A vid of Dan Birch featuring a mediocre bass player

[uwe]

Yes, Warwick made the violin bass for me in the Custom Shop. If you can dream it, they can build it. It's solid wengé of course, with MEC toasters.

You moffenhoer! 

[ilan]

It was recorded with the black, '78 Musicmaster before I installed the lipstick.

You sound great and I like your playing. I love those basses. Here's mine -

[Chris P.]

You moffenhoer! 

One of my favourite insults

And thanks, Ilan! I have a blue Squier Musicmaster which sounds warm and nice. It has a 70s pickup instead of the Vista one. the black sounded similar, but after testing a Fender Rascal and because of the looks I decided to put an SD lipstick in it and it rocks! The recording is still with the original six pole pickup.

[Dave W]

You moffenhoer! 

I learned something new today. Not that I'll ever have need to use it -- at least until Chris has Warwick make him another custom bass. 

[Highlander]

Insults can be phonetically very "silky" sounding or very coarse; the Anglo-Saxon khaki, kettle, King's Bolledge Bambridge... what a silly bunt word is harsh, unlike the Italian variant for it and that word (mof...), which is smooth sounding... my personal favourite "sounding" German curse sounds like shy-sir, which means absolutely nothing here, but there was uproar here from the German tourists that saw an advert for Frijj yoghurt drink, with the words Fresh Filling and a word that was spelt with F but phonetically like Thick ...

[Droombolus]

But then again, moffenhoer is 100% dutch .....

[Highlander]

... and here's us, conversing in a language that has b*st*rd origins is about as doubtful-parentage illegitimate as you can get...

[Dave W]

... my personal favourite "sounding" German curse sounds like shy-sir, which means absolutely nothing here,  ...

Sounds like Scheiß to me. My grandfather used it as a prefix for several curse words. It was about the only German he retained from his father. Came in handy when you didn't want the other guy to know what you were calling him. 

[Highlander]

That's the one...!

A getty fur yer wee bassa, according to the Big Yin, could be someone giving a bunch of flowers to a loved one, but in guttural Glaswegian... GETTYFURYAWEEBASSA...!!! and you can probably sort it out for yourself...

[gearHed289]

Well I guess mediocre is good then!  Us bass players walk a fine line between playing too much, and going unnoticed.

[uwe]

I never go unnoticed. Seriously. Even if I play the exact same thing that my predecessors in bands have played, I always hear "you're much more prominent in how you play". Then I go: "I'm playing the exact same thing ...". And they say: "Yeah, but it sounds so totally different!" I think it's a mix of my pick attack, the fact that I mute strings almost constantly (a habit, not a choice, and I do it both with my fretting and my picking hand) which gives me a lot of control even at high volumes (I'm not a shrinking violet when it comes down to volume, when I was young I made a vow never to be outvolumed by a 6-stringer again!) and that I tend to be slightly ahead of the beat making things I play sound a little quirky. I've never had an issue attracting attention even if I play the root in eights. And there is a simple trick too: Don't change with the chord changes of the guitarist(s) and even unmusical people will sooner or later start to notice how you persistently hang on to that original note ...

[gearHed289]

And there is a simple trick too: Don't change with the chord changes of the guitarist(s) and even unmusical people will sooner or later start to notice how you persistently hang on to that original note ...

Why doesn't that trick work for Ian Hill?

[uwe]

Because he has those Spectors mixed way back - behind Scott Travis omnipresent double bass drum - and only reinforces the bass drum patterns 80% of the time. He's like a tuned bass drum. If he allowed his sound more mids, however, his "holding on to one note"-patterns would be much more present, but instead he leaves room for Priest's chugging twin guitars. 

Coincidentally, I'm seeing the man again tomorrow night when he and his Brummie outfit play in Berlin.  I appreciate what he does and why he does it - bass playing for stadiums with a loud drummer in a loud heavy metal band -, but I could never bring myself to play like that. I lack the discipline. I like to follow a good bass drum, but I need to break out once in a while too!