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Greetings..(Earthlings?)
Or whoever….Heavens only knows where
all this information is headed. So welcome one and all, musical
or non to epbass.com. I'm creating this website (at the persistent
urging of friends and family) to basically share my knowledge
and life experience in the music industry especially from the
low frequency point of view and of course to promote my services
in this industry. The buttons correspond to the different aspects
of epbass.com and if you should find something of interest I
of course welcome any and all types of feedback. Thanks for
looking at epbass.com
About EP Bass
The last thing I want to do……..is
bore anyone. So I'm going to avoid the usual biographical stuff
and just share with everyone who happens to stumble onto this
site, some of the experiences that influenced not only myself,
but a good portion of the "baby boomer" generation
as well. Chronicled by the best event marker I can think of…..music.
However, being of
the "Bass persuasion" I'll be inclined to be more
biased in that direction concerning the musical content of the
site. This does not mean the exclusion of other instruments,
players, technology etc., that contribute to the creation of
this blessed art form……they'll just be takin' a back
seat to the BASS on this here website……dig?...
From
The Beginning
Like I said, no lengthy bios, but I feel you should have some
kinda of back ground so here's what I'm gonna do……..I'm
a great believer in chronological land marks or "time stamps,"
if you will, and for me, the most consistent markers are the
musical events in my life. Of course there much more major time
stamps such my marriage in 1981 and each of my 4 kids, the youngest
of which is now 21…….(jeez), the passing of family
and friends, but as far as being instantly transported to a
pinpoint in my life ala "Slaughter House Five," a
familiar melody (I mean Bass line) never fails(?).
I guess I was doomed to the stage from the very start. When
I was born in New York City, my Dad was a moderately successful
stage actor. In fact, one of my earliest memories (5 or 6 yrs.
old) is spending my Sunday afternoons at rehearsals for an off
Broadway play entitled "Purple Dust". My Dad had about
3 different roles in this play, which drew a whopping audience
of maybe….10. Sound familiar? It was probably more, I don't
remember, I was busy hangin' with the fireman upstairs. In those
days NYC law stated you had to have a fireman in a theater open
for business (maybe they still do?). So in between my Dad's
entrances, I would go up and bug the fireman.
Unfortunately,
it is now, a bittersweet memory. As I listened in horror along
with the rest of our country to the events of September 11,
2001, I could almost see the face of this long ago friend as
he answered one of my typical 6 yr old questions, "Why
are you here?" He replied, "To make sure that you
know the way to take everybody to safety." I remembered
thinking, even though I didn't quite understand why at the time,
that he went out of his way to make me feel important. Bless
NYFD and all the selfless souls all over the world, who, on
a daily basis, put their lives on the line so that others may
survive.
Onward…I got to San Francisco in the summer of 1960 by
means of the Broadway Musical. Yup, my Dad had landed a choice
part in a musical called "Red Head," starring Richard
Kiley and Gwen Verdon. I got to go to the opening matinee on
Broadway (I couldn't tell ya what theater) and it was a big
deal. But the real big deal was………yup you guessed
it….THE ROAD! After about 6 months out, my Dad calls and
says to my Mom, "Pack 'em up! We're moving to San Francisco"!
And that's exactly what we did.
Fast forward to around 1962 or '63. I'm now doing the stage
lighting for the Golden Gate Park Shakespeare festival at the
Hall of Flowers. My Dad had resorted to amateur theater after
goin' bust trying to bring the New York stage to SF, where,
in the early 60's there was squat…if that. Bad thing for
him, good thing for me. You see, in "Twelfth Night,"
which he was directing, they needed a lute. Well there wasn't
a lute to be had so someone brought in an acoustic guitar…whoa!
To
my delight, my dad confiscated it and brought it home and I'll
be damned if he didn't start playin' the thing! I was beside
myself. I had no idea! I was mesmerized, especially the part
he was doin' with his thumb (he was a finger picker): the BASS
PART! Well, I wanted to learn how to just do that BASS PART,
but he was havin' none 'uh' that….boy howdy! "You
have to learn chords and fingering and" blah, blah, blah…..
