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00:00What is a bass line?
00:07What is a bass line?
00:09No, a bass line to me is something that has groove
00:12and that carries the song that makes you want to dance.
00:15A bass line is one note that leads to another note
00:21that creates perfect painting.
00:23I'm in the right place at the right time.
00:26The bass is the flavor.
00:28It's the juice, it's the seasoning, right?
00:32It's a melody down low.
00:35It's the roots from which the plant of the song grows.
00:41If you were from space and you wanted to know what a bass line was...
00:45It's the hands on the wheel of the car.
00:48Sexy, rude, low notes.
00:52Bass is a physical thing.
00:54It kind of hits you in the gut.
00:57My palms are shaking, my nose is tickling.
01:00I say yes. I like that.
01:04Fog horns.
01:05This boom...
01:07...booms and it carries for miles.
01:10Well, if I had it in bass, I don't know what is.
01:12It's all about the groove, baby.
01:14I'm Melissa Oftemauer, and in the 90s, I played bass in Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins.
01:23It was a raw, defiant decade of too much drugs and fame that took down many of my peers.
01:29But I came out alive and forged a solo career, a redhead bass-playing warrior committed to putting more females on the male-dominated landscape of rock.
01:39Melissa Oftemauer, she's like one of my biggest inspirations.
01:43I think she, like, became so iconic, really, for the way that she played her bass and the sound it had.
01:49You hear her play, and when you see her play, it's very primal.
01:53She was out there, of course. I mean, she was so badass.
01:56I have mad respect for her.
01:58I saw her playing the pumpkins, but she was killing it.
02:01If you can get the instrument to speak the way you want, there's no rules.
02:08Melissa's great. I don't know if you know much about redheads, but apparently redheads are like a phenomenon.
02:14She's a power horse.
02:17After a bass sabbatical to become a mother, I'm now on a journey to reconnect with my instrument and the bass lines that fueled my musical adventures.
02:25I'm going back to the studio, visiting my rock roots, playing loud, and along with a cast of bass explorers,
02:36I'm going to uncover the magic, mystery, and sonic power of my beloved bass, the mother of all instruments.
02:55Montreal is a city that makes you. Its soul or its spirits, whatever it is, are so deep that it forms the very people who live here,
03:11especially if you're a creative who's trying to be in the flow of what the universe is trying to teach you.
03:17And I have always listened to the city that made me.
03:23I was born here in Montreal, Canada in 1972.
03:27My parents were intellectual bohemians and somewhat rebels in their own ways.
03:32I'm visiting my childhood neighborhood, the Plateau Montréal, and I come here whenever I can as a touchstone of inspiration.
03:40We are on the corner of Saint-Urbain and Duluth in Saint-Paul Cafe.
03:49It's a healthy hippie cafe that I've been coming to since I was a kid, around the corner from my family's home.
03:56The neighborhood was a bohemian utopia.
03:59So the French cheese shops, the Polish fish markets, the bagel shop, these places have just been here since everyone first arrived.
04:09It always feels like I'm going back to the womb of the place that loves me.
04:14It makes me want to cry, actually.
04:16And it's hard for me to not live here, but that's why when I visit, my family is here, my friends are here, my cafe is here, my neighborhood is unchanged.
04:27The loyalty and love I feel for it expands every decade.
04:35We grew up in a very traditional greystone triplex.
04:39It was where my teenage bedroom was and where all of the magical things happened when I listened to the music and I found my calling and I wrote in my diary and I cried.
04:47The sadness and the melancholic power of the UK.
04:53All of my favorite music of the 80s, people I worship, Joy Division and The Cure and The Smiths.
04:59The bass is huge in the high melodic bass thing, that's a very unique style.
05:05Actually, the bass player for The Cure is really great.
05:08I mean, that whole genre of 80s melodic, melancholic vibes, they all have really great high bass playing notes.
