Off on a Tangent, part 18 – Top 10 Basslines

In January/February’s edition of Bass Guitar Magazine (the mag of choice for supra bass nerds everywhere), there was a highly subjective countdown of the ‘40 Best Basslines Ever’. Just to give you a flavour, the most recent entry in the top 10 dated from 1980 (Queen: Another One Bites the Dust – not really my cup of sake, madam). So, to redress the balance, here’s my top 10 (which is also my attempt to win a Trace Elliot 715 combo - hmm, tasty. Send your top 10 to editor@bassguitarmagazine.com and you too could win, but first you got beat this lot – and to be honest, I don’t envy you that job):

Stars and Sons, Broken Social Scene (Charles Spearin) – the first rule of an addictive bassline: ensure that it’s an absolute joy to play. And this is.

Silentland, Material (Bill Laswell) – it’s amazing how little you can make a song out of. Silentland is all clattering, random percussion, a thin, reedy vocal and a busy, harmonic driven bassline that dominates over all else.

Dolores, Slab! (Bill Davies) – to slap or not to slap: that’s the question that has confronted bassists over the last three hundred years. Perhaps there’s something inherently naff about that bright, high in the mix, slappy sound that makes everything sound just too clean, too fresh (there’s no doubt that Mark King is an amazingly talented bassist, but you couldn’t pay me enough to stay in the same postcode as a Level 42 CD). Dolores by Slab! solves this problem with a twin stroke of genius – simply turn up the distortion and make it sound as dirty as you possibly can (coincidentally the criminally underrated Bill Davies is the son of Andrew Davies, the BBC’s adapter-in-chief, although trying to tie this fact into a big, dirty bass sound is probably doomed to failure; however, Slab! did star in an episode of Davis’s A Very Peculiar Practice – perhaps that counts?).

Debaser, Pixies (Kim Deal) – the thing I love about the Pixies is how uninflected their playing is – everything is played straight with no gruesome rock n’ roll flourishes and flashes of spandex so beloved of musicians who just love to show off. There’s no showing off here: four notes are all you need: fer chrissakes, this ain’t feckin’ jazz funk, y’know.

Buoy, Mick Karn (Mick Karn) – nothing screams the 1980s quite so much as the fretless bass, which probably hit its zenith with Mick Karn’s bass playing duties for Japan (when the band reformed as Rain Tree Crow in 1991, Karn’s bass was noticeable by its almost complete absence, allegedly mixed into near-silent oblivion by Sylvian himself). However, when treated with a modicum of restraint and looped backwards, it gives this song a warm, snug cadence. When Sylvian collected twenty years worth of recordings on the retrospective Everything and Nothing, this song shone out like a diamond – and it’s not even one of Dave’s.

Song 2, Blur (Alex James) – Blur’s finest two minutes, entirely driven by a big, dirty bass riff that elbows Graham Coxon’s ineffectual guitar out of its way and stomps all over this song with vicious abandon.

Pure, Siouxsie and the Banshees (Steve Severin) – Steve Severin has never been the most technically gifted of bassists, and most Top 10 lists would pass him by. But who cares? Listening to The Scream again recently, it’s scary to note just how contemporary it all sounds (incredibly, it’s 31 years old this year). Dark, stark and spiky, it’s an album of ideas, and that’s exactly where Severin sits in the scheme of things.

The Perfect Kiss, New Order (Peter Hook) – ignore Bernard Sumner’s amazingly daft lyrics (let’s face it, he’s no Ian Curtis) and concentrate on that bass: there are enough bass lines in this one song to keep a lesser band in business for at least three albums.

Tracy, Mogwai (Dominic Aitchison) – although the touchstone for this song appears to be Sonic Youth’s Providence, there’s no ear bleeding feedback and no 130dB of volume to contend with here. Tracy is essentially one long, lyrical bass line and nothing more.

Moon Over Marin, Dead Kennedys (Klaus Flouride) – you could be forgiven for thinking that most Dead Kennedy’s songs are 60 second 100 mph rants a la In God We Trust (which I love). However, they slow down and loosen up for this, the last track on Plastic Surgery Disasters – that bass sound is raw, loose and bottom heavy, and sounds great.

Friday Night Muzak - Mclusky

There's no better way to end the week than with a smidgeon of punk rock and some ubiquitous instrument trashing cats...

Off on a Tangent, Part 12 - UK Subs, Freebutt, Brighton, May 5th 2008.

The last time I saw the Subs, there were a series of almighty bundles down the front, which meant that the band had to take turns to leap into the crowd to separate various tattooed hooligans from knocking nine bells out of anyone in their immediate vicinity. No-one was hurt, and in all honesty, it was more akin to a bit of playground pushing and shoving than anything even remotely violent. Twenty years later, and not a lot has changed – well, apart from the fact that everyone is much more polite. Watching people stage dive off a stage that is about a foot high is always entertaining, but the difference here is that no-one gets a Doc Marten in the face. “After you.” “No, please, I insist – after you.” Oh, that and the fact that the stage divers all seem to be about fifty years old.

