One of the biggest things that get on my nerves with guitar players is when a guitarist is performing in public and they can't take their eyes off the damn guitar.
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Do you think The Beatles ever would've conquered the world if Paul McCartney was staring at his bass trying to make sure he didn't fuck up instead of smiling so big that every teenage girl in the America wanted to fuck his brains out?
If you said yes stop reading right now and go pawn your guitar then use the money to buy new guitar strings so you can hang yourself.
Don't look at your guitar when you play! If you can't play without keeping your eyes fixated on the neck of your guitar then you need to keep practicing. Who do you think is going to have the better performing career?
Someone Who Plays Guitar Like This?
Or Someone Who Plays Guitar Like This?
Turn the lights off when you play, it'll help you get used to not looking at your guitar. And in the extremely unlikely event that your lame ass band that plays the Yorgurtini to a crowd of zero, ever made it big, you're going to be playing in big arenas and when there will be little or no lighting at times.
I'm suggesting to you that its not so much what you're playing as much as how you're playing it, look at your audience. The majority of the music listening public isn't interested in the finer points of guitar playing. Shit the majority of people don't even play guitar. Your audience wants to be entertained.
Hey Guitard! Let's show some love for the bass players out there! Who are some of your favorite bass players? Any bass players you feel are over/underrated? Do you have an opinion on the pick vs fingers debate? Also, what is your favorite horror film circa 1980-1995? - Tony, California.
* Favorite/Most Underrated Bassist:
Paul McCartney
Paul was one of the most innovative bass players
ever. And half the stuff that is going on now is directly ripped off from his
Beatles period.-- John Lennon1
Paul McCartney was a guitar player who was basically demoted to playing bass, setting the standard for most all rock bass players to follow, haha. Seriously though, he is, in my opinion, the most underrated bass player in Rock history. He has laid down some of the most taseful and melodic bass line's ever.
Listen to the bass lines on, A Day in the Life. Just because he's in the rhythm section doesn't mean he has to resign himself to just playing in the background. He treats the bass as if it were a lead instrument, but its not overpowering the vocals or other instruments. His bass stands out but its not stepping on anyone else's toes and it doesn't take away from the song.
One of my favorite songs, I Want You (She's So Heavy) has some haunting, trippy ass bass on it.
Cliff Burton:(for me there was no Metallica after Cliff died)
Justin Chancellor [Tool]
And yeah, yeah, I didn't say any other names like, Victor Wooten, John Myung, Jaco Pastorious and all them other overly technical, jazzy dudes. I'm not saying it's not good, but thats just not my type of music.
Most Overrated Bass Player/s
Michael Anthony: While I don't condone bass playing that's so complex it interferes with melody and overall song structure, I also don't condone doing nothing but riding root notes all night long. Have some f*kking imagination. I'm not saying he's a bad bass player, just an overrated one.
Billy Sheehan: If you're gonna do nothing but play bass solos and tapping like Eddie Van Halen, then just play a f*kking guitar. I wouldn't listen to a bass player just because he's fast, no more than I would start a conversation with someone just because they could talk fast. Just because it might be fast doesn't mean it's necessarily interesting. Just because you might have a larger vocabulary than anyone else doesn't mean you have anything profound to say. Shit Ava is 4 1/2, still learning to master the English language and some of the shit she says is more interesting than anything most of the people I went to college with ever had to say.
Geddy Lee: I've never been a Rush fan and as far as bass playing goes, I don't believe in self-indulgency, and complexity simply for the sake of being complex.
The dude from Green Day
The dude from U2
Gene Simmons
Jason Newstead
Flea *now he's ok, but some people think he's a bass God, and I refuse to give him any more credit than just a simple, "He's Ok."*
I'm somewhere in the middle on this one but I lean more towards a "no pick" philosophy. While I believe the bass should be learned without a pick, I also believe in a kind of "different tools for different jobs," type of thing too. If you're trying to achieve a certain tone, a pick could be appropriate.
But when all is said and done at the end of the day, I believe fingers vs pick is ultimate the difference between a Bass Player and simply, somebody who just plays bass.
The Shining [1980]: By the time I was 9 or 10 I had already seen movies like Faces of Death, The Exorcist and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I don't scare easily. In my leisure time I look at gory websites of murder scenes, car crashes, and war atrocities for fun. Ever been to www.rotten.com? that's kids stuff compared to the stuff I watch for fun.
Anyways, I don't get scared by movies, but I do get disturbed by them, and the only movie that ever came close to scaring me was "The Shining," When I first saw it I was about 10 years old and already a veteran of many horror films and I prided myself on being able to literally watch anything without getting scared or sick. The Shining gave me the creeps. I had to get thru it in two sittings. That had never happened before and hasn't happened since. As far as book adaptations go, maybe not the truest film depiction of a book ever done, but it's definitely a disturbing, great movie.
P.S. want some messed up trippy websites that are not for the squeamish?
The story is simple. Its starts in the 1950's when white people steal rock and roll from black people who are too busy getting laid to notice. Then Elvis gets laid, then later he gets laid in the army. Then even later on than that fat Elvis gets laid. Buddy Holly gets laid as his plane crashes.
Then in the 60's The Beatles get laid, The Rolling Stones get laid, The Who gets laid. Jimi Hendrix gets laid. At Woodstock, everybody gets laid. At Altamont, the Hells Angels get laid, then stab people. The Grateful Dead get laid but they're trippin so hard they don't even realize it.
Then you have the seventies. Aside from disco, loose morals and even looser standards of "body hair grooming", you got Led Zeppelin getting laid, Black Sabbath getting laid, and Lynyrd Skynyrd getting laid while people shout "Free Bird" and hold their cigarette lighters in the air.
Then there's punk rock and more people get laid...IN ENGLAND.
Then you have the 80's and hair metal bands. Since all the guys looked like chics anyways, I'll just have girls playing the bands and the groupies.
Freddie Mercury does NOT get laid. This ain't that kind of a movie.
It would be the Citizen Kane of porn.
It would also be four hours long, and shot entirely on my I-Phone.
