A few nights ago I went to see Pinback live, and was blown away by the unique playing style of the bassist (Armistead Burwell Smith IV, aka Zach). It’s hard to describe, but he does all sorts of different strumming, plucking and other hand motions on the strings that I’ve never seen before.
I’m a newbie to the bass world and though I am not trying to emulate his technique (just trying to learn the instrument!), but for the sheer sake of curiosity and learning, I thought I’d see if anyone here had any thoughts or comments about his style. I will also try to post some video that I took at the concert for easier reference.
It’s so cool that you found your jam, enjoy the music.
I would describe the playing in the video below as rhythm guitar - and that’s not a bad thing! Lots of chords, sometimes walking the bass note of the chord down, tricky stuff.
You can try to do the same thing if you want to get into chords on the bass.
Boy, Pinback… I was in to them for a lot of the year that I spent over in Afghanistan. I haven’t listened to them in a while. No reason, they just kind of fell through the cracks. I got into them after I saw them live, I think at the Casbah in San Diego in 2006ish. There was another local band around at the same time that I liked even more than Pinback. Check out Louis XIV stuff.
