Greetings from the beautiful place of your place of birth (Eugene, OR).

I have to confess that I am not that familiar with much of your more commonly known work, although I have admired your bass playing on "The Clutter of Pop" (The Elastic Purejoy recording) since I stumbled across a promo copy of it about 10 years ago. I was initially rather disappointed upon reading the liner notes that Dave Allen did not play bass on the recording (he is among my favorite players), but found the playing exceptionally good anyway. I am pleased to now know that the person who was responsible (you apparently) has gone on to real success. I have, of course, heard a bit of Beck, but I never put the two together.

I will have to follow the thread of your career a bit a find some other good music. Without suggesting, of course, that they are better recordings than others you have contributed to, what would be two or three that you would recommend I start with? Like you, my sensibilities are still largely (but not exclusively) rooted somewhere in the late '70s and early 80's post-punk, art-rock, new wave sort of thing.

Speaking of The Elastic Purejoy, I have often wondered why Dave Allen did not play bass for the group. That might be an odd question for you to answer, but I would be really interested to know. As, I gather, your career was pretty new at the time, was it at all intimidating to you then to be the bassist in his band? It seems that association was important for your career and family life. Was it also for you as a musician?

Lastly, I read that you really dig John Taylor's playing and yet you have no room for a Kubicki Factor amidst all those nice basses of yours?

Best regards,

Steven

p.s. for other readers, The Elastic Purejoy is pretty hard to find, but there are usually some copies on Amazon. Both CDs are good and have a number of good songs, but "The Clutter of Pop" has the better bass work.

Hey there,
THanks for the kind words on my Elastic Purejoy work...definitely early in my career stuff. Dave just really wanted to separate himself from the bass; with that project, he looked at it more like a platform for poetry and lyricism and insight, rather than a "musician" standpoint. So he enjoyed keeping it in that domain. Now that he's back with Gang of Four, he can get his rocks off again when they do the occasional gig or tour. Dave's a very intelligent guy with strong principles, and it always occurred to me that he cared very little for the details of how records are made or who plays what. So I ended up playing guitar for him on tour, and in the studio I'd do both. Interesting. He and I are still in touch; he lives in the Portland area now and his family and mine have always been very friendly. That's how I met my wife, by the way: she was doing A&R Administration for World Domination, Dave's label back in the day.

Kubicki Factor? Yuck! No irony, just pure nerdville! Sorry, but that's the last bass you'll ever see me with. :-)

Thanks for the response. I presume that you have heard some of the new GoF demos posted online. Most of them are quite good, I think. It's nice to hear that Dave Allen is still living around Portland (my home town). That he is an intelligent person comes through clearly in his work. In fact, we've had discussions as to how we might create a context to have him visit the university in Eugene to talk on art and commodification (I'm in the philosophy dept. there and several of us work in the general area of the sort of critical theory to which GoF clearly responded--and, I think, meaningfully contributed).

Kubicki Factor--nerdville?!! Perhaps, but aren't all the best people nerds really? David Byrne, Mark Mothersbaugh! And that's just to name a couple (genius) musicians.

You should let that inner nerd out to breath a bit. Cool is really just a left-handed form of conformity anyway. Are you sure that all those semi-hollow basses you seem to favor aren't just a little bit nerdy? They do look a bit Buddy Holly, don't they?

I noticed that you don't consider a Steinberger to be too nerdy. Have you tried flats on yours yet? I recently put a set I got from Status Graphite on mine. They sound great, from real punchy and percussive to huge and Jah Wobbly depending on how you set the e.q.

Best regards, Steven