That said, no-one is quite as old as Charlie Harper, who was just about to collect his bus pass when punk kicked off over thirty years ago. He spent much of the evening behind the merchandise stall, endlessly available to any old geezer who fancied a handshake and a chat. Well, rather that than having to stand through the bloody awful support bands. Kill Tim play a pointless amalgam of ska, punk, White Riot and anything else that comes to mind during their 30 minute set, 25 minutes of which is taken up by a panicked string change. The lead singer looked about 12. At one point, my brother (gig photographer par excellence) turned to me and said, “They should be locked in a rehearsal room for the next five years.” That was just after I had my bicep felt by the crazy dreadlocked guy who used to work in Dave’s book store making enquiries about the evening’s ‘muscle quotient’ – very low, my friend, very low indeed.

The Subs crashed through their set in a little under fifty minutes – these guys have been doing this for years, so there’s no hanging about. Actually, that said, only Charlie Harper and Alvin Gibbs survive from the ‘original’ line up, but I guess it hardly matters when your stock in trade are three chord thrashalongs (which sounded surprisingly sprightly for a band just about to enter their fourth decade of playing live). Good fun, though.

Off on a Tangent, Part 11 - Everything is Connected

Over the next few months, this blog could turn into a smorgasbord of musical mayhem with a frenzy of gig going, reviews and rampant Question & Answer sessions sprouting out all over like so much damp cress on a warm windowsill...

First off, I wrote this back in August last year about a band called Slab! – the thinking man’s industrial noiseniks. And stone me, the band’s two prime movers – Stephen Dray and Paul Jarvis – have both left comments on the post. I’m trying to arrange a Q&A session right here for them at some point (plus some unreleased music?), so stay tuned. Slab’s MySpace page has also attracted the attentions of their last drummer, Rob Allum, who now plays with Turin Brakes as well as being a founder member of The High Llamas. To say I am excited by all these developments would be the understatement of the century.

Strangely enough, the chap who set up the Slab! MySpace page is Tim Elsenburg, who fronts up the rather awesome band Sweet Billy Pilgrim. Tim has previously played with Martin Grech, whose song Open Heart Zoo was used a few years back for a Lexus advert. My wife loved the song, so I bought her the album not really expecting much of a big deal. Like – wow – how wrong was I? Open Heart Zoo is pleasant enough, but it doesn’t really prepare you for the full-on brainstorming onslaught of Dali. I’m still trying to get to grips with Grech’s second album, Unholy, which is austere and noisily mentalist in equal measures. His third – released last year – is apparently another about face, this time into the realms of introspective folk (I suspect that’s his Kerrang audience safely alienated then!). Tim has also remixed David Sylvian, and has collaborated and toured with David’s brother Steve Jansen (I never was a huge Japan fan, but have an unfortunately neurotic tendency to buy everything that David Sylvian ever releases). Tim’s blog is awash with tour stories and details of Steve Jansen’s inexplicable (and highly amusing) fear of lifts, and is well worth a visit.

Gig-wise, I have the following to look forward to:

UK Subs, Freebutt, Brighton, May 5th – the last time I saw the Subs there were two tattooed lunatics down the front fighting anybody who had the sheer audacity to go near them – so much so that the band had to stop playing several times to wade in and sort them out. Punk rock! The fact that my brother ended up being best of buddies with these two lunatics is neither here nor there.

Battles, Astoria, May 14th (support from Liars) – Battles continue their ambitions for world dominance by moving up a league from the Koko to packing out the Astoria – and rightly so.

Feist, Albert Hall, May 23rd – the last time I saw Feist was at the Komedia, a small(ish) venue in Brighton. The gig was fantastic. And here she is a year later selling out the Albert Hall – just shows what a fantastic album, an iPod advert and some Vanity Fair coverage can do for your career.

Broken Social Scene, Shepherds Bush Empire, May 25th – similarly, the Scene have moved up a notch from the Koko to the Empire (where Crackerjack used to be recorded). The last time I was at the Empire was for a Helmet gig, which featured – rather bizarrely – a stage diving Paul King! All together now: Love, and Pride! Time to grow a mullet and spray paint those Doc Martens...

The upshot of all this is that if you play in a band and hanker after fame, riches and endless critical praise, the place to be featured is – well, obviously – Unfit for Print! Battles, Feist and the Scene have all gone onto bigger and better things since being featured in these hallowed pages (the Subs have had their turn, I reckon!), and I like to think (in my entirely delusional and brain softened state) that it’s all down to UfP! Sheesh! I should start my own record label (coincidentally, my resemblance to Rick Rubin is really quite scary). Bearing in mind the good fortune this blog bestows on all and sundry, I’ll have a go at reviewing the Sweet Billy Pilgrim album as well – it hasn’t been off my virtual turntable (better known as a CD player) for at least a fortnight and I feel the overwhelming urge to write about it.

And no, I didn’t screw up last week’s meeting with the producer/director. Not a lot to report back on at the moment, but more as it develops...

Off on a Tangent (Part 5 of many)

The problem with Sonic Youth is that they get right on my tits.

There – I’ve said it. The fact that one of the most supposedly coolest bands on the planet is a frustratingly inconsistent grab-bag of scratchy guitars and half-arsed can’t-be-bothered ‘tunes’ is probably not a popular point of view, but screw it – I’m fed up with half baked, mediocre albums such as Sonic Nurse, and have decided that all four of them need a good slap round the back of the legs (and it looks like I’m not the only one).

Consider, if you will, the evidence:

Daydream Nation – one of my favourite albums of all time (except for the half-arsed feedback noodling, of course). However, once you consider that the whole thing is really an elaborate piss take on the concept of the ‘rock album’ (i.e., a seventy minute running time, each band member being represented by a symbol a la Led Zeppelin, a song cycle entitled Trilogy, self-consciously dumb ‘rock’ lyrics – “You got it, ride the silver rocket, can't stop it, burning a hole in your pocket”), then it starts to take on a slightly different hue. Daydream Nation is fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but it’s Sonic Youth both paying homage and taking the michael out of what they consider to be the bloated American rock record. I’m sure the band look upon as some type of high falutin’ art/conceptual as well as a damn good rock record, but it isn’t really. Subsequent Sonic Youth releases have returned to their more experimental roots, which do not make for great records – that means that their greatest ever release is in essence part piss-take, which can only means that’s very little mileage in their more left of field recordings. This is highly unfortunate, as everything else they have ever recorded fits neatly into this latter category.

Every Other Sonic Youth release – in stark comparison to Daydream Nation, most of Sonic Youth’s recorded output verges dangerously on being hugely disposable. Goo has its moments, but once you discount boring, pointless fillers such as My Friend Goo, Scooter and Jinx and Mildred Pierce, what are you left with? Six three-quarter decent songs, and one that outstays its welcome very quickly (Tunic (Song for Karen)). Sonic Nurse? No thanks. Washing Machine? Passable, I suppose. A Thousand Leaves? Zzzz.... Murray Street, the supposed return to form? Plastic Sun is another rubbish Kim Gordon song (see below), and as for Radical Adults Lick Godhead Style – sheesh. A collection of random words that supposedly pass for lyrics – and they took eight months recording this?

Kim Gordon – I’m sorry, but Kim Gordon is ever so slightly rubbish. In my humble opinion, she can’t play bass for toffee, and she doesn’t so much sing as breathe heavily – which is all very, you know, punk rock and all that, but surely you’ve got to mix it up over the course of a career, not stay in the same rut for twenty flippin’ years. When it works, it works brilliantly (Drunken Butterfly from Dirty) – when it doesn’t, you want to chisel your ears off in protest (My Friend Goo, Plastic Sun).

Then there was Perfect Partner – a film and rock concert ‘mash-up’ that, whilst admirable in ambition, was 98% unmitigated tosh (the factt that it was backed with Arts Council money should speak volumes) . I saw it at the Brighton Dome and the place was half full (the people who stayed away obviously knew something I didn’t). After the ‘gig’ (which spanned 50 minutes and was completely atmosphere-free, much like a Russ Abbot party), my brother asked why none of the musicians backing Kim Gordon (including Jim O’Rourke, who looked as if he was daydreaming about cream cakes) had been in fits of laughter when Kim started to writhe under a silver blanket (the sort of thing they give marathon runners at the end of a race). We could only assume it was because they were being paid too much.

Sonic Youth live at the Forum, 1996 – a while back, I saw SY perform at the Forum, promoting their Washing Machine album. One of the support bands was called Descension, who came on and made a godless, ear grating, wholly improvised racket for no apparent reason. In protest, someone in the audience threw a glass at the drummer, whio took umbrage and waded into the crowd, fists flailing. Someone else threw a glass full of water at the guitarist, but it missed and hit his amplifier, which promptly went up in smoke. Two security guards the size of Hampshire later, the water-throwing muppet was out on the pavement, leaving Descension to rumble on, much to the chagrin of the audience, who absolutely bloody hated them.

