Monday Moan / Tuesday Twaddle #5

Technically, it is Tuesday, but my brain is still in Monday.

Tonight's tune of choice: 'Black Velvet' - Alannah Myles (No, Blogger, don't lie and tell me I spelled her first name wrongly!) I love the song, and I do miss playing it live...

Which brings me onto my first moaning point:

I have about 2 and a bit weeks...

*checks iCal*

*spends 5 minutes fixing iCal events that have gone wrong*

*corrects to 10 minutes*

I have two weeks and four (sorry, three!) days to learn two set lists, write close to 20 bass lines and memorise them... So I thought I would tackle this as soon as possible.

So, I took up my bass, the song, and the chords and...

...

Exactly. Where DOES a good bass line come from? :-
1) The musical talent? Sadly, lacking.
2) Ones talent to playing an instrument? Again, sadly lacking. I will acknowledge, I can play very well. I find myself lacking any improvisational skills.
3) The song itself? The song is a piece for solo voice and guitar. Finding a bass line that will endeavour to not draw attention from the lyrics is tough.

I've currently resigned myself to playing root notes, which is so unbelievably mind-numbingly dull it makes me want to break an arm or perform cranial drill intrusion to reduce myself to a level of playing where finding and following root notes was a challenge...!

I've never considered myself dexterous or musically gifted, but I hold my playing in higher value than someone who was lumbered with playing the bass because it was the last instrument left to play in the band, or because playing the guitar was too difficult, and root notes feels like an absolute fucking cop out!

I feel so much like Angron today; bitter, broken, twisted... I can feel so much vile anger in my chest, like a solid, tennis ball sized mass. It's stopping me from switching off, if indeed I've ever been able to switch off. It's leaking some foul, bitter fluid into my blood, setting the muscles in my arms aflame, making me want to ball my hands into fists, to scream in frustration and initiate a short, sharp, bloody and expensive, whirlwind of destruction in which items both highly valued and highly valuable will be smashed into component parts and defenestrated...

So, why do I feel this way? Is my inability to write a creative, subtle bass line REALLY causing me so much anger? I'd be a fool to think so.

Is this the real me? a diminutive, perpetually angry little boy?

Is it the alcohol? Has my recent tee-totalism, followed by my even more recent few drinks, just tipped me over the edge?

Is it something more? Am I coming closer to needing a priest rather than a therapist?

Is it a simple case of cabin fever? The sight of the same four walls driving me to distraction?

I have more questions than I have answers.

Perhaps the best idea would be for me to have The Butcher's Nails installed, given two oversized chain axes and sent on a murderous rampage until armed response police shot me dead...

Who knows?