05:18The hypnotic bass line that kicks off The Cures Just Like Heaven captures it all, brings back memories of teenage longing and joy that still have me crying and dancing all at the same time.
05:32It's an amazing bass line that you could listen to forever.
05:36Where does it end? Where does it begin?
05:38It's just one of those brilliant loops, it's just always at a good moment and always you're waiting for the next good moment.
05:44That idea of like the trance, that idea of like the spell you cast someone under.
05:50Those were like the songs that I would sit alone in a bathroom stall avoiding going to class or walking home from a bad day at school and just thinking,
06:04oh, thank goodness these guys are here with me.
06:11I think it's trying to take four chords that sound kind of blocky usually if you're playing them and make it sound like a big circle.
06:19Like it'll never end. Like that snake that eats its own head or its own tail.
06:29That was a big influence on us for I Love You.
06:33I was thinking I'm going to hold down the melancholy and keep that trance going.
06:40If I played the normal root notes, it'd be like...
06:50It feels like everything's going up all the time.
06:54I get to kind of keep everyone under the spell a little bit and it ties the sections together to keep what I'm doing.
07:00I think it's really nice for that more jangly, cure-ish verse, you know, to just be like...
07:04I could have, you know, by right, if I really wanted to follow that in an obvious way, I could have tried to make it very hard for the harder part and go like...
07:16Or something. But I just felt like, no, I'm going to hold it. I'm going to keep it pensive and then try and glue it all together some way.
07:24I don't want to, like, completely give up the melancholy when it's getting rageful, you know what I mean?
07:38This is, as I was growing up, called the sex district. Downtown is right on the other side of that street.
07:45From here down, it's... The history is sex cinemas, prostitution, and the gay village is right beyond.
07:52In the early 90s, Montreal's alternative music scene was fierce and thriving.
07:58So where better to get my first weekend job as a ticket girl than the city's haven for all the punks, goths, and headbangers?
08:06Electric buttocks, legendary rock venue in Canada, Montreal.
08:12This is where all the magic and all the punk and all the dark began in my heart.
08:18This venue was living on the edge. It was everything to me.
08:22Travel back in time, circa 1991.
08:26Baby Scrabble.
08:30In 1991, I could feel this, like, wave of something happening in our generation.
08:37Because I was working as a teenager at pretty much the CBGBs of Canada.
08:43And it was that summer that I saw both Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins in the same month.
08:49I got to witness the pioneers of the new alternative rock scene, which literally changed my life.
08:55The Smashing Pumpkins, playing for a dollar to 20 people, felt like the initiation into a new sonic universe.
09:02Even in a shitty club in front of 20 people, there was a grandiosity.
09:10It felt like this, like, universe, like an ocean wave vibe.
09:16I'm like, wow, I want to, like, bathe myself in these sounds.
09:21So I was instantly excited.
09:23And they fucking kick in into the song, I Am One.
09:37And it starts with the bass.
09:39And then the drums come in.
09:41And then the wailing guitars come in.
09:43The epic guitars and drums are mind-blowing.
09:49But it was the bass, the heart of the song, that captured me.
09:52Point being is that that bass line did change me.
09:57I felt like I needed to play that type of rhythm, that type of heavy.
10:02And that was it.
10:04I'm like, okay, now you're talking.
10:07Now I have something to live for.
10:13All right, all right.
10:17Three girls and a boys room.
10:21This awesome bass player on stage, like me, owes it all to the wave of kick-ass women
10:27who made the instrument their own in the late 80s and 90s.
10:31Amazing.
10:32Never before or since have so many women carried the low-end heartbeats
10:37of the coolest bands of the day.
10:39I had begun to notice girl bass players, of course.
10:42You know, Kim Gordon, obviously.
10:44And then Kim Deal from the Pixies.
10:46And like I said, all in one week, I saw the Pumpkins and Hole.
10:50And they both had girl bass players who seemed really cool and stoic.
10:53They were just fucking cool girls who, like, were like me.
