Music videos that feature Thunderbirds

[4stringer77]

I don't think you'd have seen as many basses with PJ pickups if they weren't effective. Leon Wilkeson was quite fond of his PJ equipped Pedulla and that's a guy who used Thunderbirds and Fenderbirds. If thunderbird pickups were so great, then way more 90s videos would have had basses with what looks like the ass end of a sardine can in them. 

[Granny Gremlin]

That's the thing, good P/J sets are effective, sure.... but there are a lot of shitty ones.  More shitty ones on shitty bases than good. That's the other edge of the sword of (Fender's ) success; the horrible knock offs making your stuff look bad.

I don't think that it follows - what you said re popularity being driven by rock star endorsement.  There are other factors, but even if not, I dunno if all the credit can be lumped where you put it.  I know maybe it's hard to believe for someone from The South (I assume... though anywhere in the US is south of me and these days, one great big South) but there's a lot of people in this world who just don't give a rat's ass about Skynard.

[4stringer77]

I'm in New England. I'm about a five hour drive from Montreal. I brought up Skynyrd because they've been mentioned periodically on the forum. I reckon there were plenty of cheapo soap bars on entry level instruments as well. I'm really just teasing about the whole sardine can thing. If anything, Thunderbird pickups are enjoying a renaissance of popularity today and there are more reproductions of them used in current basses than were ever produced from the 60s or 70s. 

[Dave W]

Of course there are plenty of cheap soapbars too.

Good P/J sets are fine if that's the sound you're looking for. And you can put 'em in anything you want. But I don't consider a TBird or Explorer shape with P/Js to be a real TBird or Explorer.

[4stringer77]

The best explorer was the first one with the mudbucker. If I had to pick between the PJ Ibanez and a real 80s Gibson explorer, I'd take the Ibby.

[uwe]

"... but there's a lot of people in this world who just don't give a rat's ass about Skynard ..."


Sounds like the lil' Canuck still has hard feelings about the Jacksonvillers giving one of his countrymen an unfriendly name check in one of their more popular songs ... 

Here, at 4:34, like Jake, old Neil could take a jab and a joke and so could Lynyrd Skynyrd.



PS: I have about as many Neil Young albums as I have Lynyrd Skynyrd ones, about a dozen each ... That's about how many Rush albums I own too. 

[Dave W]

Oh for pity's sake. I'm eligible to join the Sons of Confederate Veterans and I don't GARA about Skynyrd either.

Or Neil Young, for that matter. I still wonder what compromising photos he has of CS&N that they would ever let him play with them.

[Granny Gremlin]

I knew he was gonna bring that up.

In any case mouth-running Neil started it (and it was just  faux beef/marketting ploy anyway).

Also you forget I'm an immigrant.  I don't have to like Rush, and in fact I can't stand them (it's Geddy's voice mostly) despite being from the YYZ.  Neil is ok, with some great moments, but has been progressing along a particularly Canadian style of senility for a while now.

... I lied, I do like one thing Rush did:



and my absolute favorate 'appearance' of theirs:

[westen44]

Oh for pity's sake. I'm eligible to join the Sons of Confederate Veterans and I don't GARA about Skynyrd either.

Or Neil Young, for that matter. I still wonder what compromising photos he has of CS&N that they would ever let him play with them.

I feel the same about Neil Young.

When it comes to Skynyrd. I would have paid much more attention if the ABB hadn't also been around.  As for Southern rock itself, I feel the Allman Brothers were untouchable.  (Despite the band itself not liking the term Southern rock.)

[patman]

Couple weeks ago I put on the headphones and listened to the entire first two ABB albums.  Probably first purchased on vinyl when I was like 12.

Still sounds wonderful.

So does Great Southern, Sea Level, and Govt Mule

A big part of why I started playing with picks lately.

[uwe]

To me the ABB transcends "Southern Rock". Yes, they have that influence, but it is one among many. I hear more Grateful Dead or Ten Years After in their music than, say, Marshall Tucker or Molly Hatchet. I've been listening to a lot of their stuff lately - in a whimsical moment I decided to buy all their studio stuff thru the eras plus some (not all!) of their many live albums (I only had the legendary Fillmore recording, a compilation double CD plus their last studio outing "Hittin' the Note"). And the funny thing is: A lot of their stuff sounds comparable to modern day Purple, the improvisational aspects of their music and of course, Steve Morse, in his Dixie Dregs days must have really lapped up those Dicky Betts runs.

I saw the Tedeschi-Trucks Band only recently - that concert contained more (and sometimes demanding - verging well into jazz territory) improvisation than I had heard in ages. Even more than you hear at a Gov't Mule gig.

And as regards Neil Young: I think his good stuff is so excellent it outshines the - somewhat plentyful - junk he has released. Him on a good gig is a force of nature to behold.

Isn't Geddy Lee Russian-Jewish origin? Those lingering border issues, that is why Jake doesn't like him! 

[Granny Gremlin]

Ladies and gentlemen, the great Uwe, who never lets history go and assumes nobody else does either ;P

I wouldn't hold the crimes of the Soviet Communists against a random Russian, never mind Russian Jew (historically persecuted by the Soviets among others - even here when I was in HS other Jews would beat up on the Russian Jews - there was one famous case in particular where the kid almost died).  Even though some founders of the party and communism in general may have been Jewish, Stalin and his successors were not and those were the ones who moved against Poland (with varying degrees of success - Polish national heros Pilsudski and Sikorski beat back Tukhachevsky's forces  at the battle of Warsaw in 1920 when Stalin refused to come back him up because he was trying to take Lwow, this marked the beginning of the end of the Polish-Russian war, which I will remind you all, stopped the communist revolution's goal of spreading west to the whole world - y'all owe us for keeping all the riff raff out going back to the Mongol hordes).  .... also I didn't know anything about Geddy's heritage on account of not being a fanboy (the first clue I got was in that series of Time Machine tour videos, one of which I posted above).  Geddy seems like a dude I'd like (and not a bad actor to boot) I literally just can't stand his singing voice (except when he sings lower, but that is rather infrequently and not the better songs; Roll the Bones comes to mind).

[uwe]

I know you weren't. 

He sings a lot lower on the current stuff Rush do and is the first to joke about how high he used to force himself to sing.



That said, his voice is an acquired taste. Took me a while to get used to it when I first heard Rush too. Actually, when I first heard Rush, circa. 1976/77, I thought Welsh rockers Budgie had a new album out, the "Mickey Mouse vocals" were very similar!

[4stringer77]

Just listen to how great this Thunderbird cuts through 


and here's a real one. Can't say it sounds heaps better.

[gearHed289]

That's a great version of Jessica. I'm pretty sure I saw that when it first aired. Epi bass sounds good!