Some of you have already mentioned your basses. I am a bass player starting in 1961 and haven't looked back. The Dollies are always watching the lead players squirming around, showing cool moves and looking like they are in pain, but what they are feeling is the bass player driving the band along with the drummer (no jokes). If only they knew how these bass players execute, they wouldn't even look at the seemingly in pain lead dude. Joke joke! Anyway, here we bashful, shy, bass players are just driving the hell out of the band. As they say " It ain't right but it is what it is. Enough of the ranting.
Back in 1961 I had never seen a bass guitar close up. I sat in once with a friend of mine with a borrowed Framus bass. All of a sudden, I'm a bass player. I bought that Framus and played it for a couple of years until the neck fell off on the way to a summer gig. I then bought a Gibson EBO bass and used that until we stopped playing in 1965. The biggest challenge back then was getting an amp that could take it. That's where Leo stood heads over the rest. In the mid 70s I picked up a Fender Mustang bass (67) and rarely used it. I did use it on a recording in 2002 and have since sold it. It wasn't a good gigging bass but great for recording. I no longer have any of my old basses but wish I still had them all. I have several basses and my favorite is my L-2500. I just got rid of my Stingray 5 HH this week ( don't tell Ginny). Here are a couple of pictures of a couple of my G&Ls. Don't be bashful like most bass players are, and I want to see pictures of some cool basses today. I know that you have them!
My current squeeze
And the one I traded in. It is on the left in this picture
This is the non G&L content for today and it is kind of a confessional, and Louis, this could be painful. Four years ago I wanted to do some recording and I ended up with a DigiRack 002 , Pro Tools LE , and some studio equipment. This is another seemingly brilliant idea that I had sold Ginny on and realized after all was said and done that she was expecting something from this, like some decent recordings. Boy, I was starting to sweat because when I loaded Pro Tools I would get a blank screen. It took a couple of evenings to figure out that I had to open a new session. Now we are cooking.
I started working on some guitar songs (I'm a bass player) and learned each song as I recorded them. The first few songs I didn't know how to edit so I had to play them right! After the 3 dr song I made a phone call and found out how to edit. This CD was titled "Instrumentals I Remember (kind Of). Its true as I couldn't remember parts of some of the songs but did things that worked. It was a CD of 12 songs, all instrumental except for one. I would love to redo this CD as I am a much better guitar player now but the whole purpose of this CD was to learn Pro Tools. Ginny truly likes this CD bless her soul! Here is the first track that I recorded, bad timing, warts and all. Look folks, my reason for posting is that any of you could do this and it is fun.
40 Miles Of Bad Road, an old Duane Eddy song
http://www.guitarsbyleo.com/GALLERY2/ma ... temId=9873
This next song was a difficult song for me to play at the time. It was also hard from a timing standpoint and there are some timing issues. You can also hear tension in my playing. It is a Ventures song, and one of my favorite Ventures tunes called Ram-Buk-Shish
http://www.guitarsbyleo.com/GALLERY2/ma ... temId=9877
Thanks to my old bandmate Roger for doing the drum work on this. They say timing is everything but you couldn't prove it by us!
The bottom line is there is hope for everyone! That's it for today and the music will get just a bit more refined tomorrow! Have a great day-- Darwin
