The Bass Geek

So we’re headed back to New Orleans for the new year this year, and I’ve been looking ahead at the music calendar for some ideas of things to do while we’re there (now that we’ve gotten some of the tourist stuff out of the way, I look forward to sleeping later and enjoying more of the nightlife).  The funny thing is that some of the big shows we saw down there last year are coming around again.  George Porter and Johnny Vidacovich at the Maple Leaf?  Yep.  Eddie Bo and Snooks Eaglin at Mid-City Rock N’ Bowl Check.  Dr. John at House of Blues?  Mais oui, ma cheri.

These shows were good enough to demand a return visit, I’d think.  We were so exhausted that we didn’t get to catch the whole thing, so there’s certainly more to be heard. And watching George Porter play bass is a revelation. These folks are legends.  Plus, there’s a Toadies reunion while we’re down there, and I’d like to relive my college radio days.  This is going to be a lot of fun. 

VH-1 apparently has the market cornered when it comes to ready-made nostalgia, but allow me a bite at the proverbial apple with this particular bass guitar. This screams “EIGHTIES!!!” at me more than anything else, including legwarmers, Reagan, and John Hughes movies. You saw it in the hands of Duran Duran’s John Taylor (if you were paying attention to popular music), you saw it in the hands of Stu Hamm (if you weren’t paying attention to popular music and instead focused on bass guitar instructional videos . . . in your room . . . alone . . . ), and I finally ran across one years ago in an Indy guitar store. The action was terrible on it, which kinda soured me on the experience at that point. Unfortunately, I haven’t run across one in a bit, and it looks like their primary endorser is the bassist for Kenny G.

Not gonna get a lot of store space with that, I suppose.

Still, I liked the sound they got, and the foresight to slap on the extension that changed the E string to a low D was a good plan (brought to us regular tuning-machine-folks by Hipshot). I’d give it another shot. And I’d probably play the bass line to “Rio” on it.

I spent most of the day Saturday installing new locks on the house – not that the old locks were bad per se, but my lovely wife bought some electronic deadbolts with the spiffy new keypads. See, now I can’t lock myself out of the house anymore (twice since we moved in). It was okay when security was around to let me into my apartment, but the locksmith is more expensive and a little farther away now.

These locks run on 9-volt batteries, so I did what most enterprising young musicians would do when faced with a need for the little square givers of electronic life. I raided the gig bag. By the way, it’s a sure sign of domesticity when your gig bag becomes your primary tool kit. It isn’t that I’m overpacking the gig bag, though. That bag could be a savior at a show when your gear (or soomebody else’s) breaks down. It’s a good thing I checked, too – the batteries in the bag were dead, and I ended up having to run to the hardware store anyway. Better then than at the show, even if I did have to extract my car from the snow to do so.

Anyway, if any of the readers of the bass book are checking this out, here’s what’s in the gig bag at any time:

• Multitool, like a Leatherman® or something
• Screwdriver, ’cause I hate the screwdrivers on the multitools
• Extra set of strings
• Polish cloth for bass body and neck
• Polish cloth for strings
• All necessary cables for gig
• Backup cables for the necessary cables
• The 9-volt batteries I had to replace
• Spare tuner
• Bass DI (in case the amp goes or they need a PA feed
• Spare fuses for amp
• Electrical tape
• Sharpies (Silver and Black
• Business Cards
• Flashlight
• Kazoo (once used for a solo and kept around just in case since then)

A good gig bag will help you out of a lot of jams, and it’s handy around the house when domesticity ensues. Just make sure to test the batteries and make sure everything gets returned.

There’s a new IMN podcast up, and it’s the time of the year where we’re talking a lot about holiday shows. There’s an abundance of dancing Santas and Sandi Patti every year courtesy of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and it’s truly . . . a sight to behold. I witnessed it as part of a corporate outing a few years ago, and the only moment I recall vividly is the slack-jawed amazement I felt when that line of Santas did it up right. It was an awesomely disturbing event.

