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00:01The following program contains strong language and flashing images.
00:10What is a bass line?
00:12What is a bass line?
00:14No, a bass line to me is something that has groove
00:17and that carries the song that makes you want to dance.
00:22A bass line is one note that leads to another note
00:26that creates perfect painting.
00:28I'm in the right place at the right time.
00:31The bass is the flavor, it's the juice, it's the seasoning, right?
00:38It's a melody down low.
00:40It's the roots from which the part of the song grows.
00:46If you were from space and you wanted to know what a bass line was...
00:50It's the hands on the wheel of the car.
00:53Sexy, rude, low notes.
00:57Bass is a physical thing.
00:59It kind of hits you in the gut.
01:02My puns are shaking, my nose is tickling.
01:06I say yes.
01:07I like that.
01:09Fog horns.
01:10This boot...
01:12Booms and it carries for miles.
01:14Well, if I didn't bass, I don't know what is.
01:16It's all about the groove, baby.
01:21I'm Peter Hook, the bass player from Joy Division and New Order.
01:25Peter Hook was a seminal influence.
01:30Peter Hook, the master of melodies with a pig.
01:34Talking about Peter Hook, what he does with Joy Division, it's like nothing else.
01:43All I've ever wanted to do is just keep playing the music I made back in the 80s and 90s with three other lads from Manchester.
01:49Basically, just doing my day job.
01:53Do you like being a rock star?
01:54I am a fucking rock star.
01:55What are you on about?
01:56What's he on about?
01:58Cheeky bastard.
02:00So, 50 years on, I'm still on the road playing with my new band, The Light.
02:05There's a noise for Peter Hook!
02:08There's something incredibly powerful in those arrangements of notes that reaches deep inside audiences.
02:14And together with a motley crew of other bass merchants, I'm gonna deep dive into what makes this instrument so special.
02:24And let you in on the story behind some of my own signature bass lines.
02:31Typical Japanese, it comes all this way, it's still in tune.
02:35And why they have stood the test of time.
02:39Listen, I'm not gonna put myself down.
02:41I've written some fantastic bass lines.
02:52Manchester is my spiritual home.
02:55Always has been, and always will be.
02:57And my music couldn't have come from anywhere else.
03:00Growing up in Salford in the 70s.
03:05I had a lot of friends.
03:07It was great fun.
03:08I seem to remember I had a great time.
03:11I've been waiting for a guy to come and take me by the air.
03:15It was a working class existence.
03:19Two up, two down, outside toilets.
03:22I had an outside toilet till I was 19.
03:25I was a little bit of a naughty boy, and I got into trouble with the police a couple of times.
03:33Nothing to be proud of.
03:36I certainly wasn't proud of it.
03:38In the end, I saw an advert in the evening news in Manchester.
03:4350p Sex Pistols.
03:45Phoned Barney up and said,
03:46Oh, that group I was telling you about are on.
03:49We should go and see him.
03:51Yes, I'm talking about that legendary Sex Pistols gig that thousands of Manx claim to have been at.
04:03Most of them weren't, but me and my best mate from school, Barney, were there.
04:08And for us, it was literally life-changing.
04:11I was spellbound.
04:13The energy in it was absolutely amazing.
04:17It was just a whale of feedback.
04:18It was so distorted.
04:19We're so pretty, we're so pretty.
04:23Screaming.
04:25You were just like, Oh my God, what the hell?
04:29It made the biggest impression on me.
04:32It was young kids telling you to fuck off.
04:35It's exactly what I wanted to do to the world.
04:37And simply, I just thought,
04:40Do you know what?
04:42I can tell everyone to fuck off as well.
04:44Teenage me found being sworn at by Johnny Rotten bizarrely inspiring.
04:49But little did I realize at the time that I was also under the spell of the Pistols deceptively nonchalant bass player, Glenn Matlock.
04:58My artisanship is playing bass and it's in service of the songs that I've written or the people that you're playing with.
05:05And it's to make the song work.
05:07I'm not into particularly fancy bass playing, but I don't mind a twiddly bit or two, but not three.
05:13When you first hear Nevermind the Bollocks, there's the Sex Pistols, it's a game changer of a record.
05:27And you listen to it now and it sounds still phenomenal.
05:34You know, everyone used to say about punk only can't play and all that.
05:38I beg to differ.
05:40Glenn Matlock could play.
