GreatDane
"up yours, baby."
From my earliest days learning guitar, i was also learning bass too. my younger brother, upon learning i was going to start guitar lessons, convinced my mother to let him take bass lessons. that necessitated having both instruments in the house, so it was easy to pick up both at different times. i remember pissing my brother off when i learned how to play "anesthesia: pulling teeth" on his bass. i would take breaks from right-hand picking techniques on guitar to learning right hand finger style on bass. i remember wearing out a Billy Sheehan instructional video.
I stuck with guitar as my go-to instrument all through grade school. when i got to college, i made the decision to put the guitar down for a while and focus entirely on bass playing. this was due to a few circumstances: i attended a college that had an amazing music school where amazing guitarists were a dime a dozen and it felt like a crowded scene; there were also a lot of bassists, but they were mostly focused on jazz and classical, with fewer electric bassists willing to play the kinds of music i was into and was looking to form a band around; a couple of my earliest friends at college were bassists and had amazing chops and were willing to teach me some fairly advanced techniques (whereas the guitarists seemed to be less "generous").
i eventually graduated to the fretless 4-string electric bass. what an amazing and challenging instrument. it really does have a voice all its own. i opted for fretless because it was a fun challenge, but it was also unique enough where people took notice, but could fit into a more conventional musical format (e.g. rock, funk, R&B).
i didn't have a job and had very little money, but i landed on an Ibanez SR-400FL in black. i played it with round-wound rotosound light gauge strings. i played it so much that i wore grooves into the fretboard. i played exclusively finger-style, and played it so much that i wore a groove into the top section of the P pickup, and wore through the poly finish and into the wood (a la Jaco). i played that thing until i sweat so frequently that i corroded the hardware and hazed the finish. it was probably a shitty bass all along, but i didn't know or care and it did what i needed it to.
i played NYC, NJ, CT, NH, ME and MA with that bass. i played a halloween party in some shitty rec hall in MA where a guy was booting heroin in the bathroom stall next to me while i was taking a piss. i played a basement party in Fairfield CT where a guy wouldn't leave me alone for hours after our show because he was shit-faced and couldn't stop telling me how much he loved my playing and how i sounded like Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. i played that bass at the Spring Fling event in University of Maine where each of us was paid $1K for a 60 minute set and we thought we were fucking rockstars and bought a ton of beer and invited a bunch of stupid chicks back to our hotel room and drank and were young and self-absorbed and it was hilarious.
after college, i got back into guitar. i remembered how much i loved it, and have primarily considered myself a guitarist ever since. recently, i've been thinking about trying my luck getting back into a live situation and am thinking that marketing myself as a bassist might yield more opportunities. i sold off the ibanez 400FL shortly after college, but i have a P-bass and an Ibanez SR-800 in the house (both fretted). i'm thinking about tracking down a decent fretless electric again. we'll see what happens...
how about you? What's your story?
I stuck with guitar as my go-to instrument all through grade school. when i got to college, i made the decision to put the guitar down for a while and focus entirely on bass playing. this was due to a few circumstances: i attended a college that had an amazing music school where amazing guitarists were a dime a dozen and it felt like a crowded scene; there were also a lot of bassists, but they were mostly focused on jazz and classical, with fewer electric bassists willing to play the kinds of music i was into and was looking to form a band around; a couple of my earliest friends at college were bassists and had amazing chops and were willing to teach me some fairly advanced techniques (whereas the guitarists seemed to be less "generous").
i eventually graduated to the fretless 4-string electric bass. what an amazing and challenging instrument. it really does have a voice all its own. i opted for fretless because it was a fun challenge, but it was also unique enough where people took notice, but could fit into a more conventional musical format (e.g. rock, funk, R&B).
i didn't have a job and had very little money, but i landed on an Ibanez SR-400FL in black. i played it with round-wound rotosound light gauge strings. i played it so much that i wore grooves into the fretboard. i played exclusively finger-style, and played it so much that i wore a groove into the top section of the P pickup, and wore through the poly finish and into the wood (a la Jaco). i played that thing until i sweat so frequently that i corroded the hardware and hazed the finish. it was probably a shitty bass all along, but i didn't know or care and it did what i needed it to.
i played NYC, NJ, CT, NH, ME and MA with that bass. i played a halloween party in some shitty rec hall in MA where a guy was booting heroin in the bathroom stall next to me while i was taking a piss. i played a basement party in Fairfield CT where a guy wouldn't leave me alone for hours after our show because he was shit-faced and couldn't stop telling me how much he loved my playing and how i sounded like Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. i played that bass at the Spring Fling event in University of Maine where each of us was paid $1K for a 60 minute set and we thought we were fucking rockstars and bought a ton of beer and invited a bunch of stupid chicks back to our hotel room and drank and were young and self-absorbed and it was hilarious.
after college, i got back into guitar. i remembered how much i loved it, and have primarily considered myself a guitarist ever since. recently, i've been thinking about trying my luck getting back into a live situation and am thinking that marketing myself as a bassist might yield more opportunities. i sold off the ibanez 400FL shortly after college, but i have a P-bass and an Ibanez SR-800 in the house (both fretted). i'm thinking about tracking down a decent fretless electric again. we'll see what happens...
how about you? What's your story?
