I was reading Ron Ashton's obit in today's New York Times. They mentioned that, for the Stooges "Raw Power" LP, James Williamson took over guitar duties and Ashton was "demoted" to bass. Wouldn't you think that there's a better choice of words?
I was reading Ron Ashton's obit in today's New York Times. They mentioned that, for the Stooges "Raw Power" LP, James Williamson took over guitar duties and Ashton was "demoted" to bass. Wouldn't you think that there's a better choice of words?
"I got murder in my heart for the judge."
Reminds me of a quote attributed to Frank Zappa regarding Rock n Roll journalism..
"People who can't talk being interviewed by people who can't write for an audience who can't read".
I have decided to be happy because it's good for my health.
I read the same article. A particularly lame choice of words. At least they got most of the history right.
Several guitars in different colors
Things to make them fuzzy
Things to make them louder
orange picks
Yeah, that sucks. I used to think that way. I've always owned a bass, but until we formed Ms. Behavin' I'd never played bass in a band. When I first started with the new band I was thinking that playing bass was a "demotion" but we really wanted to keep this band a 4 piece and my buddy Mike is playing guitar so I figured I'd give it a try. It's been fun and it's been a real learning experience. When I get back on my guitars, they feel small and I feel faster and more accurate.
I've also since learned that the bass player is the "engine" of the band. I finally figured it out when I watched people dancing to my "pulse"! I've never been more tight with a drummer either. It's critical as a bass player. I never knew how tough it really was to play bass correctly. I don't really feel worthy of the title of "bass player". I still feel like a "guitar player playing bass". I've realized that I definitely have a "style" though. I've brought a lot of my own style to the bass and I like what I'm doing...it's unique. Purists I'm sure will criticize, but this is Rock and Roll and the only rule to me is that there are no rules! This experience has been a real eye-opener for me and it definitely wasn't a demotion.
...and on the 8th day, God created the Super Reverb and there was ROCK, and it was GOOD!
Keef - in talking about the then-new Rolling Stones bassist Darryl Jones - used the concept of engine, also to describe the bass player. And he further went on to say that Darryl's playing made Charlie 'happy'.
IMHO, there is nothing like having a smokin' bass player in your band. He's the glue between the rhythmic and the harmonic aspects of a song.
By the way, if you want to get away from sounding like a guitarist playing bass, get yourself a copy of the Motown box set and try to cop some of Jamerson's licks. I say 'try' because there's some stuff on those cuts that are superhuman.
"I'm gonna find myself a girl
that can show me what laughter means
And we'll fill in the missing colors
In each other's paint-by-number dreams..."
the drummer is the Ties, the Bass the Rails......
Thats how the railroad gets where its going, through some pretty interesting terrain!
Ya gatta love them hills, valleys and bridges along the way - and how bout that weather!?!?!
Yeah - he wassn't demoted to bass, he was given the opportunity to do something not everyone can do and he done it well!
Kenny Belmont
>:^{I)>
I've been demoted too.
Then Play On
I envy good bass players. They get all the gigs.
You can always tell a guitar player who feels he's been 'demoted' to bass. Crappy parts with minor thirds where majors belong. And they don't know the difference.
Several guitars in different colors
Things to make them fuzzy
Things to make them louder
orange picks
In an old interview witth Paul McCartney he said he didn't want to play bass but no one else was going to do it. Fortunately he found a way to play it to make himself happy and rewrite the bassplayer rule book.
VM
If aliens listened to our current top 40, they'd think that the entire planet was populated by sexually ambivalent robots with ethnic insecurity.
I got promoted from triangle.......
Kenny Belmont
>:^{I)>
There are thousands of good guitaristsOriginally Posted by Kap'n
but only a handfull of Great bassists,
I have been a guitarist all my life, but as a guitarist
i wasnt always in the best band, but i could always
get into the "Best" bands in a town as a bassist.
it was a good trade off
Like with Paul McCartney, you put your guitar
chops knowlege to your bass playing and you
become a memorable bassist
I recently started focusing on bass rather than guitar, and it's been the most fun I've had musically in a long time.
I'd call it a promotion.
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness".
-Dave Barry
Coldsteel, I agree about Macca - one of my 2 or 3 favorite bassists - but he brought a tremendous musicality and amazing harmonically sophisticated ears to the mix. Noel Redding, on the other hand...ugh. There was a frustrated guitarist playing bass, to be sure...
"I'm gonna find myself a girl
that can show me what laughter means
And we'll fill in the missing colors
In each other's paint-by-number dreams..."
I play guitar and bass about 50/50 and I wouldn't have it any other way. And as Kap points out, there's usually a call for bass players.
"I got murder in my heart for the judge."
I worship the Guitar and respect the Bass. Most Guitar players can't play Bass but think they can. I realized this many years ago when I became "The Bass Player" in a band. Took a while to master it and it was a real study.
Nowadays my Fender Jazz bass collects dust but every now and then I get a call to sub in on a Bass. I then need to re-learn and study the Bass again prior to the Gig so I plop on "BB King Live at Cooke County Jail" and Jam on that a while. It seems to give me the "Be the Bass Player" attitude and gets rid of the rust. I can't just pick up a Bass and do it. Playing Bass ain't just that simple.
i played bass 20 years, to me its like riding a bike.
Last edited by coldsteal2; 01-16-2009 at 11:18 PM.
Once I heard James Jamerson I figured it was pointless for me to go much farther wth bass.
"No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim
I rode a bike for 20 years and struggle to play bass.
Thats because few guitarist understand what bass is all about, its not to hard to spot a guitarist who is temping on bass.
Why do you think Hendrix dubbed most of the bas parts himself, til Cox came back to him?
CT.
