From: Level42-request @ worldmachine.com (Level42 Digest) Subject: Level42 Digest V99 #112 _ ____ _ ____ _ _ ___ // //__ // / //__ // /__// __// //__ //__ \\_/ //__ //__ // /__ D I G E S T Level42 Digest Volume 99 : Issue 112 1072 subscribers Today's topics: April Gigs!! igotan Colleseum EMIKATIE Re: CD Writers. Mark Walsham Word Machine Issue 3. Mark Walsham RE: Level42 Digest V99 #111 BOWERSS Mark King Live Birmingham DGlover218 Slap arm fatigue Brown, Andy [Exchange] Re: Jaco WikkedOne SAY bass croehm Required Joe Jackson (non Level content) Lou Hallwas Videos, etc Brian Flint Bass playing singists murgatroyd Joe Jackson - yep, again! Gaetan Duperron slap, Marcus Miller and stuff Nick Brazier Level 58? alex.friesen Re: Level42 Digest V99 #111 Robin E. Walton New Website!!! MARK BEARDSLEY Re: BYRDMAN / DENVER ajjenkins Jaco Bill Montgomery Tap without the shoes Adrian Bond Who log Tom Brown Food for thought Steve Robson ------------------------------ Subject: April Gigs!! From: igotan @ ombomb.demon.co.uk Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 12:51:32 +0100 So when's the gig then that Mark promised us ? I distinctly remeber him saying 'See you all in April' at the Shepherds Bush gig. April's almost done, but no sign of a gig.....or have I missed it ? ------------------------------ Subject: Colleseum From: EMIKATIE @ aol.com Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 08:13:19 EDT Alex writes: > From: alex.friesen @ sickkids.on.ca > Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 09:50:26 -0400 > > >From: "Dan Nesselroth" > >It also reminds me of when Level 42 played the Colleseum > >in Toronto > > > The what? I must have missed that show. And the venue. When was that? Er...... Alex, head south to the CNE and look for a building called the Colleseum. I can't vouch for the fact they ever played there, but I can for the fact the building exists. The machine stops, John > ------------------------------ Subject: Re: CD Writers. From: "Mark Walsham" Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 12:41:17 GMT >And now a quick question: > >I am planning on buying a CD writer, mainly for backing up my PC but >would love to use it also to make a CD of my fave L42 songs. Do I need a specific type of CD writer and/or software to do this ? Before I give you some advice, remember that you should get permission of the copyright owner before you make copies of copyrighted material. Sorry, legal stuff over. I use a Richo MP6200S SCSI cd-writer, and I can recommend fully that you get a SCSI based unit. The reason you want to go for a SCSI unit is simple, the data transfer rate from a SCSI unit is much higher than IDE. One particular problem that can be encountered with burning CD's on a pc is buffer underrun. The cd-writier has a small cache inside, and the host pc has to fill this with data whilst it is writing a CD. If the data stream is interupted, and the cache is emptied, a short jump, stutter will occur onto the new CD. This is annoying to say the least. If you want to make a image copy of a cd, then software such as GEAR and Adaptech Easy CD Creator Deluxe (recommended, it's very good) allow you to take an image of a CD to the hard disk and then copy that image to the CD. On my Pentium II 266 this works OK, but make sure you remove all screen savers, virus checkers and unecessary programs before you write the CD. In addition to this, most packages allow you to extract individual tracks off CD's and store them in WAV format. This is really handy for making compiliation CD's, and also has the added advantage of that you can re-process the WAV files using something like SoundForge XP. You can boost the treble and bass etc and then burn the tracks to CD. Cool. This works realy well on some tracks, but not on others. Finally, if you want to do a CD to CD copy, then I suggest that you also get a SCSI CD-ROM drive, along with your SCSI CD Writer. I have tried copying from CD to CD (most software packages allow this), but the IDE drive just cant supply the data quick enough to the SCSI drive, and therefore buffer underrun occurs. As long as the CD ROM and CD Writer are on the same SCSI card, you should have no problems, as all data movement will be handled by the SCSI controller, and the data will not have to wizz around your system BUS. One last point, you only get what you pay for, and the more expensive writers seem to write more reliably. Good luck, Rgds, Mark. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Subject: Word Machine Issue 3. From: "Mark Walsham" Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 12:47:55 GMT Now that the furore of Loz's supposed "advertise Word Machine to the death" issue is now passed, let me just say one thing... Buy It and Try it! I thought I knew quite a bit about Level 42, but there are lots of gems out there, and if it wasn't for the hard work of LOZ and helpers, this sort of information would not be easily found and distributed to us the fans. LOZ, top man for producing this, it's very good. Issue 3 is a real improvement (print quality wise) over others, but the info is superb in all three. Looking forward to the next issue! Don't knock till you've tried it! Rgds, Mark. --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Not Hot, Not Cold, Not You, Not Me, Only Memory....." ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Subject: RE: Level42 Digest V99 #111 From: BOWERSS @ ONR.NAVY.MIL Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 09:31:53 -0400 Subject: Bass Players who sing! Don't mean to "dis" (dismiss, American teenage slang), you digesters and so called bass players out there, but you are sorely lacking in bass playing history, particularly when it comes to the slap-pop-thump style. We created it, perfected it and popularized it. You guy's are writing like this is a new phenomenon. The reason that you don't hear it much in the mainstream any more is that "GOOD" music is no longer the mainstream. Unfortunately Rap and HipHop is the Mainstream now. Not even Stanley Clarke, Mark King, Louis Johnson or Marcus Miller could slap to that garbage. There are also a host of accomplished bass players who sing lead and or background vocals, mostly American, of course. I do, however agree that Mark King is hands down the very best there has ever been at playing bass and singing lead. Anyway, here's my list of player/singers: USA Rules: * Larry Graham (Graham Central Station) - Father of the thump-slap style. * Rick James ( Rick James and the Stone City Band) - The original Super Freak * Peter Cetera (Chicago) - How in the world could any of you forget those smooth lead vocals? * Jermaine Jackson (Michael's big brother) - many of the early Jackson-5 tunes had him and Michael sharing the lead vocal, and Jermaine has many solo albums to his credit. * Nathan East (An accomplished studio musician, and original bassist for the jazz group "Foreplay" with Bob James and Lee Rittenour). The group uses guest vocalists on the studio recordings, but Nathan does the lead when on tour. * William 'Bootsy' Collins (Bootsy's Rubber Band) - The original Bass Funkateer and long time protege' of George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic * I'm not sure of his name, the gentleman who replaced Peter Cetera with Chicago is also the bassist and a lead vocalist. * Sting - I can't believe that you guy's forgot about him. I don't care for pickers that much, but he is extremely talented. * Kenneth "Babyface" Edmunds is also a bass player and lead vocalist, though the only time that The European community gets to see him is on his acoustic guitar singing Change the World with Eric Clapton. For an absolutely great 'How To' video on slapping, taping and thumping, go to the web site below and request a catalogue. There are several videos in the catalogue by a guy named Beaver Felton that will show you all and more than you ever wanted to know about this playing style. By the way, Beaver is and awesome musician. You've got to see him to believe him. Tongue in cheek, probably as good a player as Mark and the others that I have mentioned in this message. http://www.carvin.com/index.html Stewart A. Bowers e-mail - bowerss @ onr.navy.mil Seta Corporation at The Office of Naval Research 800 North Quincy Street Rm. 317-1 Arlington, VA 22217 Office - (703) 696-2934 Fax - (703) 696-6356 ------------------------------ Subject: Mark King Live Birmingham From: DGlover218 @ aol.com Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 09:43:51 EDT Hi I just heard that Mark has confirmed 2 daytime appearances at MUSIC LIVE 99, a major music show at Birmingham NEC over November 20th and 21st. Admission to Mark's gigs will be free, first come first served. The show admission will be around £8!! For details, e mail the show organisers Mammoth Events at: events @ clara.net. Enjoy!! Dave G. ------------------------------ Subject: Slap arm fatigue From: "Brown, Andy [Exchange]" Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 10:23:58 -0400 Wes wrote: Subject: Bass slapping revisited and revisited... From: "Wes C. Remund" Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 00:32:46 -0600 Hey Levelheads, For me Lessons in Love comes to mind. Not that I find the piece difficult to slap but half way through the song my damn right hand becomes extremely fatigued and just wants to quit. AndyB wrote: What about 'Eyes Waterfalling' if you want a track that creates wrist fatigue! It's another one with mostly all thumb and only occasional pulls, and it's fast! (It's not one of my favourites by any means by the way). I've found the trick is to play as lightly as possible to avoid tiring, also put new strings on -with newish strings, there is so much more response and you don't have to hit them so hard! But Eyes WF still kills me. It's so cleanly played on Physical Presence