Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Whether you like his style or not, you have to admire his spirit to get his playing skill up to that level.

I really like his tune... busy or not. I much prefer it to the J Entwistle solo. More pleasing to the ears.

Interesting perspective on the noodling. I thought the same thing but after going out and getting the CD, well, I gotta disagree. He can prove himself to be a in the pocket player as well.
I recommend this CD and have passed it along to friends who are really impressed with this individual.
My range of taste for bass players pretty much completes the entire spectrum. Even the two string bass players do it for me. Heck, one string as well. I just LOVE the bass sound and all styles.
Kudos to Bill Clements.

For one thing he has a rag tied around the first couple of frets to damp the strings so he will have little sustain as he can not probably dampen them with only one hand, so he must play a lot of notes or there will be dead air between the notes. That is also a fretless bass. I think the guy is fantastic. It's very Jacoesque but he's young and is probably at that stage where he's probably out to prove that he's going to scale the heights and be the next big thing (very well could be). I think he's got a great Fender Jazz tone going there also.
He's definitely got a command of music, he's not just noodling, he knows what he's playing. Very impressive.
The more you listen to jazz guys the more you realize just how good they really are. I believe jazz is the best music and hardest to play of all the forms.

I don't want to be understood about my noodling comment. I call what Mariah Carey does vocal gymnastics. Yeah, it's hard to do, but what's the point? When you do that type of stuff on an instrument, I call it noodling. Not much different than playing scales/arpeggios at break neck speed....

MISunderstood, sheesh!

The point is you do it because you can...

And other people cannot....

Whether it be hitting a high C or playing fast technical arpeggios or scales many hours have been dedicated to hard practice of the craft.

Personally I like that...

My favourite style is the space and feel of melodic syncopation. Bass doesn't get any better than that for me, but I have nothing but admiration for technical brilliance.

That is amazing - I wish I could play that well with BOTH hands. Big respect !!

My point exactly, whether you like the style or not, he's definitely got a lot of talent.
We can all be inspired by someone like him.

That's a question of taste, IMHO. Personally, i love sophisticated bass solos. So, in my view, Bill Clements rocks - he has class and he has style. Hats off!

The guy is a major talent. I wish I could play like that! A pleasure to hear.

As to the fact that his playing was very busy on that clip - yes it was (it's meant to be a bass solo), but it's not a whole gig's worth of what he does. If he's capable of playing like that, I'm fairly sure he can tweeze out some pretty subtle, melodic and tuneful stuff too.

Good for him. I'd happily listen to more from him.

No way I could wrap a rag around my Ric....

Deep down, I bet we ALL wish we could play like this .... when we WANTED to.... there's a time and a place for everything...

"Ok, Chris....we need a really amazing kick*ss bass solo in this spot....what'cha got?" I'd LOVE to be able to answer 'em like THAT!

This guy is absolutely amazing. Like him or not...

It's a testament to why bass is so awesome. Despite having only one hand, the necessity to play the bass was simply overwhelming . . . I've seen the clip before, and it wowed me then. It wows me now. Frankly, if he was playing your standard quarter-note blues groove, it would still wow me. Just crazy . . .

Bill Clements is an Eden endorser. You can read his bio here:
http://www.eden-electronics.com/artists/billclements.asp