A Bass Post

Les Claypool, Cliff Burton, Flea, and Victor Wooten are the most talked about bassists on YouTube. I will state my opinion:
1. Les Claypool is a monster slapper with great stamina and coordination (he sings at the same time)!! Everything about his playing is different and groundbreaking, he's just a joy to listen to. But the best? No. Few people can do all he does, but I have a feeling that he can't play like Victor Wooten.

2. Cliff Burton was the bassist for Metallica in the 80's. People herald him as groundbreaking, but he was not that groundbreaking really. He's seen as a "bass shredder" but Billy Sheehan would make him cry. Metallica was and is a popular band, so people think he's the best because all other popular music has poor bass representation.

3. Flea is like a modern-day Cliff Burton. He's excellent, no doubt, but the only reason he's heralded as the best is because people a. think showiness=quality and b. the Red Hot Chili Peppers are very popular. A few months ago my friend who plays keyboard challenged me to find a better bassist than Flea. Of course I pulled up Victor Wooten on YouTube, knowing that he would never appreciate Jaco Pastorius (or James Jamerson). What I quickly garnered from his reaction to Victor was that he sought the flashiest player. That eliminated Stanley Clarke also. So I brought up Stu Hamm, whose intricate tapping was not perceived as more difficult than rapid slapping. I figured out that my friend pretty much only liked bass and thought it was awesome whilst slapping- like most of the population. Forgetting about Les Claypool, I brought up Jonas Hellborg, but he still didn't concede. I knew he would hate Alex Webster and Billy Sheehan, so I just let him drown in ignorance and self-righteousness. I didn't know about Franck Hermanny back then. Here is a list of bassists that I believe I could surpass in my lifetime:
John Myung, Flea, Alex Webster, Juan Alderete, Chris Squire, Cliff Burton, and Paolo Gregoletto.

New Almost Favorite Band

Spastic Ink is an amazing progressive metal band that sounds like a cross between Citriniti and Blotted Science, and overall much more coherent than Behold...the Arctopus. I heard their song "Multi Masker" during the credits of this video, and went over to Project Playlist to hear some other songs. They are way more technical than Dream Theater usually is. It makes sense that it sounds like a less-heavy version of Blotted Science, because it's the same guy running both trios: Ron Jarzombek. He's an incredible player - he might be the most progressive musician I've found. His songs are incredibly complex, but he also does concept albums and writes music to go along with video clips. They're so awesome!!! The bass gets at least one long solo per song, and the rest of the band doesn't insult him by dropping out.

Unique Web Site

Search for "semmai serkil" in Google, and I guarantee that this is the only website to contain those two words. It's like "Semi Circle", except spelled differently. I now officailly reserve it for an album title, Google searchers.

Good Ideas of mine

1. A glass ketchup bottle with a valve in the back.
Seriously! How many times have you tried to slather ketchup all over your delicious Freedom Fries and wonderful burger, tapped thrice on the label and everything, and nothing comes out? You know how gas cans have valves in the back to allow air in? Well if resteraunts insist on inconvenient yet spiffy glass bottles for condiments, I propose valves in the bottim. More ideas later.

Progressive Finances

In Econ class, it sounds like there are two main financial companies in the area: Edward Jones and Charles Schwab. My initial bias was towards the former, but my teacher uses the latter, so now I'm confused - except for about an hour ago, when I was watching 30 Rock and a Charles Schwab commercial came on - the music was in 7/4!! Granted, it was the completely lame syncopation thing that every simpleton prog band does - a 7/8 rhythm twice, so the syncopation makes it resolve better. Cheap and common! Seriously, I've heard Dream Theater, Yes, Steve Vai, Jeff Beck, the Flower Kings, Umphrey's McGee, Between the Buried & Me, Scale the Summit, and I think Fantomas do it - and that's only off the top of my head, I've heard abut twice that. Seriously people!!
Anyway, I will talk to Chuck then.

Fates Warning

Fates Warning has consistently listed along with Dream Theater, Symphony X and Queensrÿche as pioneers of progressive metal, but today was the first time I've ever actually listened to them. It turns out that the quality of bands decrease as you move further along: Dream Theater is the apex of all that is good; Symphony X has sweet power metal symphonic neoclassical prog, Queensryche is more like Iron Maiden diluted by Led Zeppelin (cool and powerful for sure, but scarcely prog), and Fates Warning is like an annoying rock band with an occasional time signature change. Disappointment. See for yourself.