We usually get a visit from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (they of the orchestral-metal holiday music that everybody syncs their X-mas lights to) every year as well, and they made the upper part of the list this week. We looked up the lineup during the podcast to verify that Alex Skolnick (Testament) was still a member. He was, and that was just the tip of the iceburg. I found heavy metal violinist Mark Wood lurking in the wings as well; he’s the only man I’ve ever seen perform a metal-laced medley of Sly and the Family Stone’s “Stand/I Want To Take You Higher” on a DOUBLE-NECKED electric violin. You’ve also got most of the members of Savatage, a drummer from Metal Church, Kitaro(!)’s guitarist, and Al Pitrelli, a guitarist who’s played with everybody from Michael Bolton to Megadeth.

I can’t help but think this was a brilliant career move for them – the bands drew a decent audience, but this thing is a huge seller all around the nation. Nice work. And it doesn’t involve Michael Bolton, which is also a huge bonus. It may be holiday cheese, but it has to be better than tap-dancing in red velvet.

And I wanna see a double-necked electric violin, dammit.

It should be a hard and fast rule for every player.  Always keep an extra set of strings in your gig bag or case, no matter what.  No matter how expensive bass strings can be (up to $75 in most cases for bass guitars, much higher for uprights), you should always keep a set at the ready, and maybe more at home just in case.  I went ahead and splurged on some extra sets – partly because there’s a new bass in the stable, and partly because I have to change the strings on the Jazz bass more often to keep things functional on the MIDI side.  With the new Reason program, I want to program some new sounds into the Playboy Psychonauts set, and that means making sure the notes translate well through the MIDI pickup.  The brightness of the new set is the biggest difference-maker in that department, and I just like the sound of them.  Conversely, I’ve kept the same set on the fretless for a couple years or so because I like the duller, thumpy sound they make.  Strings are a huge part of the sound, and even at $75 they’re a lot cheaper, even in the long run, than the $8000 amp I just saw reviewed in Bass Player this month.

Also, I got just around to watching the “special event” of “Battlestar Galactica: Razor” last night after a few days’ delay.  It was decent, but I wonder if new episodes in March are still on the horizon given the writers’ strike.  I’m probably obligated by my AFM membership to support the writers in this case, but I’d come down on that side anyway. Just because the studios don’t (allegedly) make money on Internet content yet doesn’t mean the creative types shouldn’t be reimbursed for their efforts in making that profit to happen.  Here’s to a swift and lucrative resolution.

Finally, anybody know where I can find a Cylon bass guitar?

I’d like to thank the good folks at Propellerheads (creators of Reason) for posting some extensive documentation on their website. The challenge of finding the instructions I needed in a 400+ page PDF more than outweighed the cost I would have incurred by putting my fist through a laptop screen. I’m still a little irritated at the workflow to edit clips in the sequencer, but I suspect that it’s the newness of the procedure, and that learning the keyboard shortcuts might be in order.

Even the image of a punched laptop is making me sad. That tells me two things – first, that I’m thankful it never happened, and second, that I need a small vacation.

Part of the idea I had for this site when I created it was to give me enough space to record bass tracks for folks from files they sent electronically and post them for FTP. I’ve done this a couple times with decent results, but I’m also noticing that services are popping up that handle this kind of thing, too. To wit, I’ve signed up on eSessions to see what’s doing over there. Basically, they act as a middleman to connect those organizing recordings and the players. There’s a little real-time collaboration, but most of it is based off of taking the files and recording them at your own facilities on your schedule. Which is pretty damn handy, ’cause it gives you easier access to players like Tony Levin.

It also means that, at least theoretically, I’m up for gigs against Tony Levin, and I know who wins that battle every frickin’ time.

But if you’re looking for cheaper tracks from somebody slightly lower on the low end’s evolutionary scale, lemme know.

Even after this weekend’s football debacle, I knew that the universe would somehow correct itself and make things right. And so it has – and once again we owe it all to the Internet. This Wired report has some of the original MST3K cast coming together for what appears to be riffery of a more refined sort (in that they gave up the jumpsuits, you know) as “Cinematic Titanic,” riffing away on terrible movies ’til there ain’t no more crappy frames left. Toss in some RiffTrax, and it seems like the entire cast of the old show is active once again in satirizing crappy movies. It’s a good thing, too, as my videotapes of the series are still in boxes, and I don’t have a functional VCR anymore. I still retain, however, my original fan club materials and stickers. I want those buried with me.

One can only hope, however, that it doesn’t return to the Mike vs. Joel wars of the mid-90s. We lost a lot of good soldiers then.