I genuinely don't think that Level 42 are all that bad. Some of their early stuff is good and I even like 'Running in the Family'. Mark King probably doesn't count as great though.

Bored of Education wrote:


It's not even two songs, I just love 'The Sun Goes Down' and it's excellence has been widely accepted on here.

Biiiig fan, that Harry

No mention of Tom Robinson yet, shame on the lot of you!

Yeah, Toms are great.



They say that the pen is mightier than the sword but I say 'fuck the pen', you shall...DIE BY THE SWORD

JJ Burnel, fucking awesome

Fly straight with perfection.

Find me a new direction

Prince is the answer for these debates.

Calvert, I love Slayer as much as the next man and Tom Araya's voice is brilliant but his bass playing is, at best, perfunctory

Well, that's the deal with bass playing.
It's not a melodic instrument and a discipline to keep it moving and to be on the money the whole time, see also Cliff Williams, but to do what Araya does with that monstrous vocal and keep it squeaky tight is fantastic. It's more about the visceral than the aural when it comes to their bass parts.
People confuse flashy bastard wankery with great playing, it's not, it's er, flashy bastard wankery, you;re there in rock music to lock into the kick drum and keep it simple which is the hardest thing to do.
You know this.

I don't know, I think you can get a bit more than the root notes that Araya plays in there. Foxton, Lemmy, Lynott all were able to do this.

Don't get me wrong, I am not sure that Slayer need those sort of bass lines which means that Araya is the perfect for them in the same way that Williams is perfect for AC/DC. Which probably means I agree with you.

Lemmy's drown it in distortion and play chords routine doesn't do it for me.
There's more effect than original signal.
We're team players. We do the rocksteady so the noodlers can noodle and root notes are where it's at.
Laughably some of our younger students don't rate the AC/DC rhythm section because they're not flashy.
I challenge them to do what Rudd and Williams do without sticking in superfluous notes or Tom rolls - they can't do it. It's the hardest discipline.
It's skill #1 in rock playing and that's why Williams and Rudd are millionaires and our lot will be working in call centres and playing in weekend cover bands.
Araya is perfect for the role, Les Claypool noodlery under that avalanche of precision noise would be comical.

Apart from the heretical first statement, I can't disagree with you. You are winning me over.

I don't know about you but, whenever I am working out a bassline for a new song, I start with the root notes, invariably work it up into too much and then, after a couple of rehearsals or gigs, reign it back to something more effective and manageable (not least for when I am also singing) .

I haven't played in a band for nearly 20 years.
I lost the love but it's pretty apparent what work as far as the four steel cables are concerned.
You may laugh at this but Justin Currie from Del Amitri is another good solid nowt fancy on-the-money bassist/ vocalist.
Doing what I do though I get enough of music, in fact way too much.
Today I've mixed 2 in-the-round Nashhville Songwiters sessions and shortly will be doing a third. I'm tired.
13 acoustic guitars, 1 mandolin, one stereo keyboard, and 10 vocals.
Two more hours then sleeps.

Bloody hell, I sympathise. I don't even hang around for our mixing.

Can't moan, people do worthwhile jobs for longer hours and for a lot less.
Fortunately I can pick and choose, like the metal all-dayer next week.
Fuck that.
I'll be rearranging my sock drawer that day.

Respect, Calvert and Bored. I thought of you while watching that Howard Goodall series on musical history the other ay. He was enthusing away about augmented and diminshed root notes in the dsyharmonics of Berlioz and Dvorak, when a string quartet came on and launched into Rocking all over the World. Which ain't a Quo origninal Howie, do yer research. I, IV, then a V, watch as Frampton comes alive.

Morning, DG

Get yer BBC I-Player happening and check out The Sound And The Fury.
Quality like that almost soothes my rage at having to pay the License Fee.