Placebo!
Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2021 9:48 am
So, my car's "new alternative" station let me know that Placebo had just released Beautiful James, and man, it brought me right back to high school. Sounds like it could have stepped right off of Black Market Music, for better and for worse. For me right now, that's for the better. Happy to hear them still doing what they used to do and doing it well, artistic growth be damned!
I hadn't listened to them in quite a long time, which made me reflect on the role they played in my youth. And you know what? I realized they're pretty much the reason I got into offsets.
Yes, I listened to plenty of other "offset legends," but many of them were using offsets without my knowing, and others I actually discovered through my searches for information on the gorgeous guitars I first saw in the hands of Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal.
I think I was 12 when Pure Morning came out and I first saw a Jaguar and Bass VI in action (though I had no idea it was a VI at the time, I could only reliably identify the Jag). I immediately jumped into their back catalogue and found I loved their first album even more. I saw live videos of songs like 36 Degrees, Nancy Boy and Teenage Angst that thrust the Jaguar forward as a buzzsaw, and showed a tiny frontman playing it. All the info I could find on the Y2K-era internet disparaged it as basically being a stupid Jazzmaster for babies, but it couldn't deter me.
I saved up, and when I was 16, the first and only Offset I bought in my first decade as a guitarist was my blue MIJ Jaguar.
I feel like I never hear about them on this board though, or anywhere else, really. They were pretty big, they're still around (apparently), and those first few albums were almost all Jaguar, Bass VI, Jazz Bass and Jazzmaster, with an SG making an appearance for some of the third one.
Oh, and totally unrelated to Offsets (other than a Jazz Bass), they also had my favourite Bowie collaboration since Queen.
I kinda wonder, did Placebo play a role in anyone else's path to Offsets? Were they not as big in the US as they were in Canada and Europe? I wonder why I never see them mentioned, even in relation to these guitars specifically, since they were one of those bands who pretty much always had at least one Offset onstage, if not two. Plus, not that many songs were hitting the charts in the 90s featuring the Bass VI, but it was all over their albums as often as it was on The Cure's.
I hadn't listened to them in quite a long time, which made me reflect on the role they played in my youth. And you know what? I realized they're pretty much the reason I got into offsets.
Yes, I listened to plenty of other "offset legends," but many of them were using offsets without my knowing, and others I actually discovered through my searches for information on the gorgeous guitars I first saw in the hands of Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal.
I think I was 12 when Pure Morning came out and I first saw a Jaguar and Bass VI in action (though I had no idea it was a VI at the time, I could only reliably identify the Jag). I immediately jumped into their back catalogue and found I loved their first album even more. I saw live videos of songs like 36 Degrees, Nancy Boy and Teenage Angst that thrust the Jaguar forward as a buzzsaw, and showed a tiny frontman playing it. All the info I could find on the Y2K-era internet disparaged it as basically being a stupid Jazzmaster for babies, but it couldn't deter me.
I saved up, and when I was 16, the first and only Offset I bought in my first decade as a guitarist was my blue MIJ Jaguar.
I feel like I never hear about them on this board though, or anywhere else, really. They were pretty big, they're still around (apparently), and those first few albums were almost all Jaguar, Bass VI, Jazz Bass and Jazzmaster, with an SG making an appearance for some of the third one.
Oh, and totally unrelated to Offsets (other than a Jazz Bass), they also had my favourite Bowie collaboration since Queen.
I kinda wonder, did Placebo play a role in anyone else's path to Offsets? Were they not as big in the US as they were in Canada and Europe? I wonder why I never see them mentioned, even in relation to these guitars specifically, since they were one of those bands who pretty much always had at least one Offset onstage, if not two. Plus, not that many songs were hitting the charts in the 90s featuring the Bass VI, but it was all over their albums as often as it was on The Cure's.