In the Begining

The main purpose of this blog is gonna be about my experiences in music and stuff to do with Bass Guitar. So I'm gonna try stick to that theme and build on it through posts. I'll put all my bass stuff on My Bass Page as I go. I first started playing bass guitar about 15 years ago or more.. well hmmm i can't remember exactly how long ago. But anyway I used to jam with friends playing in bands where I was a very basic keyboard/piano player.  Yes these we the days of playing in 80's cover bands!! could there be anything worse?  But lets hold up a minute, thankfully my musical journey really began a few more years before this time. Thanks to my parents, I had the opportunity to take up playing the trumpet in primary school.  Inspired by the opening theme from Star Wars  I just had to play the trumpet!!


So I insisted in primary school that I 'had' to play it - none of this piss-ant squarky-arse clarinet shit that they were pushing on me. So for $400 (which was a fair cop in those days)  they bought me a shiny new Yamaha trumpet on the promise that "i would practice everydaaay".  And I did. I was'nt a bad trumpet player. I can safely say playing the trumpet is about as much as I have in common with the master and bass lord FLEA oh and yes, he plays bass too. More on him later. 


I soon learned playing trumpet along to Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" or the trumpet part in The Models song "Out of Mind Out of Sight" was'nt exactly rocking out!!  My good friend in high school, Eliot, a great muso and fan of music, (and now accomplished actor) taught me to play piano.  We were both doing music at Perth Modern School. We shared the latest (and "alternative") music tapes and records of the day. I used the piano more really to allow me to play along or learn whatever song i heard on the radio or on a record which I liked.

These years are probably when I learned the most about popular music.  I think it helped me today when I try to think of or compose bass parts or contribute to the writing of songs.  I guess you build like a data bank of "what sounded cool" almost subconsciously in your mind which sometimes can help you shape a part of song.