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Tina Weymouth
- Thread starter Raman
- Start date
Hi,
I absolutely adore Kim Deal's bass in the Pixies, even though indeed, she considers herself a musician before a bassist.
And so I like her as much as the Pixies' bassist as much as I love her as the Breeders, in which she gives the band's direction, including Wiggs or Mando Lopez. The Breeders and Kim Deal are always for me associated with heavy disquieting passive-aggressive bass hooks.
Thanks for that. In forgot just how cute she could be doing that little Tina shuffle thing she does.
(Also forgot about strobes. I used to hate it anytime a lighting guy hit any band I was in with a strobe light. Especially the ones that alternated blue and red along with white. Happily strobe effects pretty much went out of vogue after the late 60s..)
I still have so much of their work to go through but I've loved everything I've heard so far, specially how it all blended as a band.
Kim is one of the first musicians I studied in great detail. Her bass playing is so unique yet effective in that she’s largely indifferent to what the drummer is doing on the kick and usually keeps a steady tempo using downstrokes, every note exactly as loud as the last. It’s something that every player should be able to do and it drives me nuts that many cannot. I’ve told bass players to play like Kim and people act like it’s beneath them. And she doesn’t always follow this. Isla de Encanta is one I can think of where she does groove a bit. Pixies are a rhythmically interesting band, but most of that happens between the rhythm guitar and the drums. It’s almost as though she’s not part of a rhythm section, but she’s almost like playing a very reserved lead instrument.
Her guitar playing actually follows a lot of the same tendencies. A lot of downstrokes, a lot of eighth notes. So the bass starts being a much more standard instrument in the Breeders, both rhythm and melody. And Josephine is perfect at this. She can keep steady like Kim and plenty of Breeders songs do this and that’s where you can hear Kim’s influence, but she also tends to wants to follow the bass drum much more, add those extra sixteenth notes. And there’s a bounce to her notes that I don’t really hear in Kim. She also varies her tone more and does these register shifts that are so pleasing. I’m just saying it’s hard to imagine Kim selling that “Cannonball” bass line.
Kim is a brilliant writer, IMO. But when she was in the very first iteration of The Breeders, she was surrounded by Josephine, Tanya, and Britt, and all three were quite a bit more sophisticated at their instruments, and they could create these unexpected moments around all the space Kim left for them. Later versions of the band clearly put Kim in greater control and I don’t think they were ever as musically interesting, although they were more successful and perhaps more cohesive.
I don’t think it’s insulting for me to say Josephine is a better bassist. She clearly is. It’s like saying Tanya is 10x the guitarist that Kim is. She clearly is. She’s also a better singer, too. And writes just as well, in my opinion. Yet Kim is greater than the sum of the parts, so as a musician, taken holistically, she’s pretty superlative.
My late brother and I were so fortunate to see so many up and coming bands in Seattle in the late 70's early 80's. From the moment we saw Talking Heads we knew they were something special. They did have an underlying influence on the pop/punk scene at that time-- they made it acceptable to think outside the box in their music and lyrics. I was both spellbound and smitten with Tina, being a bass player myself. She was talented--stealthy--slinky-- onstage. The minute we start taking offense at recognizing when a person is an attractive person we've become a pathetic civilization.... So yeah, Tina had / has it all.
I better understand what you were saying. And you know, listening over and over to All Nerve for the last week, I completely concur with you on Josephine Wiggs' bassmanship !
I doubt if anyone would legitimately claim Kim was more proficient on bass than Josephine, including Kim herself. Similarly to Honeyiscool, I like both for different reasons (admiring Josephine's playing more so) but, if fairy godmother is only going to give me songwriting or technical proficiency, I'd choose songwriting. Dave Grohl was happy to state that Taylor Hawkins drummed the pants off him (Taylor looked embarrassed when he said it); as well as being true, it doesn't hurt much to admit when you have that string to your bow.
Also, going further than alaskalefty, anyone who wants looks to be discounted further the more of a musician a person is - good luck with that agenda. I deal with that problem all the time; until the alarm goes off and I have to get up.
Reading back, my paragraph is a bit Stop Making Sense. I was saying that being a musician in a well-known band makes an already attractive person even more attractive; no point in pretending it doesn't happen. I don't remember any of the fans pointing at John Taylor and saying "nice floating thumb technique".
The last bit was "happens to me all the time - and then I wake up"
The last bit was "happens to me all the time - and then I wake up"
He's still handsome even now. I have to admit I'm a little envious.
Waves at another Lefty!Reading back, my paragraph is a bit Stop Making Sense. I was saying that being a musician in a well-known band makes an already attractive person even more attractive; no point in pretending it doesn't happen. I don't remember any of the fans pointing at John Taylor and saying "nice floating thumb technique".
The last bit was "happens to me all the time - and then I wake up"
I think the folks throwing around the word agenda have one of their own.
