strangegrey wrote:Absolutely, the band's music is tailored to Geddy's playing. Look at their recent covers album (ugh, fucking covers albums!!!
another thread though)....They took those songs and reworked them to fit into Rush's mold. A HUGE percentage of the Rush mold is Geddy Lee's bass playing...It's unique, I will give you that...and that's the draw to it.
I usually despise covers albums also. Rush's "Feedback" is the only one in my collection that I like, though. To tell the truth, I only have that one and a couple of other cover albums anyway, just because I'm typically not interested in buying them. Besides that, when I listen to Rush, and I've been listening to them intently for many years now, I've never gotten the feeling that, overall, their music is tailored any more to Geddy's playing than it is to Peart's, for instance, other than a song or two here or there or a couple of albums from the 80s like "Power Windows". Fortunately, their last several albums have been more guitar-heavy, instead of that synth phase they went through from "Signals" through "Roll the Bones" (although they were toned down on "Presto" and "Roll the Bones).
But too many bass players have used Rush as a template for their own music....only to forget that Geddy Lee is a very good bassist that STILL needs bass pedals in play when he gets all "I'm going to be a guitarist now" and does silly stuff up on the neck...
...I stated above that Rush makes heavy use of Bass Pedals in their live performance. That's no accident. They NEED those pedals in there to keep the pocket alive, while Geddy needs to self justify. That's not a good thing in my opinion....because it suggests that when Geddy does decide to wank....they need help because Geddy left the pocket hanging with it's dick in the wind. Same thing goes for Yes. I LOVE squire's playing....but make no mistake, when Squire does what he does, Wakeman, Kaye, Rabin, Sherwood or that Russian guy...or whomever you've seen with the band....is covering Chris's ass while Chris leaves the pocket.
Isn't that what is supposed to happen, though? When a guitarist in a one guitar band plays a solo, doesn't somebody have to fill the void, so to speak? If it happens with other instruments, why can't it happen for the bassist?
I may be wrong here but aren't the bass pedals only typically used when he is busy playing a keyboard part? I'd have to go watch my "Rush in Rio" DVD to verify that, though. Again, your definition of "silly" doesn't hold water because someone else might actually enjoy it or it may not phase them one way or the other. Eye of the beholder type stuff, really.
Anyway, here is a statement by Lee on his use of bass pedals...
Geddy Lee wrote:"You’re known for using bass pedals quite often. Do you like to play them or would you always play just bass guitar if you could?
It usually seems like the pedals are a last resort, but there are times when I could be playing bass and I opt to play pedals, just because I like the dynamic textural change. On “Show Don’t Tell” [Presto], I could easily play bass guitar during the choruses and trigger other things with my foot, but I really like the way the bottom end of the room opens up with those big pedal notes. Now, with samplers, I can play pedal sounds on the keyboard and I don’t need to use my feet."
Boy, one band that needs someone to fill the hole, though, is Foreigner. I've only seem them live twice and I have one live DVD, but their live sound seems to be missing something.
The analogy by stevew2 is perfectly stated in that when a bassist decides to forget about the pocket to become a self serving soloist fuckwad, he does so at the expense of the rest of the band....when a bass player leaves the pocket, the whole fucking thing, the song, the other players, even the drumer, gets completely lost.
Totally agreed with most bands. Not with Rush, however.
Regardless....and getting back to the OP. There's ALOT more subtlety to playing bass....and thats what makes a bassist a good bassist....a good friend of mine has been a geddy lee wanna be since I've known him. Another bassist I know, who happens to play for a big name band in MR....calls him 'Groove Killer"....tells you something...
That tells me something about THAT bassist, not Lee.
Again, there are certainly a lot of bands where a bassist like Lee wouldn't work at all. It works for Rush, though, for whatever reason. It works for Yes and there are a few other bands like that. There are also bands that have just one guitarist and you don't really ever miss the second player. Journey is a good example of that. Then there are bands with just one guitarist and it doesn't really work all that well. In the end, it really depends on the kind of music the band is playing and how good the players are.
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 8:22 am