05:42well think one of the most important things in my kind of bass blowing is when to change the octave.
05:50You know, cause you can,
05:52made it like a crescendo or you can...
05:56.
06:01I was doing that on the key in the UK,
06:02And when you're in the three-piece bands,
06:05you just want the bass to stick out
06:07because you want to be important, right?
06:09But if the key is, like, quite low,
06:12you can't nearly really hear it
06:15with all the murk of the guitar and the drums battering away.
06:18So that was a bit low, and I thought, well, you can hear that,
06:21but it's got not enough oomph to it.
06:23Holger Cueske.
06:32I see bass playing a bit like being a plumber or a carpenter.
06:50Can you put some bass on this? Yeah, that cost you.
06:53I mean, it was an amazing learning curve
07:02from walking out of the Sex Pistols gig
07:05when I suggested we formed a band.
07:09The Sex Pistols just showed me a way out
07:13of what we considered to be the drudgery
07:16of our everyday lives.
07:23Barney said to me, you need to get a bass
07:26because I've got a guitar.
07:28I said, right.
07:30And went to the shop the next day, Maisel's in Piccadilly.
07:34I must admit, I borrowed 35 quid off me mum.
07:37God rest her soul.
07:39Best 35 quid she ever spent.
07:41Me and Bernard Sumner, or Barney as I call him,
07:44became obsessed and set out in search of more members
07:47to fill our line-up.
07:49We became avid punk gig-goers,
07:52and we kept seeing Ian at all the gigs,
07:54and he'd be telling us about his band,
07:56and we'd be telling him about our band.
07:58And it was only, funnily enough,
08:00when his drummer left,
08:02that the guitarist gave up,
08:04and Ian was on his own.
08:06So he joined us.
08:08So Joy Division became me on bass,
08:11Barney on guitar and keys,
08:13Steve Morris on drums,
08:15and Ian Curtis up front.
08:16And we went to work.
08:18When you've got no songs, it's dead easy to write them.
08:28We jammed more or less non-stop,
08:34and everything that we wrote came from jams.
08:38We were rehearsing for two hours on a Wednesday,
08:45and three hours on a Sunday afternoon,
08:48because it was all we could afford
08:50to chip in and get, £1.15 an hour.
08:52And we'd do a song every time we got together.
08:56Yeah, I mean, and we were so prolific as Joy Division.
09:03We were writing these songs at 20, 21.
09:09When we were together in the group,
09:11we were very serious about what we were doing.
09:14But when we weren't,
09:15we were the biggest bunch of piss-a-dick-head
09:17you've ever met in your life.
09:19And the thing is, is that we never took ourselves too seriously
09:26until we played.
09:28And then when we played, it was like, it was,
09:31it was very serious.
09:33But the rate at which we grew as musicians,
09:38it seemed like we'd been playing forever
09:41when we got to Shadowplay,
09:44and when we got to She's Lost Control.
09:46We'd been playing for ages.
09:48And it was, in fact, it was less than a year,
09:5118 months at the most.
09:53And how did we do it?
09:55I haven't got a bleeding clue.
09:57All we did was we just kept at it,
09:59and we kept doing it.
10:01Knowing Peter, he would have seen his contribution
10:05as being absolutely equal to anyone else in the band.
10:09I think that was the great thing about,
10:12you know, that era of music.
10:14There was a democratic attitude
10:17to how the instruments were dealt with
10:19and how the individuals were dealt with.
10:23I was never the type to sit in the background,
10:26just keeping time.
10:27So I made the bass as loud as possible,
10:29melodic and up front.
10:30And if I was going to play it,
10:31you were bloody well going to hear it.
10:35It's one of the hardest things,
10:37is to have an identifiable sound.
10:39You know, how do you go about doing that?
10:41Giving it all that, you know,
10:42top-line stuff that he's playing.
10:46Well, he's playing the bass line in there,
10:48but that ain't the low stuff.
10:49Peter Hook's kind of carrying the tune.
10:52I took a few things from Peter Hook,
10:56where I would have a vibrating string.
11:02Those sorts of things that, you know,
11:04Peter was doing.
11:05Peter's style is so unlike anything else.
11:18There is a guy who has got a sound
11:20and you can put your finger on it,
11:23you know, whereas I can't put my finger on what I do.
11:25You can repeat.
11:26My style came about simply because Barney had copped
11:30for a wonderful amplifier,
11:32which was a UD-30 Vox combo.
