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The Smiths’ 1984 press shot. From left to right: Andy Rourke, Morrissey, Johnny Marr, and Mike Joyce.
Bassists from California’s finest Smiths tribute bands weigh-in on Andy Rourke’s most fun-to-play parts.
Listen to the Smiths, the iconic 1980s indie-rock band from Manchester, and you’ll hear Andy Rourke’s well-crafted bass lines snaking around Johnny Marr’s intricate guitar work, Mike Joyce’s energetic drumming, and singer Morrissey’s wry vocal delivery.
But playing Smiths bass lines is a different experience altogether. Grab a pick and work your way through the thoughtful phrasing, clever choices, and spirited delivery, and you’ll realize that young Mr. Rourke was an understated genius of melodic bass. In other words, these bass lines are fun.
Andy Rourke was just 18 when he joined the Smiths, and 20 when they released their self-titled 1984 debut. Over four studio albums and numerous singles, Rourke anchored the band with memorable bass melodies that weaved through Marr’s busy guitar parts. After the group broke up, he recorded as a session musician with artists like Sinead O’Connor and the Pretenders, played in several bands, and worked as a club DJ. He died of pancreatic cancer in 2023, when he was 59.
To pinpoint the Smiths songs with the most fun-to-play bass lines, I consulted the experts: bass players from five Smiths tribute bands, all from California. These folks cop Andy Rourke’s style night after night, so who better to know which lines are the most fun? Here are our panelists:
James Manning plays in Shoplifters United, based in Marin County, north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. He’s originally from Monmouth, Wales.
Martin “Ronky” Ronquillo plays in Los Esmiths from Calexico, California, near the southern border, as well as San Diego Smiths tribute band, Still Ill.
Mark Sharp plays in the Bay Area’s This Charming Band, as well as in tributes to the Cure, U2, and others.
Monica Hidalgo played in all-female Smiths tribute band Sheilas Take a Bow, with her sisters, Melissa and Melinda. They’re from the San Gabriel Valley, east of Los Angeles.
Joe Escalante has been in the pioneering punk rock band the Vandals since 1980, and with the L.A.-based Smiths and Morrissey tribute band Sweet and Tender Hooligans since 2004.
“Barbarism Begins at Home,” 'Meat Is Murder,' 1985
Manning: I love this line and I dread it. You’ve got to have stamina, especially if you’re playing it in regular E tuning. Tuning up to F# like Andy did makes it easier and the extra string tension adds to the twangy top end.
Ronquillo: This is one of those parts that just makes you feel like a bass player. It’s high energy, it feels good, and it’s maybe his funkiest bass line.
“Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now,” single, 1984
Sharp: With Morrissey’s lyrics, the shimmering Johnny Marr guitar parts, and Rourke’s amazing bass lines, this song is perfection. The bass parts are technically just brilliant.
Escalante: This line is fun to play but really hard. We played some events with Andy DJing, and he would ridicule me for trying to play these songs in E tuning instead of F#.
“The Queen is Dead,” 'The Queen Is Dead,' 1986
Hidalgo: This one is fun because it’s kind of funky. I would go to our drummer’s house and we would play the main riff for hours, just to make sure we were locked in.
Escalante: This is the song I warm up with, even when I'm playing with the Vandals.
“We played some events with Andy DJing, and he would ridicule me for trying to play these songs in E tuning instead of F#.” —Joe Escalante
“Cemetry Gates,” 'The Queen Is Dead,' 1986
Hidalgo: I really love this one. His bass line is very melodic, and it fits so nicely with the guitar.
Escalante: This one kind of just pops, and the lyrics are so dark but the bass line is really fun and playful.
“This Charming Man,” single, 1983
Manning: The bass is such a driving force and I love the vibe of it. Very soulful in the rhythms. There’s a part where he breaks into walking bass—it’s so unexpected.
Sharp: It’s an absolute standout track that showcases the perfect musical symmetry of Johnny Marr and Andy Rourke.
“Bigmouth Strikes Again,” 'The Queen Is Dead,' 1986
Hidalgo: It melds that tiny bit of funk with faster rock and a driving rhythm. You can hear how his influences come together.