10:56Wallflowers who just wanted to, like, be in a band.
10:59I don't even know if I looked at their fingers.
11:03Those women seemed like they could be me.
11:06And the moment I discovered what it feels like to teach yourself a fucking riff that you love,
11:13I was hooked.
11:14It's like feels like you're riding the universe.
11:17Like you just, you're in with the magic.
11:20I always enjoyed female players when they emerged, partly because they don't have that testosterone macho-ness in what they do.
11:32And, you know, I think as, you know, bands have progressed, it makes a lot of sense to have more female energy around.
11:43Melissa Ofdemaur and Kim Gordon, they were like my biggest inspiration being female bass players.
11:52Cool Thing by Sonic Youth was actually one of the first songs I learned to play on the bass.
11:58Because it's super simple, but it has, like, such a strong drive to it and such a strong character.
12:04And I love that Kim plays, like, the bass almost as if it was like a guitar.
12:11So the riff is, like, super simple, but super distorted.
12:22That's kind of the main part of the song, so it's just three notes, but they have a lot of attitude.
12:27I love that she's just, like, there hitting on the bass.
12:45Cool Thing, written by Kim Gordon, was their breakthrough hit and with lyrics that flipped the script on the misogyny that was so prevalent in pop culture.
12:52I just want to know, what are you going to do for me?
12:55I mean, are you going to liberate us girls from male, white, corporate oppression?
13:02The lyrics and the whole, like, meaning of the track is something that, of course, resonates a lot with me.
13:07I just want you to know that we can still be friends.
13:11It's such a cool way of, like, talking about female empowerment, but not having to do it in a super polished and low-key way,
13:19but saying it, like, with anger even, you know?
13:22And I think that song just expresses that, and it's such a strong message.
13:27I think that the bass was always the thing I felt the most.
13:37It really is about feeling.
13:39It's not about thinking.
13:40It's not about technique.
13:41It's not about anything but feeling.
13:44So it was probably building in me for years subconsciously.
13:50The whole world or universe of a song is what I wanted to live in.
13:55And the closest, the easiest place to occupy the whole universe of a song is a bass.
13:59In the clubs where I was working, these sort of older dude mentors who were all in rock bands, just, like, cool dudes who love music,
14:08like, oh, this young girl is interested.
14:10Let's educate her.
14:11And they brought me to a rehearsal space to, like, plug into my first giant bass amp, the Ampeg 8x10 cabinet.
14:18And that's when I really felt the power and understood, okay, I need this in my life all the time.
14:25My 21st birthday was around the corner, and they said, you know, we'll bring you to a pawn shop and just see, you know, what they have.
14:32And then there she was.
14:33She was just sitting there, well, hanging there.
14:36And I was like, what about that one?
14:38They're like, oh, that's a great one, classic.
14:40Sunburst, precision, and it's a squire, which means she'll be cheaper.
14:45So this is her.
14:46And within two years, this was with me at the Reading Festival.
14:50I had only played six concerts with her ever.
14:53So it worked out great.
14:54I definitely consider her to be the first support animal that I needed to get me started.
15:01Every time Blur get back together, I try every combination of bass and amplifier just to see.
15:13And I always end up with this and this.
15:16And this was basically, Fender Precision was basically the first bass guitar.
15:20And the first one they made was the best one.
15:23We plugged in here.
15:25I am devoted to the Fender Precision.
15:36I have never strayed from the ultimate rock bass.
15:39There is nothing like this classic icon.
15:42And you don't need six strings.
15:45You don't need to be fretless.
15:46You just need a Fender Precision and a nice big amp with a lot of warmth at the bottom end.
15:52Me amp, me lead, and a Fender P.
15:56You know, volume and time.
15:58That are doing me.
15:59There was something about the Precision.
16:01It was like four strings, two knobs.
16:04What could possibly go wrong?
16:06I've tried out quite a few different basses over the years.