So I did. Kickin' and screamin' the whole time but I figured,
if I wanted to get to that BASS PART, I'd better go along with
it. But when he wasn't lookin' and I would just kinda….all
of a sudden…be playing the BASS PARTS!
Well,
it took a little longer than I had envisioned, but lots of lousy
guitar playing and many embarrassing "Kodak moments"
later (see "The Beginning"
on the pix page), that is what in fact happened. My younger
brother had started to play the bass because we needed one in
our "band". Well to make a long story short, we just
switched one day and that was that. He was a far superior guitar
player than I and I just had a passion for that low end. It
was meant to be.
That
Sound!
I guess the first bass player I really noticed was Paul McCartney.
He just had a hypnotic groove that, in my thinking, dominated
most of the tunes. That sound he got outta that odd little instrument
just mystified me. We had no phonograph yet, so when I ran out
and bought "A Hard Day's Night", I had nothing to
play it on. Finally, after my relentless pestering, the Chinese
woman who lived upstairs from us took pity on me and would let
me listen to it for an hour after school. I almost wore a hole
in "I'll Cry Instead" just to hear That sound! Must
have driven her bananas.
Of
course I came to appreciate the Beatles as a group in very short
order because I'm a great fan of the "ensemble" sound,
when the whole thing is movin' like a well oiled machine. The
Beatles, along with the skillful production of George Martin,
captured that feel better than anyone else at the time. Until
(large Barry White or James Earl Jones voice here) "There
came Motown."
Actually
Motown had been there, I just had my radio on the wrong station……..wait!
I didn't have a radio….well not my own "transistor"
radio like the kids at school had glued to the sides of their
heads. No, no! Not on yer kidney plaster! My brother and I had
to resort to the "family" radio, but even then it
was only till the parents weren't there that we could listen
to the "forbidden" music.
In
all fairness, though, my parents were both artistic types, raising
us with Broadway Musicals, (every nite at 7:30 p.m. on KRON
radio) Opera, the classics, you name it. They were extremely
intelligent, and I suspect that several club house discussions
ended with a unanimous verdict of, "If ya can't beat 'em,
join 'em." Any music we pursued they supported, even if
it was that music. To add fuel to the smoldering fire, I grew
up in a very diverse neighborhood so every now and again I would
catch just a sonic glimpse of some very cool soundin' stuff.
Little did I know what was in store…….
A
Real Eye Opener
I'm going to skip most of the "Let's Have a Band"
era stuff 'cept for this one little event. We had been practicing
the world's most irritating sounds you could get out of those
cheap electric instruments, and, along with a drummer who had
the rhythm of a door knob (must have been a real treat walkin'
by my place on week ends), when out of the blue, literally,
there's a knock at the door…we must have stopped for air
to hear it…and there stood, the two 20-something United
Airlines Stewardesses who lived up the street!
At
first I thought maybe they were deaf…. for certainly we
had cleared a fair parameter around a whole city block by then,!(?)
What could they possible want? Who Cares!!! It must have looked
pretty odd watching one 16-year-old and four 14-year-old school
boys all trying to get through one doorway at once (mental image
here: one giant, drooling, pulsating hormone squeezing through
a tiny doorway).
I
really couldn't tell ya what was said, I know there wasn't anything
intelligible coming from our side, but the gist of it was, they
thought we were "cute" (gulp!) and wanted us to play
for their "20-something" party……
Well…there
was a myriad of questions racing through my mind, not the least
of which was; in God's name why? Then came, "Should I ask
my Mom?" No, better not tell her…."Should I ask
my Dad?" Christ! Definitely don't tell him! I'm gonna cut
to the chase here….
So,
we're playin' (if you want to call it that) for this "20-something"
party and it's every bit the "swingin' 60s" party
Hollywood ever depicted…'cept for one thing….they
drank quite a bit more at the real thing, so as the night wore
on……just picture this; a Norman Rockwell-type painting
of five bug-eyed, drooling, drop-jawed, teenage "Alfred
E. Newmans" standing there making the most horrendous sound
you've ever heard…….and you have "Our Band".
There was a picture of us that night that circulated for awhile…..I
don't know what happened to it, I don't wanna know what happened
to it.
To Be Continued.....
copyright 2008 epbass.com
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