Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

i can list the songs and albums that are 1/2 step down and the oens that are standard. been paying these for years now. not to mention i am a bit of a fanatic.

china town is great

If I tune my bass with my Bass Pod, I can play along with most recordings or pick off new songs so I think my tuner is accurate. If TL had neatly tuned down a half step I would not have to retune to match them. I would just be playing one fret down, right? The reality is that the opening chord of Jailbreak is between a D and an Eb. According to my tuner it is pretty much exactly between those pitches. So it is either a quarter tone sharp of a D or flat of an Eb. Years ago, I had played the song in D with a normal tuning. Tune your D string to the opening chord then test it against a digital tuner.

Is it possible that the tape was sped up a bit?

That is what I thought but it is exactly the same tuing on two songs. The Boys Are Back is shifted the same way. Unless it was deliberate....

nah, ted's right actually (curses!). oddly enough as long as i have been playing the piece i never quite noticed it, that one note is a D#. None of the live versions refect that of course.

One of Phil's many little oddities I guess. The main reason the Johnny The Fox album is half-step down was because Phil was sick with hepatitis when he was writing it and the songs were easier for him to sing tuned down while being sick.

I think it was deliberate.

Did Phil die from hepatitus?

He died from complications from his obscene heroin abuse. Basically his kidneys and liver shut down on him. If you ever see the documnetary where his Mother is talking about him on his death bead, it'll kill you. She says he was laying on the hospital bed and looked at her and said he needed to show her something. He pulled the sheet back to reveal his feet which is where he did most of his shooting up so people wouldn't suspect him of being a junkie (everyone knew). The track marks were horrible. He then looked at her and something tot he effect of "Mother, I'm sorry for what I've done". Dang, gets me choked up just typing it out.

You know (not to get off topic or upset anyone) I find it hard to be upset or feel emotion when someone dies like this. A great talent or not you live and die by choices you make. It's great that he was sorry and didn't want to upset his mother but he should have thought of that when he was shooting up. I see everyday in my job what drug addiction, alcoholism and suicides do to ruin people/families so maybe I'm a little hardened.....

I love and am inspired by the work of Jaco Pastorius but everything I have ever read about him suggests that he was a total a-hole and very difficult to work with. He abused drugs and alcohol for years and did a lot of dumb things as a result. As a player, he was a genius. Someone here posted an interesting bit of wisdom recently. I don't know who said it first but the quote was. "Trust the art, not the artist."

Jaco was diagnosed as a manic depressive and this was obviously a major factor for his behaviour at certain times in his life. Anyone who knows or has suffered mental illness will usually see an addiction in behaviour patterns and that the individual concerned cannot control themselves all the time.

The sad thing is that he, and as another relevant example, Karen Carpenter would probably still be alive today if the current medication/therapy options were available at the time of their illnesses...

Yes, that is right Andrew. He did have underlying mental problems. I should not have left that out.

Ah, Karen Carpenter....now THAT was a voice....

I totally agree Shaun. She had one the most exceptional voices I have heard, with an emotion and serenity which was unique.
Another one who left far too early...