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Rock bands with no bassists

#22
I played a mini fest in Detroit this weekend and was kinda interested to see how many bands were flying without a bassist. Doomsday student had two guitars, Zebras had a weird moog synth thing through a ton of pedals (and I admit, sounded super rad) Then again Golden Torso went up and flogged everyone with two bassists. I forget exactly how many (alcohol was a factor) but there were several bands that were breaking the typical format. Its cool.

Other bands that come to mind are Floor, a doom/drone/sludgy awesomeness band from the 90s/early 2000s. They just ran with two guitars and some weirdo tunings. 400 blows lacked bassness...although I'm not sure if they went that way through their whole life. Winnebago deal and Black Cobra (two personal faves) were sans bass. Not that you'd notice with Black Cobra. Those dudes are heavy!
 
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#25
Its a weird toss up for me. On Principal I'm opposed to no bass guitarist but like with all the bands that I mentioned, it works for them. There a couple bass only bands that are, in my opinion, cool but a better concept than execution. As long as it works for them then cool.

Oh and The Doors used a bassist once in a while. Wasn't Lonny Mack their studio dudio?
 
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#30
The Doors had bass on their keyboards. As long as a band covers the bass frequencies somehow, I'm cool with it. Jimmy Smith is one of my favorite artists of all time and in his trio he covered bass on his organ, amazingly in fact. Some great basslines, licks, etc.

I think it's funny when a band foregoes a bassist entirely to get that "indie," "undeveloped," or "true garage" sound when the result is actually just uninteresting, tinny music that incites that salient feeling that it's missing something. Because it is missing something: dat bass boom.

I had a conversation with a guitar player recently, seemed like a nice guy, had a chick drummer friend and I was like "hey lets all jam some time that would be fun," and his response was that he doesn't like playing with a bass player. Just arbitrarily didn't want to play with an electric bass player, even it is the obvious perfect complement to drums and electric guitar. Whatever. I got drunk and was trolling him all night coming up to him being like "I'll switch to xylophone so we can play together." I ended up jamming with the drummer and another guitar player friend of mine and had a great time.
 
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#32
sl0pch0p said:
I had a conversation with a guitar player recently, seemed like a nice guy, had a chick drummer friend and I was like "hey lets all jam some time that would be fun," and his response was that he doesn't like playing with a bass player.
Click to expand...

Start a Rock Band without a Guitarist, just drums keyboards and bass. A good keyboard player with a nice synth can make guitar sounds even solo's.
 
#35
Not really too surprising to hear that bands are moving in this direction. I have to say that if I were not a bass player and I was looking to put a band together, I would consider doing without a bass player. Why? Well, short supply, guitards who think they are bass players and bass players who think they are bass players. In these unfortunate times that we live in, too many "musicians" are unwilling to play the supporting role, they all need to be Joe Rockstar and God knows you can't be that and a bass player...
 
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#36
sl0pch0p said:
I had a conversation with a guitar player recently, seemed like a nice guy, had a chick drummer friend and I was like "hey lets all jam some time that would be fun," and his response was that he doesn't like playing with a bass player. Just arbitrarily didn't want to play with an electric bass player, even it is the obvious perfect complement to drums and electric guitar.
Click to expand...
To each his own, of course, but I'm having a hard time getting my head around this. Most (all?) of the guitarists I know don't like to play without a bass player. In my (just-for-fun) band, for example, we have two guitarists, a drummer, and me. If one of the guitarists or the drummer can't make it on a given night, the rest of us usually play without him. But if I (the bass player) can't make it, the others cancel. And I'm pretty sure it's not because of my sparkling personality or boyish good looks.
 
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#40
Did ever mention the name of the band that started this whole mess? You have to also remember there was Ned's Atomic and Dustbin and Cop Shot Cop too. These were bands with more than one bassist. Even Spinal Tap and sometimes the The Cure used two basses for some songs. Even though the Doors had no official bass player, everything after the first album had some pretty good bass lines from studio players (remember Love Me Two Times and LA Woman?) It's going to be alright, man.
 
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