11:37And it sounded, oh my God, it was just wonderful.
11:41It was absolutely fantastic.
11:43Now, unfortunately,
11:44I ended up with a £10 bass cabinet
11:47and a Sound City 120 amp head that was shit.
11:55So you couldn't hear the bass at all.
11:59But the only way I could get to hear it
12:01was if I went high up on the strings.
12:03So whenever I played high,
12:05Ian would literally go,
12:07and he'd go,
12:09Play high, Oki, play high!
12:11You know, you're looking at She's Lost Control.
12:18God, all the classic Joy Divisions
12:21were through him shouting at me to play high.
12:24Starting off in the band, right,
12:26we just had the instruments.
12:27We had no fancy pedals.
12:29We had no fancy amps.
12:30The music had to come somehow from there.
12:32I remember reading something about Peter Hook saying,
12:34I was trying to hear myself over the noise
12:36in the rehearsal room.
12:37So I started playing higher up the neck.
12:39And I tried it, and it actually works.
12:42God, my style!
12:43It always seems really weird to even talk about it.
12:45And the weird thing is,
12:46is that this hand plays rhythm
12:48and this one plays melodies.
12:50And they're completely separate.
12:54And I don't even play with four fingers.
12:56I play with three fingers.
13:06Three-fingered bass player.
13:08Tone-deaf, three-fingered bass player.
13:15There's a brutality to it.
13:16There's an aggressiveness to the discord
13:20that he's working with.
13:26That's what a torturer would do.
13:28And that's a lot of what Hookie was doing on that initial album.
13:35This was just, come on you fuckers, take notice of the bass.
13:44The fierce energy of punk had lit the fuse.
13:47But for us, post-punks, it was more about the music and the sound.
13:52Bands like the Stranglers and their bassist,
13:54John Jack Spinell had so much more to offer.
13:57There was a thing that happened in the 80s, you know,
14:02when bass was the thing to do.
14:09The first time you heard Peaches, it was amazing.
14:12It was such a big deal when the bass line was it.
14:19There are times where you just want to strut something like
14:28Jean-Jacques Bonnell and, you know,
14:30you can't get more masculine than him.
14:32And I just remember hearing...
14:40And it was like a whole world opened up for me.
14:44And I listened to that record.
14:47And for years, I went, how do you get that sound?
14:55My new bass hero was Jean-Jacques
14:57because of the way his bass sounded.
14:59I went to see him at Bingley Hall in Stafford
15:02and I was just absolutely mesmerized.
15:05And I actually stayed till the end,
15:08nearly had a fight with the bouncers,
15:09so that I could look at his gear
15:11and write it all down to get it.
15:14And I did. I actually did get his gear.
15:17I got a Hiwatt 100, which was what he was using,
15:21and a 2x15 Vox cab.
15:25Sonically, Peaches is about as fat as they come,
15:31but it's that loping, swaggering timing
15:33that makes it a truly great bass line.
15:37I think Jean-Jacques would say it comes from reggae.
15:42I think it might have been a reggae track first.
15:44What was interesting about some of those early British-based players,
15:49particularly if they were London-based,
15:51was they did have this understanding of reggae.
15:55Reggae came in with punk.
15:58Don Letts, at the Vortex,
16:02would be playing reggae and all that,
16:04so it really was stood side by side.
16:07I liked the culture of reggae.
16:09It was warm-hearted.
16:13It had a spiritual sort of dimension to it as well.
16:16I remember in 1976 hearing Catch a Fire for the first time,
16:28and again, realizing that, you know, bass is a physical thing.
16:32It kind of hits you in the gut.
16:39This idea that the guitar was just clicking,
16:42and there was just so much room for the bass.
16:45Let's stir it up.
16:48There's many things I love about reggae bass,
16:50but it's melodic.
16:52And you can sing those bass parts, you know what I mean?
16:54So if I go...
16:56See, look, if the camera people are shaking their heads...
17:13Like, everything else is gravy.
17:16You can't have reggae without bass.
17:18Not gonna happen.
17:19Believe it or not, I actually lived in Jamaica for a few years
17:26when I was a kid.
17:28And Bob Marley was, of course, like a patron saint of the island,
17:32and still is.
17:33But his bass man, Aston Family Man Barrett,
17:36holds a special place in the hearts of bass players the world over.
