music

i've been playing bass for a little while. been through periods of "high" activity and periods of no activity. i use "quotes" around "high" b/c it's a very relative term. i wasn't on retainer for a studio or anything. it has to do more with my interest in playing. the interest has gone up a couple notches recently, which can be attributed to 4 things.

1 - Church
i've been in North Carolina for 6 years now. upon arrival, playing was limited to upstairs jam sessions with my computer. more often than not, Iron Maiden. anyway, in 2002 i volunteered to play bass at the church i was attending. meanwhile, my buddy Daniel was the 1st and only bassist at Vintage21. my church had a good rotation of great musicians, but V21 was still very young and used a lot of the same people. to try and help keep Daniel from burning out, i offered to sub for him once in a while. that lead to a busy period of playing alternating Sundays at both churches. in 2004 i jumped ship and went to V21 full time. we now have a solid rotation of talented musicians and i play there once or twice a month. but most of my friends go to Vintage, which leads to reason #2...

2 - Side Projects
i go to church with a lot of very creative people. without mentioning names, Matt Wood is one of them. he writes and records a lot of music (an album every month, in fact) and recently decided to take the act on the road. the resulting side project is called Dujour Presents. "recently" means a year ago, by the way. the lineup consists of Matt, his wife Lisa, me and Andrea, Katrina and Kevin. we've done a few shows and it's fun.

another side project involving Matt Wood is The Whale Watchers. this is me trying to fill Daniel's shoes again, as he was the original bassist for these guys. they're just coming out of a long hiatus and are now a 6 piece (added keys and a full time rhythm guitarist). Matt is now free to dance around the stage and sing, ala Jim Morrison. he certainly has the chest hair for it.

other side projects involve playing bass tracks for people doing home recording stuff. it's not an everyday thing, but i'm doing 2 of them now. it's a lot of fun. i'm not the best at coming up with cool licks, but i'm alright at reproducing something inside someone's head. if they can hum it or whistle it, i can usually play it. and the pay is great, too! i've been fed terrific Chinese from P.F. Chang's and given a couple beers. it's more than i get for playing with The Watchers. i end up paying for beer with those guys! they say it's part of the initiation process. which explains why it's a 6 piece now instead of a 4 piece. next practice, i'm expecting there to be a 7th...ceremonial 12-pack in hand.

3 - Equipment
it's fun to get toys. i recently got a Line 6 Bass PODxt. it's a digital effects thingy that models all sorts of classic amp/cab combinations and has 1,000,000 stomp box models (distortion, flange, delay, etc). i don't know that it was entirely necessary, but it allows me to run direct into a PA and sound like i'm playing through an Aguilar® DB750 amp with a 4 x 12 Hiwatt® Bass Cab, for example. or some other amp and some other cab. or you can make your own signature tone, which i won't do b/c it would take too long, by combining all the different effects. or you can just download tones created by other users. i doubt i'll get into all that. oh, i can also use it to record on my computer. these attributes make it a nice addition, but messing around with all the annoying sounds it makes during practice and pissing everybody off makes it a must have.

i traded a guy my Rickenbacker for his Fender Jazz. we are both pleased with the transaction. so getting that bass has got me playing a lot more. i also put together another fretless "Frankenbass" comprised of various parts. it's alright and requires practice to get intonation down. otherwise, you're always sharp or flat, which is where i'm at now. oh, and i finally got a real practice bass amp. i've been using Peavey Audition's for years and they sound terrible. this baby packs 15 Watts of window rattling power that will make the neighbors say "do you hear something? no? ok.". the main thing is being able to get an idea of what i will actually sound like when plugging into a real rig. so far, so good.

4 - Desire to improve
this is the one i need to concentrate on. i want to be a better player, which could mean making less mistakes at church, being more creative when making new music, being more technically capable, or any combination of the 3. whether that means lessons, or just practicing smarter, i don't know yet.

that's about it from the music perspective. i'll talk about the ukulele and banjo next time!