Monday, June 26, 2006  2:52 am 

2 kindsa bass

Today we are going to talk about bass grammar kids…the bass is a flexible tool you can use in different ways when you are making a song, here you have two examples:

Bass as verb

In this case the bass is the glue bringing all the different elements of the song together, it takes it wherever it’s going, think for example of the daram daram daram dararam in Cavern by Liquid Liquid or anything by ESG: if your song was an x-wing this bass would be its hyperspace engine.

10Lec6- Bla Bla Bla (version)

Ok, we have posted 10Lec6 thrice, but the two times before it was Steve and Stuart, now it’s my turn. I liked 10Lec6 until I bought their ‘Join Us’ 12” recently released by the always exciting Troubleman, then I started loving them.

10Lec6 have been compared to Crass, and indeed, here you have them, going all punk funk in your ass, or didn’t Crass do the disco in Walls (Ashley tells me it goes a storm whenever he plays it at Sabbath)? This is so simultaneously funky and tinny it puts me in a paradoxical state whenever I dance to it, it sounds like Panico playing in the loo while someone erm, euch gross!

And the cowbell.

We’ll have them playing at thedoclub in September, get ready for a self-righteous punk dance party, bitch.

Bass as accent

Here the bass emphasises certain aspects of the rythm and brings it home, you might be tempted to argue that its less essential than before, well, I’d advise you to listen to Vitamin C by Can and imagine it without the staccato thumping. If your song was an x-wing, this bass would be its proton torpedoes.

I love Grime, I think it is the most exciting music genre to emerge in the last 10 years or so, it constitutes a new way of making, distributing and living music, and has spawned a fascinating subculture with its own rules and customs, admittedly a dark side too, I can’t but gasp at its innovativeness, its lack of respect for the genres it shreds to pieces and the technology it subverts in a wild, mad way.

It is so geographically localised in certain areas of London, a whole socio-economic milieu and a network of ‘artists not Rave MCs’ and the other way around I don’t think it will ever be ‘big’ as some people have expected and/or hoped for, it seems that Grime can only be underground, and when an artist is signed and makes a big release, something is lost in the transition/translation, who cares when you have scores of up and coming ambitious and voracious MCs and producers waiting and ready to step on in the place of those few who try to get in the charts and sell in the USA,

Of course Dizzee Rascal would be the exception to this, but then he is the most important artist to come out of the UK in the last generation.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen more Grime in this blog it’s because there are more suitable places for it, such as Chantelle Fiddy or Prancehall. I don’t think I know enough to write about it in even a semi-constant basis, but let me break this rule today, as this tune, besides being rather ace, illustrates nicely the punctuating bass thang I was talking about before.

JME- Pence

Actually I wouldn’t say this is really Grime, but some sort of weird electroid Jam in the style of good old Neptunes, with JME, one of the fastest wittiest yep, best MCs around, going all smooth and fast and Ying Yang on your ass, which should be shaking in that chair ten seconds after you press play, press rewind if this hasn’t blown your mind. Included in the recently released Poomplex mixtape.

Why the blurb about grime above? Just so you know what I think.

Big holla to Genuine Guy and his fantastic Fake Evisu compilations, and the Grimewatch column at Vice Magazine.

End of the lesson, coming soon, bass as a swear word.

ps- Dale, former member of our beloved Need New Body is going to be around the UK until July the 2nd, he has started the Superbompers band with some kids and is trying to play London, Brighton: house show/parties, wherever. According to him it’ll probably be arty and noisey and dancey and fun, gig and video performance, we have checked them out and found them real agreeable, drop us a line if you’re interested, or contact him at laserbeef69@yahoo.com.

pps- One of the pooterweb servers supporting our endeavours went down on Sunday evening, in order to post this we are relying on mr. Jobs’ macspace thang, which has been quite sketchy lately, it will have to do for now. Apologies for the ‘no frills’ presentation, you will have Cosey and Brian, the Can giant, Davros and the rest of the happy 20JFG virtual family back soon enough. Ah, and fuck the Kooks and Nicholas Cage.

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