as well ...in fact, the sound is also very up front and doesn't quite match the bass sounds on the other tracks -I reckon it's a contender for the studio overdub that are rumoured on this album. Having said that I know he can really play it of course -I've watched several times!. AndyB ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Jaco From: WikkedOne @ aol.com Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 10:29:03 EDT In a message dated 4/22/99 5:01:13 AM, Level42-request @ worldmachine.com writes: >Re: Jaco Pastorius >Someone said yesterday he was dead / messed up... what exactly >happened? >Just curious. Jaco is no longer with us, I happened to see him the night before his demise. He was messed up, obnoxious, and looked homeless (I was playing a club in Miami called the "Hungry Sailor" where I also met Mike and Mark but that's a different story) the next night he apparently was at a club in Ft. Lauderdale trying to force his was in and a couple of bouncers beat him to death, a sad end for a wonderful player. -Lancelot (another Irish bassist that sings :-) ------------------------------ Subject: SAY bass From: croehm @ mindspring.com Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 11:26:36 -0400 Hey Levelkids! John, I'm glad you started the slap thread a few days ago. I just bought my first bass a few weeks ago, and I've never played one before, but I've always had a knack for figuring out an instrument, and the replys have helped me. Now I'm trying to figure out the bassline for SAY, and it seems that the notes go lower than my E string (that's the fattest one, right, bass masters?) Does MK tune his bass lower, or use a 5 string, or neither of the above? If this is a dumb question, bear with me, as I try to teach myself. Don Z has already given me some great advice, but at risk of bugging one person too much, if anyone would like to give me any cyber-pointers on my new hobby, I'd welcome the responses! I've been an amateur drummer for 20 years, so I kind of have the rhythm thing going (paradiddles & such). Hope to see you all in NYC! That's me today, Chuck Tampa, Florida ------------------------------ Subject: Required Joe Jackson (non Level content) From: Lou Hallwas Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 10:33:48 -0500 Everyone should check out Joe's first five records. If you don't dig those, chances are yer not gunna like anything else. His first three,..."Look Sharp", "I'm The Man" and "Beat Crazy"< are with his first band; more of a tight Rock four piece. "Beat Crazy" is more reggae influenced. Fourth is "Jumpin Jive" which is all mostly Louis Jordan cover songs along with some Cab Calloway. This was done out of pure instinct, and not out of anything that was going on at the time. People called him crazy at the time, now they've re-released it cause of this fading swing BS going on now., Fifth is "Night and Day" which gave him his first world wide hits. Very latin influenced, very New York influence. Sorry to bore those who are bored, but i had to put it out there. For Danny Wilson at least. So I take the apology back. ------------------------------ Subject: Videos, etc From: "Brian Flint" Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 08:42:08 PDT Being a Level 42 fan in America can really be frustrating. American retailers don't seem to be willing to sell any of the good L42 stuff. I Picked up my first bass in 1985 and my brother plays me Mr. Pink from A physical Presence. The rest is history for me, but what I would like to know is if anyone has information on obtaining any of Mark's solo albums, A Physical Presence I and II, and any of their live videos. (Sacramento CA is so backward that the U.S. Version of World Machine is considered and import here. Thanks for the help. WolfBard _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ------------------------------ Subject: Bass playing singists From: "murgatroyd" Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 16:53:22 +0100 What about Greg Lake? Also, as a relatively new digester, has anyone yet covered the ultimate co-incidence(?) in the L42 HHGTTG connections - 'Carl Mueller' Chris M ------------------------------ Subject: Joe Jackson - yep, again! From: "Gaetan Duperron" Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 09:02:20 PDT At the risk of feeling the wrath of those certain to be alarmed that this is now becoming the "Joe Jackson Digest", here is my list of JJ recommendations. First, the short version: Get 'em all. Now, detail. 1) Angry-young-man stuff (the first 3 albums): Look Sharp, I'm the Man and Beat Crazy. Good (Nay, great!), sometimes aggressive pop songs. See same-era Elvis Costello and Graham Parker for comparison. Great band, including bassist Graham Maby who has stayed with Joe throughout most of his career. 2) Nouveau-swing-before-it-was-cool stuff: Jumpin' Jive and the Tucker soundtrack. Somebody mentioned Jumpin' Jive the other day. JJ's tribute to Louis Jordan. A little "white" but, man, do these guys swing! 