josh a Posted December 2, 2006 Share Posted December 2, 2006 Who played bass for this song? I have not listened to any other songs by Chic, or do I know anything about them. Also, what kind of bass is it? P or J? Thankss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tnb Posted December 2, 2006 Share Posted December 2, 2006 Mr. Bernard Edwards. I heard it was a P bass, but it always sounded like a Music Man to me. Check out this youtube clip: http://youtube.com/watch?v=O4fB8aDXH9I Inspite of the the drummers turned up collar and other '70s cheese, there is nothing cheesy about that bassline. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josh a Posted December 2, 2006 Author Share Posted December 2, 2006 I heard (hahahha a marvellous pun!) that music man's = sooped(?) up p's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jar546 Posted December 3, 2006 Share Posted December 3, 2006 Good clip, great bass lines "The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know" by Me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil W Posted December 3, 2006 Share Posted December 3, 2006 Listen to some more Chic, Bernand Edwards was one of the greats of bass. Any compilation will do! http://philwbass.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky McDougall Posted December 3, 2006 Share Posted December 3, 2006 Did you pick up on that left thumb action on the video? "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb, voting on what to eat for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb, contesting the vote." Benjamin Franklin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremy c Posted December 3, 2006 Share Posted December 3, 2006 Today's styles will look just as silly in thirty years as the 70's (and 60's) styles look to us now. Bernard Edwards was a great player and he is one of my (many) influences. We Are Family is another one of his basslines. Free download of my cd!. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcadmus Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 Can't say I was a fan of the genre, but Bernard's playing was great. "Tours widely in the southwestern tip of Kentucky" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexclaber Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 Upside Down (by Diana Ross) was another great line of Bernard's. Whatever you may think of disco, it's packed to the gills with wicked basslines! Alex Barefaced Ltd - ultra lightweight, high ouput, toneful bass cabs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZZ Thorn Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 Such a great song - Nile and Bernard wrote and produced a ton of great stuff, for themselves and for other artists. People love to bag on disco, but in my opinion there's way more good tunes and musicianship in disco than in other genres like punk, hip-hop and probably metal. http://www.myspace.com/themoustachioed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil W Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 No disco sucked . . . it was the death of funk. Listen to the drums! Rodgers and Edwards ruled despite being disco-funk. Disco simplified the whole relationship between bass, rhythm guitars and drums etc. to a dumb four-square rhythm with the odd cool bass lick over the top. Nile and Bernard simply wrote and arranged good music that was alwats more complex than it sounded. http://philwbass.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZZ Thorn Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 I agree that disco does not deserve the same regard as many other genres, but at least there was usually that cool bass lick! In many genres that followed - rap, punk, emo, etc. - in my subjective opinion there isn't that cool bass or any other lick. It's a relative opinion based on low expectations - disco often had that one cool thing, whereas I listen to say punk music and I hear no cool things. It's just my opinion, of course. Disco was quite simple, but that's simple compared with funk or jazz or more complex genres. Compared with the Sex Pistols or Biz Markie, disco is way more complex musically. Disco is the weak-hitting shortstop nobody values...except when he makes a great defensive play. I heard "Forget Me Not," a disco tune with a great bassline (and other good parts), on the radio today and I blasted it. Thank you disco. http://www.myspace.com/themoustachioed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremy c Posted December 4, 2006 Share Posted December 4, 2006 I played in a four piece disco cover band for 8 years. We were booked 6 or 7 nights a week for the whole time. By the end of the eight years, all four of us had bought houses in the San Francisco area. Thank you, disco! Free download of my cd!. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josh a Posted December 4, 2006 Author Share Posted December 4, 2006 Hooray for disco. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil W Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 Well hooray for disco for funding Jeremy's lifestyle! That's worthwhile, at least. Of course I have my own disco favourites - Forget-me-nots (Patrice Rushen); Ring My Bell (Anita Ward), Edwin Starr, etc. If only most disco had been as good as Chic!!! Just that historically it entered the musical universe with the effect that it watered down funky music. Listen to bands like Slave, EWF, Ohio Players, Parliament and others in the 70s and then listen to their disco equivalents (often the same bands/musicians). But then, there wasn't much that I enjoyed listening to recorded in the 80s. I know disco started earlier than that but in my mind I always associate it with an 80s mentality. Hey Jeremy, what did you wear? Do you have any pictures?!! http://philwbass.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidMPires Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 I played a disco medley that inclued Respect, , le chic, we are family and many others people loved. www.myspace.com/davidbassportugal "And then the magical unicorn will come prancing down the rainbow and we'll all join hands for a rousing chorus of Kumbaya." - by davio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerk Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 Had a 3 piece, with a female front, top 40 rock cover band in the early eighties. We did no disco, but nothing would fill the dance floor faster than quarter notes on the kick, ala disco beat. We would start 'gimme 3 steps' with 4 measures of that. The floor would be fillin before they even knew what the song was. We worked the 'quarters on the kick' into a few rock n roll songs. My drummers usually didn't like it, as it was 'Sacrilegious' to them, but dancing = drink sales = happy bar owners = rebooks. Also, the more girls on the floor, the more enjoyable the gig. The power of the kick.....brings out the primal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil W Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 This is a great book on the evolution and rise and fall of funk . . . and the effects of the disco virus(t.i.c.). http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0312134991.