Bass Nation

I’m so damn excited I can practically taste it. My NS Design Wav 4 electric upright bass is on its way to me right now! My months of waiting are finally almost over. I’ll have a tracking number soon and then I can go to the UPS website and obsessively click refresh to see when it’s going to arrive. Now that the frustrating part is over, the work begins as I get myself gig-ready with it.

I’ve got practice tonight, just me and the guitarist/singer. While I thought I got a pretty sweet tone at the jam session, he told me it was still a bit too sustain heavy for the stuff he’s looking to do and I think he’s probably right about that. He’s looking for more punchy thump with less sustain, and I am thinking that higher string tension is the best route to that. I probably should get my acoustic set up with heavier strings since I think I want to keep my Fender more set up for rocking out. I’m also thinking I need another pedal to really refine my sound. I’ve got a Boss 7-channel Bass EQ which definitely adds a level of versatility. But now I’m thinking of a compressor and/or a limiter/expander. What I really need is a better amp. I’ve got a 200 watt Peavy with a single 15″ speaker, and it’s seen better days.

What is post-metal? If post-rock is a genre that uses traditional rock instrumentation and sounds to create non rock soundscapes, post-metal does the same, but with metal instrumentation and sounds. Sometimes it’s lyrical, sometimes instrumental. Sometimes it’s called sludge metal or stoner metal. I like the term post-metal since I also really enjoy post-rock. Pelican are a 4 piece instrumental post-metal band from LA by way of Chicago. People expecting typical will be just as disappointed as those expecting typical post-rock sounds. This is something rather different. For more on the post-metal genre, check out wikipedia. And here’s a video of Pelican doing City of Echoes:

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

So last night was the first practice of the new band. One of our friends is really connected in town and was able to get us a back room behind an art framing shop that we can not only use but where we can leave our gear locked up. He also got a sound guy to lend us a nice pair of PA speakers!

I think there may have been a miscommunication somewhere down the line because this was less of a practice and more of a full on free form jam session. It was incredibly fun. I was able to play loudly enough to feel it, right next to the drummer, and once I got into my groove, I really rocked. I also was able to dial in a really killer tone this time. I used to think the best thing to do was just turn everything on my amp up to 11 and plug into the high gain input with the gain on my eq up slightly and the lows and mids turned up a bit. I thought it gave me more sustain and a thicker sound, but it was just muddy and distorted. It worked for what I was playing at the time, but I’m really trying to refine my sound these days.  So this time I plugged into the normal input, turned the preamp down, turned the gain on my eq down a bit, and then turned the highs and mids down with the lows just slightly under the middle. It sounded GREAT! I still had plenty of sustain, but the sound was clean, low and had plenty of punch.

My friend who has all these songs written and got us the festival gig is trying to put a band together and practiced seemed a bit frustrated that it was more of a jam than a practice, but we definitely got to work through a few of his songs and they sounded great with a full band playing them. We’re definitely going to have to have to really work out the arrangements and dynamics together whithout a bunch of extra people noodling around, but I think we’re off to a really good start. Practices are fun but they’re work, too. This was just fun. At one point we had 4 guitars going at once. There were a couple of guys playing harmonica. There was a mandolin player. There was this one old Texas blues guy who tore it up. I can’t wait until next week. And with any luck, I’ll have the upright in time for it!

The ongoing saga of my electric upright continues. I ordered an NS Design Wav 4 electric upright bass from Musicians Friend back in December. They had a ship date for the first week of January. That date came and went and they bumped the ship date up a week, then a month, then another month. As of yesterday, the ship date was set for tomorrow (3/36) so today I went to their site to check and they set the ship date back ANOTHER MONTH! Over on the TalkBass forums, Bob Gollihur from Gollihur Music has been posting about the status of these instruments for months. I figured that the manufacturer would get them to a big retailer first. But that was not the case at all. I should have gone to Gollihur from the getgo. It’s run by two bass playing brothers who know their shit and have great customer service and a dedication to the instrument. Definitely go to them first with all of your upright bass needs.

I look forward to posting a full review of this instrument soon! I just found out that the new band I’m in has rehearsal space available for us, and now we’ve got just a few months to get stage-ready for our really big gig!

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged my disappointment about possibly having a gig which was then booked when I was going to be out of town. My town has a summer music festival series, and a friend of mine who is a singer/songwriter has gotten himself on the program. When I found out he got in, I found out the date wasn’t going to work for me. But, he called me up this weekend to let me know that due to a scheduling conflict with another band, he’s bumped to July which means I get to play! Since it’s kind of a fusion of country, folk, Americana and acoustic rock, the idea is to play my electric upright which I don’t have yet. Supposedly it ships in a couple of days, but they’ve pushed back the ship date so many times I don’t have too high hopes for it. There’s a lot of discussion about this bass on the Talk Bass forums. People have been trying to get them for months now, and supposedly this new batch has been upgraded with a better stand and better wood on the fingerboard. So assuming I do get this thing in a timely manner, I’ll have 3 months to get myself gig-ready with it, and to figure out how to get the right tone for the material. I’ll probably have one of my bass guitars on stage with me too, and I need to decide which one. My Fender is a great rock bass with ridiculous sustain, and my Applause acoustic has a more warm and woody sound. If I play the Applause, I should really have it professionally set up since the bridge is a bit out of whack which effects the intonation higher up the neck, and I wouldn’t mind lowering the action a bit, too. I’ve also been thinking about making the switch to heavy flatwound strings on the Fender which also would probably require a professional setup. But since I’ve been playing with medium rounds for so long, I don’t know if I want to have to adjust to new tones and string tension on a bass I can now play in my sleep.

