Best bass,drums and guitar parts in NMA's discography?

[Master Ray]

Best --

Bass - Running in the rain
Drums - Sex, the black Angel
Electric Guitar - Southwest
Acoustic Guitar - Family Life

Bass - Space
Drums - Too Close To The Sun
Electric Guitar - Today Is A Good Day
Acoustic guitar - yeah, as Shush said, Family Life

[Guillaume]

Some NMA bass and guitar tabs available here:

 http://gvelay.free.fr/gta/index.html?nma/index.html

[Rusco]

Charge
Bass and drumming work in a shuffle rhythm is not so easy. Shuffle`s a way too challenging rhythm to play to any of the players in general, although widely used. (You preferably laugh at this but it`s like chick-a-chicka-ti-ticca repeatedly  ). Family is also a difficult one with a combination of triol (1/3) and basic beat rhythms (1/8). Drums and everything else goes in 1/8 but bass goes in 1/3 thythm. They fit together at every third hit. So what it means is: every third hit with a bass matches with every hit within 1/8 structure. --> Bass is not double faster but 1 to 3 times faster... (I haven´t ever tried to explain these in English so please forgive me + I quited my drumming school in -92  .)

Aimless Desire
Blomberg`s work is great here. I`m ashamed to tell I`ve lately understood how clever guitarist he is!

---

But also now when BDAW was released later than this topic was created, it`s interesting to take a close look at it:

Bass: just think about Pull The Sun and Ceri`s creativity!

Guitar: Knievel & Lean Back and Fall - most(?) of us have seen them live, and I think Marshall`s work there is unbelievable! At November`s London gig it seemed at the end of Knievel that Marsh' wouldn`t want to stop playing it. It somehow gave even some more depth to its ending.

Drums: Ghosts & Storm Clouds - I like very much Michael`s clever talent to play like a metronome, it`s like a strick order which never fails whatever he is doing. And still, there's following with others; going softier at times, making changes with intensity, and bashing the cans with a strength if the song just needs it to be done. Even though Ghosts is not a hard line headbanger`s choice, the drums HAVE to be brutal and primitive there in a way there are.

[Willard]

Don't know much musically, but I have always thought the EMI remasters best served the drumming on Ghost of Cain.  It just sounds so effing good now.

Also, I am a huge fan of the drumming on White Coats, especially the snare rolls.

And I can't help but whistle the acoustic guitars on Love Songs.  An all around amazing song to me, one of my first favorites.  Oh, and the acoustic/electric guitar interplay on Master Race, of course.

[Oliver]

Also, I am a huge fan of the drumming on White Coats, especially the snare rolls.

...the bass line in White Coats is a killer, quite simple but very effective! One of the best Basslines ever put on a rock record!
NMA a "free wonderland" for bassplayers as it based on drums and bass. Listen to vengeance, there is nearly no guitar in the whole record. That makes it really hard for the lead guitar! But Marshall does a great job, playing singel notes, doing bendings and all thet stuff!
Listening to THE WHO quite often in the last mounth I see quite a lot of parallels in the "structure" arrangement of NMA. NMA is more "solid work" in NMA songs (see Moon and Entwistle) but Island is an example how close it gets to THE WHO.
It is really hard for me to "judge" NMA´s music. I´m a bass player for over 25 years now and every time I get to a point in songwiriting or arragement or basslines where I stuck I think: mmh, what would Hendrix, Entwistle, Rave etc. AND NMA do to slove it. NMA is such a "intelligent band" in writing music...it`s always great to explore them again and again! 

[huwcamden]

If we are talking bass as the initial question asked both stewart morrow albums are technically the most difficult, and vengeance in particular contains some double speed acrobatic stuff that even those top "muso bass players" you read about in "guitarist" would struggle with, im a musician and guitar teacher and after 30 years i still cant master it all!  great thing about nma is that most of the music and rythmns are complex but they still sound exciting, cool and very un-muso like.

[Guillaume]

Many great bass lines in the Stuart Morrow era, for sure!
I especially love the moody "The Price", also "1984", "Waiting", "Vengeance", "Frightened", "Grandmother's footsteps", "No man's land", etc
Agree about "White coats", also "Ballad of bodmin pill", cracking tune!

One of my favourite bass lines from the 80's, non NMA:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izdhucl1AFg

im a musician and guitar teacher and after 30 years i still cant master it all!

Which are your favourite guitar parts in NMA's discography?

I think the most impressive part of all the musicians in NMA is that they always play what's appropriate for the song.  There are dozens of outstanding performances on every album but they're never about showing off, it's always about elevating the song to a new level.  To me, that's the sign of a really great player... they put song above their ego.

Yes, for example there are very few guitar soli in NMA but the very few are often pretty good!...i like the "living in the rose" solo, also the guitar ending of "States Radio", "Western dream", the wandering solo of "North star" isn"t bad too. 

[huwcamden]

Favourite guitar parts, for solos its gotta be bad old world, fate and the charge, all dead simple and easy to play but absolutely killer, and riffwise the slayeresque stormclouds( although i wish they'd mixed it in heavier after the 1st chorus) and today is a good day, you can probally tell i have a liking for heavy rock, but i still love the more stripped down intro to family and the delicacy of the purity guitaring(again which i cant play fully yet!)