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_OU01_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg http://philwbass.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky McDougall Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 What are your opinions for the the sudden rise in popularity of Disco. Was it the "Danceability", "Movies". What do you think? Rocky "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb, voting on what to eat for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb, contesting the vote." Benjamin Franklin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil W Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 People crave predictabilty in music and disco is a more predictable form/development of funk. Many find it esaier to dance to a four-on-the floor rhythm. If you play a tumbao in a Bolton or Leeds club you might get puzzled faces but every knows where they are with THUD-thud-thud-thud especially with the handclaps!It was also related to the disco dance scene and the emerging gay disco scene. It was always ever the more predictable stuff that was more popular however in any popular genre throughout the century. http://philwbass.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky McDougall Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 Originally posted by Phil W: People crave predictabilty in music Would that be true of the "Waltz" and the "Texas Two Step" ? Rocky "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb, voting on what to eat for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb, contesting the vote." Benjamin Franklin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil W Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 Well, that's interesting Rocky. Many musical developments have been dance driven, sometimes more than we realise. I certainly understood the development (and some of the terminology) of Afro-Cuban, Puerto Rican and other music better when I took some time to study the development of the dance styles. Even something like the use of particular narcotic drugs can act as a 'stimulant' for a particular tempo or musical style. I'm a little sorry to have taken this thread OT as there is a whole thread's worth just on Chic/Sister Sledge in particlular. I never saw Chic as typical disco more as disco-funk. Most of the mid-late seventies disco was sometimes of a different order to then the late70s-early 80s stuff. http://philwbass.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil W Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 A Chic website with soundclips, biography and discography http://philwbass.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremy c Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 Here's that band picture from the disco bands. The shirts were red satin. One of these days I'll put up a "history of my band pictures" on my website. It's pretty interesting. The hair gets longer and longer and then shorter and shorter. Looking at the band pictures (which is what I have been doing this morning) gives a nice history of fashions over the last forty years. The glasses I was wearing in this picture is actually the funniest thing to me. http://home.jps.net/~jeremy/discoJer.JPG Free download of my cd!. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tnb Posted December 6, 2006 Share Posted December 6, 2006 What about the shoes??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremy c Posted December 6, 2006 Share Posted December 6, 2006 Three inch platform shoes. Yellow leather. Free download of my cd!. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
... Posted December 6, 2006 Share Posted December 6, 2006 Damn. Disco as you wanna be, J! Bernard Edwards was a funky funky man. I dug his rap. Regarding disco as a style of music and it's popularity I tend to agree with Phil. It was/is simplified and more predictable funk. Even the most rhythmically challenged could figure out the beat in disco and dance to it. Add an enticing "party, sex, and drugs" lifestyle to the scene and you've got yourself a popular fad. Mercifully a popular fad that didn't last long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Thorne Posted December 6, 2006 Share Posted December 6, 2006 I like me some hip-hop but would take disco over it just about any day. The whole disco scene was fun, man; kickin' music, fancy clothes (laugh now but it was a popular style at the time), real dances with real steps. No AIDS. I enjoyed it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flemtone Posted December 6, 2006 Share Posted December 6, 2006 Chad, is your sig, perhaps, from Doonesbury? Something said by Jay 'Wah Wah' Graydon? Sounds like his style... Regarding Disco - it was cool, coming out of the mid-70s rock scene, to denegrate Disco with a disdainful toss of the head, but it's been an enduring party music for 30 years, so there must be something to it. It's true, nothing fills a dance floor faster. One of our exploding keyboard players with the 'tones went from us (playing The Band, Allman Bros, Beatles, Little Feat, etc) to play in a Disco band for about two years. They played virtually every night to sold-out shows in large venues, made a ton of cash, and he finally dropped out due to exhaustion. They were turning down gigs as fast as they were booking them, just because they had no open spots on their calendar. this was about 5 years ago. Me, I love some Disco, but more the exception than the rule, though my Inner 70's Death-before-Disco Guy is silently shreiking within me. *smack* Keep it down in there! Play. Just play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Thorne Posted December 6, 2006 Share Posted December 6, 2006 Flemmie, the signature line is from Doonesbury, a conversation between Jimmy Thudpucker and Jay "Wah-Wah" Graydon. Don't know if you were around then, but a few years ago none other than Jay Graydon himself (never called "Wah-Wah" in real life, BTW) showed up on this very forum for a few posts. You can see where I asked him about Doonesbury and his reply some posts later in the thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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