Chicks Dig Bass

An interweb friend of mine said that he would burn me a disc of some SUNN0))) rarities and stuff - little was I expecting TEN DVD-Rs OF DRONEY GOODNESS!!! It's like the Alexandrian Library of drone bands I've heard of, but haven't heard in years, and things I've heard of but never heard, and some stuff I've never even heard of. It's going to take me months to work my way through it, but oh, what funs await.

I listened to two SUNN0))) albums in a row last night, and yeah, I can't be cool and say I've been into them from the start, I've only just started getting into them because the whole Death Metal capes thing put me off. But no, this isn't Art Metal or whatever you want to call it, this is DRONE at its very purest, drone stripped bare down the WUB and the bass vibrations. I had to program a whole new EQ setting on my iTunes in order to properly enjoy it - but still, it just made me wish I had a decent stereo - indeed, any stereo with proper bassbins. My poor neighbours.

I've had this conversation at Morgen und Nite gigs, though... about extreme sound, especially extreme bass. High end too loud is just horrible, tinny and headache-inducing. But full-spectrum bass-heavy wall of sound... there's something so envelopping, so soothing about it. You just want to lie back in the sound and let it wash over you, let it hold you up and support you.

And this shit is as much about the bass as disco or booty-bass or whatever. Low end. Big bottomed girls. Like someone decided to cover "Dreamweapon" solely on bass (no guitars, no drums, no vocals, no distractions, just pure bass drone) and then play it at the wrong speed - 17rpm or something. Monster bass. Gargantuan bass. Bass strings the length of the cables that hold up the Brooklyn Bridge.

Why do GURLZ like bass so much? There was a thread on ILM a while ago, about why there are so many female bass players. I mean, ignoring the obvious stereotype (guitarist or singer decides to start a band - get your bro or your mate to play drums. Who's gonna play the bass? Oh yeah, get yer girlfriend to do it.) LOTS of girls play bass as their perferred instrument.

We started joking about how it's because the actual physical motion of playing the bass (stroking with your fingers) mimicks female masturbation like the left hand work of guitar solos mimics male wanking. Or maybe it's the way that bass vibrations ha-HEM resonate with the feminine AREA. (I mean, who hasn't sat on a spinning washing machine or a bass bin at a club when horny/hard up?) Probably it's more about the way that the bass is the glue that holds music together, but me? I think it's about the bass vibrations. Oh yeah.