Interviewing Bassists Stories Pt. 3

[Arthritic_Tom]

Hello?lo?lo?lo?, anybody here?ere?ere?ere?, where'd everybody go?go?go?go?, what's with all the echo?echo?echo?echo?

Ahem.

Well guess what? I didn't have to wait til July after all, my copy of Ghosts arrived on Friday, the day before my birthday. Result! Going on holiday Saturday so I've got my read
I won't post a review here on Talkbass though. Instead I'd like to post it on Basschat here in the UK along with a link to the original Talkbass 'Interviewing' thread - that is if you are cool with that Tom. Basschat is a great forum with a lot of bassists that would appreciate what has gone down here.
Anyways I hope everything is going good for you Tom and all the TBers who watched this thing grow.

Right, I'm going for a read, I may be some time...

You can do anything you want.

Getting closer to having the placeholder Website up, starting the publicity campaign, and then getting the real Website up.

My publisher and I disagree on the target audience for the book. I wish I'd been told BEFORE I wrote it that it would be considered a niche book marketed only to musicians, but be that as it may.

As a workaround, I've decided to self-publish two companion volumes that will form a trilogy with Ghosts. They'll be available in both e-book form and print-in-demand. One will be a novel, a "black comedy about love and suicide in contemporary wartime America," and the other will be selections from my dream diary, which I've kept on and off for thirty years. I'm publishing the parts that deal directly with the memoir.

All three books will deal with the same theme: transforming anger over loss into gratitude for what you once had.

The novel is semi-autobiographical, and the dream diary is purely autobiographical, since they're my dreams.

Together, the Ghosts trilogy will complete my banishment and self-exorcism. I don't think any writer has released a memoir, novel, and dream diary as companion volumes before, so it'll be fun to see if it works.

At any rate, it'll be different.

 

[miles'tone]

You can do anything you want.

Getting closer to having the placeholder Website up, starting the publicity campaign, and then getting the real Website up.

My publisher and I disagree on the target audience for the book. I wish I'd been told BEFORE I wrote it that it would be considered a niche book marketed only to musicians, but be that as it may.

As a workaround, I've decided to self-publish two companion volumes that will form a trilogy with Ghosts. They'll be available in both e-book form and print-in-demand. One will be a novel, a "black comedy about love and suicide in contemporary wartime America," and the other will be selections from my dream diary, which I've kept on and off for thirty years. I'm publishing the parts that deal directly with the memoir.

All three books will deal with the same theme: transforming anger over loss into gratitude for what you once had.

The novel is semi-autobiographical, and the dream diary is purely autobiographical, since they're my dreams.

Together, the Ghosts trilogy will complete my banishment and self-exorcism. I don't think any writer has released a memoir, novel, and dream diary as companion volumes before, so it'll be fun to see if it works.

At any rate, it'll be different.

Great stuff Tom! Glad to hear the ju-ju is flowing nicely. Sounds like a great idea and no, I've not heard of it being done before either. Best of luck with it all.
Good call regarding my Basschat suggestion as I guess if you write a book and put it out there in the world, you have to be prepared for when the world shows up!
It's great to hear you're so busy right now and everything, but don't go forgetting to make time to sit down and record/write that free-jazz train-of-thought 'memoir' you have mentioned!

Take care Tom, all the best.

 

[Arthritic_Tom]

Well, a journey that began in December of 2012 is over for now.

My placeholder Website is up.

http://thomaswictor.com/

I hadn't planned on having a placeholder Website; I wanted a permanent Website, but it was not to be. You can read about it by clicking "Screwed."

The real Website is being worked on as we speak. There's no deadline. This time, we're going to do it right.

All I wanted was a Website that wouldn't be another author cookie-cutter template instantly forgettable waste of time that wouldn't make people even slightly interested in my books.

IT WAS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO GET THAT.

Even this site went up six days past the deadline.

Anyway, it's done. The publicity campaign begins June 15. At some point the real Website goes up. There will be contests; three lucky winners will have as their prizes copies of Ghosts and In Cold Sweat autographed by Scott Thunes and me.

And there will be a whole lot of other poo.