3) The high-art pop phase: Night & Day, JJ's most popular and perhaps most beautiful album. Sounds a bit dated, but the songs are just timeless. Not a single guitar on it either! Body & Soul, the logical follow-up, done "live" (i.e. no overdubs, few takes)in a converted church, Blue Note era Sonny Rollins album cover copied down to the typeface on the back-cover. Jazzy, latin, terrific. Big World, a real live recording during which the audience was told to shut up until the last note of each song died away. It actually worked, except for one fuck-up caught on the video-documentary, later edited-out or re-done in a later take. 4) Later stuff: Blaze of Glory, the last A&M album and perhaps his best. The songs are great, the band just kills, Joy Askew and Drew Barfield in fine voice. "Down to London", "Rant and Rave", "19 Forever" - has he written better songs? Laughter & Lust, the first album for Virgin, and the last true rock album that he will ever do, or so he claims. Night Songs, still sort of pop, but much quieter, hinting at what will come next, the neo-classical stuff. What's missing? The Mike's Murder soundtrack. Good luck on finding this one! The classical stuff, Will Power - interesting - and the latest release, Heaven & Hell, on Sony Classical, an interesting concept, development on the seven deadly sins, but a bit of a yawn-inducing concert. Oh yeah, and don't forget the double-live album. Four different tours spanning the last concert of the first band (great Gary Sanford guitar work!) all the way to the Tom Teeley, Rick Ford, Gary Burke band that toured after Big World. This may actually be the best place to start, 'cos as mentioned before, as good as he is on record, JJ is even better live. Later. G ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Subject: slap, Marcus Miller and stuff From: Nick Brazier Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 13:24:13 -0400 Hello all just thought I'd give my 2 pence about this slap business!! I like Mark started as a drummer which I think makes slapping easier, I often get too involved in the percussion side of slapping rather than keeping it simple - ok, loving MK's style don't help that!! I find harder songs to play are Love Meeting Love and The Chinese way, I can just about play them but not as fluently as I'd like them to sound, where as Mr. Pink, 88 Almost There and 43 seem alot easier to play, which I think always sounds good when showing off in a music shop (being 21 and playing it looks even better!! ) As someone said on the digest its all about preference and luck! People have been saying about best bass players etc and mentioned Marcus Miller, I had The Sun Don't Lie earlier and I think MM is a clever player but seems to run out of ideas one the solos pretty quickly, when I saw him live this was also obvious - all i could think was "Mark could do this alot better!" Incognito's new cd is pretty good - but wheres the slap?!! Nothing like that cool instrumental off "JazzFunk" isn't it called interference?? enough of my rabbiting..... Take care y'all Jonathan ps Capital Radio Dr. Fox thing....... They do have The Sun Goes Down in the archive there, I heard them play it a month or so back on top 10 at 10.... ------------------------------ Subject: Level 58? From: alex.friesen @ sickkids.on.ca Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 14:09:40 -0400 So this new guy starts work with my department, and he's sitting down with the person next to me to get her view on things. She says with a laugh "So what do you want to know? The meaning of life?" He says "No, I know that already, it's..." (and here I'm thinking to myself "aha, he knows the number! A fine addition to the department".) He continues with "the answer is 58!" I'm struck dumb. Has he really said this? Oh yes. He starts going on about _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ and how it turns out that the answer to life, the universe, and everything is 58. I cringe inwardly. So I guess Douglas Adams, the band, and, well, all of us got it wrong after all. Eric: rename the digest. Ladies and gentlemen. Please welcome on stage Level 58! ...Alex... " til I say you in pieces" ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Level42 Digest V99 #111 From: "Robin E. Walton" Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 14:25:02 -0400 Subject: Bass playing singers Willing to bet not that many other members of this digest are into their music, but King's X bassist/lead singer Doug Pinnick is *amazing*... --Robin ------------------------------ Subject: New Website!!! From: "MARK BEARDSLEY" Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 21:15:39 +0100 Hi Levelheads! It's been a while since we last posted to the digest. Hope you are all well. For the last few weeks, in fact, since the Isle of Wight gig, we have