A little later, Sonic Youth come on to frenzied applause. They then start to make exactly the same noise as Descension – a trademarked scree of feedback and high-end ear shredding. But instead of rushing the stage and giving the band a collective Chinese burn, the audience stroked their collective chin and nodded in time to the ‘music’.

I have absolutely nothing against bands who want to come on stage and make a godawful racket for no reason – if that’s their bag, give them some respect and above all, don’t chuck stuff at them! However, if the headlining band starts doing exactly the same thing, why should you even give them the time of day? Thurston Moore made a comment about Descension, along the lines of ‘the band who would not be denied’ – it got the biggest cheer of the night, which only goes to show that all rock audiences are stupid.

(The episode at the Forum seems to have become infamous in music circles for being a ‘riot’ – it was nothing of the sort. A few people down the front threw bottles, but certainly not the ‘rain of glass’ that Stefan Jaworzyn seems to remember. I think this is a better description of what really happened. And yes, after Descension, Sonic Youth were incredibly boring).

Lee Ranaldo’s ‘artwork’ – ahem.

The piece consits (sic) of a bare speaker wired to a piece of the physical gallery, in this case a steam radiator. The tape loop plays a 5 second hi volume burst of sound every 6 minutes. Otherwise the piece remains silent.

This sounds like an analogy for the entire recorded output of Sonic Youth to me...

Off on a Tangent (Part 3 of many)

Lack of Knowledge - Grey EP, 1983

This 7" single appeared in 1983 on the Crass label, home of the original "dog on a string" brigade and perhaps the sole inspiration for smelly anarcho crusties across the land. However, on the face of it, this lot were different. From what I can gather, Lack of Knowledge were predominantly led by Tony Barber, who now plays bass for the Buzzcocks: they toiled around the usual anarcho gig sweat pots where their drainpipes and skinny ties attracted odd looks. The fact that they only played a handful of gigs perhaps shows that they didn't fit into the punk ‘scene' very well. Bear in mind that at the time, Crass Records specialised in apoplectic punk rock and wildly left of centre experimental nuttiness: spoken word EPs, a novelty Christmas record played entirely on a pocket Yamaha synthesiser, even a single by Captain Sensible. Merely admitting you could play an instrument to a proficient standard would automatically elevate you over the amount of angry punk rock detritus the label shovelled out with alarming frequency. However, it wasn't just the musicianship that elevated LOK - it was much more.

The four songs on this single are LOK's finest ten minutes. Even the LP that followed a little later - Sirens are Back - couldn't match what these guys did here. OK, so it's only four songs, but whatever it was - a fluke of a fluctuating line up or the attentions of a sympathetic producer – LOK were never able to reproduce what they did on this single. Comparisons to Joy Division are perhaps inevitable given the New Wave tag, but where Joy Division's sound was often cold and alienating, LOK's is warm, lush, pensive even, which is ironic given their lyrical concerns: Northern Ireland, imminent nuclear collapse, a dispiriting vision of the future that still sounds strangely contemporary today.

These concerns are a pretty good match with those of the other bands on the Crass roster, but LOK are more subtle – these guys want to tell stories rather than swear and sneer and carry on. And besides, this is hardly what you call a genre puck record: We’re Looking for People features a riff that isn’t the obligatory three chord racket – good god, the song even features a literate guitar solo! The drums are a little militaristic in keeping with the Crass house style, but are kept down in the mix, and just as well – man, that bass player can play! Another Sunset is flooded with (shock, horror) expansive keyboard washes which add to the melancholic vibe: this isn’t punk rock as we know it, and thank god for that.

Having the publicity that being 'signed' to Crass Records afforded them, LOK were never exactly obscure in the same way that Slab! were. The records that followed Grey made you wish they were. After Grey, they thrashed away with the obligatory three chords as the compilation Americanised demonstrates (where the criteria appears to be quantity not quality) – which makes Grey seem like a complete aberration. Sirens are Back has its moments, which certainly does not include a clunky funk work out halfway through Weapons Range (someone’s been listening to too much Pop Group). The fact that this record is self-produced speaks volumes. It really isn't very good.

There was a slight return to form on Chainsaw Records 12" Sentinel, but it sounds a little clumsy, derivative even, probably the result of recruiting a 'trainee' bass player in the shape of Karen Gower, Tony Barber’s girlfriend (the legend has it that when she joined the band, she had never played a bass before, let alone picked one up – subsequently, she was told to “fucking well hurry up and learn it’”!). The internal rhythmic engine that fuelled Grey had changed, and not for the better.

The thing that amazes me about LOK is the fact that after the triumph of Grey, they slowly returned to the punk formula of three thrashy chords and general lack of imagination. Tony Barber went on to play bass for the Buzzcocks in 1993, and since then LOK have not exactly done a lot. Ah well – perhaps expecting them to top Grey was asking a little too much.