HW: Sabbaticals

[Doug Pearson]

On Thu, 20 Feb 2003 21:18:29 -0000, Jez Dacombe
<Jeremy at DACOMBE.FSNET.CO.UK> wrote:
>Alan's mimicking of Lemmy is worse than "amusing", it's diabolical and
>makes me cringe.
>Playing bass ala Lemster is fine, but all this posing with downturned mic
>and pretending to have a gruff voice is laughable.
>He should just be himself.

I completely see where you're coming from.  I don't wear the yellow plastic
jumpsuit and red flowerpot hat when I'm playing with bands *other* than the
Devo tribute (not even the band leader does that, although he DID
officially change his name to "Loid", as in "Mongo-" ... at least Alan
didn't change his name to "Ace"!  [as in "-of spades", of course]).

>Who are these 3 stellar bassists you mention Doug?
>I'm stuck on one.

Adrian Shaw?  People forget him since he wasn't in the band for very long,
and his style is absolutely nothing like Lemmy/Alan, but his sense of
melody, note placement, and his ability to play *with*, rather than
*through*, a song, sets him head and shoulders above 99% of the world's
bassists.  Some of his parts, although deceptively-simple sounding, take a
serious effort to learn and correctly execute.  I'm still blown away by his
musicianship every time I see him with the Bevis Frond.

>I miss Ron for sheer lunacy & unpredictablity.

I, too, prefer Hawkwind when there's someone in the band to make that
contribution ... Nik, Bob, and (to a lesser extent) Harvey have provided
that in the past, and from some of the show reviews I've read, it sounds
like Arthur Brown is doing a respectable job of it.

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com