Taylor was fantastic. That article was a long overdue. And let's not forget Tony Thompson (may he rest in peace), what a tremendous rhythm section they made in The Power Station.
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Interviewing bassist stories
- Thread starter Arthritic_Tom
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I hereby unlurk.
I have been chasing this thread for days, but always several pages behind. Couldn't catch up again tonight. Just want to mention that I have enjoyed reading the first 400 posts.
I have been chasing this thread for days, but always several pages behind. Couldn't catch up again tonight. Just want to mention that I have enjoyed reading the first 400 posts.
Stick around. I have several more large-scale anecdotes, including the genuinely nightmarish experience of negotiating the contract for my bassists' interview book.
And thank you for reading this long a thread. I'm amazed.
Oh, and how Kiss's record label treated me after the incredible success of the Gene Simmons interview in Bass Player.
I'll give you a hint:
Inside a Plane Crash - Nasa Test - YouTube
I'll give you a hint:
Inside a Plane Crash - Nasa Test - YouTube
I've read the entire thread, and I have to say something. This thread, with all of Tom's stories and anecdotes, Scott's witty replies, and all of the wonderful humanity contained within, has truly touched me in a way that few experiences have. Tom, you are a wonderful human being and sharing the stories of your life has given the Talkbass community a gift of unfathomable importance. Your book will have sold another copy tonight, and I'll be lucky if I get any sleep before I'm through with it. I wish to thank you, Scott, Bryan, and everyone else who has contributed to this thread.
Pg 25, halfway through the first edition.
I'm glad I caught on at day1 or I'd be screwed.
I do hope you have a sound exit plan for when you run out of stories Tom. It seems you are on a rollercoaster of reinvention of self. It concerns me that you could be ticked off when the interest and feedback falls off as if we have used you up and spat you out.
Having said that, it's a very special event on TB. I would like to see it preserved as a sticky ad infinitum. Honestly, when Tom has given up on us it would be a proper pain to have it left open for comments. I'd always be checking it to see if Tom had remembered another yarn.
I'm glad I caught on at day1 or I'd be screwed.
I do hope you have a sound exit plan for when you run out of stories Tom. It seems you are on a rollercoaster of reinvention of self. It concerns me that you could be ticked off when the interest and feedback falls off as if we have used you up and spat you out.
Having said that, it's a very special event on TB. I would like to see it preserved as a sticky ad infinitum. Honestly, when Tom has given up on us it would be a proper pain to have it left open for comments. I'd always be checking it to see if Tom had remembered another yarn.
nobodysfool said:
Ok, you got me. Phil Keaggy is awesome but how did he inspire you as a bassist?
All things come to an end. The stores will cease shortly, simply because they're of a finite number.
No one here is using me. And although I'm gratified by the support and comments, believe me when I say that my outlook on life is far different today than it was all those years ago when I wrote and then just sat and seethed. I don't expect people here to retain their interest in this thread. It wouldn't be natural.
I've achieved a state of near-perfect clarity. I know what's important and what isn't. This has been a very rewarding experience, but it's not something that can go on forever, nor is it something for me to try and use as a substitute for my failed career as a music journalist.
What it is, is part of the coda I needed. The full coda had three parts. Two have been supplied. The third part may have already been supplied, too. I'll know pretty soon, I think.
This thread came about completely through the reactions and contributions of the bass players here, which is why I decided to keep it going and to tell you as much as I could. It's a special thing, for TalkBass only. It's for bassists only. It's my gift to the community of bassists for buying what I wrote back in the day, and because as an old bassist who can no longer play, it's my duty to pass along certain knowledge to preserve it.
My exit plan is in place. I'm not ready to stop yet. But we're getting there.
Betrayer_Bass
Profanity Fish.
- Sep 24, 2011
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To be honest, Tom, I wouldn't say your career as a music journalist was a failed one. Just a short one.
You wrote for, what was at the time, a prestigious magazine and made some very interesting articles. You bought a lot of insight to a lot of people, as well as joy through your writing. You made great friends in great people and had some pretty scary times too.
I wouldn't call that a failure. You really touched some people, that's to me a great success.
