astonishingly biased towards certain members and certain behaviours on Talkbass.  A certain "touring" bassist over there gets to shill Ampeg products endlessly, and the jingoistic attitude attitude that one should always buy US-made, even when it is the inferior product gets grating, fast.

[Dave W]

Some forums are like that. About 2002 I joined a woodworking forum to ask a question about a particular router bit and got a dozen replies, none of which answered my question. I jumped in and asked the question again, same thing happened. I got plenty of advice about which router and router table to buy even though I already had both. I never went back.

Enough about Talkbass. They have their forum, we have ours.

[westen44]

Possibly even catchier than "Jeopardy" due to the guitar riff. 

I've only recently been made aware of Greg Kihn's writing career--something I discovered totally by accident. 

http://www.classicrockreview.com/2015/05/greg-kihn-painted-black/

[66Atlas]

Did someone mention rock stars stealing wives?



Nikki Sixx claims to inspired this ditty by "inadvertently" sleeping with Dickinson's wife.  Then again, he claims to have inspired almost every other song written since 1980.  In addition, I think he may have once claimed to have built the Washington monument, invented the internet and founded NASA but I'm not sure I believe him on all accounts.

[nofi]

my brother in law is a boat builder in the mountains outside chattanooga, tn. his boats are hand made from wood so he found a boat builders forum on line . same old shite as all the others . a lot of blow hard know it alls and not much substance. must be endemic to the form.

[nofi]

uwe, here is the MF song i think you alluded to on the previous page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pV97Te_PBI&list=PL4455F761BCBCA859

[Pilgrim]

I like playing that tune!  It's part of one set we play. Audiences love that one.

[luve2fli]

OT and I may be taking your comments too literally ..... but this:

..... white blues guys never get it right,imo.

..... is COMPLETE bullshit and a pretty wide and inaccurate generalization. Clapton (love him or hate him) aside, there are many excellent white blues players out there. It has nothing to do with race somehow associated with genre - nothing.

Oh yeah, agreed that TB is a bit of a sh!t-show most of the time!

[nofi]

my comment was to get a rise out of uwe. that's all.  but...deep purple tunes still don't belong in the blues thread. take what i post with a grain of salt, or two.

[luve2fli]

.... deep purple tunes still don't belong in the blues thread

LOL! Agreed wholeheartedly.

[Alanko]

I thought Stormbringer was originally a Blind Lemon Jefferson number? 

[uwe]

This is a fun thread - the way it veers back and forth.

Where were we:

Greg Kihn: I heard that song the first time in the early 80ies in Detroit (my first US visit). It came on the radio all the time - together with The Cars' Touch and Go. Both songs have stuck with me forever though they were never hits in Europe. The Breakup Song is a minimalist tour de force in catchy songwriting. The Ramones could have done a great version of it. Or Tom Petty - to whose sound it owed a lot.

- Mother's Finest: You're right, Nofi, I fell victim to PC (even I do sometimes) and tried to avoid the n-word, but that was silly, I now see the errors of my ways. MF were shit-hot.

- White men dancing and playing the blues: Nofi is North Korea to my South Korea, but it's all in good humour.

- DP: Stormbringer (the song) might be swiped from an old blues tune, I dunno, the Purps could be magpies too, not just that satanist young girl seducer with the thin-sounding Les Paul. What I do know is that Love Don't Mean a Thing from Stormbringer (the album) emanated from a black street musician, but at least DP were decent enough to buy it off him right from the start, they didn't have to be sued.

[BTL]

I think it's a function of size of the forum's user base.

Smaller forums tend to self-police and develop their own personalities.