16:09I end up with the Precision.
16:11It's kind of reliable.
16:13Good.
16:14Simple.
16:15It's a bass, and there's a tool to getting on in the world.
16:20Me, my new bass, and my camera found ourselves thrust onto the world stage when I was plucked
16:27from Montreal obscurity and joined Hole alongside Courtney Love in the summer of 1994.
16:34I have obsessively documented my life, and I've photographed every day of my life.
16:41With Hole, I actually, on the Rider, it was a roll of 35 millimeter film.
16:46I set timers, foot switches, and I took a photo of every single audience we ever played to.
16:53I knew I was witnessing rock history in the making, and I knew I would have no time to really process it then.
16:59I just knew collect, collect, collect.
17:01When Courtney asked me to join Hole, my initial reaction was, no thank you, death, drugs, destruction.
17:08What?
17:09But as the offer sort of landed in me, and I understood that being committed to putting female on a male-dominated landscape is the foundation of my relationship with this instrument.
17:23That's okay, Torgos.
17:25And I understood that our generation was entering this sort of, like, higher and higher mainstream platform.
17:32I had a role to play that was just an obvious, like, fine.
17:36Now I get it.
17:37That's what this is doing.
17:38This is what the bass wanted me to do.
17:40This is what these weird messengers in this band want me to participate in.
17:45I joined Hole in the wake of death.
17:50The original bass player, Kristen Pfaff, had just died of an overdose, and Courtney had just lost her husband, Kurt Cobain, to suicide.
18:01This was no ordinary experience for a bass player.
18:04Anyone who ever saw Hole play, the shows were very unpredictable.
18:08Chaos was real.
18:09And, you know, there was also a lot of animosity often from the crowd.
18:14Shotgun shells being thrown up on the stage.
18:16You killed Kurt.
18:17I mean, this is, like, not a chill band to be in.
18:21More surprises.
18:23So, this is a typical day.
18:28A day in the life, backstage with Hole, I was doing my vocal warm-ups.
18:32First time I've seen this footage since I shot it in 1998.
18:39Bands are like families, so you fit into certain roles within a family dynamic.
18:46I was the replacement, healer, visitor.
18:49The foremost role was, I have to help keep this band alive.
18:54And the light after the death.
18:58So, back to my, the bass is the mother of all instruments theory, is that a bass line connects and supports everything.
19:07And whatever is happening around it is what it has to respond to.
19:12So, it's, you know, a power of something unseen in a way that's, I obviously love that mystery of it.
19:20I think the bass is a very feminine instrument.
19:23It's like the mother.
19:24It's the thing that holds and nurtures the music.
19:27And I don't mean that in, like, it just has to be a soft sense of feminine.
19:31Feminine can be very powerful.
19:33I feel, you know, Larry in our band is very much the masculine force.
19:43And I'm a sort of feminine force.
19:46So, he'll dictate the rhythm, the terms.
19:49And, you know, I arrive a little bit late sometimes.
19:53I arrive a little bit early sometimes.
19:55But as long as he's right in the right spot, you know, it kind of works together.
20:00The bass leads the band because if we look at the elements of music, harmony, melody and rhythm,
20:08the bass is really at the cornerstone of all three of those in a way that other instruments may not be.
20:14It requires very strong listening skills because you are in charge.
20:20And so, you have to be, you're responsible for everybody else in a sense.
20:25I'm listening to everyone.
20:28I'm listening to the drummer for the, you know, for the pulse.
20:31I'm listening to the piano player to understand what harmony he's using.
20:36I'm listening to pretty much everybody in the rhythm section.
20:39If the guitar player is comping, I'm listening to what he's doing and trying to find a way to glue all those things together.
20:47The bass, as mother, selflessly takes care of a band.
20:52But as players, we all need to satisfy our own musical desires once in a while.
20:58If I isolate just the music, the most powerful experience of music I had in whole was making celebrity skin.
