February 20, 2006

• Ladies and gentlemen, Les Claypool.
• The Frank Zappa bass is cool too. In a FZ way.
• What's the difference between a drummer and a bass player?
• About half a beat.
• *BA-DUM-BUM* *STRUM-STRUM-STRUM*
• This site is awesome.
• Most of those are hideously ugly. Just like bass players!
• *sniff* /wipes nose on sleeve
• The toilet seat bass totally rocks. Of course, if I was in the market, I'd be buying the Badz Maru Bass or Hello Kitty Stratocaster from Fender.
• *sniffs* I saw this site 4 years ago.
• A guy goes on vacation to the South Pacific to get away from it all. As soon as he steps off the plane, he hears constant tribal drums coming from the jungle. He asks the guy at the airport: "Do the drums ever stop?" The guys says "sir, very bad. when the drums stop, very very bad." He gets in the cab, and he asks the driver: "what happens when the drums stop?" All the driver will say is: very bad. when the drums stop, very very bad." he asks everyone, but they all just give the same answer "very very bad." Finally, its driving the guy crazy, he grabs the guy at the hotel by the collar and says- "look you have to tell me, what is this terrible thing that happens when the drums stop??" The hotel guy answers:
• bass solo.
• .
• fuck.
• There's sadness in that chord structure.
• Carved Guitars
• Oh, crap. I thought this post was gonna be all about this.
• Death row -- what a brother know? Wow, I can't believe no one beat me to it.
• Pete, you forgot the obligatory tagline: MonkeyFilter: When the drums stop, very very bad.
• > Hello Kitty Stratocaster wow. i had no idea. /smashes open piggy bank
• The Jaco Continuum
• Thanks for that, pete!
• Deep Note, the inside story of that THX sound.
• The uniquely hideous wishbass.
• Ack!
• IF HARMONY IS WHAT YOU CRAVE THEN GET A TUBA BURMA-SHAVE --Unknown author
• Saw that Hello Kitty Stratocaster on a recent trip to Times Square. Very hard not to jump over the counter of the Sanrio store, beat the frowning goth girl working behind, and take it. MustnotkillforKittymustnotkillforKitty. They had a booooowling ball, too!
• The bass is cooler.
• Lara, a friend of mine, who is a DJ, has a pair of headphones that look like earmuffs, of which the muff is Hello Kitty....you would kill, you would have to!
• Eeeeeeeee! Her eyes...so hypnotic.....
• You know who I want to grow up big so I can buy her a Hello Kitty Strat? This person. (Warning, Chinese baby porn.)
• Y'know those tube-y drums like on the cover of "Running on Empty"? North drums. That is all.
• Rollin' on The Rhythm By Dave Rubin | December 2006 He polarizes people,” states Kings of Rhythm guitarist Seth Blumberg about his boss and mentor Ike Turner. The pioneering blues and R&B legend’s reputation was mangled by the 1993 bio pic What’s Love Got to Do With It?—told from his former wife and musical partner’s point of view—and he didn’t do himself any favors by suffering through drug problems that ultimately sent him to prison. But Turner’s amazing journey began a decade before he met Annie Mae Bullock in St. Louis in 1956, and transformed her into the earthshaking vocalist Tina Turner. Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1931, Turner was hardened early in life when his father was beaten to death by a gang of white men. His personality manifested itself in a raw, biting guitar tone and his domineering leadership of super-tight bands that unleashed powerful and thrilling live shows. Turner was also instrumental in the early careers of B.B. King and Howlin’ Wolf, bringing them to the attention of Modern Records in Los Angeles while working as a talent scout for the label’s owners, the notorious Bihari brothers. But Turner forever chiseled himself into musical history in 1951, when he marched his Kings of Rhythm into Sun Studios, and cut “Rocket 88”—one of the first rock and roll records, and a powerhouse showcase for his aggressive guitar. After finally subduing his demons, Turner came back to recording and performing with renewed vigor and resolve. In 2001, the album Here and Now was nominated for a Grammy, and Turner’s latest release, the aptly-titled Risin’ with the Blues [Zoho Roots], shows him acknowledging past musical heroes such as Louis Jordan with “Caldonia,” taking a shot at his critics with “Jesus Loves Me” and “Eighteen Long Years,” and generally abusing his guitar, tickling the ivories, and singing his heart out. Shy to the point of reticence, he and Blumberg sat down to shed some light on the Ike Turner mojo. You started out on piano—learning boogie-woogie from your idol, Pinetop Perkins—and I’ve heard you still consider yourself a piano player first. Turner: Yes. B.B. King says I’m not a guitar player, and he’s right. I just do tricks. I started playing because I couldn’t get my guitar players to do what I wanted. Also, I can lead the band better when I’m not confined to the piano. I don’t want to holler across the stage if somebody is out of tune. You were one of the first bluesman to play a Stratocaster, as well as one of the first to really go wild with the whammy bar. Turner: I thought it was to make the guitar scream. I didn’t know it was for tremolo on slow songs. Do you read music? Turner: I don’t read music at all, but I know the sound of the notes. Blumberg: He may not know Am7b5, but knows what Am7b5 sounds like. He’s definitely singing in his head what he’s playing—he’s not just playing scales—and, sometimes, he’ll just make a sound, rather then playing a specific pitch.
• (cont'd) Did you ever try open tunings? Turner: I used a G tuning on “Nutbush City Limits” that I learned from Keith Richards when Tina and I opened for the Rolling Stones in 1969. I have a 5-string Tele clone tuned to G. You are one of the pioneers of combining chords, riffs, and bass lines. Turner: Yeah? I never even noticed. Blumberg: His life is the rhythm—that’s why his band is called the Kings of Rhythm. He plays with his left hand thumb hooked over the neck laying down the rhythm, and he rarely plays upstrokes. A lot of the time, he doesn’t even play chords, he’s just shucking the rhythm on the muted strings. He has a great knack for what he calls “marrying the rhythm,” where he’ll decide how to accent the beat while the drummer is really driving. He makes his drummers play on top of the beat—what he calls “white boy feel” [laughs]. Turner: I always had trouble with drummers, so I mostly played rhythm the way a drummer plays a high hat. That way I could hold the tempo down or pick it up. Blumberg: Ike’s all about energy, and he says, “I don’t wanna hear that mama-papa two and four. It makes me tired. You got to lay it down, man. Don’t step around it—you got to step in it.” Which of your songs contains your best guitar playing? Turner: There used to be a song I’d play on stage when they introduced me called “Prancing” [on Dance with Ike & Tina Turner]. It has a lot of whammy bar. And there’s another one called “Ike’s Scene.” Blumberg: When we play “Sweet Black Angel,” he takes this titanic solo that’s so not about technique. It’s just this raw, nasty, barbwire sound. What are your plans for the future? Turner: I just got back from the Apollo Theater with the Gorillaz, and I’m going to come out with a hip-hop record. I’m also doing a recording with the Black Keys—which I consider old blues with rock and roll drumming. Kind of like “Rocket 88” more than 50 years ago... Turner: Yeah. I just think things go around like that.
• bloody hell, I'm a genius. Almost a year later.

