2 posts tagged “mighty boosh”
Bootsy's bass is awesome, but he doles out the slapping-and-popping very sparingly. I feel Howard Moon's frustration in waiting to get to the slap-bass solo:
What Howard needs is Elegant Punk, a 1984 album of solo bass pieces by Swedish bass guitarist Jonas Hellborg. Actually all he needs is track five, "It's the Pits, Slight Return" on an endless loop (if Ivan the bear will let him listen to it):
A three-minute-forty-seven-second slap bass solo will give anyone their fill, and then some. If slap bass is the icing on the cake of funk, listening to this song is like eating a whole tub of icing. It's great at first, but you have trouble finishing it, and when you do you vow not to eat any more icing for a long time. (That's not strictly true, I just listened to it three times and I might not be done yet, but then again I'm multitasking.) All bass matters eventually come around to Bill Laswell, it seems: Hellborg and Laswell were partners in Greenpoint Studios in New York in the late 80s/early 90s, and Hellborg appears on several Bill Laswell productions.
The slap-and-pop technique of bass playing was supposedly invented by Larry Graham of Sly and the Family Stone, and was first heard on record on "Everyday People." Check out Larry's magnificent necklace at 1:58--
I want one like that!
Robert Musso's "All Funked Up" isn't fast enough to be a cruising-down-the-freeway song, so it is my official "cruising-down-the-boulevard-with-the-top-down" song (with the same qualifications as the previous entry, plus there is no boulevard in Ithaca). Musso is a recording engineer, best known (to me) for his work on countless Bill Laswell projects. He is also a musician, primarily a guitarist for his solo albums and his noise-jazz group Machine Gun, but also a synth whiz for his albums as Transonic. On this track from his 1992 album Active Resonance, Musso is joined by Bootsy Collins and the JB Horns for an infectious funk workout.
Bootsy may be the funkiest dude ever; all he has to do is say "Aw, yeah" and a song immediately becomes funky before he even touches his Space-Bass (which then increases the Funk exponentially). What is the Funk? Where did it come from? How does it work? How did Bootsy get it? What happened to it? Fans of The Mighty Boosh (the best comedy series of this century, and possibly the most creative ever) will know already, but others should watch and learn from Old Gregg:
