Category Archives: Bass Line of the Week

Bass Line #4: Friendly Fires – On Board

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If it hadn’t been for Ed Mac, Edd, and Jack of Friendly Fires, I never would have become friends with Phil or joined up with There Goes the Fear in the summer of 2009. The St. Albans band were the first band after I’d become a music blogger I followed to the UK to see live; they headlined the Dot to Dot festival in 2009 and I caught them in their top of the bill slot at Nottingham Rock City.

This was also the site – well, to be fair, it was on their tour bus parked in the car park of Rock City – of my first in-person interview. Talk about being thrown into the fire. To say I was nervous was a massive understatement, especially when their tour manager gestured for me to go up the stairs into the bus and I nearly walked right into the back of frontman Ed Macfarlane. (Whoops.) Since then, every single time I’ve managed to see them live in America, the three of them have always been so nice and pleased to see one of their regulars coming round again to see them play.

This was one of their mainstays in the early, pre-‘Pala’ days. ‘On Board’ boasts a funky as all hell bass line played by Macfarlane on record, and it’s easy to see how his personal affinity to house music fed into the way this song sounds. Also enjoy the promo video, which I had the pleasure of finding out personally from the band on that very bus was actually all their mates dressed up in costumes created by a very artistic friend of a friend who dressed up as a shrimp to collect her university diploma in art (not kidding). The video is endearing in its DIY nature. Back when they was!

I was unsuccessful in finding a bass cover of the song, which is probably just as well as the ones I saw for ‘In the Hospital’ and ‘Skeleton Boy’ were god awful. I guess it just goes to show that Ed Macfarlane is an amazing bassist and any attempts to duplicate the super funky underlying bass lines of Friendly Fires songs will remain masterless except by their original master.

Bass Line #3: The Stone Roses – She Bangs the Drums

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I’m not touching the meaning of the Stone Roses‘ ‘She Bangs the Drums’ right now, as it wasn’t until last year when I started reading what other people thought the song was about, and boy, do some people think it’s dirty! I’m not convinced it’s actually about a girl drummer John Squire fell in love with…

No, today’s bass line post is all about Mani’s mastery of the best part of the song. (Well, the Ian Brown lyrics aren’t bad, but every time I think about the song, I want to give him a slap on the side of the head and tell him, “dude, you wrote such a dirty song! Why’d you do that?” Haha.) The bass shines during the “guitar solo”, which is a misnomer, because it’s really a bass solo with a guitar overlaid on top. So there.

I went on YouTube to find a cover, and this dude’s got huge hands. Which makes me wonder if it’s just easier for men to play bass because they can cover more ground on the fretboard because their hands are bigger? (Mind out of the gutter, ladies.)

Bass Line #2: The Cure – Just Like Heaven

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Today’s bass line is The Cure‘s ‘Just Like Heaven’. Such a perfect song, and it’s the bass line that anchors the whole thing. You may think, ok, it’s pretty repetitive. But that’s often the beauty of bass lines – while the note progressions may look simple, the bassist has free reign to move around and move his/her body to the music, which is pretty important to me because I could never stay stock still the way some keyboardists do when they’re in front of their Nords / Korgs / Moogs / etc. A lot of what bass is, it’s about feeling the music and letting the rhythm take control of your body, completely immersing yourself in the music. That’s why I love playing bass so much. I don’t have to deal with learning chord after chord and worrying where my pinky is. I just…attack!

This is also an important track to me, as I will never look at it the same way again after hearing it in a club a couple weeks ago, singing along to it with friends at the top of our lungs. Doesn’t get any better than that.

Listen to the track and watch the video of the band performing at Bestival 2011 below; under that is an impressive bass ‘cover’ by someone who obviously is good people, as he’s got Liverpool FC bedspread and curtains!