“Still Ill,” 'The Smiths,' 1984
Ronquillo: This is a fun bass line, but it’s easy to get lost in. You’ve got to concentrate and can't really dance around, cause you gotta focus and get in the zone.
“There Is a Light That Never Goes Out,” 'The Queen Is Dead,' 1986
Hidalgo: People love this song, and it has that smooth vibe. The eighth notes are smooth and consistent.
“I Want the One I Can’t Have,” 'Meat Is Murder,' 1985
Ronquillo: This is a really fun song that’s pretty upbeat, and fast-paced. It gets you into that flow state.
“Girlfriend in a Coma,” 'Strangeways Here We Come,' 1987
Sharp: Andy’s performance highlights his different musical influences, as the reggae-flavored bass line works perfectly in the song.
The Hummingbird Studio EC features a mahogany body and sides with a Sitka spruce top, a Round SlimTaper profile mahogany neck, and L.R. Baggs electronics.
The Hummingbird has become more versatile and expressive than ever with the introduction of the Hummingbird Studio EC, Hummingbird Standard EC, and the Hummingbird Rosewood EC. Equipped with cutaway bodies that provide improved access to the upper frets of the Round SlimTaper profile mahogany necks, L.R. Baggs electronics, and shipped in hardshell cases, they’re ready for you to take them wherever the muse carries you.
Hummingbird Standard EC
- Mahogany body and sides with a Sitka spruce top
- Mahogany neck with a Round SlimTaper profile and 12” radius
- L.R. Baggs VTC electronics
- Gloss finish with full-color Hummingbird graphics on the pickguard
Hummingbird Standard Rosewood EC
- Rosewood body and sides with a Sitka spruce top gives more bass and harmonic complexity
- Mahogany neck with a Round SlimTaper profile and 12” radius
- L.R. Baggs VTC electronics
- Gloss finish with full-color Hummingbird graphics on the pickguard
Hummingbird Studio EC
- Mahogany body and sides with a Sitka spruce top
- Utile neck with a Round SlimTaper profile and 16” radius
- L.R. Baggs Element Bronze electronics
- Satin finish with one-color Hummingbird graphics on the pickguard
A forward-thinking, inventive, high-quality electro-acoustic design yields balance, playability, and performance flexibility.
High-quality construction. Flexible, responsive, and detailed-sounding pickup/mic system. Lots of bass resonance without feedback or mud.
Handsome, understated design may still estrange traditionalists.
$1,599
L.R. Baggs AEG-1
lrbaggs.com
Though acoustic amplification has improved by leaps, bounds, and light years, the challenges of making a flattop loud remain … challenging. L.R. Baggs has played no small part in improving the state of acoustic amplification, primarily via ultra-reliable pickups like the Anthem, Lyric, andHiFi Duet microphone and microphone/under-saddle systems, the overachieving, inexpensive Element Active System, and theM1 andM80 magnetic soundhole pickups—all of which have become industry standards to one degree or another.
Lloyd Baggs got his start building guitars for the likes of Jackson Brown, Ry Cooder, Janis Ian, and Graham Nash. So he can tell you that building a good guitar from the ground up is no mean feat. Enter the AEG-1, L.R. Baggs’ first flattop—a unique thin-hollowbody design that leverages the company’s copious experience with transducers of every kind to create a successful, holistically functional instrument. In some ways, it feels like an instrument built to match a great pickup system—a cool way to consider guitar design if you think about it.
Gentle Deconstruction
Admittedly, I’m a flattop design traditionalist—that jerk that thinks any acoustic sketched out after 1962 looks a bit yucky. So, the AEG-1’s looks were a bit jarring out of the case. That didn’t last. Though it’s very shallow and soft curves sometimes evoked a swimming pool outline, that of a nice Scandinavian coffee table, and Gibson’s L6-S (these are highly positive associations in my opinion), the lovely body contours and shallow cutaway have a slimming effect and give the guitar a sense of forward lean at the aft end—almost like a sprinkle of Fender Jaguar. The more you stare at it, the more it looks like a very artful deconstruction of a dreadnought shape, and a very natural one at that.
