The Bass Geek

I managed to catch a preview of “The Orphanage” last night – it was a beautiful mix of Brothers Grimm-style fairy tale and a parent’s worst nightmare. A couple of the plot points were telegraphed way in advance, and I thought Del Toro Juan Antonio Bayona strung along some of the suspense strictly for a “GOTCHA!” moment near the end, but it was otherwise magnificently filmed and rendered. Highly recommend.

That, of course, leaves the weekend free for music. And there’s quite a bit happening in Fountain Square, if I do toot my neighborhood’s horn a bit. Big Car Gallery hosts Lovely Houses, Brooks Ritter and Jascha for $5 from 7 to 9pm tonight (BRING THE KIDS!), and Sam’s Saloon has Will Stockwell and Deacon Sean and the Bar Brawlers. Tomorrow, Sam’s features Mike Milligan and Steam Shovel. Also, I believe tonight is Cognizant Coffee’s open mic night, but don’t blame me if you show up and they want you to put your darn-fool guitar away ’cause I got the date wrong. Enjoy!

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.

A friend sent me this link to the blog of Robbie Fulks, renowned singer/songwriter/wit-about-the-nation. Specifically, he referenced to me this passage:

I should explain that bass players are an odd species. You might guess that with about twenty-eight notes to play in a three-minute song, and without the ego-nourishing plaudits lavished on soloists, the bass player personality might be typified by a Gary Cooperesque easygoing humility and can-do stoicism, but not so. Bassists are the screwiest of all musicians, excepting only female singers, if you can call them musicians. Drummers are the subjects of all the stock jokes, but if there’s one person in your band who has a hair-trigger chemical imbalance, holds strange and unalterable opinions, pores over obnoxious magazines whose titles incorporate the name of his instrument, and demands constant catering to, it’s almost always the bassist. He will wear you out by talking long into the night about speaker cabinet dimensions, string gauges and alloys, and coming advances in direct-box electronics, and if you excuse yourself to go to sleep, he will start in eight hours later at the point in the sentence where he left off.

I was dodging Fulks’ descriptive bullets like the Matrix until he got to the part about the magazines. It’s about then that I had to take my 16 years of “Bass Player” back issues and head out the door. I’d try and differ with him about the other points, but I’ve got no idea who he’s played with, and I believe there’s more than enough weird musicians in general to back up an opinion like this about any instrument. So take it for what you will.

Luckily, this weekend’s victories of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the DePauw Tigers have filled me with victorious spirits, and the whole shebang was pushed over the edge by a much-delayed viewing of “300.” I think I tried to lead my pug to eternal glory over the backyard at some point, but I might be mistaken. The replacement copies of my bass book also came in, so I’m going to dedicate a few blog posts in the coming days to instrument actually named in my blog.

There’s been no zombie apocalypse up to this point, although I have seen some drunken stumbling and lurching (which is, admittedly, somewhat common) approximating said invasion. There have been some new visitors to the Square, but their threat potential has yet to be determined. Sadie, our elderly pug, showed some life in chasing monsters, demons, and other dogs alike. She took more pity on the trick-or-treaters, though, which they seemed to enjoy. I saw a fair amount of princess, demon and (weirdly enough) chicken costumes, but my dream of opening the door to a fully festooned Bootsy Collins remains unfulfilled. I realize it’s not the easiest costume to put together, especially when it comes to channeling the necessary amount of interplanetary funksmanship. Yet, it remains a necessary and crucial part of Halloween. Kids, make a note of it. I’m giving a FULL FREAKIN’ BAG OF CANDY to the first Bootsy at my door next year. I’m going to retire now to take in “Black Sheep,” which comes highly recommended on all sides. I can offer middling praise for “Severance,” which has a hilarious premise (“The Office” meets “The Most Dangerous Game”) that might have benefitted from more slapstick. Otherwise, good show. Happy Halloween, everybody. And yes, FULL BAG OF CANDY. Here’s your model. Make it happen. Some form of Space Bass is mandatory, although replicas are acceptable. Funky attitude is a MUST. And if it guides another young person down the road towards mastering the low end, then it’s all worth it. It may start out as a costume, but it can open the gates to funkentelechy of the highest order.

WATCHING: It was the right weekend for a horror movie, so the good folks at Mass. Ave. Video hooked us up with “The Descent” and “Dog Soldiers,” both by director Neil Marshall.  Both were very well-crafted, but watching them as a double feature signaled to me that they were based on the same plot structure:

1. Protagonist undergoes some sort of traumatic, life-changing event.
2. Protagonist is then swept into the middle of nowhere.
3. Protagonist encounters unknown, evil forces in the middle of nowhere that have adapted perfectly to that environment.
4. Protagonist has to get the hell out.

The endings differ quite a bit, but the similarities are quite striking.  Therefore, I’d recommend watching both of them at different times, and let them stand for themselves individually.

LISTENING: Georgia Anne Muldrow.  Some time away from her recordings did these well – they really open up on second and third listenings.  She’s worked with Sa-Ra and Stone’s Throw quite a bit, and she’s got a new project called G&D.  Pick up anything by her – great stuff.  Kind of like a younger, funkier Martina Topley- Bird.

ANTICIPATING: Halloween in Fountain Square.  We didn’t get a lot of trick-or-treaters last year, mostly because we were new in the neighborhood and I don’t think a lot of the people knew the house was even occupied (it had been vacant for a year, I think).  Even though the multitude of parties make the actual day kind of anti-climactic (as does pushing back the Simpson’s “Treehouse of Horror” to the coming weekend), I’m looking forward to it.