Hi! I became a member today and the little notice in the home page had the good idea of having me introduce myself
So, I say hello to one and all here at the talkbass forums!
I'm Sergio Mendoza, Serge; I was born in Santiago, Chile, have a Mexican nationality, Ecuadorian heart
I lived in 10 countries due to my dad's job. I've been making music since 1991, starting with my first band in Guatemala. In 1992, when I moved to Ecuador, I had some groups, always as the vocalist, which is my main "instrument".
In 2001 I gave myself a bass as a birthday present (a Yamaha RBX260) and an amp (a small Crate BX-15). I had been a vocalist for some years by then, and had played guitar for 9 years and piano for about 10. I had also written about 150 songs by the time I got my bass. The year before, I signed a songwriting contract (9 actually - 9 songs) with Universal Music Publishing, so that was cool.
When I got the bass, instead of starting out slowly, I decided to take "master classes"... nope, not in a music school, but by being privately tutored by my Rush and Sting and Police albums (three of my favorite acts)! Slowly, I started getting a better grasp on things.
In 2003, I met a guitarrist with whom I started a band. He left the day before yesterday to go live in Norway, but we had co-written 20-some odd songs, for which I had written all the bass parts. I also finished the album of the group (now I AM the group... weird as that sounds). I recorded all the bass parts for all our demos, as well as 3 of the songs in the final, 13-song album.
My group is Maracas Brain and I'll now be not only the vocalist, but the bassist, too! I'm incredibly psyched about this and tomorrow I'm going to buy a new bass guitar (or two, don't know). I'm looking at a Washburn T24, which, completely leaving me perplexed, is actually CHEAPER here than in the U.S. I think it's about 215 dollars, in a very reputable, large music store here in Mexico City. I'm also considering a Fender Squire model - which, I don't know yet. I like that classic look too, and of course, know that they're incredibly well-balanced instruments.
I'm probably going to, in the first concerts, play with a straight line in to the mixer, so I'm probably not going to buy a new amp just yet. I have a Fender Passport which I'll be using for practice since it can do double duty for my voice, bass, and hopefully the guitarrist and/or drummer's voices, too (I'm looking for someone to join my band now).
I'm thinking about buying a Boss ME-50B multieffects processor, although I am also considering the possibility of having a little Zoom B2.1u or a little Digitech BP200 or something like that. Of course, if I find amazingly cheap BOSS compact pedals for chorus, distortion, compression, and flanger, I'll be a REALLY happy camper!
Anyways, sorry for the long story just to introduce myself. I hope I can make my new family of bass players around the world my friends and do justice not only to my voice, but to this instrument which I find so beautiful.
I'll give you my myspace so you can go check out 5 of the songs. The ones there are not the mastered versions, since I finally finished RE-mastering the songs yesterday (first mastering I wasn't too crazy about). So those 5 songs are the mixes, which sound pretty amazing by themselves.
Cheers to all of you!
Serge
Maracas Brain
http://www.myspace.com/maracasbrain
