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The bass equivalent to Jack White?

#21
peterwsmith said:
That's funny, because the first thing I thought was "how long will this take to turn into a 'Jack White sucks' thread?"

Looks like 38 minutes is my answer.
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I was a bit harsh, not a joke, but def not revered as some type of ground breaking forward thing guitar player.

Just kinda knowing about them prior to all the hype and now seeing it, it just makes me giggle a bit.
He has his thing and great.

Does he "suck"????Who am I to say. I just think he's elevated to a status that he has zero reason to be at.
Him and Curt Cobain.

As for a bass player that has that same vibe.......dunno.
 
#22
MikeBass said:
I was a bit harsh, not a joke, but def not revered as some type of ground breaking forward thing guitar player.

Just kinda knowing about them prior to all the hype and now seeing it, it just makes me giggle a bit.
He has his thing and great.

Does he "suck"????Who am I to say. I just think he's elevated to a status that he has zero reason to be at.
Him and Curt Cobain.

As for a bass player that has that same vibe.......dunno.
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Fair enough. I see your point.

I guess I just get annoyed any time someone posts about a band/person and ten people feel the need to come in and ruin the thread by talking about how much said band/person sucks.

But like I said, I see your point and the fact that you're not doing that.
 
#24
mpdd said:
it's not his fault that his band was the one that broke through out of the retro rock underground - i was turned off by the hype surrounding them, but i don't mind their music
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Never meant to imply any of that.

Again, he has his thing.
And it's magnified because his band had massive cross-over success.

If I had a big record deal and publisists going to every outlet and really pushing me, I'd be spoken lke I was a bass hero -just search for Fieldy.
Need I say more??

IMO, for every one very successful guy like him, there are 100 guys in every city doing the same thing that don't get any notice from their peers.

What I do like/respect about him though, is he actually seems to care about real music. Of many types.
Rare for an "artist" who gets to that level of success IMO. Someone who is a music lover.
 
#25
pnut166 said:
JW fascinates me for some reason. He isn`t that great a player, his singing is atrocious. But it`s his quirkiness that`s refreshing. He plays all that obscure, crap gear, records in outdated RTR studios, writes and records albums in weeks rather than months or years (the way it used to be done), generally shuns newer tech - a definite Luddite and throwback. He is a great songwriter / lyricist too, btw. A bassist version of him? No one I know of.
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It all just goes to prove that writing a good, solid song comes before everything. You can have the best gear, the best musicians, the best recording facilities with great engineers. But if the songs are crap, no-one will buy them!
 
#28
A lot of the people from the scene (the Medway garage trash scene) that Jack was heavily influenced by (and appropriated most of his "quirkiness" from) are multi-instrumentalists, e.g., most of the guitarists will also play bass and vice versa. They play what's required for the project(s) they're involved in, and they form and dissolve and reform bands constantly, sharing members back and forth.
 
#30
thombo said:
i was thinking mark sandman.
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thats all i could really think of.

hate to say it, but bass is generally a substantially less expressive instrument. sure.. the jaco's, the stanley clark's, the les claypool's, they can command an audience with just their instrument, but they are few and far between.

i like to think im pretty quirky and interesting with every instrument i play. ive got interesting taste and a sonic signature, but certainly not on that level. few of us do. and i imagine as a bassist only, id have an even harder time doing so.
 
#32
BassesForTheWin said:
Bass version Jack White=Les Claypool
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nah, Claypool is from a completely different school altogether in my mind... he's got that monster-chops ethic applied in a fearlessly progressive way. I imagine JW's minimalism as cutting across that grain. I think of him as a visual art installation that walks and talks, or performing musicologist of sorts. I think of Claypool as a chops obsessed musician, not unlike Bird in some ways.

To me JW's thing is similar in some ways to how early hip-hop was like the echo of the popular music that exploited the culture of an economic underclass (multiple layers of echoes of past artistic voices). Not sure that makes any real sense. Anyway, JW is doing it with riffs instead of beats. I think it's interesting stuff, but I can see why people who pride themselves on knowing how to play an instrument might tend to dismiss him as a non-musician.

I've worked for some songwriters who write good songs and do well for themselves, (much better than I've done as a sideman) but openly admit in rehearsals that they have a relatively rudimentary understanding of music and their instrument when compared to the depth of knowledge that the hired sidemen/women have. JW's talent has more to do with choosing the right riffs and putting the instrumentation together in a way that youth can relate to. Like Mikebass said, lots of people are (were?) doing it, but JW had the right combination of hustle and timing to become an astronomical commercial success. Mike also compared him to Cobain. I can see that comparison, but I don't share the disdain.

I think it takes a good dose of disgust with mainstream culture to push musical innovation forward in whatever direction floats your boat.
 
#34
derridiandrift said:
nah, Claypool is from a completely different school altogether in my mind...
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+1 to this post. JW will never win any awards for his skills, but he definitely knows how to write a good riff, and is creative in an outside-the-box way. Also like the hip hop analogy - JW is like a blender: add equal parts blues, pop, classic rock, indie, and Brit rock = puree. Claypool is also an "outside-the-box" guy (duh), but he is far more devoted to musicianship in a technical sense.
 
#35
thomashawk said:
I'll say Mike Watt, but only after Jack puts a few more miles on himself.
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And accomplishes more.

That's not to diminish Jack White, I happen to like him quite a bit. Watt's just been doing his thing a lot longer and has been very influential along the way. He's also underrated as a songwriter, IMO. On the other hand, he doesn't have a first-class producing/"revamping" credit like White does with Loretta Lynn.
 
#37
Deluge Of Sound said:
The genius of Jack White is that he's totally osmosis'd (osmosed?) himself with old blues 78's, but he forges forward with a sonic pallette that's uniquely his. ...As opposed to, say, the Black Keys, who (IMO) write pop songs that sound like a lost blues record.
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That and Dan Auerbach doesn't wankity wank wank like Jack White does in the Raconteurs.

Give Benson some space!
 
#39
MikeBass said:
Funny, when they were a local band here in Detroit, they/he was kinda a joke.
Give someone a record deal and a cover of Rolling Stone and they are on another level all of a sudden.
Just IMO....
At least Dave Grohl can play.
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Dave can play, but IMO he's not inspiring. He's really good at cranking out that pop song over and over.

Another vote for Watt! Thing is, I don't think he'd consider himself all that quirky. He just plays with all his heart and soul and makes a really nice racket!
 

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