  Bass Line 
  for Milt Hinton 
  
  
  He needs a bigger body, bull fiddle
  to make that thump, that deeper pulse, he needs
  
  four fat inflexible strings made of gut 
  wrapped by steel so he can pluck each night
  
  that tree and its strange fruit, its slumped shoulders, 
  and bulging eyes. . . As he fingers the neck,
  
  as he frets, keeps the time, he can take
  those naked feet hung like weights on a stopped clock.
  
  If it's too much to say one sight winds up 
  a life and keeps it running, still
  
  some things are burned into the eyes 
  like a maker's mark seared into walnut
  
  belly or back, history always there, 
  no matter how the body is patched
  
  and reglued, the gut and steel fine-tuned. 
  It's a deep groove in the brain,
  
  whether you play on top or behind the beat,
  walk the line or break out: to know a man can be
  
  waiting for a train and because the crowd's 
  riled up get taken — If death unmakes him,
  
  maybe music's a way of weeping, 
  of cradling the broken body,
  
  its strained neck, its eyes that tried to jump 
  at what they saw, the sad hands, sad hands
  
  that couldn't lift to brush a fly.
  Night after night, rhythm wants to unwind
  
  the wire cable from that tree, sway 
  the mob away from its drunken rush.
  
  So if he humps that stiff body night 
  after night, if he slaps and slaps? It's to
  
  accent the offbeat, strengthen the weak, swing 
  like somebody who knows, who knows what it is.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright © 2006 Betsy Sholl All rights reserved
  from Asheville Poetry Review 
  

• Certify a funk bass player I'm going to become a demigod bass player, relied upon to skillfully secrete pelvis-destroying, improvised funk-era bass lines. Who will I listen to? What albums will I know by heart? The unwashed masses response? Two words: Bootsy.
• Ah, and I see Papa Wolly amongst the unrinsed!
• Nah, I love Bootsy, but loads of others had already bought him up.