This Old Will Never Be New Again

August 4, 2006... At some point, almost everything old in music is new again. Space age bachelor pad music, for example, was big in the 1950s, relegated to the scrapheap of history in 1960s, and rose again through the efforts of Stereolab, Combustible Edison and Pink Martini in the 1990s.

Similarly, consider the case of the clavinet. The clavinet was thee keyboard to have in 1972 and the secret ingredient in Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" and Billy Preston's "Outa Space," both of which were hits that year. By 1982, though, the clavinet wasn't even being made anymore. Yet in 1992, you couldn't swing a bat at a twenty-somethings' house party without hearing that fucker. They's clavinet all over the Beastie Boys and Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy records of the era.

Billy Preston asked "Will it go 'round in circles?" We can now say definitively that yes, indeed it will--unless it's the bass guitar sound on these three tracks...

The Move - Night of Fear

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention - What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?

Love - My Little Red Book

I learned today of the death from leukemia of Arthur Lee. Lee wrote or co-wrote a couple dozen scorchers as leader of the psychedelic folk-rock band Love during the 1960s. Unfortunately, "My Little Red Book" wasn't one of them. Oh, it's a good song, allright, and Lee sang it well, but the royalties cheques arrive in Burt Bacharach and Hal David's mailbox.

However, all of this is beside the point. What I want to know is: how did they get the bass guitar to sound so shitty? I mean, I've heard more sustain from a plucked grape. Seriously! The same is true of today's other two songs, both of which also date back to the 1960s

That magical bass sound, I'd venture to say, is one old that will never be new again. And that's too bad.

*****

There is a version of Zappa's We're Only in it for the Money out there with different bass tracks dubbed in after the fact and/or the original bass tracks puffed up with effects. Unfortunately, there is no warning of this on the CD packaging. If you buy a copy and it doesn't sound like shit, bring the fucker back. It's meant to be heard like it was meant to be heard.

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