Apparently Saturday Night Live had a 40-year birthday party for itself. Show business folk like giving themselves praise and awards. They have the sneaking suspicion no one else would, I imagine. I didn’t watch it. The show was kinda funny 40 years ago. Since then, not so much. You can only be subversive once. After that, you’re bound to become hidebound. The last person to be truly subversive on the show was fired for it, a very long time ago. I knew him a very little.
The, ahem, paper of record didn’t even mention him when maundering on about all the dead alums, so I will. I wrote about him ten years ago. Suicide, like true subversion, is a trick you can only pull once. Farewell, Captain Packard.
Back in the day it was my job to figure out if a song “had legs.” A song with legs had a durable framework that would lend its familiarity to a cover version without requiring the authenticity of the artifact of the original. There’s a reason why there’s a DJ at weddings now. People don’t want an imitation of the thing they like. It’s fairly easy to make an improved version of most pop songs live, but most people don’t think improving things is an improvement. They have invested the original artifact with meaning and it’s hard to wean them off it. Otherwise someone that looked vaguely like Tom Hanks would be playing at every cinema in the world.
This is one of the oddest songs I ever encountered that has legs. David Byrne is a very odd person to be producing pop songs. That’s what made them wonderful, I guess. They’re bent in an interesting way. Still, here we are, with the backwards chicken plucking getting over one more time.
My bandmates thought Psycho Killer had legs but it didn’t. It’s instantly recognizable so it gets played during a third down timeout, but people want the actual thing. There’s no there, there.
[Editor’s Note: Written in December of 2008 and never used, then recycled twice. Not sure why]
Author’s Note: Don’t ask me; I just write the stuff. There is no editor]
Play That Fonkee Music, White Boy
I (used to) play the electric bass. It’s not a bass guitar, although everyone calls it that. There actually is an instrument called a “bass guitar.” It has six strings and is tuned lower than a regular guitar, but it’s not a bass. A bass is that doghouse with the four strings. The electric kind hangs on your neck and gives you a bad back (left side), deafness, and a couple hundred bucks a night for as many nights as you’ll show up, because every other person in the world is an unemployed guitar player. Own a bass and you’ll always work.
That’s what my brother told me all those years ago. He actually knows how to play the thing properly. Everything I learned about it he taught me in one afternoon in his freezing cold, decidedly downscale apartment in Providence RI. I never had to learn anything other than what he taught me that day, and I’ve forgot half of that, and I could still work every night if I wanted to. I don’t. No one owns one, shows up, and plays bass — instead of monkeying around like the guitar player they wish they were on the wrong part of the neck.
But you need bass lessons, and I’m busy and don’t know how to play, and my brother’s busy and in lives in LA, so we’re stuck with YouTube. I’ll teach you everything you need to know, right now.
The Blues Is A Chair. Sit On It First
You have to play the blues first. It’s easy. Just shut the hell up and never venture past the fifth fret. There are only three chords, and if you play with John Lee Hooker he’s not even interested in all three of those; I did, and he wasn’t. Muddy Waters will show you how:
That’s the first song I played for money three days after my lesson. I stunk, but everybody else did too, but they practiced so they had no excuse. The audience was drunk, what difference did it make?
Movin’ On Up To Interstellar Blues
You can actually practice, and you can hang all sorts of musical drapes on that framework. Like Miles Davis’ friend Paul Chambers.
But you’re a hack whitebread dude. You gotta eat too. Duck Dunn will show you the way to play in barbands where the all the fights are merry and the dancing is violent:
This Is Where Those Tuba Lessons In Fourth Grade Really Pay Off
Nuffin’ to it. But what if you want to play pop music? Well, it’s really just tuba parts from the music hall. Macca gets it.
He sings OK, too. Remember, no matter how bad you sing, make sure there’s a microphone in front of you or you’ll make less money than the other guys. Even Ringo figured that out eventually.
Now It’s Time To Join The Chest Hair Club For Men
But you need rock music, too. The thudding kind, not the Beatles kind. You only need to learn one song –any song– by any one of a dozen bands with guys that go to Chest Hair Club for Men. Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Lynyrd Skynyrd; makes no nevermind. This is as good as any:
At The Session, They Said Play Like James Jamerson. So I Left
If you want to play like a real bass player, you’ll have to devote your life to figuring out what the hell got into James Jamerson to make him play like that on all those Motown records. Good luck. How Einstein came up with the special theory of relativity is an easier poser.
Got all that? Me neither. I used to try to play like 10 percent of that and had to sing over it, too. The seizures are getting better, now.
Reggae: The Audience Is Blitzed, They’ll Never Notice If You Don’t Play On The One
Reggae bass playing is easy. Just play like James Jamerson, only backwards.
I Know What Boys Like. I Know What Guys Want. And I Don’t Care
But you’ve got to learn one lesson, and learn it fast: Girls don’t want any of that. They want to dance, and they don’t want it too sophisticated. This was the National Anthem of girls in a tube top right up to the present day: Easy, too. The song, I mean:
See, even Helen Reddy will have an extra sloe gin fizz and get jiggy when that’s going on.
Now You’re Ready To Enter The Leo Fender Memorial Couch Surfing Pageant
There you have it. You’re qualified to make a crummy living from 8 PM to 3 AM three nights a week and two weddings a month. Hope your girlfriend has a comfortable couch.
What’s that? Country music? Which country? Our country? Don’t bother. There’s only two notes, and neither is all that compelling.
A million years ago and a thousand miles away, I vaguely remember being on the same bill as Sugar Ray and the Bluetones. Dude could play then. Dude can play now.
Recent Comments