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taitaofgallala t1_ja87q8k wrote

Reply to comment by Gonzostewie in Tina Weymouth, Talking Heads/Tom-Tom Club (1983) by So_Do_You_Like_Stuff

She had only been playing bass for five months by the time they first played live. Incredible.

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JoelOttoKickedItIn t1_ja95hob wrote

I mean, she’d be playing guitar since she was 14 (and piano before that), so it wasn’t that much of a leap.

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taitaofgallala t1_ja9rtvd wrote

Doesn't have to be "that much of a leap" to still be impressive and incredible. To play bass with such style and delivery, dropping stone cold funk like she did on Making Flippy Floppy, she's very unique. She's mostly if not entirely self-taught, so yeah I'd say going from diddling amateur to certified funky priest is a hell of a leap.

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JoelOttoKickedItIn t1_jaa0466 wrote

Tina Weymouth is an incredible musician and artist, and was hardly a “diddling amateur” prior to joining Talking Heads. She’d been playing and writing music for more than 10 years by the time she joined Talking Heads (then called Artistics) in ‘74. She was a ringer and everyone knew it. More so, she was an accomplished artist, so creative expression was literally her entire life. Chris Frantz repeatedly tried to convince her to join the band because he saw how incredibly talented and creative she was. She spent YEARS of hard work and dedication honing her skill and developing her creative voice before having the opportunity to showcase her talents with Talking Heads. In my opinion, the notion that she somehow came out of nowhere when she started with Talking Heads is not only inaccurate, but does a disservice to Weymouth’s artistic talents and discounts all the hard work she put in to develop those skills as a musician and as an artist prior to joining the band.

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taitaofgallala t1_jaabran wrote

Sounds like you're disagreeing with your own initial comment then.

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JoelOttoKickedItIn t1_jaaxdyy wrote

How so? My point is that her successful transition to bass isn’t that surprising given what an accomplished artist and musician she already was prior to joining the band.

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Tynoc_Fichan t1_ja9uqnv wrote

Good bass playing is a leap (I'm not saying up, but at least sideways) from guitar because it requires a fundamentally different approach to the instrument. Chugging out root notes isn't such a leap, but that's not what she was doing

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