I kind of decided that I want to go on a rant of sorts concerning Primus and the Awakening bass solo by the Reddings that Les covers a lot.
I was reading a few old things and saw that someone was saying that Les' playing style and Primus' was detrimental to young bassists who idolized him. Some more colorful language was used, also. I take offense at this. As someone who has pretty much learned how to play two Primus songs this week, I know I'm a much better bassist for it. The songs are Tommy the Cat and Lacquer Head. Lacquer Head is a strange Primus sensation. Unlike, say Southbound Pachyderm (which I cannot fully figure out for the life of me, help with that would be appreciated. I guess I'll also post in the general instruction forum,) the bass line is not tonal at all, it is much like Tommy the cat, in that the bass is played more as a percussive instrument rather than the real tune. (Lacquer head much more so, I know. Tab means nothing to Lacquer head. Three quarters of the song can be played practically anywhere on the fretboard with little difference.) But the song itself is really kind of tonal. It is hard edged, and you get the feeling of a tune, even during the verses. And that short bass solo is something that I admired even before I knew what it was from. (I heard it at a concert before the Awakening. That same concert addresses one of my points that I'm going to make on the Awakening, too. I'll post it, I guess. At the bottom of the post.) I spent the whole beginning of this summer looking at the video of that concert, wondering how to play both the Awakening and that really fast slappy thing that he did at the beginning. I looked at a few places and eventually learned the whole song in two days (I still can't play one part, but that's only because I'm lacking 1) the right FX. That alone wouldn't be too bad, but coupled with number 2, it creates problems. That said, 2) Enough frets. I have a really cheap little Silvertone bass with 20 frets. I need 22. At the very least. 25 would be awesome, because then I could play Jerry was a Race Car driver. Don't judge by the fact that it was a Silvertone. It has a really good slap tone. I kind of destroyed the jack on it, though. But the fact that I learned it in two days didn't really say anything to me like "Wow, Primus is overrated, their stuff is so easy." Because though I know how to play it, it's hard enough for me to get through it, because of the amount of both left and right arm endurance required, much less play something else that requires an equal amount of endurance immediately afterwards. So, there's saying that Les Claypool's style is good in it's own right, and I think he is one of the masters at using bass percussively.
Now, the Awakening. I heard this solo less than a year ago performed publicly, and I'd been playing bass for a while, but I couldn't slap or anything. I didn't listen to a lot of bass solos, so this thing was pretty much the most amazing thing I'd ever heard. Now I'm trying to learn it, and I was kind of wondering if anyone had tabs for it. On another thread, I saw BASE had a pretty good partial version up, but that's not the whole thing. So I was kind of wondering that. I would just figure it out, but I kind of want it done by next Thursday because I'm trying out on bass for the same band that I saw play it the first time I ever heard it. That would be a good show off piece. Anyway, I also hear a lot of people say that it sounds like crap without drums. I think it sounds just fine without drums. The way I heard it anyway. That's mostly what I wanted to say about it.
Here's the link:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XtE3x-tOsao