17:40Aston Family Man Barrett really had a pulse and a groove,
17:45but it was very musical.
17:47There were a lot of Bob Marley songs, sort of major keys.
17:49But you can hear his lines.
17:51You can hear the very melodic lines.
17:58Satisfy my soul.
18:00Oh, please.
18:04Don't you run my boat.
18:06You hear that name?
18:07Family Man.
18:08That bass.
18:09Keeping the family together, man.
18:10Rocking.
18:11Then you should know.
18:12Oh, oh, oh.
18:13I like it.
18:14I like it.
18:15I like it.
18:16The vibration of this island is mystical.
18:17The early Africans that give to this generation a foundation to stand on.
18:31They brought something with them that just can't change.
18:35And that defines the sound of the island.
18:41Bob Marley and the Whalers brought reggae to the world.
18:44But its African roots echo deepest in this monumental Abyssinian's bass line from Leroy Sibbles.
18:50Santa Masagan is a song of message.
19:00It's about black people, repatriation, relating to the motherland.
19:09It was all about Africa.
19:11So I had to get in there now, you know, and write my parts to complement Africa too.
19:20You know?
19:21And the bass line now, I wanted a Rastaman bass line.
19:28Bibical in its feel and African in its sound.
19:33You know?
19:34Originally recorded in 1969, Santa Masaganah went on to become a cornerstone of roots reggae.
19:44A true anthem of the movement.
19:46And through the decades, it's been reversioned by many great reggae artists.
19:53It worked.
19:54There is more Santa version than any other reggae song in the history of reggae music.
20:01They've called it reggae and...
20:06What can I say?
20:08You heard that?
20:09I'm telling you.
20:10Hey!
20:23In all the bands that I've played in, there has never been a band like Joy Division.
20:28It was rock solid.
20:30Each member put so much equally into it.
20:34And that has never happened since.
20:39I was so happy when Ian would pick some of the melodies out from the bass guitar to use as the vocal.
20:47Love Will Tears Apart.
20:53Love Will Tears Apart.
20:54We wrote it on a Wednesday night.
20:55And we left and he said, oh, you know what? I'm going to write some lyrics to that.
21:03I think it's going to be a good song, that one.
21:05And he came back on Sunday and we finished it off on Sunday, so it took like five hours, four hours.
21:11He said, I've got some words here.
21:13Love Will Tears Apart. Do you mind if I sing the bass line?
21:15I said, mind?
21:16I said, I'm over the frickin' moon, man.
21:18Love Will Tears Apart again.
21:23A lot of people got confused.
21:29They were like listening to Love Will Tears Apart and go, I love that guitar part, you know?
21:33But actually it's a bass.
21:39Love Will Tears Apart.
21:40It was just literally me and Steve, we came up with this bit first.
21:53That was the first bit.
21:55And then...
22:05Ian said, why don't we put those two bits together?
22:08And so the song was that.
22:17Maybe it started some people on their bass journeys of playing bass, hearing that a bass could do something like that, you know?
22:22I know I was really inspired by that myself.
22:25You know, you hear something like...
22:38It's just got so much to it, you know?
22:47It's got melody, it's got rhythm, it's got...
22:49It holds that root down of the music as well.
22:53And it's so melancholy as well.
22:55It's got so much emotion to it, you know?
22:57And it's so raw as well.
22:58What I love about Love Will Tears Apart, it's a heartbreaking song, lyrically, played as if it was the happiest song in the world.
23:15When you listen to the words, they are the death of a relationship and it's heartbreaking.
23:33And you listen to the music and it's just such a contradiction, such a contrast.
23:40It is one of the strangest songs that we ever did.
23:44The melancholy of it is a power.
23:48And that power to be able to reach into people's souls with words and music is, by God, it's invaluable.
23:56It's earth-shattering.
24:03This song about the pain Ian was feeling became Joy Division's enduring anthem.
24:09And it's a cruel irony that just a month before it was released, we lost him.
24:14It was very gradual. His illness started very gradually.
24:28He was his own worst enemy. He would not give in.
24:33He fought it. He fought it on stage. He fought it everywhere.
24:37It shouldn't have been a shock. But we were kids. We were 21.
24:4222. I think we were 23 when he died.
24:45We didn't know our ass for our elbow, so we didn't know what to do.
24:49It kills me now when kids come up to me.
24:52And 18-year-old kids, 16-year-old kids, they go,
24:56What was Ian like?
