The Bass Geek

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.

Before anything else, I can’t believe I just witnessed the Steelers win 3-0 on a field goal late in the 4th.  Against Miami.  A win’s a win, but I screamed.  A lot.  Please make it easier on me next time.

So anyway, I was talking with somebody at work today whose young son was taking bass lessons.  He asked a few questions about the instrument that I thought might help other newcomers.  First, he mentioned that he had a good teacher, and that’s always a good thing.  I benefitted from a couple of great teachers, but I spent some other years without one, and I think that might have been a bigger benefit if one was around.  As it was, I had to spend a lot more time digging in books and recordings (which is also beneficial), but a guide is always helpful. Just in case you’re wondering, I didn’t mention that he should take lessons from me, but I did drop the book’s name more than a few times.

Second, he mentioned that he didn’t think bass was a solo instrument.  I quickly referred him to Seth Horan as a starting point to jump off from there.

Third, he mentioned that his son was taking cello and wanted to know if he should take keyboard. I answered “Absolutely.” Any kind of musical knowledge will help, and especially keyboard - harmony concepts are easily laid out on the keyboard, so it’s a valuable tool. There’s a reason students are forced to take it.

He asked what bassists I recommended, so I gave him the usual list.

Finally, he mentioned the teacher was doing a good job of teaching and keeping it fun. That’s a great job there - it can be a hard thing to balance, and any teacher that manages it is a great educator.

Buying my book still wouldn’t be a bad idea, though.

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.

While there’s no good way to accept a last-minute loss via field goal (as happened in last night’s Pittsburgh-Denver game), it does mollify me a bit that such earthly concerns will no longer matter in a short while. As you can see from the photographic evidence to the left, our planet will eventually be done in by these terrible monsters, and I for one welcome our new overlords. I’m a bit confused by their logic in starting their planetary domination in Fountain Square, but I can only assume that it’s part of a larger, fiendishly intricate plan far above my limited intellect. I’m also suddenly very, very sorry for killing all of the daddy-long-legs in my basement laundry room.

Oh, well - invest in silk and get used to losing loved ones as we all provide sustenance for the invading hordes. Thank you, and good day.

So it looks like there’s going to be a second edition of MySpace For Dummies - at least my part of the paperwork is already in. This revision could prove to be very interesting (and time-consuming), as a lot has changed in the social networking world since we first looked at it. A year ago, MySpace ruled the roost. Now, other sites are gaining some traction (most notably Facebook), so we have to re-evaluate the site both in terms of what it offers on its own and what’s available at other locations. We’re still quite early in the game on this project.

I spent most of Sunday playing around with Reason some more (I love the new synth, the new arpeggiator is interesting, and I’m still dealing with the lane controls - they’re a little frustrating) - I REALLY want to start using this live. I also entertained “Metalocalypse”-inspired thoughts of joining a metal band. But only briefly.

Finally, the Steelers are 4-1 heading into a bye week. This gives me both hope for the rest of the season and a break from cursing at my computer as it brings me oft-corrected updates on the game. I like this.