Happy Friday, mother funkers
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Here is something most of you might never heard ofā¦ Krautrock from the late 70ās!
Eloy āliveā and their song āInsideā - power guitar, Hammond and analog synths, a crisp bass and a HUUUUGE drumset - what is not to like??? Well, uhm, maybe ze zick German accent 
Happy Friday!
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No problem! Itās kinda funny with them, in my experience, people have either never heard of them or love them. I first heard them in '82 when their Black Tiger came out and when I heard the song āForeverā I was hooked-itās my favorite song to this day.
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More Krautrock from the 70ās, way before formulaic songs and midrange. Sorry I donāt know how to just get the video in the post instead of the link as Iām a bit technically challenged when it comes to sharing stuff in a forum.
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Yeah I remember that despite not having a lot of huge fandom they were a staple of AOR radio stations at the time - basically a band that everyone recognized the songs of but no one really knew. Underrated for sure.
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Just make sure that the link is on a line all by itself when you make your post, @funplumbin1 . . . 
All best, Joe
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Hey @funplumbin1, just hit enter/return, paste the link, and hit enter again! Just did it for you on your Scorpions post. 
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Scorps are still around! They did a pretty solid cover of Tainted Love recently. Thereās a lot of amazing covers of that song and theirs holds its own, at least with Soft Cellās and Coilās covers anyway.
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Hereās a song by a couple of my Seattle friends. I love the tune, I love Johnās quirky lyric writing style and I love that it has no bass recorded. Enjoy coming up with your own bass line and playing along. 
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I think: Sweeeeet. Thanks for the share.
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OK, Friday comes early this week - Happy 4th of July to all of you in the US and US expats!!
I also wanted to share this particular video because of the recent (passionate) discussion about short scale basses elsewhere in this forum (I am looking especially at you, @howard and @Korrigan 
)
This weekās video features the talented Russian bassist Anton Davidyants and a rendition of Mike Mainieriās Self Portrait, which has been a staple of all incarnations of Steps Ahead since the 80s.
Yeah, perhaps you could say itās saccharine fusion noodling, but I find it a beautiful and moving piece of music nonetheless and a very nicely done rendition, and you just gotta love that cutesy bass he is playing (which, technically, might not really count as a short scale bass - I guess piccolo basses constitute their own little subgroup!?). Still, an instrument that is very āluggableā and which just might fit into the glove compartment of one of them big SUVs 
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I really like the tone
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I dig it @joergkutter.
I donāt think Iād call it a piccolo bass though. Iād say itās more of a 4ths tuned baritone-tenor guitar. 
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I didnāt know about piccolo basses until I read the liner notes of Stanley Clarkeās āSchool Daysā.
I made one myself on an old 4 string.
It was real real fun. You can get piccolo strings wherever you get normal strings. If you have a spare bass, try it out. Another option is to buy singles, or a 6 string set, and discard the low B and E.
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Just to clarify for everyoneā¦ āpiccolo bassā is a tuning, not actually a different instrument. Piccolo tuning is an octave higher than standard bass tuning (so E2 A2 D3 G3 instead of E1 A1 D2 G3), the same pitch range as the bottom 4 strings of a guitar.
@Gio: When you say discard the B and E of a 6 string set, are you talking about tenor tuning, ADGC?
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Aaaaah, you know you are an experienced bass player whenā¦
ā¦ you have a āspare bassā lying around
So far, the two basses I own are my ābabiesā and I couldnāt even dream of putting them through some ātreatmentsā that the Geneva convention would frown upon
But, yeah, the first time I heard about a piccolo bass was exactly during my first encounter with āSchool Daysā!
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@Korrigan - yes, thanks for the clarification! Tenor bass is tons of fun. Piccoloā¦ hurt my fingers. Playing fingerstyle on solid steel strings is too weird.
And @joergkutter - Ha! I know what you mean. I think back on that particular time of life with great fondness. Lots of extra everythings back then. Time, money, bassesā¦ oh, the joys.
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Friday here
Have some Greg Norton.
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