21:04There's a song on the album that, um, it's called Use Once and Destroy.
21:09I think it was called On the Board Forever, Melissa's song, that stemmed out of a bit more like the way I described it.
21:15If I was in my own band with a drummer, me and the drums would start a song and it would, you know, go something like this.
21:23So then Patty, the drummer, came in with like rolling toms and then Eric came in with glassy, textural guitars.
21:33And we were able to make a song, a cool rock song, one of my favorites on the record, out of a drum and bass tune.
21:40In Use Once and Destroy, you're like using the space in between as a jagged rhythm addition.
22:02Tracking my bass on that record was when I actually stepped into my power and I understood,
22:07wow, if I really am given proper attention, I will achieve great things.
22:11And I expanded my palette in being more of an artistic bass player within pop music.
22:20Well, that's just about it for Channel B's Big Day Out coverage for $19.99.
22:25It's been absolutely awesome.
22:27But to finish off, absolutely, without a doubt, the undisputed queen of grunge.
22:31It would have to be Courtney Love and her band Hole. So enjoy.
22:37It was 1999. Celebrity skin when platinum, we had achieved all we had set out to do.
22:43Top billing festivals, Grammy nominees, but the world was changing and so was the music.
22:49It was my last escapade in Hole when we were at the top of our game.
22:53We were co-headlining a lot of the big summer festivals.
22:56I remember setting off into a side dance tent on the big day out in Australia and New Zealand and Fatboy Slim were on that tour and that captured me.
23:10Right here, right now, grab my ear instantly.
23:16A live electronic person with a dedicated throbbing dance floor.
23:24And that was very powerful.
23:26I remember thinking, okay, the future has arrived.
23:29And then I found out it was the bass player of the House Martins.
23:31I'm like, oh my God, that's so cool that that guy, a bass player, a real musician, is offering the public a new way of experiencing live music.
23:41It was profound.
23:43There's a moment, hopefully, in most of my DJ sets where the whole crowd hits a groove.
23:56When there's like a strong bass drop, you really see the crowd's reaction and it's all about, you know, keeping the suspense until that moment.
24:03So it's almost as if you're playing them as an instrument.
24:07The build is like the kind of foreplay, but when there's a point where you just see everybody dancing as one and the crowd becomes one big organism.
24:20That's when music unites us the best, the most perfect, purest example of a whole load of disparate people united by one nation under a groove.
24:30And interesting, I've only just realized, talking to you now, that on pretty much every fat voice in the record, the only thing that's played properly is the bass line.
24:41I just realized, because all the drums are, you know, break beats that are programmed, all the guitars are normally just little loops of guitars, the vocals are all sampled.
24:50But pretty much most of the songs, I then played the bass line on a keyboard or sometimes on a real bass.
24:56So, I don't know why, of all that says, probably says you're a bass player.
25:02Even though you don't want to be, you're still a bass player at heart.
25:08Whole had eclipsed and defined all that I was as a woman in music.
25:12And the time had come to break free.
25:14Just then, destiny came calling again.
25:19Complete coincidence, it had been the week I had decided I was done with Hole and I had started writing my resignation letter.
25:30My rotary phone in Los Angeles rang and there was Billy Corgan.
25:34Hey, the stars have lined up.
25:36It's time for you to join my band.
25:38Like, how the fuck did you know I was about to leave the band?
25:42There's the big Billy.
25:45Looks like we're about to go on stage.
25:48This is part of the big international tour.
25:50Right, and just the fact that I was walking up with this camera, let's remember someone is filming this.
25:55It is the bass player.
25:57I am filming this.
25:58Where have you just put it?
26:00I put it on my bass amp.
26:02As I do, now I've picked up my bass and I am about to perform.
26:09This is better than some YouTube footage, eh, that you could find.
26:14Makes me love the bass and my journey in it.
26:20Hole was my masters in humanity.