To be honest, Tom, I wouldn't say your career as a music journalist was a failed one. Just a short one.
You wrote for, what was at the time, a prestigious magazine and made some very interesting articles. You bought a lot of insight to a lot of people, as well as joy through your writing. You made great friends in great people and had some pretty scary times too.
I wouldn't call that a failure. You really touched some people, that's to me a great success.
What he said. I'd consider myself lucky if I had even a fraction of your "failed" career.
Very thought provoking thread.
I concluded long ago that artistic success and commercial success are not necessarily linked. Your stories and experiences seem to reinforce this. You have a elegant way with words, as a musician has an elegant way with notes.
The creative success you have achieved is a treasure beyond price, sir.
I concluded long ago that artistic success and commercial success are not necessarily linked. Your stories and experiences seem to reinforce this. You have a elegant way with words, as a musician has an elegant way with notes.
The creative success you have achieved is a treasure beyond price, sir.
Ya know there are a great many threads on here that you could contribute to as well. Just because you may run out of stories and tales from beyond for this thread it does not mean you would no longer have anything to offer.
Plus this is a pretty good place to hang your hat, so to speak.
I like your take on everyday slice of life occurences, tom. Almost more-so than hearing who you've met in the biz. Like when you spoke of the guitar and bass player telling a story of a guy smoking a ground up frog. Then you chime in about a guy who'd smoke just about anything and he looked older than his years...how that killed the conversation between yall. Normally if that happened to me I'd be down on myself for not fitting in. But you showed how even that moment was its own story. And now a similar moment awaits as you anticipate a response from your idol in regards to your bass playing.
I would like to add that I can understand your desire to have Scott comment on your work. After over three years of lessons, the one that stands out in my mind was the time after I'd managed to keep decent time, and not hit too many wrong notes, on a piece while my instructor accompanied me on guitar. He told me after the lesson was over "You done good today." Really made my day. (Mind, my instructor is very sparing with praise anyway...) Did I have to have that comment for my continued well being? Would I have stopped studying in a snit if he hadn't said something? Nope. But in a very real way it completed something for me, told me that the time I'd spent working and practicing was not in vain, and that he recognized how much I had progressed since I started studying with him. Yep, I know, a lot of other people learned as much in one year or less than where I've gotten in three, mostly because I don't have the TIME (free time? what free time?) to practice as much as I should, it takes longer to reach each goal. And the acknowledgement that he recognized the progress I HAD made meant a lot to me. I think that sort of conformation is what you're looking for from Scott. Hope this makes sense...
Actually, that's a very insightful way of looking at it. I may begin to think of it that way.To be honest, Tom, I wouldn't say your career as a music journalist was a failed one. Just a short one.
You wrote for, what was at the time, a prestigious magazine and made some very interesting articles. You bought a lot of insight to a lot of people, as well as joy through your writing. You made great friends in great people and had some pretty scary times too.
I wouldn't call that a failure. You really touched some people, that's to me a great success.
Tell you something: Almost everything I've ever feared, I've eventually experienced. I was always terrified of illness; now I have an incurable autoimmune disorder. I was terrified of violent crime; someone tried to murder me. I was terrified of losing the love of my life; I did. I was terrified of being a failure at everything I did; I always considered myself one.
Your comment and one from my closest pal, the Russian ex-colonel whom I've never met in person, have shown me that there are different, completely valid ways of seeing the same circumstances. He's a medical doctor who publishes books on great plagues, chemical warfare, flame warfare, etc. His job in the military was to create treatments for the effects of these, not create the weapons.
He mentioned that nobody buys his books, either. I asked him if it bothered, him and he said no, because he writes them to simply collate the information. He reminded me that one copy of all my books is in the Library of Congress.
True, dat.
Makes perfect sense.
"It completed something for me."
Completion. I hate, hate, hate the term "closure," because people always misuse it. You hear some reporter asking the mother of a murdered child if something brought her "closure," and you want to scream.
But there is real closure. Losing a career and the ability to play an instrument can't be compared to losing a child. There can be closure to the first two, not to the second.
There can be codas to the first two.
