What Do You Think You’re Doing, Man?
It’s stuff like this that sets us back another twenty years. And electric bassists have only been around for fifty years or so, making it a pretty significant leap backwards.
At least he got the “glue that holds the song together” part down, as well as the questionable heritage of many rock acts without their celebrity bassists. And maybe the “picks are for weenies” part, but if the guy who played “For The Love Of Money” is behind them, who am I to disagree? But this?
While often goofy and unshaved, people need to support bassists. Don’t make us learn how to play two more strings. Four are hard enough.
Aside from examining gender (big miss there, dude) and potential hormonal imbalances, you make us sound like inept mouth-breathers, riding couches between gigs and just not quite up to the challenge of real instruments. Or other bass guitars beyond your standard beat-up Precision (which makes a great sound, by the way, but that’s another post). Four strings can be hard to learn, but it’s not an issue of numbers - it’s an issue of learning what you should be doing with them. Or those additional strings some bassist may choose to deal with.
And this is just patently unfair:
Why is it always the bassist that wears the sandals, the overalls, or the Dr. Seuss or jester’s hat?
Dude’s been watching too many jam bands. And my jester-hat-wearing days were quite separate from playing the bass, thank you.
This is basically the same issue that WNYC’s Soundcheck tackled with their program last month, and this article makes the issue even more trivial now than when the special guests basically admitted that there really wasn’t anything there to begin with.
So this would be the blog that responds to a twice-diluted instance of a non-issue to begin with. Great.
Michael Manring did bring up the issue of keeping the bass guitar alive and not letting it go the way of the sackbut in a long-ago-read issue of Bass Player magazine, but that argument was directed at promoting new and vital ways of playing and performing, not reinforcing cheap stereotypes and wondering about its place in one specific genre of music. That, to me, sounds like a more interesting pursuit than wondering why some groups eschew bassists.
September 10th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
I’m pretty sure this is the dude who wrote the article:
http://www.myspace.com/timspringfield
We’ve played with a band in Lafayette called the Future Lovers a couple times.
If it’s the same dude, he did a perfectly acceptable drunken version of the KISS song “Plaster Caster” last time we were with them.
September 11th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Grain of salt, man. Grain of salt. That dude clearly has issues. I mean:
(a) He plays in a punk band. That’s not music. It’s not even a passable technical exercise. For any real musician, playing punk is the equivalent of a talented carpenter doing demolition work: it’s loud, noisy, smelly, and requires zero finesse. In other words, it’s a waste of time. Get hammer. Smash wall. Choke on vomit and die in an alley. End of story.
(2) He begins his “article” by blatantly sliding a bassist into the old “do you want fries with that?” joke, when the entire civilized world (and even some people in less-than-civilized areas like Indiana) knows that THAT, my friend, is a joke about DRUMMERS. I mean, really. Know the real mouth-breathers when you see ‘em, dude.
(iii) Tablature. He openly admits to having used that illiterate musician’s crutch. Say what you want about its ability to show fretboard positions more efficiently than notation, it’s still a sign of low class. It’s like those weenie, asthmatic orchestral string players who use things like alto clefs because they’re too astigmatic to read a few measly ledger lines. Whiners one and all.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to practice my sackbutt.
September 11th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
>>Why is it always the bassist that wears the sandals, the overalls, or the Dr. Seuss or jester’s hat?<<
How cruel! I have never worn ANY of these things. I would lose my day job if I wore those things.
But picks are for weenies.
September 11th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Methinks thou dost protest way, way, WAY too much.
Now put on your jester hat and sandals, and get back to delivering my pizza.
September 11th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
@ Cactus F’n Charlie: Associating yourself with the work of Gene Simmons does nothing to improve my opinion.
@ Schlomo: I’m not going to lump punk in with this. My admiration of Bad Brains prevents me from doing so. But good luck with the sackbut practice.
@ Jenny Tech: You are far too stylish to get trapped in that old stereotype.
@ SADC: I’ve got your pizza right here - a big, steaming deep-dish slice of VENGEANCE!
September 11th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
FTR - picks are for those of us who wish to destroy. We’ll let the rest of you noodle, tap, and generally show off your Palmolive soft fingers.
September 12th, 2008 at 8:11 am
@ Ryan:
[points at Cactus F'n Charlie] See! Seeeeeee!? THAT’S my point, exactly.