Music videos that feature Rics

[ilan]

Nice transition bass. My white Oct '73 (no checkerboard, narrow inlays) had a newer button-top in the neck position when I bought it, I have replaced it with a reissue toaster. Button-tops have a narrow window and string bends - even slight - result in significant volume drops. You can use that for tremolo effect... Toasters OTOH handle bends very well.

[Alanko]

Black tugbars aren't a thing in Rickenbacker land, I don't think. Strictly clear acrylic? I think the bass is an Ibanez copy or similar.


I tried a John Birch like the white one in the photo there. The lacquer had consistent, tiny crazing and cracks and was almost a satin, eggshell sort of finish. No idea what Birch was using but it was unlike any other guitar finish I've seen. The controls were idiosyncratic as well. I think they had an ethos that more knobs equals a more professional instrument. This bass had six, plus at least one switch.

[Jeff Scott]

Nice transition bass. My white Oct '73 (no checkerboard, narrow inlays) had a newer button-top in the neck position when I bought it, I have replaced it with a reissue toaster. Button-tops have a narrow window and string bends - even slight - result in significant volume drops. You can use that for tremolo effect... Toasters OTOH handle bends very well.

That's one of the things I love about toasters, that they have excellent string-to-string evenness.

[ilan]

Probably because they have 6 pole pieces.

[Jeff Scott]

No doubt about that, and they are spaced close together.

[Alanko]

Some Italians having fun.

[doombass]

Bad quality but still, Bob Daisley playing a white Ric (or Rickenfaker?) with custom pickguard.
Slide to 14:50:

[uwe]

Graham Gouldman doing a bass solo (with flats, he would always play those) how it should be done - over harmonies and the whole band playing, @09:17:

[ilan]

Graham Gouldman doing a bass solo (with flats, he would always play those) how it should be done - over harmonies and the whole band playing, @09:17:

What a beautiful solo. Never heard this one before. Maybe it's time to finally put flats on one of the Rics.

[uwe]

10cc were sorta the UK's answer to Steely Dan. Sophisticated pop music for nerds, but so slyly crafted that the larger public wouldn't immediately notice.

[ilan]

They had two sets of Lennon-McCartneys in the band, one more prog, the other more chart hits oriented. Which eventually led to their break up. I never liked the pop side of 10cc ("Dreadlock Holiday") and loved "I'm Mandy, Fly Me", "I'm Not In Love" etc. The mid 70s is when I started playing bass and immersing myself in music, and these songs were on the radio, so I have a soft spot for them.

[uwe]

I'm a sucker for good pop, also what Graham Gouldman did with Andrew Gold in the aftermath of 10cc.

[uwe]

Rickenbackers can be tribal.

[ilan]

Last time I heard this song was 47 years ago

[uwe]

I could have been there!

At the Ali vs Foreman battle I mean, but then the stupid German Embassy in Kinshasa gave out a warning that the event would be "racially charged" so my parents wouldn't let me go (I was 13 at the time, but "two weeks close to 14" as I stressed with them to no avail!). The Ali fans had been chanting "Ali, bomaye!" (Lingala for Ali, kill him!) in the streets for a while and they outnumbered the fans of Foreman (perceived as a white man's "Uncle Tom") greatly.

But I rode an elevator with George Foreman (in dungarees and with his two German shepherd dogs which did not go down well at all in Zaire at the time as they were viewed as a colonial symbol) at the Intercontinental Hotel.


That's exactly what he wore, minus the cap.

I also saw Ali around the same time, but not as close. He was staying at the Hotel Okapi (the other top tier hotel in Kinshasa) and was always surrounded by an entourage of at least a dozen people. Ali bathed in the masses,




Foreman kept to himself - and the two shepherds made sure of that! (Though they didn't strike me as aggressive in the elevator, but then I was used to guard dogs and unafraid of them.)