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John

Bass player,Painter,Lyricist & toy soldier collector.

About Me

My name is John C. Barry and my life is mainly centred around three things:loved ones,music and art. Scratching a living is what I do the rest of the time. Feel free to have a look at my paintings & prints at : wwwjohnbarry.de I had the great honour to play bass with the late Nikki Sudden for five years and supplied the basslines for his last three records ( counting the yet-to-be-released 'Playing With Fire').For those of you who never got to meet Nikki,....he really was a very charming chap indeed ! For those who did know him, no doubt you miss him as much as I do. Mr Sudden had a highly eclectic taste in music and so do I, however If I HAD to chose one genre of music as my favourite then I would have to chose MOTOWN. To me the classic Motown recordings of the 60's and 70's represent the apex of popular music, combining as they do great songwriting,interesting lyrics, imaginative arrangment/production and sometimes brilliant singing and playing. Just for the record...Nikki was a big Motown fan too which is why the busy Motown-like bassline for 'Talking To The Wrong Guy' stayed on his last record ! So what do you do when your musical roots are stuck in another time and place ? Yes indeed,.......you get yourself a Motown Band together ! We are called ' The MOTOWN LOVERS' and one newspaper over here described us (not incorrectly I thought) as Europe's finest Motown act.Thank you very much for reading and I wish you and yours much joy and happiness on this strange blue planet of ours. ..

My Interests

I am interested in politics but being an old-fashioned kinda guy....think that violence only leads to violence, so I am not a big fan of killing people, regardless of where they are from or what they look like. However I do collect toy soldiers. Another interest of mine is great bass players : Apart from the legendary giants of bass (such as James Jamerson), I am also a great fan of some lesser known bassists of huge talent.These include the following: Allan Spenner, he played with Kokomo and Joe Cocker..s Grease Band.Later he joined Roxy Music.Check out his playing on the intro to Manifesto, beautiful, elegant, lyrical are just three adjectives that spring to mind.I had the great honour to meet him and buy him Guiness at a Kokomo gig in London.He is sadly no longer with us. George Porter Jr. is, luckily for us all, still alive and kicking ! The Meters bassist is still gigging.George can get more funk out of two notes than anyone else on the planet ! Andy Fraser of Free was playing great bass while still in his teens ! The solo on Mr Big (Free Live), is still as majestic as the day it was performed. Willy Weeks, Wilton Felder and Chuck Rainey are well known to many bass players, they took up the baton that Jamerson left...very fine players indeed. I am convinced that had Gary Thain played with Led Zeppelin (instead of Uriah Heep), he would be considered ..up there with the likes of Entwhistle and John-Paul- Jones. .My God ! What an incredible musician ! If you do not believe me then get yourself a copy of Uriah Heep Live..then turn the bass up ! Like Ronnie Lane, Jamerson, Spenner and Entwhistle, Gary has also passed on.In a way though they are very much..... still with us.They are certainly still with me.Cripes ! I almost forgot the best bass player Bob Dylan ever had,..Rockin.. Rob Stoner..and the excellent Herbie Flowers of T-Rex,Chris Spedding and Lou Reed Fame.None of the above players were afraid to ..take a walk on the . (Edit)

I'd like to meet:

George W.Bush,Tony Blair and Bin Laden to ask them how they sleep at night ! The late and great George McDonald Fraser to ask him about his writing. George Porter Jr.to ask him about his bass playing. Francis Bacon (if he were still alive), to ask him about his painting. GOD to ARREST HIM and send him to the Hague for creating only one Adam and Eve,thereby forcing their children to engage in incest to populate the world...only for the loving,forgiving,mercifull one to decide later that he wanted to start again from scratch by detroying most of mankind's men,women,children,babies and un-born babies in the flood (circa 35 million people).Luckily it..s only a PAGAN myth,like most of the best biblical stories !.

