1) John Francis Anthony “Jaco” Pastorius III — Jaco made the electric bass cool again. Not since Paul McCartney had a bass player commanded so much attention. I remember listening to Weather Report out of my parent’s tape collection.

2) Michael Peter “Flea” Balzary — He is a bad ass. Funky, tight and accurate. Plus, he is entertaining as hell to watch, a bad ass trumpet player and an accomplished actor. In my opinion, the spiciest of the Chili Peppers.

3) Victor Wooten — The man is a living god. He recently recorded the bible of bass playing with Stanley Clarke and Marcus Miller in 2008.

4) Geddy Lee — Geddy is the centerpiece of the Rush power trio. He serves up complex bass lines that intertwine with his vocal melodies better than most bassist/singers.

5) Steve Harris — Leader and songwriter for Iron Maiden, no one can play triplets better than Steve Harris. Steve is often under-rated among bass players, but I grew up Maiden so, my bias is obvious.

Runner ups

Sting — Sting is a cool dude that sings AND plays bass. He has a smooth, serpentine style that you can instantly recognize.

Les Claypool — You can’t deny that the dude can play bass. No one has ever sounded like Les Claypool.

Paul McCartney — Paul is the coolest bassist of all time. I am not a “Beatle-thumper”, but you can’t deny that without Paul, none of the other guys ever stood a chance.

Enjoy. Share.
Ivan

My Signal Pattern
My music personality is: Aggressive, Loud, and Percussive. Here’s what my FUSES model says:

FUSES stands for Forceful, Urban, Sophisticated, Earthy and Smooth. Your music traits cross music genres. For example. if one of your traits is “forceful”, you might like AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and Puff Daddy’s “Victory.” Our research team has carefully chosen a small number of musical prototypes or “probes” that research has shown can help to better understand a given individual’s musical tastes. The prototypes are the result of more than 10 years of research using tens of thousands of respondents, both on the internet and in laboratory settings.

My Take: Clips were cheesy, but the technology has promise
They played 40 different 15 second clips which I had to rate each one on a scale. The scale was from “I really dislike” to “I really love”. Many of the clips were cheesy, Muzak sounding tracks, which could account for why I scored so “aggro-ly”. This test is supposed to look beyond tastes and get results from deeper in the brain. I don’t totally agree with it, but the test was a fun way to spend 4 minutes and if enough people take it, could lead to some interesting data that bands and labels can use to launch new music. Check it out for yourself.

Take the Test:http://www.signalpatterns.com/music_survey

Please comment on what your results are.

Enjoy. Share.
Ivan

“You are bidding on a one of a kind drum. A Honeycut 6.5×14 snare drum. Equipped with 10 lugs, S-Hoops, Dunnett throw off with butt plate, new Evans G2 coated over 300 hazy, and Fat Cat snare wires. It has a custom ‘hot rod blue’ paint finish. This drum is nicknamed ‘The Caddy’. If you don’t know anything about Honeycut Drums you should find out (http://www.myspace.com/honeycutdrums). As you can see the shell is about 1/2″ thick and totally seamless akin to a solid wood shell. Honeycut uses a high density polyethylene which is a industrial plastic of the highest quality. No one makes drums out of this stuff. It is quite amazing. I have a lot of custom drums and this drum ranks up there with the best of them: Bradys, Dunnetts, Tempus, Ludwig, DW, you name it! Honeycuts give you added frequencies and sensitivity comparing it to wood. And you get plenty of volume from this 1/2″ thick shell–the rim shots will cut through any loud music for sure. But this snare does it all in the studio to the live stage.”

Go to eBay to see this Honeycut snare drum ››

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“Beginning Monday, January 5, CBC Radio 2 invites Canadians to help select the top ‘49 songs from north of the 49th parallel’ that would best define our country to the incoming U.S. President Barack Obama. His playlist could definitely benefit from some Canadian content, especially given the depth of our musical offerings – spanning a wide variety of genres and representing our culture from coast to coast.”

On the list, you can see selections from Arcade Fire, The Band, The Guess Who, k.d. lang, The Weakerthans, Crash Test Dummies and more. Rush makes an appearance with “Closer to the Heart” although I would’ve gone with “Spirit of the Radio” or “Subdivisions”. I am disappointed that Bryan Adams didn’t show on the list. Have we forgotten all the good times back in the Summer of ‘69?

Canadians are quite nationalistic when it comes to their radio. Under the Commercial Radio Policy, 35 per cent of all music aired each week on all AM and FM stations must be Canadian. To qualify as “Canadian content,” music must generally fulfill at least two of the following conditions (the MAPL system):

* M (music) – the music is composed entirely by a Canadian.
* A (artist) – the music and/or the lyrics are performed principally by a Canadian.
* P (production) – the musical selection consists of a live performance that is (i) recorded wholly in Canada, or (ii) performed wholly in Canada and broadcast live in Canada.
* L (lyrics) – the lyrics are written entirely by a Canadian.

Voting ends Friday, January 16 at 11 p.m. ET. So, what do you think are the most definitive 49 songs from North of the 49th parallel?

http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/obamasplaylist/

I <3 Canada,
Ivan