26:23And when I joined the Pumpkins, it was my PhD as a bass player and a musician.
26:29So I got to do the euphoria in the pocket, in the flow as a bass player once I joined the Pumpkins.
26:37I did it for the bass, 100%.
26:40I did it so that I could actually do what I had come here to do, which was play bass to the people.
26:47And I knew it would be the best music lesson in my life.
26:50Everlasting Gaze definitely to this day is one of my favorite Pumpkins songs, but mainly because it's all about how cool the riff is.
27:09Riffs that are heavy and rhythmic, I like to play along with. And that's what I got to do in the Pumpkins.
27:36The bass line is front and center of this track. And while the guitar riff doubles up and joins in and out, it's the steady bass that keeps you riding hard.
27:49And I got to play up to three to four hour shows a night just on bass, no backing vocal, no stage banter. Just, ugh, that was the best bass ride of my life.
28:02Low, heavy, driving bass riffs are my happy place. But that is not the genre that many people associate with the bass.
28:11Oh, man. Little thumb magic.
28:19Can I just quickly get my thumb tape?
28:28Slap bass is basically where you use your thumb to slap the bass or thump. The Americans call it thumping. We call it slapping.
28:35So how do you slap? Well, this is the secret. It comes from the thumb bone, the magical thumb bone. And what you do is you strike the string against the fingerboard and then move away, allowing the string to vibrate.
28:53You know, different players do it in different ways. My way has always been to play it this way because where my arm is parallel with the strings.
29:02Oh, yeah. Lessons in love. Um, so we've got...
29:08I'm not proud. I was wrong. And the truth is hard to take. I felt sure we had enough. But our love was over.
29:19I had that riff. Da-da-da-da-da-da-bam. Bum-bum-bum-bum. And that sort of chugging it along.
29:38It was a really, really big hit for us. You know, it got us our first number one.
29:57Mark King is especially awesome. He wasn't just slapping. He was slapping in his own way.
30:03He's playing not just slap. He's playing beautiful melodic lines. And singing. Yes.
30:12Part of the success that Level 42 had with the Brit funk scene in 1980, when we came out, was the fact that Varna was only put out as a white label.
30:22And it went round to certain DJs. And so the DJs had no idea who you were, where you came from, or everything.
30:28And there was an assumption that we were an American band, and that we were black guys doing this, because it sounded funky.
30:37And of course, wrong. It's the same in America, that they thought the same thing.
30:42It was no wonder there was confusion. And that's because this style of bass playing is about as funky as it gets.
30:48And until the likes of Mark King came along, it had been the preserve of a small group of American funk players and the man whose thumb led them all.
30:57And there you have it.
30:59Larry Graham is the father of this style. Basically, you know, Larry Graham came up with this style because he was working with his mom and there was no drummer.
31:06And his mom was playing keyboards, I believe. And so he came up with this very percussive style, which kept the rhythm strong.
31:13Just bass.
31:16So he's famous for kind of playing the bass almost like it's a drum, you know.
31:24Plucking.
31:26And, you know, thumping and plucking.
31:28But that technique, we really do, we give credit to Larry Graham about that.
31:33Now, there are arguments that there were other guys who were doing it, but he's the one who really popularized it and who we all looked at and went,
31:41Oh, my God, I didn't know you could play an instrument like that.
31:45Depending on your own personal taste, you may be thinking nobody should be playing an instrument like that.
31:50You're either into slap bass or you're very much not.
31:53Mm-mm. Don't do any slapping. No matter what you do, don't do not slap.
31:59It's not really something that's even in my wheelhouse anymore because the time has come and gone.
32:05It just became a very cliché sound.
32:09And I would say that, unlike Mark King and some of the other people we've mentioned, it wasn't done in a really musical way.
32:18It's kind of like Seinfeld.
32:21Right?
32:23No.
32:24Cut his thumb off.
32:29No, each to their own.
32:31It's got its place.
32:33But that place isn't under my roof, you know?