been trying to set up our own webpage. Now, with the help of our Son, Thomas, we have cracked it! It is dedicated, obviously, to Level 42 / Mark King. If anyone is still interested in seeing photos from the Isle of Wight gig and Joe Daflo's bar then this site is definately worth a visit! The photos are mega brilliant! Even if we do say so ourselves and guess what... there are 42 photos!!! Comments and suggestions would be welcome! Hoping to get to at least one night in London in November. Our web site address is www.griswald78.freeserve.co.uk Bye for now!!! Linda and Mark The Spirit of the People........... ------------------------------ Subject: Re: BYRDMAN / DENVER From: ajjenkins Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 23:34:00 +0100 You know i've sat here for an hour trying to write something down to let you know how myself and everyone around is feeling regarding whats happened there, but I can't. I can't make sense of a tragedy such as that so all I will say is that (and I'm sure I speak for everyone digest subscribers or not) your whole community is in my thoughts and you are not alone in your sorrow. Take Care - Amanda. ------------------------------ Subject: Jaco From: Bill Montgomery Date: Wed, 29 Aug 1956 06:18:23 +0000 To those who are not aware, Jaco Pastorius was beaten to death outside of a New York City after hours nightclub by a bouncer who refused to admit him into the club. He lingered for some thirty days in a hospital before dying. He never regained consciousnes. The bouncer was never convicted of any charge. Comparisons between Jaco and Mark King are dubious at best. Both men were tremendously influenced by r&b music and players; however, Jaco invested in the bass an entirely new harmonic and soloistic approach (in much the same vain as say Charlie Parker), while Mr. King pursues a primarily rhythmic approach that is more understated harmonically. While both have made signifcant contributions to the art of the bass, I doubt the usefulness or appropriateness of head to head compairisons. Additionaly, one must recognize that both have created a rich legacy of music that speaks in unique "voices" to those who will but listen. ------------------------------ Subject: Tap without the shoes From: "Adrian Bond" Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 22:40:48 +0100 Steve Robson asked: > Now about this 'tapping' technique which everybody scrolled past > yesterday (like I predicted). Can anybody tell me what it is, how it > works, who does it etc, etc... Tap bass playing is basically using hammer-ons to get the notes using both hands on the neck of the bass. So instead of fretting a note with the left hand and then plucking/strumming/slapping with the right you hammer down hard on the note with a finger on your left hand to make sound on its own. Your right hand is completely free and is usually used to do the same thing, further up the neck. This way you can play a bass line with the left and then a melody with the right, higher up the neck, or the reverse, or do very fast arpeggios etc. It's a killer on the fingers and gives you hand cramps like you won't believe (at least I always thought that's where I got the cramps from!). Stu Hamm is one of the best I've seen at doing this, he plays classical piano pieces (Beethoven/Bach) using both hands on the bass, amazing to hear. Jeff Berlin and Billy Sheehan have also used this style a lot. Ade. ------------------------------ Subject: Who ??? From: Tom Brown Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 08:34:42 +0000 Hi Folks, All this talk of slapping ! (I got my first bass about 8 months ago now and I'm only just starting to get a reasonable sound out of it !!! - makes you really appreciate the King !) Was listening to the best of Duran Duran at the weekend and just wondered what you guys thought of Mr Taylor's playing - sounded good to me ! I just wanted to wish Mark good luck in the snooker - he's doing pretty well at the moment don't you think ! Driving along the A17 the other day and stopping for petrol on the garage pay desk, they had a double CD called "Superstars" or something for £5, it was of one of the Prince's Trust concertswith MK performing RITF and L$" performing HW. I spent the rest of the journey wishing I'd bought it - doh ! Don't you just love this 80's revival, even as I type, I'm listening to Poison Arrow - ABC...... marvellous. Disc 2 has got Fashion - Love Shadow and King - Love & Pride ! Which date are people going for in November ???? Think I'll try for 26th. Erm.... that's all -Tom Phew, now that AG is no more, no need to run the spall chicker ! ------------------------------ Subject: Food for thought From: Steve Robson Organization: Cadence Design Systems Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 10:21:09 +0100 Quote of the week, courtesy of my son. "Daddy, a mouse can't reach your ears and hold on." I. Robson (age 4) Steve