State of Bass
I’m a bass player (if you couldn’t tell from the subtle references to bass — Charles Mingus and David Wm. Sims — in the masthead graphic at the top of the page), and though I’m certainly no virtuoso or bass shredder, it’s something that gives me a substantial creative outlet, it affords me the opportunity to play out and record, and I can sit and noodle for hours.
Anyway, one of my coworkers, Jonathan Herrera, is the senior editor at Bass Player magazine, and was part of a “Smackdown” debate today on WNYC’s Soundcheck show. He and New Yorker magazine pop music critic Sasha Frere Jones were set to debate what the show’s host, John Schaefer, refers to as the increasing irrelevance of the bass guitar in hip rock music (Sasha on the pro side, Jon on the con). Sounds like Schaefer is reaching a little for debate fodder.
As not only a bass player, but also as a rabid consumer of music, I was skeptical of the topic from the moment Jon told me about it late last week. I mean, seriously, a handful of bass-less bands — The White Stripes, The Kills, The Black Keys, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs — find success and suddenly the bass guitar is becoming irrelevant in rock? Please. Those bands are representative of only one direction of rock music’s evolution, not a fundamental shift in the instrumental makeup of the archetypal rock band.
However, the show turned out to be less of a debate and more of a thoughtful discussion on the state of bass in contemporary, hip rock music. It was cool, definitely worth checking out (if only for the bass-centered humor: “How many bass payers does it take to screw in a light bulb? 1-5-7, 1-5-7, 1-5-7.”)
Peep it on the WNYC site.