Thank you. I don't regret the experience; I only regret my lack of a contingency plan if it didn't work out. I wasn't prepared to have the rug yanked out from under me, and I should've been.
There's a lot to be said for two poultry-related clichés: Don't put all your eggs in one basket, and don't count your chickens before they hatch.
I had great expectations, and when they didn't happen, it was devastating. Some people go all in when pursuing a goal: Sell everything, move to Hollywood, and work at it until you're a star!
The problem is, when your success relies 100 percent on the whims of others, you're pre-doomed in a lot of ways, especially if the people in power think you're never going to fit into the culture they've created.
That's when they decide getting rid of you is easier than trying to change you. And if you have a reputation as someone who complains, the way I did when my articles were killed, you're already three-quarters of the way out the door.
Yep, hate the term 'closure' as well. In the example you mention, as if anything was going to take away the pain the mother feels at the murder of her child. Even the capture and conviction of the murderer isn't going to take away all the pain. Only time the mom is going to stop feeling that pain is when she herself dies.
I ain't dead yet, nor facing it in the near future (barring being run over by car, piece of space junk falling on me, etc.), so my instructor's comment wasn't closure. If anything, incentive to keep my nose to the grindstone! It completed something in that it acknowledged that my efforts were / are bearing fruit, and to keep up the work. In your case, you're not dead yet, and you are looking for -- validation? -- that your efforts to be a decent bass player were successful, that your time and effort weren't wasted, even if you can't play any more. it would be some validation that even if you didn't find commercial success, your efforts resulted at least in artistic success. And let's face it, an awful lot of wonderful artists in all fields of creative endeavor never see any commercial success. And it would be validation from someone in the same 'field of study,' if you will, as your own efforts; it would be validation from someone who KNOWS what you're trying to do, who has stood in your own shoes, and thus can make an educated evaluation of your efforts, an opinion from someone whose opinion you value.
Are you listening to this, Scott?!?
I ain't dead yet, nor facing it in the near future (barring being run over by car, piece of space junk falling on me, etc.), so my instructor's comment wasn't closure. If anything, incentive to keep my nose to the grindstone! It completed something in that it acknowledged that my efforts were / are bearing fruit, and to keep up the work. In your case, you're not dead yet, and you are looking for -- validation? -- that your efforts to be a decent bass player were successful, that your time and effort weren't wasted, even if you can't play any more. it would be some validation that even if you didn't find commercial success, your efforts resulted at least in artistic success. And let's face it, an awful lot of wonderful artists in all fields of creative endeavor never see any commercial success. And it would be validation from someone in the same 'field of study,' if you will, as your own efforts; it would be validation from someone who KNOWS what you're trying to do, who has stood in your own shoes, and thus can make an educated evaluation of your efforts, an opinion from someone whose opinion you value.
Are you listening to this, Scott?!?
Thank you. And I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. I've made plans this time around. If I can't make it as a novelist, I've got other things.
Plus, this time I literally have no expectations at all. Another reason I want to use a pseudonym is to make sure that my motivation to become a successful novelist isn't just a huge raised middle finger at everyone who had a part in helping me ruin my career as music journalist.
"Whattaya think now, A-holes? Ha! Lookit me now!"
That would be very unhealthy. I've known people who were driven entirely by their motivation to prove something to someone else. It always leads to disaster. I'm sure the people I was so angry at haven't given me a nanosecond of thought in the past however many years.
Janis Joplin went back to her home town of Port Arthur, Texas, as a star, to lord it over everyone who had ever hurt or mistreated her. It was a catastrophe. They weren't impressed and they didn't care. The whole fiasco was caught on film by news crews. By the end of her visit, she was a stammering child again. The producer Don Simpson landed at his high-school reunion in a helicopter, with two beautiful women on his arms. It was another flop.
Heidi Fleiss said that Simpson's biggest fear was ending up "looking like an Inuit of indeterminate gender." That's exactly how he looked when he died.
I don't care much about my appearance, but I don't want to be doing anything as a way of proving myself or getting back at anyone. This thread really wasn't an attempt to get back at anyone. It was an act of banishment and a swan song.
By the way, this is the only time in my life I've written which such a lack of inhibition under my real name. It feels great.
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