I think the part I’m most excited about is the rush of playing in front of an audience, and a pretty big one at that.This would be my first gig since moving to California 5 years ago. I’m really excited about my friends getting to hear me play, but also my neighbors and all the people around town. I’m definitely going to have to get this on video!

Here’s a metal monday post that actually has something to do specifically with bass. Cliff Burton was the bassist in the classic Metallica lineup from their first 3 albums. His approach to bass was much like a guitarists, using all sorts of effect pedals and playing way up in the high register. Cliff started out in music as a classically trained pianist and he brought his encyclopedic knowledge of music theory to the band. He also was a major contributor in the songwriting. After he died in a tour bus crash in Sweden on the Master of Puppets tour, Metallica hired Jason Newsted to play bass, but treated him like an employee, keeping him way down in the mix and not allowing him any creative input. Many people, myself included, feel that the band has gone downhill ever since. Here’s a video of For Whom the Bell Tolls from ‘85 with a sick bass solo intro from Cliff.

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

I thought I’d focus on an Irish band with it being the day after St. Patrick’s Day and all. The most obvious would be U2, and it’s not them. It’s not the Pogues. It’s not Van Morrison. It’s not even the folks who made the film Once, even though it’s the best indie rock low budget musical this side of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Nope, I’m talking about Thin Lizzy . While their most notable musical sound is that of dual lead guitar riffs, they’re also a band fronted by their bassist, Phil Lynott. They were both multi-racial and also featured members who were both Catholic and Protestant. The race thing certainly isn’t a big deal these days, but at the time they were the first hard rock band fronted by a black guy (I can’t say African American since he was Irish, so I’m not sure what the correct term is) to get big. The mixed religion thing was definitely a big deal at the time, and probably still would be to some people today as those wounds run incredibly deep.

So for your listening and playing pleasure, here’s their biggest song, The Boys Are Back in Town. It’s one of those great rock and roll party anthems, and that dual guitar riff still gives me tingles. Here’s the tab , and below is a YouTube to play along to. While you’re having a drink to celebrate all things Irish today, be sure to hoist a pint in the memory of Phil Lynot, who died in ‘86 from years of hard living.

I loves me some Mastodon! While not technically part of the progressive metal genre, the musicianship and intricacies in their music can hardly be described as anything other than progressive. They did a rock opera about Moby Dick called Leviathan, followed it up with the kick-ass Blood Mountain, and their new album, Crack The Skye is coming out next Tuesday. I for one can’t wait. These guys rock hard and keep it incredibly interesting. They’re one of those bands who practice all the time and it shows. They’re tight as hell, even around the kind of rhythm changes that are the musical equivalent of driving the winding cliffs of the Pacific Coast Highway at 150 Miles Per Hour. Here’s the first track from the upcoming Crack the Skye. It’s called Oblivion, and hopefully the record company pricks won’t have it yanked from YouTube.

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

Black Sabbath’s bassist, Geezer Butler, was another one of my big early influences. He played real low (Sabbath tuned all of their instruments down one and a half steps, so the E string was actually a C#, giving them that extra low sound and requiring really heavy strings), bluesy and slightly distorted. He uses flatwound strings which gives his tone more warmth and depth. Most of his basslines went along with Tony Iommi’s iconic guitar riffs with a little added flourish which makes those songs incredibly fun to play. The thing with Black Sabbath, at least the classic original incarnation before Ozzy got too fucked up on drugs, is that it’s all built on these riffs that have since become part of the rock and roll lexicon. Anyone even with some casual listening can hum most of them in their sleep. And that’s also what makes them so fun to play. And then there’s the intro to N.I.B. Tune down, throw on a slight flange or chorus and a little bit of fuzz and give this one a try. It’s fast and dark and like all of their early stuff just sounds a little bit evil.

Here’s the tab. Below is  a youtube of just the music. And here’s a version of it done by Primus with Ozzy on vocals! Enjoy.

Every summer my town has a music festival. They close down the street and have bands play and the whole town comes out and has a good time. A couple of my friends are on the committee that picks the music, and one of them is a singer/songwriter who was also trying to get a slot in the festival. If he got in, I’d be playing bass for him. As it started looking like he might get in, I mentioned to one of my other friends on the committee that if our friend got in, I would not be able to play in August. He got in, for August, and I will be across the country instead of getting to play on stage in front of my whole town. This would have been the biggest gig I’ve played in ages, and it was really important to me since it would have been in front of a whole lot of people I know. And now that’s not going to happen. And bummed does not even begin to describe how I feel about it.

I haven’t been exploring other musical options because I figured this one was in the bag, and now I’m in the same spot I was in before, my only musical outlet an ocassional acoustic jam with our kids running around doing everything in their power to not let us play. And I’m still waiting for that damn electric upright to ship after 3 months of backorder. If I don’t get to rock out soon, it’s gonna be ugly.