24:58And I'm thinking, he was just like you.
25:00He was no different. He was just a normal person that was able to do something that was truly extraordinary.
25:15There could be no Joy Division without Ian.
25:18But when we found ourselves assembled at the usual rehearsal space on the Monday after his funeral,
25:24it was clear we had to carry on.
25:25We renamed ourselves New Order.
25:29And just as the world around us was changing fast, so would our music.
25:38This wonderful newfound wealth and brightness that we found in the 80s did change our music.
25:50To us, it felt like the world was brighter.
25:53The music did get poppier.
25:57And at the dawn of the 80s, pop meant synths, samplers, sequencers, and all manner of other machines.
26:07We started incorporating electronic elements.
26:12Barney had his synthesizer.
26:14We invested in a DR-55, which was a Boss Dr. Rhythm.
26:21And then we bought a Arp Omni string machine, and we started experimenting with that.
26:28Everything you needed to make a fantastic cocktail, which was what Blue Mundy was.
26:32Just that drum beat that it starts with, that's such a hook.
26:45The drum machine, the riff, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.
26:50We nicked off a Donna Summer B-side.
26:54The kick drum came from Our Love by Donna Summer, produced by Giorgio Amaroda, where he put a delay on the kick drum, so it went dum, dum, dum, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
27:08The beat was pure Giorgio Amaroda, but the inspiration for the bass line itself came from another very famous Italian composer.
27:18We were listening to a lot of Ennio Morricone, and we were watching the films in Good, Bad and the Ugly.
27:24It just came from that, me doing that.
27:31Then it became...
27:38Still gives me goosebumps, that song.
27:44It has an impact that has not waned to now.
27:50How does it feel?
27:53It's incredible, I mean, it's still so popular.
27:56There was a poll in Mixmag with DJs.
28:01So if it's all going downhill, you can't get anyone dancing, what song do you put on?
28:04And it was Blue Monday.
28:06By a thousand votes out of a thousand.
28:10And you were like, wow.
28:12Blue Monday is still the best-selling 12-inch single of all time.
28:16And much of the proceeds back in 1982 were ploughed into the building of the music haven in central Manchester,
28:23the wonderful Hacienda.
28:24The grand vision of Factory Records founder, Tony Wilson.
28:29Tony wanted to open a place, like an orphanage, where we could all get together and be together.
28:35All the little, all us little weirdos that came out of punk.
28:40We're ready.
28:43I probably was on the cusp of being sacked a few times for being in the Hacienda.
28:48I would just say I was out studying grooves.
28:55The original house thing, and it's all your programmed 808 and whatever machines.
29:01And that was the bass at its zenith, you know, it really does.
29:05When bass lines are really carrying tunes.
29:07There was one machine that changed basses in dance video forever.
29:13And it's this strange little thing.
29:16The Roland TB-303 bass line.
29:18Which was invented for guitarists and singer-songwriters to use a drum machine and a programmed bass line so they didn't have to pay for a backing band.
29:27It's got a lovely resonant low end until you tweak the resonance and then it does the...
29:33Acid noises.
29:34This changed the way that sequence bass lines sounded more than anything.
29:40The bass line in modern dance music is still the basis of the groove.
29:46It's normally the thing that you latch onto first.
29:49It's the thing that drives the song and it's the conduit between the drums and the melody.
29:55So it just sits in the middle, dependable, sexy, like all bass players.
30:00It just, you know, fulfills that role in the middle and you've got the twinkly stuff at the top and you've got the thump of the drums at the bottom.
30:06But in, I mean, some of my favourite dance records are just a, you know, they're just a bass line.
30:12Listen to this.
30:17Little bit of percussion, the tickle.
30:23Four on the floor.
30:26I could dance to that all night.
30:29And the big bit is it just breaks down to just the bass.
30:36There's something in bass culture that it does, it doesn't scream at you, it's the thing that you're dancing to.
30:45You think you're listening to the top line or you're listening to the guitar solo, but in fact what you're dancing to is the bass.
30:51So in the kind of dance music that I play as a DJ, it's absolutely paramount.
30:58DJing is really about feeding the crowd.
31:02In electronic music, bass is like one of the most important parts.
31:06So when there's like a strong bass drop, you really see the crowd's reaction.
31:13DJing is such a different thing from playing in a band, but at the same time, there are some common factors.