I've finished the second companion volume to Ghosts, a novel called Chasing the Last Whale. It'll be available as a trade paperback and an e-book. Though fictionalized, it's a no-holds-barred expansion of the themes covered in the memoir. Since it's fiction, I have plausible deniability, you see.

The third volume, Hallucinabulia: the Dream Diary of an Unintended Solitarian, is almost finished. I'd say the Ghosts trilogy will be completed in a couple of months.

So if you liked the memoir, you've got two more books coming.

 

[Ayce]

Saved in faves, Tom.

Good luck!

 

[Arthritic_Tom]

Saved in faves, Tom.

Good luck!

Thanks! Tally-ho!

 

[powmetalbassist]

Harsh man. Sounds like your experience with the book publishers and web designers could start an entire new series of books.

 

[Arthritic_Tom]

Harsh man. Sounds like your experience with the book publishers and web designers could start an entire new series of books.

Oh, the stories I could tell!

I exchange really savage e-mails with my brother Tim and Scott Thunes, in which I express everything I'd love to say publicly but can't, because I still want a writing career.

Maybe someday I'll start up a premium forum in which paying customers get to see the really vicious stuff I write about people who simply can't be reached.

It'll have to wait until I get my own terminal cancer diagnosis.

On that day, watch out!

 

[Session1969]

Holy Miss Moley ! I can't wait to finish reading. Gotta go to practice. Where's the key hidden to put the names to the stories ?

 

[Arthritic_Tom]

Holy Miss Moley ! I can't wait to finish reading. Gotta go to practice. Where's the key hidden to put the names to the stories ?

That'll be published after I die.

Or you could ask Scott Thunes. He knows them all.

Here he is on April 25 at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, California, playing with the Mother Hips. He showed me the secret technique he uses with his pick. I can't tell you, but it's so simple it's genius.

I'll include it in my postmortem publications.

 

[cvsurg]

^
Not sure which I like more- that bass or that shirt......

Can't wait to get the rest of the trilogy!!

 

[Arthritic_Tom]

^
Not sure which I like more- that bass or that shirt......

Can't wait to get the rest of the trilogy!!

They're both great.

Give me a couple of months, and the Ghosts trilogy will be finished.

Since I'm self-publishing them, I get to determine when they come out, which is ASAP. When the novel is finished, I'll publish it, and then the diary will follow.

 

[Arthritic_Tom]

Tried to post this on my Website, but it worked for only one day. They outsourced it to Brazil, so the control panels are in Portuguese.

In case it's down for good, or in case I lay me down to sleep and don't awake, here's my review of a new Scott Thunes album.

Pink Things is described as "Spontaneous improvisation recorded live at Radical Sound in San Francisco." Personnel are Steven Menasche on drums, Ron Kukan on guitar, and Scott Thunes on bass. Produced by the San Francisco Free Jazz Collective. Nine tracks.

Normally, I despise improvised jazz. In 1986 I walked out of a concert in Tokyo after just ten minutes, even though the bassist was one of my heroes. It was garbage. For some reason that frenetic Coltrane-style sax makes me crazy. The band was four guys each playing their instruments separately, trying to outdo each other by producing the most notes in the shortest intervals. I couldn't believe how pretentious and self-indulgent it was.

A video of the show is on YouTube. I sent the link to Thunes, and he told me he stopped listening after just a few seconds.

"I don't do that stuff," he said.

So when I saw that Scott played on Pink Things, I was worried. However, my fears were completely unfounded. This is music, not wanking. These are improvised compositions, not three musicians trying to outdo each other in volume, chops, and contrived weirdness. What made me walk out of the Tokyo concert--after the crappiness of the performance--was the smugness. The four musicians kept smirking at each other, as though we the paying audience didn't matter. Listening to Pink Things, it's clear that there isn't a nanoparticle of smug in any of the three players. They love their art. Can improvised jazz be relaxing? You bet.

Tone is very important to the players. Menasche's drums are quiet and somehow warm, as are Kukan's guitar and Thunes's bass. The compositions are considerate. That's the best way I can describe them. They aren't assaultive, belligerent, or juvenile mind games. Instead, they're expressions of deep feeling, emotive instead of technical. In Tokyo, it was clear that members of that awful band considered their fans sycophants, while non-fans like me were philistines who "didn't get it." In other words, the band's entire existence was a big "Screw you!" to people who just wanted to have a nice time.