Although I've been concentrating on guitar for the past 10 years my first musical love is the bass, of which I started out on. Gigged for years as a bass player and loved every minute of it.
Still love playing bass and would still be most comfortable in a gigging situation as a bass player, if I ever chose to do so again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9KC7uhMY9s
Singer wasn't too bad either... ;-)
I watched my best friend start and become a really great bass player.
I started when I was 8, my friend when he was 14.
When I left the top 40 band I was working in at 15 he and I found a drummer and started our own band. (1975) We played as a power trio for about 6 years.
My bass player friend started out with a Fender, like a squire or something and a small fender bass combo. Then a Ric into a some bigger stack, then to an Alembic into stereo peavy heads, with a collection of different size speakers. Can't recall exactly, but it was huge and loud!
He and the drummer, who later went on to tour with some big names could give me a platform to ride that was heaven. Together they could take a guitar solo and let me push it and push it until it just about went off the rails.
My friend was always so humble, he'd let me get out there and sing and play my brains out like a maniac and he'd be back there making me look good.
He knew just what he and the drummer were doing to the song and how they were working with what I was doing..
A really good rock bass player is a special person, I think that's why many guitar players who try to play bass get frustrated. It's not just playing the instrument, it's providing what's called for in that spot, hard to put into words.
I've got the deepest respect for bass players.
- HR
I like playing bass and guitar, there is no hierarchy in music.
Been playing both guitar and bass for 42 years,love playing bass with a good Bill Wyman/Ringo/Stan Lynch type drummer.
The older I get the simpler and tighter I want music to be.
"My flesh and my heart fail...but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
PS. 73:26
MY JAMS--
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/defa...&content=music
EXACTLY!
not to sound like an A hole, but i get compliments on my bass playing. i just tell them i'm from the dusty hill school of bass playing. lay it down fat!
"don't worry, i'm a professional!"
I'm certain that there are myopic anal-retentives who'd regard being switched from guitar to bass as a "demotion" but I am envious of those players who are blessed with the versatility to switch between instruments (gitts, bass, keys, horns, whatever).
My brother in Sacramento is a bassist and like me, started out on guitar. I gave him a '66 P-Bass before I went overseas in 1970 -- he took to it like Bill Clinton at an unchaperoned Girl Scout jamboree and never looked back. He's probably a better bassist than I am a guitarist. And his ten-megaton bass rigs are rivaled by few on the west coast......his matched pair of vintage Acoustic 370s generate a 10.5 seismic event on the Richter scale, bouncing the rubble from Chico to Fresno. Likewise his vintage Sunn Coliseums can cause congential birth defects through six or seven generations.
"Demoted"? Tom doesn't see it that way. And neither do I.
"When injustice becomes law then rebellion becomes duty."
I have a bass, I really should play it more. Problem is, the gang that comes over all are better bass players.. come to think of it.. there are better guitarist... and vocalists... and drummers...
even with all my inadequacies I have fun and that is why we do it - for over 14 years.
Yes, I have improved.
the who, the Jam, double trouble, blues traveler, all has bass players I wish I could emulate..
do I look like I know what I'm doing?
I hear ya there. I've gotten so locked in to "bass thinking" that guitar is just not doing it much for me anymore -- and I've lost some chops there. But I've gained a bunch more, so it evens out, I guess.
And anyone who thinks of playing bass as a demotion needs to listen closely to James Jamerson, or Bob Babbit, or Lee Sklar, or... or... there'a a lot, actually. Including this gal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK03p...eature=related
And here she is with Mr. Beck:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIFFR...eature=related
Demotion? Never.
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness".
-Dave Barry
I play guitar because I'm a failed bass player.
True.
Several guitars in different colors
Things to make them fuzzy
Things to make them louder
orange picks
As a guitar player, I play almost every weekend. The gigs vary from real dives to big clubs. As a bass player (and not a real good one either), I have played some of the best venues around and won 2 battle of the bands contests. The money was right and easy. There are a million great guitar players. There are usually only a handful of good bassists. Playing bass part time has helped my guitar playing.
A good, screaming Strat just might be the greatest guitar sound of all..... -Slash
Concert410 is on to something (if one can play bass well--not like guitarist who happens to be playing bass)
I got hooked up with Sara Petite and the Sugardaddies as a bass player. I moved to guitar when the incumbent quit.
Chicks dance to what the bass is playing.
that, and the kick drum.
"don't worry, i'm a professional!"
That tune starts out a lot like Metheny's tune 'Unquity Road' from Bright Size Life. That's Metheny's first album and Jaco plays bass with him on it.
Great sound, regardless. She's a great bass player.
"...pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field;
that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little,
shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour."
-Edmund Burke
Clapton is a great blues guitarist when he plays with regular good bass players. When he played with Jack Bruce, he changed music forever. Same with Miles Davis and Michael Henderson. Same with John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
And then there are the great bassists/composers: Willie Dixon, Sting, etc. And of course, Beethoven without his basses would be a mild variant of chamber music...
Demotion, my (b)ass.
John
PS, one note from my Spector NSJH5 through my SWR with the 15" reflex cabinet will shake your soul.
Hit it Brother John......Hit it !PS, one note from my Spector NSJH5 through my SWR with the 15" reflex cabinet will shake your soul.
>:^{I)>
Kenny Belmont
>:^{I)>
I'm very aware of how important bass is, and for a while was actually focusing quite a bit on bass playing--I even thought about music from that prespective.
I now own two quality Basses:
MMmmmm Mmmmmm mmmmm!
Kenny Belmont
>:^{I)>
I LOVE that Rickenbacker 4001, wish i could
afford one. Had a couple in the past, was
an idiot ever trading them in.
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