Background: It was1989. My brother had a Service Merchandise bought bass. I had marijuana. He needed the marijuana and i needed the bass. I was now a bassist. I was terrible. I am just a little bit better now.
Flash forward 24 years and many bands later, i want to share with you those who inspired me to keep the bridge between the high and low end together.
Early influences:
* denotes major influence.
Eric Avery. *
David J. *
Andy Rourke.
Kira Roessler. *
Simon Gallup.*
Dan Lilker.*
Andrew Weiss.*
Flea.*
Norwood 'Fish' Fisher.*
From the 90's to today:
Les Claypool.*
Geezer Butler.
Kim Gordon.
Mike Watt.*
Paul Simonon.*
Trevor Dunn.*
Graham Lewis.
Rob Wright.*
My favorite bassist?
Probably Kira Roessler.
She was direct and succinct, but had one hell of a time keeping up with Greg Ginn's time changes and weird
anomalous playing in Black Flag. Listen to their album 'In My Head' or 'Live in '84' to get a good idea of her playing.
In fact, my favorite version of Black Flag coincides with the fact that the first punk tape i purchased in the summer of 1988 was Flag's 'In My Head.' So repeated sessions in my basement room probably drilled that in.
Here's a pic of the Black Flag line up that i like the most:
L-R: Greg Ginn, Henry Rollins, Bill Stevenson and Kira Roessler hoisting some java between marathon practice sessions.
So search some of the lesser known names out of you want. Check out Nomeansno and early Wire for sure.
And Mike Watt is HIGHLY overrated. But The Minutemen were great.