[Rusco]

There are few terms how professional drummers tend to describe each others drumming style.
Some might be f.e. airial, floating, elemental, tight, edgy and so on. I know there was an thread here in the forum about NMA drummers and there were some comparison with Michael Dean's and Rob Heaton's style. I think it's perhaps not needed to compare them too much, because their styles are/were clearly different. But it was also interesting to find out from the Q&A sessions as well, that there was a time when Heaton was still alive and showed or "teached" to Mr. Dean the way he played the songs. But in general I'd describe Michael Dean's style as a bit more edgy and tighter than Heaton's, while Heaton had a combination about airial improvisation, primitive rhythm parts, with a sort of brutal hint especially in the old -85 era.

[...] the wandering solo of "North star" isn"t bad too.

It's probably the thing with Marshall Gill's own playing style. Some tricks that are similar with the way he plays in "Attack", "Knievel" and "Lean Back & Fall". Like an old school western/ souther rock style which fits perfectly with NMA in general. Would really like to hear even once in my life how would he play in "Young, Gifted & Skint"!

[Shush]

Stoney, when I saw this thread go up, I knew you would come up with a more insightful response than my little retort , what with you being a guitar twanger yourself. Good oh, keep em coming. 

Cheers n beers to you mate. Like I say, I wasn't goin to run blindly in with "NO REST is the best thing since sliced bread....." or "Ceri's solo on seven Times runs rings round everyone ever..." ...... There's no right answer, but those two certainly aren't it....
Running In The Rain is not a huge NMA track really, but the bass on it is IMMENSE!!!!!!!!!! All raw, un-tutoured talent on Stuart's part. Nelson's playing is much more measured, but equally of the chart, just more cerebral and less visceral. But then Stuart was in his early twenties, his playing now would be totally different. I'd love to get him off the bench so to speak and do something, just to learn from him if nothing else....... It might happen yet, we aren't dead or crippled are we?

Well said 

[Space]

Bass:
"Frightened" - the bassline is one of the greatest things I have ever heard in music. Totally serious on that.  Been listening to that bass for thirty years and I really still marvel over every note of it. My fave section is how Morrow leads us out of the "won't you love me" section. Can hear it better on the BBC sessions version, and it is just wonderful. I know certain artist can be light years beyond others when it comes to talent...Morrow on bass is one of those. His work on "Frightened" is the "King Lear" of bass.

"Space" - new bassist for NMA? Noooooo! Well, the work on "Space" is Morrow-like. Not as muscular, but very intricate and surprising in how it moves. The transitions out of the "visions rise from each little death" is beyond brilliant.


Guitar:
"Western Dream" - Great intro lick, best guitar solo out of all the NMA songs, and the guitar stabs during the bridges ("watch the  dirty hands that labored hard for you...") are simply astonishing. (I have been trying for 25 years to figure out how he plays them. No luck.)


Acoustic Guitar:
"Seven Times" - the guitar is treated with something (chorus pedals?) and it sure is a great tone. Simple repetitive strums. Draws you in and hooks you. Can't let go of that song because of that guitar.


Drums:
"Frightened" - I read that the band was unhappy with the production, but why? The drums on "Frightened" are the closest to replicating an earthquake.


Keyboards:
"Fireworks Night" - I suppose it is keyboards doing it, but those final mournful orchestral moments after "Fireworks Night" ends are so sad. They add a finallity that breaks the heart. I wish the band never added them. They really hurt everytime I hear them.

[Anna Woman von NRW]

"Fireworks Night" - I suppose it is keyboards doing it, but those final mournful orchestral moments after "Fireworks Night" ends are so sad. They add a finallity that breaks the heart. I wish the band never added them. They really hurt everytime I hear them.

Perfect words dude - nice 

[Guillaume]

Bass:
"Frightened" - the bassline is one of the greatest things I have ever heard in music. Totally serious on that.  Been listening to that bass for thirty years and I really still marvel over every note of it. My fave section is how Morrow leads us out of the "won't you love me" section. Can hear it better on the BBC sessions version, and it is just wonderful. I know certain artist can be light years beyond others when it comes to talent...Morrow on bass is one of those. His work on "Frightened" is the "King Lear" of bass.

Drums:
"Frightened" - I read that the band was unhappy with the production, but why? The drums on "Frightened" are the closest to replicating an earthquake.

I just love the bass/drums opening of "Frightened", and it's even better on the "Radio Sessions" live album!!

 

[Shush]

In full agreement chaps. The start of "Frightened", fist class. Then the powerful drums. A similar start to follow with "Ambition". The base line in the brake in "Grandmother's  footsteps". The acoustic guitar intro to "Drag it down, picked up by the classic Morrow bass line. A wonderful album from start to finish.

[Space]

No Rest - A wonderful album from start to finish.

My memory could be off, but I do recall reading that the band was very unhappy with the production -- going for the BIG sound that was the trademark of Steve Lillywhite at that time. Anyone remember this being so?

I love that production. Drums sound like cannons, bass BOOMS, reverby... Perfectly suits the songs that NMA were making at that time.