recognition

i've posted about the greatest rock bassist of all time before. but i've never acknowledged him directly and written a blog about him.

john entwistle. enough said.

and yet, it's not possible to over-praise him. it's a real tragedy that he's dead. in his own words, he continued improving his playing his entire life. where would he be now had he not gone out in true rock star style - dying from cocaine use in bed with a stripper in las vegas, on the eve of a new tour - back in '02? who knows. maybe we're not meant to know. a man can only become so great before the world just can't handle him anymore. if there is a heaven, he's playing bass with God now.

Bass Playing Vocalists.

Most vocalists are just vocalists, or guitarists. It's rare for a band to have a vocalist that plays bass. [side note: drummer vocalists are even more rare]. I personally sing and play bass, though i wouldn't necessarily consider myself a vocalist....i'm a bassist who sings sometimes.

the following are successful bassists who sing either constant lead or lead in occasional full tracks. This is probably my first blog in which i mention some very contemporary bassists, and in which i mention bassists that play genres that i don't even like. however, we share the same instrument, and they are noteworthy for having the capacity to play the 4-string fretboard and sing simultaneously.




-Roger Waters, pink floyd
-Jack Bruce, Cream
-McCartney
-Les Claypool, Primus
-phil lynott, thin lizzy
-Geddy Lee, Rush
-Gene Simmons, kiss (many tracks)
-John Entwistle, The WHO (many tracks)
-Mark Hoppus, Blink 182 (many tracks) [i'm definitely stepping out my genre box by mentioning him]
-Sting
-Rick James
-Lemmy Kilmister, Motorhead
-Tom Araya, Slayer
-Tyson Ritter, the all-american rejects
-Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys





this last video is not my style at all, but i'm including it because claypool is so popular, and because this song contains bass chords. please note also that the guitarist is playing a baritone guitar. it's typical for heavy bands to play deeper, meatier music...and baritone guitar allows for that.

bass chords

few bassists play in bass chords....to be honest, you can be a successful bassist today and never even think about playing a chord. the best bassists from the '60s and '70s only occasionally used them.... Jack Bruce from cream, as far as i know, didn't, but Entwistle sometimes did (ex: octave splits in outro to Won't get fooled again...), and John Paul Jones sometimes did too (Four sticks from IV comes to mind).

they can be extremely pleasing to the ear, however. i use them in jamming sometimes, and they really add spice to a solo bass performance. check out the video below for an example of the sounds they can create.

Jack White and the bass octave

as i write this, i'm listening to stairway to heaven on vinyl. (don't worry though, i don't overplay it....it's only a couple of times per month).

but my mind is wandering from john paul jones, bonham, plant and page. wandering to a concert dvd that i watched last week. The White Stripes, live in London (if i remember the location right).

i'm stepping way outside the box, writing about jack white, seeing as he's a guitarist....when you hear bass on his albums, it's usually played on a guitar, shifted down into the bass octave.

but then i remember, that bass is not just an istrument, but the octave too. and when a guitarist can play in the bass range with an octave shifter, that's worth writing about.

so is any man who can nearly single-handedly put on a rock concert performance.

arguably the most memorable bassline of the new millenium was composed by jack white and used in Seven Nation Army. and it was played on guitar.

as a bassist, i salute you, jack white.

Jack Lawrence - the big bopper of bluesy bass

Jack Lawrence. The bassist for The Raconteurs, the newly-formed Dead Weather, and the Greenhornes. Many would say that Jack Lawrence is piggy-backing on the success of Jack White, who didn't even need a bassist in the White Stripes. But if you were to ask Jack White if he could replace Lawrence, the answer would be no.








the following video shows Lawrence playing with the Raconteurs live on the Jools Holland show. his timbre is real good...very meaty and strong, without having to rely to strongly on effects for a presence on stage. it's also refreshing to see Lawrence utilizing rickenbacker...the 4003 model, i believe. Fender has been so popular among bassists for so long, it's nice to see such a successful bassist breaking the norm.

jpj is a-ok

John Paul Jones, the bassist of Led Zeppelin, is considered to be one of the best. In my opinion, of all the original great bassists, he pulls in 3rd, behind Jack Bruce and John Entwistle. However, it's inarguable that JPJ's impact has been huge. in the following video, you'll see a recent performance of JPJ (he's in his '60s now), playing a 10 string bass. Which is like a 12 string guitar - it's effectively a 5 string, but each string has a high octave double string. this harmonizes the sound more, and....though i wouldn't ordinarily choose these words.....allows it to sound more like a guitar. the intro is done on bass, and the solo is a bass solo....although many would argue that if they were to just hear it. Anyway, it's a fantastic example of bass as a lead instrument, from a fantastic bassist.

bass culture

i just ordered a book called "Bass Culture: The John Entwistle Bass Collection." entwistle (the bassist from the WHO) had one of the most extensive collections of bass guitars ever. he collected guitars also, but of course, most of them are basses.

he had some of the standards....




some of the strange ones...








and some of the rarest.....






but they're all awesome.

the ultimate bass guitar.

an overwhelming majority of the bassists i know play fenders. fender has been huge for many years...my favorite bassist (entwistle) played fenders in the '60s before he went to almost exclusively custom basses.

however, i feel that fenders tend to be nasally sounding and mid-rangey. the ultimate bass guitar, in my opinion, is the Gibson SG.



this was the choice bass guitar of Jack Bruce of Cream during his cream period. these days, at the few shows he plays, he promotes custom fretless basses.

the overall design is very identifiable and intriguing. if you'd like to have a bass guitar that's based on the gibson (and don't want to crank out over a grand for it), epiphone has a model based on the gibson design that is very similar. the epiphone, however, has only one pickup, a neck pickup, and therefore will be confined to deeper, more resonant tones and won't have the flexibility to move to a sharper timbre. but overall, it's a great bass guitar.

bass deprivation

i recently spent a week visiting family friends in Grand Junction, Colorado. For this whole time, i didn't play a single note of bass guitar; bringing both my bass and my amp with me would have been too much of a hassle. it's times like this that remind me how much i need the instrument, both as a creative outlet, and as a personal release.

i finished the 12 hour drive earlier today, and i'll be jamming tomorrow morning with two guitarists and a percussionist. i'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. or, should i say, the rock of things.

currently listening: "white rabbit," jefferson airplane, surrealistic pillow, 1967. bass as a lead instrument, very compelling.

"remember what the dormouse said...."