Give the bass player some

Give the bass player some


To be honest I’m looking for motivation to get back into the 4 strings thinking. Besides literally trying to find the bandwidth to do it right with Eastern Anchors. I’m not sure why you’d need more inspiration than bands like Girls Against Boys for inspiration in particular when there is awesome tone, tube amps and distortion pedals are at play on every song. GvsB were a innovator in this spectrum of rock, however there are a crap load of other bass players who’s bass licks are just as stellar.

Kill the Sexplayer MP3 by Girls Against Boys (1997)

U.S. 80’s-90’s MP3 from Bend Sinister (1986) The bass playing on any of The Fall’s songs is just always so solid and straight forward it becomes innovative on it’s own mainly because who-ever is playing is try to stay ahead of the crazy amount of songs on any given album Gang of Four were also master of making the drumming just as important as the melody with bass making it work perfectly showing who is in control of the rythem section.
Not Great Men MP3 by Gang of Four from Entertainment (1979)

Andrew Weiss Rollins Band LalapaloozaWartime A experimental project that features bass with sorts of effects and use of the “Phaser” is Wartime which was Rollins and Andrew Weiss making some funk w/ Sim Cain going nuts on the roto toms. Then again any song that Andrew played on I thought was awesome and big like on 1,000 Times Blind MP3 from Rollins Band’s Lifetime record (1999). He breaks it down into a swinging bass distorted inferno on Lonely MP3 as another example.

Jesus Lizard live bass face

Bassface by David Wm. Sims from Jesus Lizard


The Art of Self-Defense MP3 by Jesus Lizard – really any freaking song is an example of killer bass playing but the magic really happens when you have the whole band working hard like this and doing it fucking fast. Almost inconsequential what the singer is doing although you better keep your eye on David Yow because he might grab your private parts. As he and David Wm. Sims are going to be touring with Scratch Acid later this fall.
She Said MP3 by Scratch Acid.

Lets consider this part 1 of some of the alternative players. I’m drawing a blank besides like John Paul Jones and particular songs it’s obvious I’ll need to revisit this short list. Please leave a note in the comments. What’s a good drummer gonna do if you can’t give the bass player some credit for making it happen.

Scratch Acid Just Keep Eating

Scratch Acid Just Keep Eating

Just Keep Eating

I guess I was a David Yow fan before I even knew what a Yow was. I was a lucky enough young hipster to have a great local record store called the Music Staff that put all the cool looking records on the walls. Discovered all sort of bands randomly this way. Some total fails like this major label band called Eat or maybe i picked that one up at Vintage Vinyl — the point being when you moved the cover it changed colors. Pretty psychedelic man. Anyway, here was this group from Austin Texas that had this trippy album cover called Scratch Acid which from the first note was just noisy and didn’t care too much about the vocal melodies. It was a revelation that you could have music with no solos just interesting jagged compositions. Even felt a little seedy at times; creating this whole whirling atmosphere of reverb and yelping. So this is what punk from Texas sounds like? So be prepared sometime this coming fall the original line-up will tour and bedazzle you with their Texas-pysch punk and not in a flashy kind of way. More flesh off the bone where your tender spots will be exposed to some incredible music one more time. When the band broke up a couple of them went and played with Steve Albini in Rapeman and then reconvened with Yow to form The Jesus Lizard. The rest is loosely covered music history as carried out by David Yow (yelping), David Wm Sims (Bass), Brett Bradford (Guitar) & Ray Washam (Drums) in different bands below. Enjoy & Explore.

Crazy Dan MP3 1st track from Just Keep Eating
Superpussy MP3 by Rapeman from the Budd EP
Gladiator MP3 by The Jesus Lizard
Filth Pig MP3 by Ministry (Featured Washam on drums during this era)
Cold Light of Day MP3 by Dennison-Kimball Trio from Walls in the City. Funny thing about this one is they are a duo and playing jazz to boot. Jim Kimball played drums in Mule and Laughing Hyenas and later toured as the drummer in The Jesus Lizard for one of their reunions tours.
Valentine MP3 by unFact is the experimental solo bass playing of David Wm Sims. This spacey jam reminds me of Hugo Largo with the use of delay and melody on this track. From the EP Bleached Valentine (2010). The other tracks have some distorted ambient things happening. Pretty cool -always love the crisp tone he gets out of his bass.
Di Di Mao MP3 by Dangerpuss features Duane Denison, Jason Wolford (from Teledubgnosis, Machme), and Wm Sims. Basically whoever shows up to jam with Sims. More here ยป