Bass Nation

This Thursday night I’m going into San Francisco to see one of my favorite progressive metal bands, Opeth! These headbanging Swedes make some incredibly intense, intricate, heavy and melodic music. Even in their early days as a death metal band, their sound was far more progressive than pretty much any death metal out there. They still incorporate some of that death metal sound, but they are musically in a league of their own. Check it out:

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It’s been a real long time since I’ve done a metal monday post. In fact, ever since I’ve gotten my electric upright bass, I have been severely neglecting this blog. But today is Monday and I’ve got something new and exciting for you. It’s Ozzy Osbourne’s classic Crazy Train, done a little bit differently this time by the Bottom Line Duo.

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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:

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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.

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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.

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One summer in the mid 80’s, I went on a road trip to Niagara Falls with my Dad, stepmom and sister. Our hotel was on the New York side, and it was right next to a mall that had a great music store in it. I bought a couple of tapes on that trip. One was GBH’s Midnight Madness and Beyond ep, some classic Brit-punk. The other was S.O.D.’s Speak English or Die. In case you didn’t know, S.O.D. stands for Stormtroopers of Death, and they were politically incorrect before there was such a thing as political correctness. They were loosely affiliated with Anthrax. I think one of Anthrax’s roadies was in the band or something. And they were hysterical. I remember being in the car listening to this song on my walkman and just cracking the hell up which did not make my sister who was sharing the back seat with me very happy at all. Most of the songs on the album were pretty funny, from Pre-Menstrual Princess Blues (which is too hilariously offensive to even talk about on this blog) to Milk (not about Harvey, but about the stuff that goes on cerial and the lack thereof and resulting anger towards mom over it). But this song is more like a comedy bit than a song, and it’s about the funniest thing a 14 year old punk/metalhead dork like I was could ever hear that summer. You might not want to play this one at work or around your kids.

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There have been a lot of really bad attempts to mix rap and metal. Anyone remember Limp Bizkit? Some rap has benefited greatly by incorporating metal samples. There’s an old Ice T song that samples the drums from When the Levee Breaks and the guitar from Black Sabbath. Hell, there’s a whole lot of rap songs that sample When the Levee Breaks, but that’s a whole other story. If there were ever two bands who should colaborate on a rap/metal hybrid, it’s Anthrax and Public Enemy. For one, they’re both from Long Island. They both do serious songs but still have a sense of humor. Anthrax had their own rap song in the mid 80’s called I’m The Man which is dated but hilarious, and Public Enemy gave them a shoutout in the original version of Bring the Noise (”wax is for Anthrax, you know they can rock well”). Public Enemy even sampled Slayer in She Watch Channel Zero. So when these two got together in 91 to do a new version of Bring The Noise, it was a natural fit. Check it out (yeah y’all come on) here we go again. Turn it up!

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In the late 90’s, there were a lot of really bad nu-metal bands that came out, as well as some really good new metal bands. Unfortunately, some of the good ones fell through my cracks until much later since at the time I was way too much of an indie rock dork to acknowledge my metal roots. Years after they came onto the scene, I kept hearing System of a Down songs on the radio without realizing who it was and I really liked them. It’s metal with a lot of crazy time signatures and switching around from grinding and thrashing to melodic and harmonic. And the lyrics were a bit more heady than a lot of what was coming out at the time, political without being quite as heavy handed about it as say Rage Against the Machine. They’re also very LA, but not like the hair metal bands coming out of LA in the 80’s. No, they’re like the guys who grew up there watching people move there with their hopes and dreams of fame and fortune, only to wind up beaten and broken. They disbanded a couple years ago and their singer has a solo album which doesn’t quite do it for me like SOAD did. So here’s Toxicity for your metal monday listening pleasure.

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Before Aerosmisth and Run DMC made it official that rock and rap could peacefully coexist, Public Enemy were sampling Slayer and Anthrax had a little b-side rap called I’m the Man. It sampled Sam Kinison’s scream and Master of Puppets. And one line from that song that relates to this post is…

Some say rap and metal can never mix, but all of them can suck our… sexual organ located in the lower abdominal area… yo man it’s dicks! Ah Ahhhhhhh!

Since then, there was a whole genre of white metalheads making really bad rap-metal hybrids (and a few not so bad). There were also a few rappers who tried their hand at metal. Anyone remember Body Count, Ice T’s shortly lived metal band? If not for the notoriety of the song Cop Killer, they probably would have been completely forgotten.

If there’s one rapper who would be the least likely to do a metal song, it would be Snoop Dogg, but here he is doing Sad But True.

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I’m not much of a Megadeth fan. I’ve tried. They’re supposed to be one of those metal bands with extraordinary musicianship, but I can’t quite seem to really get into them. Back in the day when this album came out, I was really into it, but I never really dug anything they did afterwards despite all my music geek friends’ rave reviews. The title track here was probably my favorite because it has this nice low rumble of a bass intro. Any old geezer like me will also remember that bass intro as the old theme for MTV News back in the crazy old days when MTV showed music videos all day long. I also found the singing style to be more punk rock than metal which I thought was pretty different for a metal band at the time.

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