Monthly Archive for November, 2007

Daptone Records

Published
by
Justin
on Friday November 23, 2007
in Music
. 0 Comments

I was just reading the little blurb about Bosco Mann in the newest Bass Player Magazine and something just didn’t sit well. I have a few of the Daptone Records’ releases, and I really enjoy the music… to a point. On one hand, I think the Dap-Kings and their associated projects are a welcome antithesis to two decades of lame mainstream R&B and the recent movement– no longer referred to as blue-eyed soul, but instead– “Starbucks Soul” that keeps getting turned around as the genuine article. It’s good to hear real music fans make music for real fans. However, I think they found an audience by building off of the timelessness and versatility of old R&B. You can’t go anywhere without hearing a Motown song, or an old Aretha song, or Al Green, or Otis Redding– and there are tons of reissues of formerly underground and unknown artists from that period popping up and selling like mad in the indie shops– why not design a whole label that pays hommage to that concept. Great idea.

The problem is that the music itself takes no chances whatsoever. When Bosco Mann says that these are guys who know how to play tastefully in bands, I– at first– agree, but then what I hear is music without any sense of adventure. Don’t get me wrong, the Daptone stuff is groovin’. You’re gonna like the music, you’re gonna want your friends to get into it too– but it’s not going to make you especially excited about buying more than a couple of albums after you realize that they are all essentially the same thing over and over again. Tasteful… yeah, but really it’s just a bunch of semi-pro dudes with a gimmick who hide behind some fabulous vintage gear and competant marketing and refuse to take any real chances. The result is the equivalent of a cabaret act with an incredible marketing scheme. They look, sound and talk like a real vintage R&B band, they have hip names, they play weird guitars you’ve never seen before, but they won’t wow you with inventiveness or originality because that would destroy the concept completely.

So when I read about Bosco Mann gushing about his pawn-shop bass, and bragging about not needing to use more than three strings and rubbing greasy food on his brand new rotosounds to deaden them, I can’t help it imagine that he’s conjuring up some hip “Sixties’ R&B Cat” schtick to throw around in his interview to promote his cliche “Sixties R&B label.” These are stock interview responses we’ve heard from so many great players, and Bosco’s regurgitating as though he was film the soul music Spinal Tap. His image is a cartoon caricature of a 60’s R&B musician and it is as derivative as the shiny jacket and sunglasses he and his bandmates wear.

I will however, always hold him in the highest regard for getting a dark-skinned black woman with some meat on her bones to be the frontwoman for the Dap-Kings. We’ve had far to many Alicia Keys proclaiming to be the best soul NYC could offer. I always thought it was bullshit. Sharon Jones is an incredible singer and an incredible performer.

Then again I can’t help it negate that respect for association with that talentless trainwreck, Amy Winehouse.

Time Theorists

Published
by
Justin
on Monday November 19, 2007
in Music
. 4 Comments

My friend Brett and I have begun doing some collaborations– well it’s a little unfair to call them collaborations, actually, since he does most of the work and I just put some bass tracks on top of his compositions, but it’s turning out to be fun so far.

Brett is an amazing metal guitarist and guitar teacher in Poughkiepsie, NY, who has always had a tendency towards ambient, new classical, and new age music. Some of the music he has been writing has more of his classical influence in (though not this one so much). He was a composition major in college so it is extremely difficult to pigeonhole him as simply a metal guitarist or even a “Berklee-shredder.” He does whatever he wants whenever he feels like, and I really respect that.

This is the first track we’ve done together, called Time Theorist, but I suspect that Brett put my bass track in two bars too early. We’re still working out the kinks on how we send stuff back and forth to each other. I actually like how it sounds in some places, but not others (mostly the way it sounds like I flub a note in the beginning).

So the bass is me, any live guitar you hear is Brett, the drums are programmed, with the keyboard and orchestrated parts composed and sequenced by Brett (maybe he plays some of the keyboard live? I’m not sure).

I am pleased with my performance on this track, simply because I had to play very simply or otherwise ruin the vibe of the track, but I had to do something more than just whole notes to make it worthwhile for Brett to send the song to me. He could have sequenced a part, he could have even played a part himself, but I feel like I improved on the song just by doing things only a live bass player can do. I think I succeeded.

Kim Said it

Published
by
Justin
on Tuesday November 13, 2007
in Local
. 4 Comments

So we’re stopped at a light on Military Highway and some bonehead with a sailor haircut, a bluetooth headset and a pasty white face in a late model Z28 is poised next to me. It’s one of those situations where you know what’s going to happen before it does. The car actually sounded and looked amazing (I actually think it might have been one of the Camaro SS that Chevy made in the final years of the model), but how anyone can afford a gas guzzling muscle car when gas is nearly 3 bucks a gallon. When the light changes he peels his wheels as though I was going to race him in my 4-cylinder Toyota. As if I could if I wanted to. “Dumbass,” I say under my breath.

Then Kim announces the following:

“The worst thing about the Navy is that they bring the worst people from all over the United States and stick them all in one place.”

Yes, Kim, and we live there.

Thursday I will be on a vacation that I can’t really afford, visiting people I should see more often. I’ll be back next week.