Greg Lake's modded Rickenbacker

[Alanko]

I've never owned a Rick. I was pipped to the post on a daftly cheap (for the UK) minty 4003 in Montezuma brown, a couple of months back. It had the protective film on the pickguard, from memory. 

I might try and narrow down the period of time Greg Lake was using the Rickenbacker and then see if there are any audience or soundboard recordings for corresponding gigs. I want to hear this bass in action!

[Denis]

I would bet money Lake tried the Ric in the time period between his Jazz bass and his Ripper.

[Jeff Scott]

Why did Salvador Dali cross the road?

Money?

[Pekka]

I might try and narrow down the period of time Greg Lake was using the Rickenbacker and then see if there are any audience or soundboard recordings for corresponding gigs. I want to hear this bass in action!

The Melody Maker Poll Winners gig is one if there happens to be a bootleg of that.

[Pekka]

I would bet money Lake tried the Ric in the time period between his Jazz bass and his Ripper.

Yes, even 'though he still used the Jazz too in 1973. Is "Brain Salad Surgery" Jazz or Ripper?

[Alanko]

The Melody Maker Poll Winners gig is one if there happens to be a bootleg of that.

There is, apparently, an audience boot of the gig. The Melody Maker Winners gig was at The Oval cricket ground, and was held on the 30th of September 1972. I can find a few bootlegs of the band from around June/July of 1972 when they were conducting a European tour. They also toured Japan that year and there are boots of that, but again I'm pretty sure Greg was playing a Jazz bass for all of those gigs. I cannot find a photo of Greg playing at the Mar Y Sol festival, so I don't know exactly what he used on that gig,but it sounds like the Jazz again.

The other problem with bootlegs is that the sound quality is usually rough, and it is the bass that is generally reproduced the worst.

What bass is on this recording? Your guess is as good as mine!



Here is Genesis's set from The Oval, just to give you an idea of the sound quality to expect:

[Alanko]

Bump!

I tracked down a copy of the Oval gig, on the private torrent site I get all my bootlegs from, where I should have looked in the first place. I'm a bit slow sometimes... 

I'm having a listen, and whilst the recording isn't great it does capture a bit of the bass tone. It sounds not entirely unlike his Jazz bass, but less brittle and perhaps with a bit more mids content. If people really want to hear it I can upload snippets onto Youtube or something.

[Jeff Scott]

Cool, that recording of Genesis is from a few months before i saw them for the first time, on April 14, 1973. 

Here is the ad I saw that alerted me to go to that show which was their first tour in the US.

[Alanko]

Definitely a fertile time for progressive rock. The full lineup for the Oval concert was Wishbone Ash, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Genesis, Argent , Focus ,Jack Bruce, and Fudd. I've never heard of 'Fudd', but it is an insult in Scots!

Here is my quick edit of the Oval bootleg. A bit of Aquatarkus and some of Pictures at an Exhibition, just where the bass stands out. There is also a rare performance of 'Endless Enigma' on the bootleg that I could upload.

[Jeff Scott]

...Aquatarkus...

A shame the audio quality is not great. 

I knew a guy back in the mid '70s (while in college at the University of Cincinnati) who was a big Keith Emerson fan; when I met him he was playing the piano in one of the lobbies of the dorm we lived in.  He did a great version of two ELP songs that he called Take A Tarkus, it was Take A Pebble on one hand while playing Tarkus with the other!

[Alanko]

Yeah, it is a fairly standard field recording of the era. I used to have a lot of Pink Floyd bootlegs (which fans prefer to call ROIOs for pedantic reasons) of similar quality. Audience recordings improve rapidly during the '70s, but at the start of the decade you tend to find a lot of monaural recordings with restricted bandwidth, usually of a band playing through a crap-to-nonexistent PA. A lot of times the musicianship shines through, though I have a few Hawkwind bootlegs that basically sound like a wall of mud with drums in the distant background.

Anyway, here is The Endless Enigma from the Oval show. There is some points where the bass is quite prominent, so you get a good feel for the tone. Definitely Greg Lake's classic tone (which makes me think he had the cap removed from the bass, as it is quite comb filter-y) The lows and low mids just seem a bit richer than his Jazz bass...

[Jeff Scott]

His bass does sound great in that recording when it can be heard well.  I suppose he could have known what the cap was doing and removed it, but another possibility is is he was soloing the neck toaster; those old ones could have an amazing tone all by themselves, the one in my old '67 4005WB, and the short magnet toaster in my 4004L SPC can get that tone by themselves.

[Jeff Scott]

What bass is on this recording? Your guess is as good as mine!

My guess is Greg is playing the Rick, it just has that tone that I can get on mine.

[Alanko]

There is that reassuring always-there low-mids and bass response that I associate with a Rick. It must have sounded great in concert for it to be captured on a primitive tape recorder like that.

I don't like Greg's Jazz bass tone.  There are parts of the  Mar Y Sol recording where it is so ice-picky that it is unlistenable, in my opinion. I've seen a clip of ELP performing Tarkus in Japan during this period, and Greg is strumming full chords on the bass. With that ultra treble tone it just sounds like noise, especially as the other end of the tone, curtsey of folded-horn cabs, is often lost even on official live recordings.

In fact I've heard too many ELP recordings where Greg is playing bass out of tune or getting lost during Pictures at an Exhibition. I do sometimes wonder if he was the weak link in ELP? As soulful and full as his voice was, he still pushed it beyond its limits onstage. I've also seen the footage of Keith basically teaching Greg parts of Karn Evil note for note. Was he basically just tasked with playing Keith's left hand parts?

[gearHed289]

There is that reassuring always-there low-mids and bass response that I associate with a Rick. It must have sounded great in concert for it to be captured on a primitive tape recorder like that.

I don't like Greg's Jazz bass tone.  There are parts of the  Mar Y Sol recording where it is so ice-picky that it is unlistenable, in my opinion. I've seen a clip of ELP performing Tarkus in Japan during this period, and Greg is strumming full chords on the bass. With that ultra treble tone it just sounds like noise, especially as the other end of the tone, curtsey of folded-horn cabs, is often lost even on official live recordings.

In fact I've heard too many ELP recordings where Greg is playing bass out of tune or getting lost during Pictures at an Exhibition. I do sometimes wonder if he was the weak link in ELP? As soulful and full as his voice was, he still pushed it beyond its limits onstage. I've also seen the footage of Keith basically teaching Greg parts of Karn Evil note for note. Was he basically just tasked with playing Keith's left hand parts?

Well, there is the old joke (sorry if it's already been mentioned) "Who was the best bass player in ELP? Keith's left hand". Greg certainly did some cool stuff in the studio. Listened to Trilogy while making dinner the other night.

I heard a boot of him with the Alembic, and it was so tinny, I wondered if the engineer only took the feed from the bridge pickup?