F*CKF*CKF*CKF*CK... Tom Petty in critical conditon after cardiac arrest

dmn23 said:
Cool previously unpublished interview about 12-strings:

https://reverb.com/news/tom-petty-d...12-string-in-previously-unpublished-interview
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We pause once more for a further dive into Rickenbacker eccentricity. Tom’s “little knob” reference is to Rick’s infamous fifth knob. It first appeared in 1961 on the company’s new 460 guitar and was quickly added to other models in the line. On a two-pickup guitar with one or other of the pickups selected, it was intended to blend in tone from the unselected pickup. With both pickups selected, it set the balance between them, or on a guitar fitted with Rickenbacker’s stereo Rick-o-Sound circuitry, the balance between left and right. Perhaps understandably, some players found all this rather baffling.

Did you find that fifth knob useful?

George Harrison used to tell me that it didn’t do anything [laughs]. I said, "Yes, it does!" He’d say, "No, I couldn’t ever get mine to do anything." And I said, "Well, yours is broken, then, because it does!" It adds bottom in or out, simple as that. If you’re in the middle position, with both pickups on, you can bring in bottom or roll it off. Do it carefully enough, and you can get a really nice sound.

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Yes, but you can also do that just by adjusting the volume and tone knobs. Much more useful is a master volume. :embarrassed:
 
The fifth knob is a reverse volume knob for the neck pickup, which still allows some signal through when it's fully "down" (so it won't turn the neck pickup all the way off).

It's not a blend knob nor is it a knob that rolls off bottom end specifically (though that is an effect of turning up or down the neck pickup). You can use it to balance the volume of the two pickups relative to each other but it is technically not a blend knob. It does nothing in the bridge switch position.
 
I watched the first half of Running Down a Dream on Netflix. All that video footage is just amazing.

It’s still weird thinking that Tom Petty died. There’s something abstract about his greatness. I guess it’s because I grew up with him on MTV and VH1, so he’s always a character from the music videos who never seemed to age. It’s like the last remaining toy from my childhood was lost.
 
jp_nyc said:
I watched the first half of Running Down a Dream on Netflix. All that video footage is just amazing.
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I have watched it 6 or 7 times. Great footage, great stories, fantastic bits of music and all framed with really good background information. It is this career retrospective that took me from normal fan to some sort of elevated status fan of the writer/singer/band.
 
All due respect to Tom and his accomplishments but i am absolutely dreading the upcoming onslaught of every loser in a band now playing way too many Petty songs in their set and the formation of about a hundred tribute bands by unoriginal, uninspired sheeple following the flock.

Fuck off
 
gtrjunior said:
All due respect to Tom and his accomplishments but i am absolutely dreading the upcoming onslaught of every loser in a band now playing way too many Petty songs in their set and the formation of about a hundred tribute bands by unoriginal, uninspired sheeple following the flock.

Fuck off
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We play “American Girl” as the second song of our third set and have for about a decade. Im not looking forward to its weekends shows.


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Mark Wein said:
We play “American Girl” as the second song of our third set and have for about a decade. Im not looking forward to its weekends shows.


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It's one thing if a band had been playing the songs all along but I can see all these bands now putting together medleys, thinking they are original in their ideas when the reality is, is that everyone else has jumped on the bandwagon too.
Don't get me wrong, petty has a ton of great songs that deserve to be played in a cover band, I just can't stand the wannabes all getting in line, following suit.
 
gtrjunior said:
It's one thing if a band had been playing the songs all along but I can see all these bands now putting together medleys, thinking they are original in their ideas when the reality is, is that everyone else has jumped on the bandwagon too.
Don't get me wrong, petty has a ton of great songs that deserve to be played in a cover band, I just can't stand the wannabes all getting in line, following suit.
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I hear ya. It's right up there with all the crappy pop celebrities getting their moment on TV to say how much they liked Tom and how much of an influence he was on them. Some of it may be sincere, but I get the feeling much of it is bandwagon-ism.

My buddy, who handles the vocals in our "band" (and I use that term loosely, lol), has always been a huge Tom Petty fan. Him and Neil Young. We've jammed to so many Petty & Neil songs, I have long since lost count, but my personal favorites are the ones that haven't been played to death. We're playing a party next weekend, maybe we should whip this one out just to piss off the overly sensitive people.



Gotta love the energy of the tambourine girls. :lol:
 
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Oddly enough, one of my rare covers has been Petty's Free Falling; a great 12-string guitar song. I think I've played it at least twice.

I understand where gtrjunior is coming from; whenever an artist dies it seems everyone is rushing to cover their music, often without proper rehearsal of the tunes. I will avoid open mics for a couple of weeks. :wink:
 
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