31:19You can really see the crowd's reaction because they're not looking at the show.
31:25They're just there to dance.
31:26So I think the focus is completely on the music.
31:32It's really simple, but very hooky.
31:34Whether or not you're a musician or a DJ, you're still looking for things that people will identify with it.
31:42Things that will move them, things that will resonate with them.
31:45You know, a groove that they're going to latch onto.
31:50New Order already had one foot in the indie chart and one on the dance floor.
31:55But when Ecstasy took off and turbocharged clubbing at the beginning of the 90s,
31:59we found ourselves in the eye of a perfect storm.
32:02New Order went to clubs in Ibiza and heard that sound.
32:07That's where Manchester rock bands met disco.
32:10We went to Ibiza and saw the impact that Ecstasy had on people in those clubs and you watched it grow and change.
32:21This eclectic mix of music of where you had an indie tune and a dance tune and then a rap tune and all this lot put together.
32:29Suddenly everyone was on Ecstasy and they danced all the time.
32:38And then by the time we got back from Ibiza and Ecstasy had landed in England, the same thing happened in England.
32:44In 1987, when we came back from Ibiza, the Hacienda was a completely different animal.
32:54It was sold out constantly. It was riddled with drugs.
32:58The atmosphere was crazy. It was absolutely fucking nuts.
33:11They do say that drum machines were invented so the singer doesn't have to talk to the drummer.
33:16Play!
33:18Look at that. It's amazing.
33:21If you imagine a little fellow with eight arms in there, it's got a lot of practical implication.
33:25And they say that bass synthesizers were invented so the singer didn't have to talk to the bass player.
33:32And I think most lead singers would probably agree.
33:34Just loads of different sounds. You've got 120 sounds in it.
33:39Are you a computer programmer or a musician?
33:42Neither.
33:44Neither.
33:46Looking back now, I realise how quickly things changed as we got the new equipment.
33:50The more machinery you got, the more Barney was able to layer the songs up.
33:57And then every time he put a new layer on, your window started to close.
34:05He'd be going, oh, should we just play now? Should we just play on it now?
34:09So, yeah, it became a bit of a bone of contention.
34:12I knew the bass was important to Joy Division. I knew the bass was important to New Order.
34:18And I remember when them three turned round for the first time and asked me not to play on a track.
34:23I was like, you fucking cheeky bastards.
34:29That is something I would never do to anybody.
34:34Oh, God, I was aghast.
34:37And I ended up playing on the fucking track anyway, because I wouldn't say no for an answer.
34:41Fuck off.
34:43I suppose I should have known then what was coming.
34:46I was like a place I could come upon
34:52Regret was the last song that New Order wrote together,
34:57because afterwards Bernard decided that he wanted to write on his own.
35:03And it was very sad at the time.
35:07Look at me, I love you.
35:10Yeah, it was a weird song to finish on.
35:31Because it was so good.
35:34One, two, three, four.
35:49The beauty of a great bass line isn't what you play, but how you play it.
35:54And also knowing when not to play.
35:56That's what we call feel.
35:58And the man who influenced us all was one of the masters of Motown's bass lines, James Jameson.
36:04If you listen to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On album,
36:08and how he's playing so funky and beautiful, it's not about the bass line per se.
36:14It's about how he's walking around it and controlling and using the roots with the fists.
36:20Like, it's just so beautiful, complex, simple, creating riffs that make people want to dance.
36:29Oh, what's going on?
36:32What's going on?
36:34Yeah, what's going on?
36:36There have been a few bass revolutions.
36:39I would say that James Jameson maybe was the first electric bass revolution.
36:44Maybe he taught us that bass didn't just have to be this thing in the back.
36:49It could be, like, really fanciful and melodic,
36:52as long as you found a way to keep the music grooving while you did that.
36:58And so I think we all came from him, in a way.
37:02Oh, what's going on?
37:05What's going on?
37:07James Jameson is in my top three of bass players of all time.
37:11Just the amount of groove he pulled out.
37:15You know, he's probably played on virtually 90-odd percent of all Motown records
37:20and not necessarily in the most complex of grooves, but he's on the money every time.
37:25I'd kill for one-tenth of that guy's talent. I really, really would.
37:29If you listen to the isolated bass part of what's going on,
37:33any of James Jameson's isolated bass parts,
37:35and you just listen to the complexity of the rhythm and the subtlety of the notes and the harmony,
37:42he's an absolute master who created the history of great bass parts.