Music:

Rock'n'Soul and Motown. Favourite acts:The Faces,Free,Stones,The Meters, Van Morrison,Sly Stone,all the earlier Motown acts, ,James Brown,Morrisey, Ron Spielman, The Clash, Einar Stensing,AldeLoner,Nikki Sudden, Little Feat,The Who, Traffic and Germany's answer to Bruce Springsteen ...Wolf Maahn.Anything with feeling and SOUL.

Movies:

Little Big Man with Dustin Hoffman,Dead Man,Doctor Strangelove,The Hours,Being There,The Unforgiven,The Wild Bunch,Monsters Ball,American Beauty ,Road to Perdition,The Pianist,The Ladykillers (the original), Standing In The Shadows Of Motown,Some Like It Hot, Lawrence of Arabia and the great L.A.CRASH.

Television:

I do not own one of these appliances.

Books:

Anything by Bernard Cornwell. George MacDonald Frasers brilliant Flashman books.Sebastian Faulks Birdsong...When The Emperor Dies by Mason McCann Smith and Orwells 1984...a warning to us all ! I don..t usually like books full of blood, mass killings and sex...but have recently enjoyed dipping into the Old Testament for a good read ! There are so many cracking yarns in that book but my favourite one at the moment is the tale of a talking donkey who sees an Angel of the Lord.

Heroes:

Gordon of Khartum (who worked hard to free slaves in a country that still enslaves),Martin Luther King,Wellington,Jamerson,Francis Beckman,Otto Dix.

My Blog

Al DeLONER dates and a brief history of SMOKING IN EUROPE.

I will be playing with Norway's Master of melancholy on the following dates : Oct.11. Munich,Pasinger Fabrik.Nov.10. Hamburg,Knust.Nov.12. Frankfurt (a.M.),Das Bett.Nov.13.Berlin,Quasimodo.Hope to be ...
Posted by John on Tue, 26 Aug 2008 06:43:00 PST

My new website.

Please feel more than free to take a look at my paintings, prints and drawings : www.johnbarry.de
Posted by John on Sun, 25 May 2008 05:12:00 PST

New Nikki Sudden Record.

Nikki..s new record has been compiled mostly from songs recorded for the Treasure Island and Truth Doesn..t Matter Sessions. The record has been lovingly put together and is in no way a rough & tumble...
Posted by John on Sun, 16 Mar 2008 07:35:00 PST

The Lord of Love and the millions he killed.

How Did It Feel ?Tell me how did it feelwhen you killed their baby ?Bathsheba´ s...and David ´s little boyand when the seven sonsof Saul you hungdid you make them begwith swollen tonguesAnd how did it...
Posted by John on Tue, 09 Oct 2007 02:13:00 PST

Magic Penis Tablets !

Magic Penis Tablets.You won`t believe this.......but I just HAVE to tell you this story !Last week I was visiting my younger brother. He had to briefly leave his apartment to purchase some milk, sel...
Posted by John on Thu, 17 May 2007 12:51:00 PST

Cleveland Ohio ( a poem).

Cleveland Ohio. Stories untold, like money unspentfeelings not felt, building a dam to hold back tears...maybe notforget me not this wayCleveland Ohio, on a bright and sunny dayplease don`t turn a...
Posted by John on Fri, 09 Mar 2007 11:57:00 PST

The World turned upside-down.

Society is going through enormous changes. Not too long ago, smoking was as fashionable as freedom and war was considered something nasty, to be avoided if at all possible.Homosexuality was (shamefull...
Posted by John on Fri, 02 Feb 2007 09:17:00 PST

Nikki`s Death.

Nikki Sudden.Everyone who knew Nikki recognised that he was a very colourful character and a man in a great hurry.He always seemed to be rushing from one concert,song or country to another in a great ...
Posted by John on Tue, 28 Mar 2006 01:34:00 PST

Nikki Tribute Concert in Berlin.

The Last Dandy.A respectful,melancholic,punky Rock`n´Roll goodbye:Nikki Sudden Tribute in the Roten Salon.It is still unbelievable that Nikki Sudden is no longer alive.On the 26th of March this year,t...
Posted by John on Wed, 20 Dec 2006 07:38:00 PST