32:35No.
32:54Basilica Hudson is a platform for innovative experimental music.
32:59We fell in love with the building, with the infrastructure and the architecture, and the first thing I deemed it was Temple of Sound.
33:11For 15 years, this epic space of ours has showcased countless bands and artists.
33:16But now I want to use it to travel back to when I first expressed myself fully through my bass.
33:21In 2004, I cut loose from other people's bands to go it alone.
33:24But a bass player going solo was almost unheard of.
33:32Bass players don't usually step out of the shadows.
33:35And I remember when I was signed to Capitol Records, the president at the time, when he came to see my showcase show in L.A.
33:43where I was playing to some labels, the first thing he said to me is,
33:47Who knew the bass player had anything to say?
33:50Interesting.
33:51I have a song called Follow the Waves, which I wrote on the bass and then put on the guitar, and then that became the lead riff of the guitar.
34:06But then I live played on the bass because I play bass live.
34:08And in the song, the guitar starts it, and then the heavy bass low D comes in.
34:25And I basically alter between my high notes of my bass low notes of a guitar, and then the bottom low string of the bass ends up just being the supports to it.
34:36As much as I identify as a bass player, I really look for pushing the boundaries, and obviously once I went solo and made a commitment to be a singer bass player, which by the way is quite difficult.
34:54I am not only stepping center stage out of, you know, behind the shadows of huge Courtney, Billie rock icons, I am also staying true to my instrument, which is not a traditional lead singer's instrument.
35:08Break my heart.
35:10Break my heart.
35:11It's not fun to have to rhythmically, it's like a head cut off, your head has to sing and be a front person, while your body has to feel the rhythm.
35:19I would take my hat off to the dexterity of a lead singer who can play bass, because if you're playing guitar, you're just chugging along chords while you're singing.
35:36But it's a bit like that, to play a bass line that isn't the same as the top line that you're singing.
35:43So Sting, Lemmy, all of you, I'd take my hat off to you.
35:46Singing and playing the bass is an incredibly counterintuitive thing to do.
35:51Even if the bass part is the same as the guitar part, it's still not as natural.
35:56You know, singing and playing bass is really not easy.
36:01Singing and playing bass is hard enough at the best of times, but imagine being asked to play one of the most legendary bass lines in rock and sing like Freddie Mercury while you're at it.
36:11And on bass guitar, who's actually going to join me on this next song, join me is not the word, takes this next song, Gail Ann Dorsey.
36:26It was more a matter of really trying to nail Freddie's vocal.
36:32And his phrasing is kind of crazy on that song.
36:37So, you know, so this part was always, you know, it's not so, let me see here.
36:41I haven't done this in a long time.
36:48Pressure, pushing down on me, pressing down on you, no man has four.
36:59Under pressure, the drums are building down, this puts a family in two, it's beautiful sheets.
37:08That's not my fault, I'm telling you what this world is about.
37:15Watching some good friends who let me out.
37:20There tomorrow takes me higher.
37:25First of all, people, people on the streets, da-da-da.
37:33So there's a lot of that that's just sort of long notes but getting the
37:42phrasing around Freddie's verse goes back to... I don't know if I can do this
37:52anymore. Kicking around, kick my brains around the floor. He's talking. These are
37:59the days it never rains. It's hard. I haven't done it for a long time. Since David
38:05passed I haven't I don't do it anymore and I could I can't do it. I've had been
38:09asked many times would I do it with another person but I can't. I keep it
38:15special. When I went solo I wrote most of my songs at home alone on a guitar but
38:23for my second album my concept was to write direct from the bass alongside some
38:28of my favorite drummers. My second solo album, Out of Her Minds, that I actually
38:34honed in to what would a bass player write as a song. Let's just take it from the
38:42top so that you can help me get into that first change accordingly.
