Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYUtMdVIfxE

Pretty cool, eh? Apparently he has an album out - details here: http://kzoomusicgroup.com/music.html

I've heard about Bill Clements, but never heard (or saw) him play before. He's great! Thanks for sharing.

Plays better with the one hand then some people do with 2 hands!

I'll say! Simply mind-blowing.

Reitterating a comment posted there - imagine what the guy could do with two!

Try play that with two hands... My god....

I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything but seems to me he could get some crazy slap percussion thing going on with that hook. Kind of like those funk finger things. I wonder if he ever does that?

The guy can play. No question about that. Nice sound too. It sound, like it's finger picked not hammered on. He should be an inspiration to us all to overcome ANY adversity that we might face. I'm sure his sound has developed BECAUSE of his technique, but in no way is it limiting. Thanks for posting the link. I have in tern sent it to some of my bass player friends.

Wow. That was just awesome. Doesnt it make you feel like youv been slacking tho? When someone with only one hand pulls off some stuff you cant do with both of yours. I feel lazy. I have to go play for the rest of the night. Thanks...
Really tho. You have to respect someone like that so much. Thats just awesome.

Awesome.

I'm going to play right now.

WOW! That guy is GOOD! I hope he gets to read some posts like these,'cause he deserves the props.
Give that man a Rick, please!
Really good "in the groove" playing, too, not just a gimmicky kind of thing. Real talent.

Well, just speaking as a pocket player, he is WAY too busy. I have a hard time with bass lines that tend toward "noodling". Of course 90% or more of the jazz solos I hear sound like noodling. Speed os not everything. That said, he noodles really fast!

definition of noodling. - playing scales and runs so fast as to be almost incoherent. I believe "style" and "groove" comes in the spaces, and jazz guys don't leave spaces.

He ducks and runs for cover........

If a guy with both hands played that busy all the time, he would be showing off, but this fellow kind of has to prove himself (or feels like he should).
I certainly wouldn't call him handicapped!
And I do agree that frequently it's what you don't play that sets one's playing apart.

I gotta' agree with Charlie. Maybe it's some kind of old guy thing, but I'd rather hear a guy play four really good notes than thirty-two of those frantic ones. I felt pretty much the same way about the Entwistle video. You have to admire the sheer finger speed, but for me, there is not much else that's memorable, or in many cases, very interesting about the bass line that's being played. Granted, I haven't been a true rock and Roll bassist since the late 1960's and there wasn't much room for that kind of playing in the folky end of the business, so I probably don't have an appreciation for that genre of music like many do. But where many of the bass lines played by folks like Macca and John McVie (Fleetwood Mac) truly "shaped" and drove songs, these warp-speed bass lines seem pretty empty. The first good bass lines I ever learned, way back in high school, were for the Zombies "She's Not There" and a couple of tunes by The Animals (songs like "We Gotta' Get Out of This Place") and the bass lines really made those tunes. They were perfect. At an age when being cool was a big deal, being a bass player and playing those runs was cool (I must admit that I also really liked watching the silver dust caps on my JBL 140's dance while I played - the ones for the lead guitar players hardly even moved and were nowhere near as neat).

An interesting, but rather simple, driving bass line with a few REALLY good, well placed transitional runs gets my attention every time, where all this busy stuff just reminds me of a Saturday afternoon at my local Guitar Center and the kid in the corner wailing away on a cheap strat. Some of these kids have some serious chops, but it makes you wonder why local bands aren't better than they are? It also sometimes makes me wonder whether that kid can actually play four really good notes and make it amount to something?

Chalk it up to different ages, different tastes in music or whatever, there seems to be room for everybody. I generally play a lot fewer notes now than I ever did back when I was playing on stage or in the studio, but there is no question in my mind that they're better notes and that I have progressed, rather than regressed. My advice - play for many years, it's neat to see the changes you'll go through (and buy a pair of old JBL D or E 140's so you'll have something fun to watch while you play).