Pink Things is a very, very nice time. It's music for adults, not those suffering from terminal arrested development. Like Alice in Chains' Dirt, there isn't a weak track on the entire album. My favorite is "Traffic Indigestion," followed closely by "In the Air" and "Po-Boy From India."

I can't recommend it enough. Five out of five stars. And a big kiss.

 

[MartinG1957]

Don't know if its any help but I just went to the website 13.15 Irish time -all the pages were functional except the "Screwed" one -which came up with the obvious actual content page for a couple of seconds and then switched to a "404 Error" page taking out the text.....

 

[eb3mike]

Just read through "screwed"... whew!

 

[Arthritic_Tom]

Don't know if its any help but I just went to the website 13.15 Irish time -all the pages were functional except the "Screwed" one -which came up with the obvious actual content page for a couple of seconds and then switched to a "404 Error" page taking out the text.....

Yep, we're having problems.

It's so cute. I really need to add to the "Screwed" page, but I'm in an awkward position.

Hopefully the Brazilians will get the gerbils running on their wheels again soon.

 

[Arthritic_Tom]

Just read through "screwed"... whew!

Not even the full story.

 

[silddx]

What an incredible thread! Someone on basschat.co.uk pointed me to it. It is quite astounding

I read In Cold Sweat a few years ago, I have re-read it a few times, I found it extraordinary, leagues ahead of current interviewing. Tom, you are one of the very best, you get to what's important about music, it's not strings, amps, eq and all that sh*t, it's about people.

Scott Thunes is my favourite bassist, because when he's on it, there is romance in every note, every phrase - every harmonic, melodic and rhythmic device, every nuance. It's truly beautiful and it speaks to me in a VERY LOUD VOICE while never overshadowing the music. Scott seems like a true servant of music.

Tom, thank you for all this, I've already ordered Ghosts and Ballyhoo. I wish you the very best for the future.

 

[Arthritic_Tom]

What an incredible thread! Someone on basschat.co.uk pointed me to it. It is quite astounding

I read In Cold Sweat a few years ago, I have re-read it a few times, I found it extraordinary, leagues ahead of current interviewing. Tom, you are one of the very best, you get to what's important about music, it's not strings, amps, eq and all that sh*t, it's about people.

Scott Thunes is my favourite bassist, because when he's on it, there is romance in every note, every phrase - every harmonic, melodic and rhythmic device, every nuance. It's truly beautiful and it speaks to me in a VERY LOUD VOICE while never overshadowing the music. Scott seems like a true servant of music.

Tom, thank you for all this, I've already ordered Ghosts and Ballyhoo. I wish you the very best for the future.

Thanks very much. I appreciate it.

You've nailed Scott's talent. It's his ability to communicate that draws me to him. Technique is great, but I've always preferred emotion.

Scott did an interpretation of a Gentle Giant song that I'm going to put on the real Website, on the memorial page to my father. It's perfect. When it's up, you'll see what I mean.

Again, thank you.

 

[silddx]

Thanks very much. I appreciate it.

You've nailed Scott's talent. It's his ability to communicate that draws me to him. Technique is great, but I've always preferred emotion.

Scott did an interpretation of a Gentle Giant song that I'm going to put on the real Website, on the memorial page to my father. It's perfect. When it's up, you'll see what I mean.

Again, thank you.

No, thank YOU!

Can't wait to hear the GG cover, I thought yours was lovely too.

 

[silddx]

Your comment about emotion over technique is bang on. I've always wanted to know WHY players play like they do, not really HOW they do it, although that can unlock a lot of stuff in one's head too and it can be quite interesting. Most players I know are after technique, perfectly natural, but the civilians want emotion. I hope I can retain what's left of the civilian in me, because that's where all the music comes from.

Here's a great example. The Slits, Viv Albertine could barely operate the bass, but what she does with what she's got is just pure feeling. Those notes and space, little timing things, that's all human.