The Bass Geek

High altitude and lotsa stairs kick my ass. Repeatedly. Feh. Sound and scenery were excellent, though, and it was nice seeing some great Denver natives. Now, to the music:

• Ghostland Observatory shows strong influences from both wizard rock and MC 900 Ft. Genius. And their keyboard bass sound seemed to shake the very mountain.
• Rev. Peyton managed to battle the bas sound for a solid set.
• Cat-A-Tac sounded really good, yet really loud in a really small and enclosed area.
• People liked to dance to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah when they’re close to the stage. Away from the stage, they try to take their publicity photos with the band in the background. And I don’t understand why.
• It’s impossible to have a country song include a Moog sound, “Switched-On Nashville” notwithstanding.
• Das Efx’s performance proved that the time is right for a resurgance of “iggiddy” rap. Start the comeback tour in the western states.
• Editors were loud and powerful enough to overwhelm the voice note I took to remind me of how loud and powerful they are. I think. And they like Joy Division a lot.
• The Decemberists sound quieter on the mainstage that some bands did on the sidestages. Also, it’s hard to mic accordians, it seems. Good set, though.
• It’s an excellent idea to use the song “You Are My Sunshine” as a cover to tune a guitar.
• The Mobius Band drove us from the room with their volume.
• Cake was at their sardonic best, but the cold drove us to get coffee. We wandered in on 3OH3! from Boulder, and they were good. I’m used to hippies coming from Boulder, though. These folks are not hippies.
• Flosstradamous proved how funky they are by including Steve Winwood’s “Valerie” in their set and making it work.

More tomorrow.

I knew from viewing “Superbad” that it had to be Bootsy Collins on the closing credits music - NOBODY sounds like him. I was geeked to find out he worked on the soundtrack. And this article is the kicker. With quotes like “I played it with a little Bootzilla aggression and light finger pull-lepathy. My fretting hand is a little mangled up, like when you pull your finger out of the P” and “If I answer this, then there would be a conflict of interest between Bootsy, Bootzilla, Casper, Roto-Rooter, and The String Puller, so I better leave that alone. Plus, I have to live with these sensitive guys,” just TALKING about the music is funkier than most people can comprehend. It also explains how Bootsy gets those sounds - he’s got a five-member bass tone R&D committee.

It also means I’ll be able to justify that new chapter about light finger pull-lepathy in any future revisions of my book.

Finally, it explains why, unlike so many others, there’s no Bootsy Collins bass technique book. Nobody can play like him, and they wouldn’t necessarily understand him if they could.

First, the new episode of the IMN podcast is up, and it clocks in at EXACTLY 1 hour, 10 minutes long. We’re geniuses. Download the file directly, or subscribe using the handy XML link.

Second, I got tapped to help explain some genres of music by INTake Weekly in preparation for Oranje this weekend. Extra appreciation to Jenny Elig (a fellow bassist) for including two bassists in the interview. That’s the Bass Mafia in full effect, y’all.

Finally, we’re headed to the Monolith Festival in Denver this weekend. My wife and I will soon be taking odds on whether the Brian Jonestown Massacre will actually show up. Check the link for the full lineup - I’m thinking I’ll just wander around and take in whoever sounds most interesting at the moment. It’s possible I’ll be blogging, but nothing is definite at the moment.

The Ouija Bass, courtesy of Thumbrella.
I’m also curious as to the new music offering from Apple, Logic Studio 8. According to the web store entry, it includes the program, Soundtrack Pro 2 (I use the previous version of this for the IMN Podcast), MainStage (a program design to help use Logic live) and a bunch of samples and virtual instruments. The inclusion of a couple new programs doesn’t surprise me. What DOES get me is that they cut the price in half from the previous version. $1000 was enough to keep me using the software I already have. $500 is now a stretch, but much more reasonable. It’s also more justifiable for me to have this package than the old Final Cut Pro software package I have now. I may have to look into that. I’m most curious about MainStage and how that will work live. Currently, I use Reason live for loops and synth patches, and I’ve got a light edition of Ableton I can use to trigger loops live and run the bass audio through the computer for recording on the fly.

BTW, that’s now $500 on my shopping list for the Logic package and probably about $150 (I’m hoping for a cheap upgrade) for Reason 4 when it comes out later this month. The Playboy Psychonauts better be getting a lot of gigs to justify that expense.

Or I could start doing solo cruise ship gigs. Band-in-a-box, anyone?

Yesterday’s blog got me thinking about playing bass for hip-hop acts, and what a different animal it can be. It would seem on the surface to be simple, almost trivial. Most times, the bass frequencies from the drum loop or sample is so dominant that the entire low end is covered, so there’s no “bass line” to speak of. So sad, so sad. When there is a bass instrument present, it usually follows the drums (live or looped), so there’s not as much independence in the line.

But that’s not to say there isn’t as much skill. There’s a need for precision and timing there that you can sometimes smooth over in other genres. A drum machine or loop is unforgiving - it’s not giving an inch. You can either try to follow along in lock-step, or you can play off of that quality and go off on another line. Either way, though, you have to know exactly what’s going on at all times. It’s not just your typical blues changes.

I’d also suggest that you have to have a broad exposure to different musical genres to get along in this role. Hip-hop draws on so many different styles and performers (either stylistically or literally) that you have to be ready to switch from jazz to funk to rock to latin at a moment’s notice. Inventive producers mean the player has to be ready to try something different at any time. That’s why bass lines from Bernie Worrell (on keys, but still a genius at the low end), Ron Carter, and Fugazi all work.

Finally, there’s a lot of discipline that goes into produce a quality hip-hop bass line. You have to watch the fills or adjustments in the beat for fear of knocking the groove off. Yes, that’s something you’d have to watch in any song you’re playing, but again (in my experience, especially in live situations) you can usually smooth over these happening easily, and you’re off to the next part of the song without issue. Because hip-hop evolved from loops and breaks, there’s an emphasis on consistent repetition that can be hard to produce, especially for musicians used to a little improvisation here and there.

In addition to the folks I mentioned in the last post, I also love the work of Raphael Saadiq and Pino Palladino in this area (alright, so Palladino is also famous for working with the Who, Don Henley, and Paul Young - his work on the hip-hop-influenced tracks on D’Angelo’s “Voodoo” was GENIUS). They’ve got the deep, low tone and the timing down.