The Bass Geek

This weekend was a tough choice for shows. I hated to miss Peelander-Z at the Mel, but it’d been awhile since I’d seen Charlie Hunter, and the Jazz Kitchen is a great venue to see him at.

“But Ryan, he doesn’t have a bassist! And you HATE bands that don’t have bassists! I’ve heard what you’ve said about the White Stripes!”

Nameless Quoted Internet Devil’s Advocate, you are correct. Charlie Hunter earns a pass, though. At a guitar workshop lo those many years ago at an Indianapolis studio, he was asked that, if forced to split his trademark guitar/bass style (he plays both on a specially constructed Novak guitar), which instrument he would choose? He replied bass, because it grooves more. He’s declared his loyalties, and thus should be respected.

He’s traded in the 8-string for a 7-string now, and he’s travelling with an organ, so that didn’t bode well for the low end. That boding was wrong - he still held down the bass lines and added the chords as necessary. The organ fulfilled more of a melody/pad function, and Hunter kept the groove going. He’s travelled away from his organ-like sound to a more precise, agressive guitar tone, but it’s still his trademark music that pleased the audience. Hunter may have switched band members and labels multiple times, but he hasn’t lost a step. Excellent show, and I highly recommend it.

Just remember, though - if you’re going to come through without a bassist, you’d better be as good as he is. I’m watching you.

There’s always some minutiae to take care of before a book goes off to be published, I suppose. And in the world of tech publishing, the ever-shifting content means that small changes and issues are more likely, I suppose. A little list of links is a trivial matter, I suppose. The closing of a prominent site’s podcast portal, however, is a larger issue. Luckily, the team caught it in time and all references are being excised. It’s a little disconcerting to see Yahoo!’s site go - there are a tremendous amount of podcast services available, from iTunes on through smaller podcatchers, but this major of a player turning tail and leaving doesn’t sit right with me. Then again, podcasts are a highly individual and compartmentalized effort. Maybe Yahoo! was too big to fit into millions of tiny boxes.

This weekend promises a few good local show, like Peelander-Z, Charlie Hunter and more - check the IMN Top Ten list for some great suggestions. Fountain Square host Orqestra Bravo! at Radio Radio tonight, and Cognizant Coffee Company has Rivetshack tonight and Anonymous Que Pasa tomorrow.

The World Has Made Me The Man Of My Dreams marks Meshell Ndegeocello’s return to the more rock- and funk-based music she’s known for after the almost-side project of her jazz album, “Dance Of The Infidels.” That album was probably the most faithful Ndegeocello has been to any one genre in her recording career, sticking as it did primarily to modern jazz sounds. Before that release (credited mainly to the Spirit Music Jamai), Ndegeocello pushed boundaries and challenged assumptions both about her music and her artistic limits. She returns to form on her latest release, taking her music to new and uncharted territory.

Hints of her new direction were offered in a couple different locations: The previously released Article 3 EP and her version of “National Anthem” from Exit Music, a Radiohead tribute album. The songs in this case feature some of the dub leanings of her previous album, Comfort Woman. While those leanings are indulged, they are stripped of their previous lushness, opting instead for sharp, angular tracks and harder-edged instrumentation. Ndegeocello takes over quite a few of the instruments on this recording, inviting luminaries like Pat Metheny and Robert Glasper onboard for selected tracks. The result is an abstract collage of music that hints at the edges of the songs, rather than fully describe them. It certainly feels different from the denser work of her previous albums (except for the spare nature of her third album, Bitter). There’s no loss of strength or passion in the work - it just seems like she’s requiring a little more from the listener to follow her.

The album needs to be taken as a whole - while songs like “The Sloganeer: Paradise” and “Shirk” stand on their own, they still meld into the larger work in a much more meaningful way. In a world of singles-or-death, that’s a different concept. If you want to get into this album, give yourself a little time. This package should be unwrapped slowly.

I had to score a video project this week, and it turned out a little bit harder than I thought. The video in question was a take-off on a soap opera, so I was already at a bit of a loss (the only experience I have are viewing a few episodes of “All My Children,” I think, after lunch in my fraternity house - the house mother watched it). I was also separated from my usual MIDI gear. I basically had to toss together some loops and add some effects in Soundtrack Pro with some help from Reason. Most of the music joined one scene to the next, but I inserted some sound effects under the action as well.

It gives me a lot more respect for folks who score television shows week in and out. I realize that some of the jobs have gone to music supervisors that find prerecorded songs to insert into shows (and then find more music to replace the original music on DVD releases), but this is still some hard work. I also couldn’t imagine doing this without digital tools like Soundtrack Pro, Sibelius or Reason. I’m sure that if I did this on a more regular basis, it’d be easier to come up with some ideas and plot them out in a better way. Still, I couldn’t have gotten by without the sketchpad ability (and the undo function) of these programs.

I REALLY wanted to use some fretless bass on the project - I don’t think I heard a cop show or drama in the late 80s and early 90s that didn’t have some kind of fretless bass licks underneath the action. A truly inspired era that was.

So a lot of the reaction to the new Amazon MP3 store seems to be that it’s good, but there’s still alot of room for improvement. They like the lack of DRM and the fact that it has more major label content than eMusic (I’ll leave it to the reader to make the qualitative judgment there), but the collection still seems a little small (2.3 million never seemed so small, did it?) and you still have to download software to use it (a pet peeve of mine; at least iTunes is a functional media player, not just a download assist widget - eMusic, I’m looking at you, too).

It may seem redundant to mention that the big news is that Amazon has finally entered the fray, but it’s worth repeating for one reason - their strong recommendation algorithms. Since Amazon is a trusted name in online sales, it’s going to act as one of the portals for people to find out about new music. The blogosphere and Pitchfork and so on and so forth will be there for those willing to do a little searching, but having Amazon there for the “normals” means it maintains its 800-pound gorilla status. Since I already have iTunes and eMusic accounts (and they haven’t pissed me off too much yet), I’m not sure how often I’ll venture to Amazon. Their inclusion of Righteous Babe songs instead of eMusic is interesting, and it points to recent defections from eMusic due to monetary considerations. It’s usually the also-rans that die before the leaders, though, so nothing really exciting is goig to happen until iTunes and Amazon are the only competitors. If and when that happens, it’ll be interesting to see what iTunes does with DRM.

Side note: did anybody know that Amazon sells musical instruments? I can’t imagine purchasing one from them (these things need be seen and felt in person, from my viewpoint, Stick notwithstanding - that’s just an exercise in faith on many levels), but it’s good to know I could have a MusicMan bass at my door in priority shipping time.