Coachella!

Last weekend I felt inclined to trade the exceptionally temperate weather of San Diego for the hellish heat of Indio and more music in three days than any human brain could possibly process. When I wasn’t fending off heat stroke with gallons of water and an undoubtedly toxic amount of sunscreen I was knocking band after band off my musical bucket list. Despite the fact the event organizers seemed rather keen on booking all my must see bands at the exact same times I managed to at least get 20 minutes per band which is just enough to really get a feeling for them. So now without further adieu, here are some best of’,s from this monster of a music festival:

Best Bassist – This goes to Gbenga Adelekan of Metronomy. Some bassists in the know out there might be like “Who the f@#$ is that? Why didn’t Thundercat win?” too which I would respond Thundercat was a tad bit too high at his performance which was characteristically chilled out whereas Mr. Adelekan came out on stage in the 104 degree afternoon sun and took the crowd by storm. In the tradition of Metronomy’s past bassist Gabriel Stebbing he played mainly with a pick though I have to say he is a great finger style player as well and his bass lines took that classic Metronomy electro-alt-dance-funk to a whole new level live.

Best Performance – The Hives lead singer Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist captured the attention of every single apathetic hipster and baked bro in the entire crowd within a millisecond of stepping on to the stage. There was no looking away from this performance which featured its fair share stage dives, ninjas, spinning guitars and vocal chords pushed beyond the limits of any natural range. To give someone who has not seen The Hives in the flesh, one moment Almqvist has the entire crowd of as many as 10,000 festival goers lying on their backs and within an instant he has the crowd back on their feet jumping in almost perfect unison causing what can only be described as a man-made earthquake. At the end of their mainstage garage rock power set he jumped out into the crowd without any sort of security around him and ran all the way to the sound guy and gave him a high five. Did I mention the band pulled off all their stunts while wearing tuxes and top hats in the scorching 104 degree weather?

Most Talent – This definitely has to be split between the back to back sets of the looping innovators tUnEyArDs and Andrew Bird. Using looping pedals (for non musicians they are a compact recording device one can use to record music live and instantly play it back) these two brilliant musicians crafted entire soundscapes of choirs and orchestras with nothing but their voices and whatever instrument they could carry. In the case of Merrill Garbus of tUnEyArDs she combined these pedals with her deep raspy jazz voice and her energetic onstage drumming to build a massive full band sound out of herself a bassist and two sax players. Andrew Bird on the other hand brought the full band with him so he used the pedals in tandem with his brilliance on the violin to create a massive sounding string section by building concept upon concept. These two performances made most of the other bands look like immature teenagers trying to hammer out some semblance of music in their parents’ garage.

Best New Artist (to me at least) – I have got to give this to Annie Clark of St. Vincent. Now mind you her band did not have an actual bassist, however I know a brilliant guitarist when I see one. I had not heard a guitar tone like hers since my days as an avid White Stripes fan. Not only does she give an intense onstage performance but she also does music like nobody else with her mix of fuzzy guitars and an alien sounding ambient vocal space. It also helped that I’m a sucker for weird guitars and her funky off set Harmony guitar won my heart before the show even began. Kudos to my gal pal who dragged our group away from the Shins and to catch the start of her set.

Next week I’ll be talking about some of the issues I had with bands *cough* the Black Keys *cough* and the inhabitants of the music festival as well as some other fun and not so fun things that happened so stay tuned.

Fender: A Love Story

This week I have a bit of bass guitar history for y’all. You see without a certain little company by the name of Fender Guitars chances are I would not be blogging about music right now.

Back in 1951, shortly after the advent of electric guitars, electrical engineer Leo Fender and his employee George Fullerton got to work designing the world’s first production bass guitar: the Fender Precision Bass (P-Bass for short). This single pick-up beauty had a neck that was bolted on a slab body much like the earlier Fender Telecaster guitar.

1950's Standard P-Bass

Prior to this invention the low end of music was almost always taken care of by an upright bass (double-bass). These massive violin shaped instruments were hard to transport and very temperamental depending on the climate, not to mention the fact that playing them took years of practice. The P-Bass solved all these problems in one fell swoop. It was light-weight, not especially climate sensitive and could easily be picked up by any guitarist.

In the years that followed the electric bass guitar took the music world by storm. Fender’s major electric guitar rival, Gibson, released its own line of bass guitars with the EB-1 and the EB-0 and smaller companies like Rickenbacker and Danelectro released their own takes on the electric bass. Fender continued to rock the industry when they released the dual pick-up offset waist Jazz Bass (aka the J-Bass) and improved the P-Bass with a new “humbucking” split coil pick-up.

A classic 60's P-Bass

Nowadays Fender bass guitars are still an industry standard and undoubtedly the most common basses out there. Most bassists have at least one Fender in their collection and more often than not it is their main go-to bass for gigs, recording, jamming and practice.

Love for Fender also just so happens to be in my blood. My dad has an old 77’ American made J-Bass that is in absolutely spectacular condition with the original case and all the original hardware still intact. It is hands-down the most awesome instrument I have ever played. Even though I love finding strange off-beat and rare instruments a classic Fender bass just feels like home to me. I’ve owned 3 or 4 of them in my time as a bassist and my personal favorite is my Japanese made Aerodyne P-Bass. It has a P and J pick-up configuration, a flame maple top and a bound body that is thinner (and lighter) than most Fender basses. Unfortunately Fender discontinued the line shortly after I bought it so it’s a bit tricky to get your hands on one.

The Monk Montgomery (bass player sitting in between the two drummers in this video) is the very first professional musician to use a Fender P-Bass on tour. Just saying.

Types of Bassists (Part 2)

The Country Gentleman – This type of bass player is common throughout country, bluegrass and rockabilly. More often than not you will see them with an upright bass in hand.  Generally their style is similar to the meat and potatoes bassist, with tons of root notes and lots of driving rhythm. Often times these bassists will add a bit of flair with some walking lines, string popping (especially in rockabilly) or maybe even a bit of classical bow technique, but generally they just hold down the beat while the rest of the musicians let loose. A good example of this style of bass playing would be upright powerhouse Paul Kowert of the Punch Brothers.

The Walking Jazz Man – This species of bassist occupies a school of musical theory beyond that of the everyday pop song. You can often here them navigating between the complex chords, rhythms and melodies of jazz standards. The key to this style is the walking technique (which is akin to that of ska music). Instead of staying on one note or playing a riff these bassists will walk from chord to chord with the notes of a musical scale. A good example of this type of bassist is the jazz genius Charles Mingus

The Bass God – Jaco Pastorius. Ever heard of him? If you play bass and you haven’t heard of him give up on music and sell your instrument. He is only the greatest bassist of all time hands down. Yes James Jamerson can stop tame the soul with one finger. Yes Victor Wooten can melt your face. Yes Stanley Clarke can rearrange your anatomy.  But Jaco can turn musical water into wine.

Mr. Pastorius invented everything that is modern bass. He could play entire songs with harmonic notes that don’t even exist on a six string guitar, let alone a bass. His rapid fire technique could take on the mutually exclusive rhythmic and melodic qualities of the bass guitar at the same time. Not to mention he invented the first fretless Fender Jazz bass. He was an absolutely brilliant, until of course in 1987 when the security guards at one of his gigs beat him to death because they didn’t know who he was. And people wonder why I feel the need to write this blog.