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Rock bands with no bassists

#121
shinybeast said:
Are you sure they weren't just using the actual Beastie Boys backing track?

I don't know, bass player, no bass player, even sequencers, I'm cool, but when you start using pre-recorded tracks, I think you're doing karaoke at that point....
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I would think it would be pretty hard to get the original bass track soloed, everything else was them playing it live, but who knows, stranger things have happened.
 
#126
I can't honestly speak to whether having a bassist or not matters in a Rock band, but I do know most every band I've heard lately that doesn't have one sounds utterly dreadful to me. I'm not all that sure entirely if it's the lack of a bassist or if it's simply that the band stinks (IMO).
I suspect it's both, really.
 
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#127
bolophonic said:
My new band played its second show as the opener for a three band bill on Saturday. I had heard of the headliner before, but didn't know anything about them, except that they were a three-piece.

So after the middle band, I started watching the main act set up and there was some funky looking guitar rig, which didn't interest me, then the drums, then.... another oddball guitar rig. The guitarist of my band looked stoked, but my drummer heard me groan audibly as I realized that there was no bassist and he understood.

Both dudes in the headlining act were sporting aluminum-necked baritone guitars. They sounded cool enough, but there is really no equivalent to the disappointment that I feel when rock bands make the decision to forego a bassist. It would be like going to the theater to see a movie and then realizing that it was actually a cartoon or something. At least their drummer was awesome.
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Yeah bass free bands are a let down. Most sound like crap, as a even bigger letdown. Can't feel it hardly
 
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#129
bolophonic said:
This is a good point to discuss. For me, the terminology of "ROCK" has less to do with the specific instrumentation, or even musical end-result, than it does with it's philosophical completeness. A rock "band" with no bassist is an unbalanced entity... an incomplete, twangy ego party. A ying without a yang. Or maybe the other way around.

Let's try to imagine if the Who didn't have a bass guitarist. If Pete Townsend had just done all the bass parts in the studio and some random dude would do them on keyboards at the shows. Let's try to imagine a bassist starting a discussion on TB about how to cop Jack White's octave pedal tone. Sounds kind of silly.
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Silly, yet possible. I'm not dismissing the use for a bass harmony or rhythm in a full band setting. I just know there are plenty of different means to achieve that goal, especially nowadays with technology getting somewhat better and better mimic'ing certain instruments. For example, to this day I'm sure a lot of folks still think someone is playing bass for the Seinfeld TV main tune. Nope, goofy synthesizer with not a really spectacular "Slap Bass" sound. I'm aware that's not rock, just proving a point on how an audience perceives sound.

Think about a song in the Key of B, and the bass line never goes below B on a standard 4-string bass guitar. Now you're in the range of a baritone guitar, 7th-string guitar, or even a Cello if you're that bold. All you need to do is maintain that full-range sound while knowing your lowest and highest notes possible on every instrument.

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There's that band Jucifer, once mentioned here. Just a drummer and guitarist with a ridiculously giant wall of speakers.

There's Le Tigre, apparently the music genre is "electroclash" (whatever), I just happen to like that band which is basically vocals, a guitar, a keyboard, and sequenced everything else with a lot of multimedia goofiness. Maybe not particularly "rocking" for most folks.

But you know what's a really good rock song without bass? "We Will Rock You" - Queen. Heck... no drums either, some guys stomping and clapping. And then finally a guitar solo at the end. I should make a Craigslist ad for that kind of band, "Looking for musicians that can clap. Foot-stomping a plus."
 
#140
Seems some people here have a very narrow definition of "Bass Player"
Addressing some random posts in this thread that say you can't do this or you can't do that or it isn't this if it isn't that...

Jimmy Cliff was a great bass player, he used his feet, so what? BARBARA DENNERHLAN is a WICKED bass player who uses her feet
Charlie Hunter plays bass and guitar at the same time, sounds good to me
Lemmy is a rockstar, he plays bass, proving you can be a rockstar bassist; Geddy Lee, Glenn Hughes, Ron Wood, Roger Waters etc,
then there's that Popstar bass guy... McFly, no McGill, McMack... oh yeah, MCCARTNEY
A bass player playing a Rhodes Key Bass or SubPhatty
A drummer-bassist playing drums while also using a Moog Taurus — great idea
A bass player using a Bass VI, or Jaguar Baritone VI tuned E A D G B E, or even a bass player playing a guitar with an Octave-down pedal
12-string bass, 3 string, 1 string, 10 string, 8 string, 9 string, 13...
TUBA sounds great through a bunch of distortion pedals, and on its own of course
Upright, Cello, U-Bass, Bass Marimba, Bass Harmonica, Bass Saxophone, Contrabass clarinet...
ETC...

^^^ All good IMO


First question: "Do I like what I hear?"

A = "Yes" — then I don't care if the bass is handled by Swiss Alpenhorns or anything else, or if there's no bass at all.
A = "No" — then I don't care what genre or whether there's bass or not, I'm not going to listen to it.
 
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