The Chase (the blog quebecois)

The Chase

The Band That Would Not Die™ is back! I've decided to feature these in more-or-less chronological order. Bonus: Because we improved markedly over the last year we played regularly, all of them will be better than this one!

I wasn't certain about including this. It's not especially notable musically, and the recording is not very good, with dropouts (I'm not sure if I had the recording levels up too high, or if the guitar pedals we were using -- some combination of flanger, chorus and distortion/fuzztone -- were interacting in some strange way) scattered throughout. (I'm not just talking about my inspired technical wizardry at the end, when I twisted the master volume control up and down, producing an effect uncannily like someone twisting the master volume control up and down.) I don't recall that we noticed it at the time, so it could also be the tape, which can (especially when it's some el-cheapo variety) undergo something known as "print- or bleedthrough" if in storage for long periods.

I never considered myself much of a musician. (we can tell! -- ed. ) However, I did consider myself a songwriter, something I'd been doing even before I learned to play (we can't tell! -- ed.) an instrument.

I only started playing bass when we formed our band. I'd heard that Sid Vicious literally hadn't played a note on the bass (he was, briefly, a drummer in another punk band) before Malcolm McLaren put together the Sex Pistols, and I figured: Hey, if that moron can learn it, I can too. (heh -- you just called yourself a moron -- ed.]

Shut up, ed. Don't make me come down there.

We needed an instrumental for the "rock opera" Don't ask! -- ed. we were working on and this piece seemed to fit the bill. I was finally starting to get comfortable with the bass, launching into descending or ascending bass lines 2! 3! 3½! measures away and miraculously hitting my target (usually). That might not mean a lot to you, but it meant a lot to me; and potentially it might have spared me some pain in the future. Bass notes are BIG notes, and you'd better hit them on time, because everybody notices them. Especially the drummer. Screw up his groove and he's likely to throw his drumsticks at you. And he usually has a lot of drumsticks.

Afterwards we stuck the cassette in the car and went cruising downtown with it blasting away. It felt like we were on the cusp of garage-band godhood or something. Mind you, we were pretty stoned by that time, so our perceptions might have been faulty.

Anyway, so here it is. (Warning: Embedded QuickTime audio.) It's over seven minutes, so consider that you'll never get that time back if you decide to listen to it. Therefore don't bother writing me and complaining. You'll just be wasting more of your time, and mine.

Just Like A Woman

Tags:

Posted by gnotalex on November 18, 2007 10:07 PM | Permalink

TrackBack

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The Chase:

» Fire In The Waxworks from the blog quebecois
I roughly divide our recording "career" into three parts. The first, as I've mentioned before, was mainly jam sessions. We started adding vocals near the end of this period, but mostly on jokey material like our "rock opera" and the... [Read More]

» Warning Shots from the blog quebecois
When my cousin came over to record, we'd usually have a cup of coffee (occasionally stronger refreshments were served) before heading down to the basement. In September 1983 the radio was ablaze with the news that the Soviet Union had... [Read More]

About

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on November 18, 2007 10:07 PM.

The previous post in this blog was Frumpton * Comes Alive!.

The next post in this blog is It Seems.

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

the blog quebecois

The Chase

Tags:

TrackBack

Comments (25)

Search

About