37:51He's the sound of Motown for me. He's just incredible.
37:55And some of the stuff's, like, ultra-complicated.
37:59And then you get Papa as a Rolling Stone, which is, like, the simplest bass riff,
38:02but probably one of the greatest bass riffs of all time, for me, anyway.
38:09Because it was like, oh, I can play that.
38:16And that's all it is.
38:22It's almost like a...
38:27Like, as simple as that.
38:28James Jameson's influence is omnipresent in bass,
38:33spanning decades and genres.
38:35Listen carefully and you'll hear it in heavy metal.
38:38Turn up the volume today.
38:40Pop, punk, and reggae.
38:44James Jameson, great influence.
38:47The actor fucker used one of his licks in, um,
38:51Ziggy Marley's album.
38:53The song is cosmic.
38:56It's one drop, but kind of ska tempo.
39:03But the lick is what I'm talking about.
39:12That's a Jameson lick.
39:15Anyone who plays bass and know Jameson can say,
39:18ah, that's a Jameson lick.
39:20That bass player is amazing.
39:22There was a song that I...
39:24A Bowie song that I did on the Next Day album called
39:27The Stars Are Out Tonight.
39:29And that's that same kind of Motown pattern.
39:31It has that rolling bass line.
39:33So it's kind of a...
39:35It's like once you jump on, this one is like you're on the train.
39:39And it's just going and it's nice and it's steady.
39:40And everything else is kind of floating around that.
39:53But that's just like kind of the chugging of the train.
39:56And it just plows ahead.
39:59Those are kind of my favorite bass lines.
40:01And that's very Motown.
40:03Managhi in the UK.
40:06So that's kind of the groove of the song.
40:09But then, last verse.
40:11Got to jazz it up a little bit.
40:13Ah, how about something that's a bit James Jameson?
40:17I start at the second middle eight.
40:24Ah, here's the James Jameson bit.
40:26Yes, even the Sex Pistols biggest hit borrowed from Jameson.
40:39For a little extra flair amongst the fury.
40:44James Jameson's Motown bass line sound as good now as they did a half century ago.
40:50And I knew there was a new audience who were hungry to hear Joy Division and New Order's classics played live.
40:56Instead of in those little ear pods.
40:59So when Barney and Steve quit playing live, there was only one thing to do.
41:04I had to start my own band, but that gave me a problem.
41:08Sadly, I can't sing and play bass at the same time.
41:12If only there was a way to clone yourself.
41:18Do you want tea, darling?
41:19Yes, please.
41:21I never pushed it on you, did I?
41:26No, we had a load in the house, didn't we?
41:29Yeah, yeah.
41:30That just pretty natural.
41:32I remember you saying you weren't going to teach me.
41:34Because you shouldn't teach me because you'll just end up sounding like me.
41:40Which is what you said.
41:41Now you do.
41:42And then the hilarious thing was that for the last 15 years it's been my exact job to sound like you.
41:48It's not traditional bass playing, I guess.
41:51It's very unique.
41:52And it's almost like you're the sort of lead guitar player.
41:56Which not a lot of bass players get to experience.
42:01My favourite moment on stage is when you walk on and you get your smattering of applause or whatever.
42:08And you stand there and I look round to look at me son and go, yeah, chip off the old block, wonderful.
42:14And to look round and then think, fucking hell, in a minute we're going to take your fucking head off.
42:18And it's just an amazing moment. That's why it's so bloody addictive.
42:36To think that we play the light more or less the same as Joy Division did.
42:44Because I insisted on it. Because that's what makes me happy.
42:48To see that move people to tears.
42:55It was a wonderful, wonderful thing to do.
42:58And Ian's greatest wish was for Joy Division to be big all over the world.
43:04And he used to say to me, okay, we're going to be big in Brazil.
43:07We're going to be big in Portugal. We're going to be big in Peru.
43:10And he never made it to any of them.
43:13And that is the wonderful thing now for me to be able to go to Mexico and see the way the music is appreciated and goes down and how much love there is for him and our music.
43:28That is the best thing in the world. And all I did.
43:32And all I did was play.
43:46Bye.
43:48Bye.
43:49Bye.
43:51Bye.
43:53No, no, never want to hear
44:00No, no, never want to hear
44:07No, no, never want to hear
44:23No, no, never want to hear
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