The construction itself is unique, too. The sides are CDC-machined poplar ply, oriented so you see the laminate in cross-section. The top is a very pretty torrefied Sitka spruce, which is braced in a traditional scalloped X pattern. The sides are also braced with arms that radiate toward the waist and heel at 120 degrees from each other, reinforcing the soundhole and the substantial neck heel. The back is critical to the AEG-1’s tone makeup, too. Rather than a merely ornamental bit of plywood, it’s a lovely Indian rosewood that vibrates freely, enhancing resonance and the many organic facets of the AEG-1’s tone spectrum.
The 25.625"-scale mahogany neck is mated to the body by way of four substantial bolts and an equally substantial contoured heel and heel block. Sturdy, perhaps, undersells the secure feel of the neck/body union. In hand, the slim-C neck is lovely, too. The bound rosewood fretboard is beautiful, and the playability is fantastic as well. The action is snappy and fast, the 1.7" nut width is comfy and spacious. And, in general, the build quality of the Korea-made AEG-1 is excellent.
Resonant With Room To Roam
With the exception of country blues players—and guitarists like Blake Mills andMadison Cunningham, who dabble in rubber bridges to prioritize focus over breadth—most 6-stringers want a lot of resonance from their instruments. The AEG-1 resonates beautifully, particularly for a thin-bodied guitar. And the HiFi Duet, made up of the HiFi bridge plate pickup and the company’s Silo microphone, is deep and detailed, so the output is easily reshaped by the flexible volume, tone, and mic/pickup blend controls. But the balance of the constituent parts, and the deft way with which the design sacrifices a little body resonance for string detail, is smart and satisfying to interact with.
This is especially true when you use blend settings that favor the microphone. If you get the tone control on the AEG-1, and your amp, dialed in right (I used a mid-scoop and slight bump in the treble and bass from a Taylor Circa74), the extra bass resonance is warm but without being overbearing, adding mass to tones without slathering them in mud. But you don’t have to get too precious and precise about such settings to make the guitar sound great. Working together, the HiFi Duet’s pickup/mic blend and tone controls provide the range and variation to shift bass emphasis or put sparkle to the fore. This range is helped in no small part by the guitar’s basic feedback resistance. I spent a fair bit of this evaluation playing loud, plugged into the Circa74, which was tilted toward my head at a 30-degree angle. Only when I bent down to turn the amp off, situating the guitar about a foot-and-a-half from the speaker, did the AEG-1 start to feed back.
The Verdict
Inventive, attractive in form and function, playable, and above all forgiving, full-sounding, and balanced when amplified, the AEG-1 is an unexpected treat. The HiFi Duet pickup-and-microphone system is a star. But rather than feeling like an afterthought, it feels like an integral part of the whole. And it’s the cohesiveness of this design—and the wholeness of the many sounds it creates—that makes the AEG-1 different from many stage-oriented electro-acoustic guitars
During routine quality checks, Blackstar has identified a problem with specific Debut 100 Series amps.
Statement from Blackstar:
"Nothing is more important to Blackstar than the safety of our customers.
During routine quality checks, we have identified a problem with Debut 100R 112 and 212 Combos with date codes from 2403 to 2411.
Due to cabinet production errors, a larger than intended gap between wooden parts of the cabinet can cause some electronic components to be accessible or partially exposed. As a result, in some circumstances a user could come into contact with safety critical internal chassis components. This poses a risk of serious electric shock.
Given the circumstances and our commitment to absolute safety, Blackstar has therefore decided to recall these affected products to resolve the issue. No other Blackstar products or Debut 100R date codes are affected.
Blackstar asks all customers with a Debut 100R 112 or 212 Combo to visit the following link to determine whether their product is affected: https://blackstaramps.com/product-recall/
We wish to thank you for your cooperation and to apologise for any inconvenience caused.
If you have any questions or concerns, or need any support regarding the details of this Product Safety Recall, please contact our team in the UK via https://blackstaramps.com/contact-us/"