I don’t know if anyone else is as impulsive as me, but I can definitely pinpoint my “OK yeah this is what I want to learn” moment. I was taking a short walk to pick up curbside takeout one weekend and my phone happened to randomly feed me an Arkells album — Jackson Square. The second I hear the opening riff to “Oh, the boss is coming!” I found myself grooving all the way to the shop on repeat. It isn’t super complex but something about the riff put me in such a good mood and I couldn’t help imagining how much fun it must be to be able to grab an instrument and crank that out.
Needless to say I couldn’t get it out of my head and being the impulsive pup I am I owned a bass less than a week later. B2B shortly afterwards, now steadily making my way through it and I can honestly see myself being able to jam along with exactly the song that set me on the road
I can’t pinpoint the actual song, but I watched the 1985 live aid concert (the whole thing from start to finish) on a weekend during lockdown this summer, and ordered a bass the following week
Can’t say exactly which song it was, but it happened while at a Mike Gordon Band concert. Mike Gordon is the bassist for Phish, but when he plays gigs with his side project the band and music is much more centered around the bass. At some point during that show, I decided that even if I know going into it that I will never be able to do 95% of what Mike does… but even when he is hardly doing anything and just playing a simple repetitive riff, it is still cool as hell and looks like fun and makes everyone in the room dance. I was sure I could learn enough to pull off the easy stuff, and more importantly decided that being able to play along with the easy stuff would be enough fun to make it worthwhile. I was correct.
I also love how clear it is, not trampled by the guitars or drums, but really setting the groove for the whole song. This was a real eye opener for me!
Hard to nail it down to 1 song but this is definitely one that originally got me into the groove of bass. Also when I hear anything from Stax or Motown, the bass part of my brain lights up.
I don’t have one off hand, either, but influences both from Clif Burton w/Metallica, Queen, and Tool (even before Justin Chancellor joined). One of my favs off their first album is opiate… opiate
For me, the choice was not linked to any particular song. It’s more what I consider to be important in music I listen that made me chose bass guitar when I decided to pick up an instrument almost 8 months ago. I can enjoy guitar soli, but I feel more attracted to the consistent parts of the song. So I ended up opting for the instrument that came closer to my low rumbling voice
But starting to play opened my awareness to the basslines in songs and here’s one I particularly enjoy at the moment https://youtu.be/lFUjbGMigjQ
Same!
I think I saw this book because someone on the forum had mentioned it (was it you?) - worth reposting here just in case anyone can spare the dough.
These lines are, for the most part, simple… and perfect. Such a killer resource for getting into patterns and blues-based grooves!
And then, if you want to take it another level of rhythmic wizardry… there’s the Detroit soul-counterpart to Duck Dunn… and this glorious bible of bass lines.
(Warning - massive and complicated 16th note syncopation here. Not at all easy.)
