The Bass Geek

Yes, that’s a snapshot of my Second Life avatar playing bass while flying over a Japanese garden. So what? There’s so much bass in my first life that I needed to create a second one just to handle it all.

I was searching for a bass with a Pittsburgh Steelers paint job as the correct prelude to this Sunday’s Pittsburgh/New England game, but there just wasn’t one available on the Internet. And I don’t have the money or inclination to produce one myself or have it done. I’ve got no qualms drilling into a perfectly good new bass to install a MIDI pickup or have a little wood carved out for a new active pickup. There may even be a replacement graphite neck on the Stingray soon – I’ve always liked the sound, but I’m having issues with the neck moving, and the truss rod has nearly been tweaked to its limit. But a new paint job just doesn’t sound that appealing. The others are matters of function, not form.

Oh, well. Enjoy the weekend, and try to avoid contacting me around 4pm this Sunday. I’ll probably be yelling a lot.

You can download it directly or listen to it on the flash player at IMN. Highlights of this episodes include Steve and Ryan’s rantings on Hannah Montana and a little confusion about the second installment of R. Kelly’s “Trapped In The Closet” saga. Just how long can one backing track continue?Sadie’s fascination with the snow lasted exactly one day, and she has since decided that it and the cold in general is to be avoided at all costs. With another day of accumulation predicted for tomorrow, the dog may have to choice between cold and exploding. I fear for the consequences.

Yeah, those were mine. The smaller ones belong to the dog. Turns out the small ball of fur I thought would want to jump out and get back in as soon as possible when confronted with cold weather thinks she’s a St. Bernard looking for lost skiers. I finally coaxed her back in, but it was a chore.

Snow in Fountain Square gives a comforting sameness to the neighborhood that I enjoy, as a thick blanket of snow just seems to make everything more connected. It also means I get a 6-month break from yard work. This, I enjoy.

First Friday is coming up at the end of the week, and I’m looking forward to a couple big shows – The Philosophy et al at Big Car Gallery, and The Redwalls, The Whigs and more at Radio Radio. Toss in a couple of holiday-related get-togethers and a MySpace revision deadline, and stuff’s getting busy.

Google News occasionally shoots me updates on the keywords “bass guitar” – most of the time I receive yet another story about Rockband or Guitar Hero, but I occasionally get some interesting news. Something from PRWeb caught my eye today, mostly because it mentioned my bass book (I am a vain little monkey). It was just a passing mention, but the press release kicked off with this line:

From the series that brought you Teach Yourself Visually Knitting, Teach Yourself Visually Golf, and Teach Yourself Visually Bass Guitar . . .

Somebody (at least the publishing company) has matched playing bass guitar with hitting the links or making a nice little sweater. Toss in a Republican candidate playing bass (another thing the Google News updates remind me of constantly), and the low end has practically become a Norman Rockwell stronghold.

While I’m heartened by the place mainstream America seems to have given to bassists, I’m afraid of total assimilation. It was crazy enough when James Brown endorsed Richard Nixon. Can we afford another step in that dark, dreadful direction? The funk is truly music under a big tent, but these are staggering implications.

In mentioning the Playboy Psychonauts show last night, I forgot to note that this was the first show where I used the laptop that had been upgraded to Reason 4 AND Leopard. I pleasantly experienced no issues live, although I had to recreate the files I used – for some Reason (sorry), I couldn’t get the keyboard in the Sequencer view, and the audio wasn’t coming across properly. It was no big deal, as the files were just one synth and a loop. I noticed it occuring before the OS upgrade, too, so I’m assuming it’s a Reason problem. It does mean that I’ll have to go digging through my other old files and see if that’s a problem for everything. The physical setup went smoothly – since I tossed the audio and MIDI interfaces in a rack with a direct box and the appropriate cords, it’s been no problem. It also means I don’t have to travel with an amp.

At this time, the next Psychonauts show comes up in February, so I’m looking forward to getting some new songs and sounds ready.

Between the late night with the Playboy Psychonauts and the Steelers’ victory over the Bengals last night, I’m a little tired. But I keep my promises (and I’m bored at lunch), so here’s the non-techie side of the IMN Podcast.

The whole thing originates from the top 10 list IMN Editor Steve Hayes puts together each week for the site – he takes votes from the local cognoscenti and compiles the list, adding editorial content along the way. We then take that list, add the IMN OnTrack artist at the end, and we have a script for the podcast.

Obviously, we don’t script every word, but the list gives us a defined guide as to where the show is going, and it keeps us on track in case we start to ramble a bit. I can’t emphasize enough how important this is – it’s easy to get bogged down if you don’t have a plan. We record straight through, with slight pauses where I’m going to insert music later (we only take tracks from those artists who make them available for free, and this averages about five songs per podcasts). I edit in the tracks later.

We also have kind of a standard intro and closing we run through – nothing fancy, but it still lends a familiarity to the show.

To be honest, I’m not sure how many listeners we have at any one time. Not only does the podcast download-able, but it’s also in the IMN Flash player on the main site and played on low-power Purdue student radio. We’re not Adam-Curry-level by any means, but we do okay.

And that’s the story. We’ll occasionally have guests on, but usually this is what you get. We record in a variety of secret locations, just to keep the riff-raff out.