And what about the bass...

Yeah. The bass. It isn't quite a neat and clean a story as the drums.

My first instrument was the chord organ when I was about 8 (1978). It was what was available in our house. I still regret that I was never forced to take piano lessons as a child. Maybe my parents didn't have the money or maybe it never occured to them. But when an 8 year old sits down at the crappy keyboard in your house without anyone prompting them to...you'd think this would point to piano lessons. But alas, I digress.

Before you knew it I was in middle school and starting the cello (1982). Why I chose the cello is embarrasing. My mom thinks it is because of the tv show "Fame" and Lori Singer. This is completely untrue. My interest in Fame came AFTER joining orchestra. Actually, I wanted to play french horn. I have no idea why. But I didn't want to be in marching band because I was afraid I'd get my period and bleed on my uniform and everyone would see. Neurosis. So I decided to go with orchestra instead. Violin was my first choice...but again...I was afraid I was too fat and would look dumb playing violin. So I picked cello so I could hide behind it. No joke. I've been messed up a long time.

I bring all this up because cello led to guitar and bass. I had a broken electric bass I trash picked and I'd goof with it because the finger spacing was similiar to cello. Shortly after taking up cello around 1982, I taught myself to play my dad's acoustic guitar from chord charts on pop music. All open first position chords.

I set the bass down for a good long time. Around 1994 I was asked to play cello in a bizarre rock/folk band as a kind of proxy bass. I was living with a professional bass player at the time, so at some point I picked up her electric bass and played it a few times, but it was pretty limited exposure. Somewhere along the line I figured out playing root notes.

In 2003 I accidentally joined The Motor Primitives on bass and played with them for about 7 months before kind of getting kicked out for someone better. We morphed into Pants del Fwego and I continued playing with them until around 2008. All that time I basically did nothing more but play the root, third, or fifth of the guitar chords. I never listened to any recordings of the songs we played. I never practiced outside rehearsal.

In December 2009 RS off handedly mentioned the Pixies tribute band idea after I begged him to led me play bass in the Escapists. I started learning Pixies songs in secret and found Kim Deal's 8th note root based style a perfect match to my limited skill set. By March we were a band, played out in April...and on it goes.

Some time in spring 2010 I took a bass class...and tried to start lessons. But both left me cold. It was like jumping in the deep end of music theory. I could see the value and I could follow along somewhat...but it made it quite a lot of work. Meanwhile I've managed to decifer 3/4 of the bass parts that the Pixies have. Clearly there is a gap between learning and doing here. Granted, Kim Deal isn't playing any greatly complicated bass lines...but she is doing something well that propels the music. And that's the kind of bass I like.

I'd like to get more serious on the bass, but I don't know if it will ever become a priority. Much of what I like about bass is that it is fun and not very stressful for me. There's less riding on you than in the drum throne. While I wouldn't want that to be my primary role...it's a nice break sometimes. It puts the fun back in playing music. It's relaxing instead of stressful.

While technically I've been playing bass off and on for about 28 years now...I guess I'd mark the "real" start as 7 years ago...and the "serious" start as a year ago. Though I'm not sure that I've actually HAD the serious start yet.

Still too much drum stuff to learn.

I will comment, though, that I read often about the benefits of drummers playing other instruments. I certainly value the time I've put in with other instruments when I'm playing drums. And I value the time spent in ensembles of all kinds when playing in bands. But the bass and the drums are certainly the most closely tied of the instruments in a band...and it is really useful to have some language with both when sitting in the opposite role.