Tony Breaks a String ...

Sam Evans

Sam Evans

Nov 29, 2008
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#1
Went to Milwaukee last night to catch BEAT: Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, and a couple of other dudes ... ;)

Early in "Sleepless," Tony broke his G-string. Off course, he didn't miss a beat. After the song was over, Adrian said "You know, I've been playing with Tony on and off since the early 80s, and that's the first time I've ever seen him break a string. Let's hear it for Tony!"

The crowd went nuts. It was pretty goofy. :D
 
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#2
Heh. One of my proudest achievements is breaking the D string on my DB and the singer not knowing until a few songs later, as I was trying to get the loose bits out of the way between songs.
 
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#7
I saw Oteil Burbridge break his B string at a show. He was in the middle of a playing a solo. He finished the solo, signaled the band to go back to the head, and proceeded to change the string while playing the groove. He didn't miss a beat. You wouldn't have known anything happened if you weren't watching him do it.

The only other broken bass string I've ever seen live was the guy from Trout Fishing in America (his E). He finished the song they were on and changed it during the between song banter.

I carried a backup bass and extra strings when I was gigging regularly. Never needed them.
 
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#8
I saw them in Cleveland two weeks ago. Excellent show.

On “Sleepless” - he played it with funk fingers at the show and it sounded great. I’ve always wondered about the original recording though. I think it’s double-tracked. What do we know about that?
 
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#10
Altitude said:
I saw them in Cleveland two weeks ago. Excellent show.

On “Sleepless” - he played it with funk fingers at the show and it sounded great. I’ve always wondered about the original recording though. I think it’s double-tracked. What do we know about that?
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I'm not sure! I know there are multiple versions of that tune on the more recent editions of the album. I'll have to give them a closer listen.
 
#12
Altitude said:
I saw them in Cleveland two weeks ago. Excellent show.

On “Sleepless” - he played it with funk fingers at the show and it sounded great. I’ve always wondered about the original recording though. I think it’s double-tracked. What do we know about that?
Click to expand...


I'm not sure about the studio recording though. The studio recording sounds like delay to me as well.
 
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#15
I am just jealous because they aren't coming to tour in my country, with or without the strings.

I saw King Crimson in the late 90s and Steve Vai about 10 years ago, but I never saw Tony Levin on stage, because he and Bill Bruford had just left KC at that time ☹
 
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#17
Thankfully I've never broken a string while playing. I play with such a light touch I can't imagine it even happening. The only strings that have ever broken on me were flats that came unraveled during install.

Did Tony use a different bass for the next song or did they wait for it to be restrung?
 
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#18
Swerve said:
Thankfully I've never broken a string while playing. I play with such a light touch I can't imagine it even happening. The only strings that have ever broken on me were flats that came unraveled during install.

Did Tony use a different bass for the next song or did they wait for it to be restrung?
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He was rotating between his 4-string, 5-string, and Stick. I'm trying to remember, but I think he went to the 5-string next. A tech ran out, grabbed the 4, and restrung it, so it was back on the stand by the next song.
 
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#19
Altitude said:
On “Sleepless” - he played it with funk fingers at the show and it sounded great. I’ve always wondered about the original recording though. I think it’s double-tracked. What do we know about that?
Click to expand...

Not double-tracked, but played through a slapback delay set to 16th notes.
So Tony's bass part -- which he played with more-or-less conventional thumb slaps and finger pops -- is
"BOMP-BOMP-BAP-BOMP-BOMP-BOMP-BAP-BAP"
but the delay makes it sound like "BOMP-a-BOMP-a-BAP-a-BOMP-a-BOMP-a-BOMP-a-BAP-a-BAP-a"

I saw King Crimson live on the Three Of A Perfect Pair tour circa 1984 or '85 and it was pretty obvious from watching him then that this is how the original studio track was recorded...although for that tour Tony was using some cheesey Ibanez stompbox delay, and I suspect they had access to a much nicer digital delay in the studio.

EDIT: The other cool thing about the original studio track of "Sleepless" is that Bill Bruford's drum performance was deemed too weird or too out there for the radio-friendly commercial vibe they were going for on that tune, and so Tony Levin and mix engineer Bob Clearmountain sampled Bruford's drum sounds off the master tape and loaded them into a Sequential Circuits drum machine/sequencer, and Tony programmed a whole new (more conventional BOOM/BAP) drum part for the tune!
 
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#20
Sam Evans said:
Went to Milwaukee last night to catch BEAT: Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, and a couple of other dudes ... ;)

Early in "Sleepless," Tony broke his G-string. Off course, he didn't miss a beat. After the song was over, Adrian said "You know, I've been playing with Tony on and off since the early 80s, and that's the first time I've ever seen him break a string. Let's hear it for Tony!"

The crowd went nuts. It was pretty goofy. :D
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I love this!!!

On a parallel note, when I saw BEAT in Phoenix no one broke a string, but at one point Danny Carey had something go wrong (I’ll have to check my video to remember what it was) so he played one-handed for awhile in the middle of one of the very busy, demanding sections while he fixed the issue with the other hand. If you were only listening you would never know he was distracted—he perfectly served the song. It was especially clear what was going on because The Celebrity Theater is a rotating stage and I was looking at the back of him while this happened. The man is a true professional.

As a drummer I can tell you that things going wrong are much more common than with bassists/guitarists. We whack things much harder and sometimes things fall or break or move.
 
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