38:58So you know the the totem and title track of that album, Out of Her Minds, which came
39:12like just out of me with a drum beat that Vince started playing and like a
39:19field of sound where you're just sort of like tripping through it and we just like
39:26fell into a chorus and the words just came out.
39:32I was like oh this is me so in many ways it was also my most soulful return to my
39:46true sort of hippie nature where I really just want to get into the flow of what
39:53my calling is in this world I'm a woman who connects with with the warrior in me
40:05just like the warrior dude in the metal band connects with the witch in him.
40:09The wielding of an object is so big and chopping wood wielding an axe it's like a very physical
40:22engagement it instantly activates my life force I am alive I am channeling the
40:31volcanoes the angels through the the instrument and then if you have an
40:37audience that is in receiving you and you are in charge of the low frequency
40:42along with the drums that make people feel in their body
40:52being an unstoppable force to feel not think not watch feels like the roar of
41:02the ocean it feels like a gallop of a horse that you you feel power beyond humans
41:11music is magical it's a universal language that we all connect with
41:18I've been drawn towards the big bass reflex speakers and I couldn't believe it
41:24it was like a power of the universe it was more than just sound you could feel it in your guts
41:30I grew up almost thinking that God is music
41:38it's a spiritual thing when there's going to be an earthquake there are some animals that pick it up before
41:48us now you imagine that frequency it's one of the most frightening frequencies that is base when the
41:59thunder rolls and that low frequency hits especially if you're a weak heart you're going to run and hide
42:07I'm listening I'm an escape artist I like escaping into the wild unknown and the cosmic universe if I can and the bass helps me get there
42:17today I'm picking up where I left off before my motherhood sabbatical
42:32and I'm heading back into the studio in Montreal to record new music for the first time in 15 years
42:39I've changed the musical landscape has changed and I'm so excited to experiment with some new sounds
42:45and styles
42:48hey Alex you think I can fit here totally cool amazing VIP parking without trying
43:00this particular experiment was I'm really trying to merge the future in the past because yes I am a 90s
43:07lover of distorted bass and guitar and real heavy drums and but I also am a child of the 80s and
43:15the the sound of the 80s is really what seduced me processed things and beautiful glassy sounds and
43:22then there's the 21st century back to like the kids making music on their computers alone in their room
43:27because that's their version of being punk in the garage
43:31and that's what I love about some of the best 21st century new music I've heard is like you're mixing
43:41between synth and electronic and you have gothy but you also have poppy it's like such a cool world now
43:48I am very inspired
43:53like I got invited to go see charlie xcx and um you know this is one woman basically karaokeing does
44:00shit she makes at a home alone on a computer and there's fucking heavy bass that makes me feel good
44:06charlie xcx is exciting and feels like she has fresh and urgent things to say to a new generation
44:16just like we did in the 90s but it's that huge timeless bass line that drives her music and her
44:24message there are distorted bass sounds on her songs that I am using as inspiration now like how can I play
44:33with that like how can a 90s analog bass player play with that sound
44:47I think the bass is the future of all cool powerful music movements because at this point
44:53you gotta capture people you can't just be a cool freaking shredder or a person who like
45:00rehearsed a lot so I think in a world full of garbage and distractions and endless content too much
45:10information every second of every day people are going to be numb people are numb and they need to feel
45:23that's an actual not just for the cameras good additional situation that's when the mystery of
45:29music proves itself bass has a power to cut through that I don't think other things do so the future is
45:36that's when the mystery of the space okay definitely use that
46:06the mystery of the shape of the wind as it does alot of a 40s and it becomes absolutely
46:12very important because we don't want to be able to train using the actual courage for the
46:16news and it's only to to launch a few weeks later so there's aotherm a lot of people
46:19that have a lot of people under the prison that they need to be having an opportunity to
46:22save it for the next generation and for the next generation they need to be able to be able to
46:25see their friends and their lives now and they need to be able to be able to see the difference
46:28now they've been able to think that you know about the fact that she's been able to be able to
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