John Hancotte's Bass Desires: Friday On My Mind, Part 2: Premium Power Pop From Last Call at Coldbrews

Here's a fun band, Last Call, that I've befriended through James Terry's Gong Crazy Productions. They specialize in a lot of tunes that I don't get to play in other bands. Namely, a plethora of '90's alt-rock and '80's college rock (that's what we called in back then, anyways). They also do a fair amount of Tom Petty - the chicks (meaning, the wives of the band members and their bff's) dig it. We're all, shall I say, of a mature age in this collective. I get to sing some lead and play my NS/Stick as well as I can. It's a very fun, unpretentious romp through some good times.

This was my second time up on stage with these fellows. My first time we were an opening band on a benefit gig. This time out, we had the night to ourselves, at a place they've played before: Coldbrews Sports Bar & Grill in Roswell. Nice bar scene, nestled smack dab on that heinous stretch of Holcomb Bridge Road between GA 400 and Hwy 9. Good food, with a decent selection of Tex-Mex to go with the burger fares, as well as a large range of brews on tap. I enjoyed an Ode To Mercy, a coffee-infused Imperial Brown Ale from Wild Heaven Craft Beers in Decatur; took me back to my stint at the beloved Decatur coffeehouse scene of Java Monkey. Friendly service, great staff, a plethora of widescreen monitors (all tuned into some March Madness action), and, best of all, a real stage with some semblance of a P.A. system. Easy load in, too, with a door nearby to alleviate schlepping through the front and convenient parking to boot. At any rate, what I was getting at before (see top of paragraph to refresh) was that I had a sizable portion of their book to learn. I was afforded the luxury of cherry picking the list for that first gig with them. This time out, I had to learn all of the ones that I had shot down before. A bit overwhelming. I downloaded the tunes (it's been a long time, but I can remember the days of buying an album just to learn one song, so $1.29 still isn't so bad for a semi-decent mp3, particularly with inflation and deluxe hi-res artwork from great sites such as Album Art Exchange). I made some charts, forgot a few, worked on some we didn't even have time for, but overall, it came together in a very nice way.

The band on this date features David Falkenstein on guitar and vocals, Ira Kramer on drums and vocals, Karl Rosenblum on electric violin, and myself. We got together a week ago to go over the newer tunes. They met a few times without me. A lot was accomplished, as we sounded tight. People were surprised that we haven't been together all that long. The set list was a nice arrangement of upbeat tunes. We don't do any slow ones that I can think of. Some highlights for me included Grand Funk's Bad Time, a sugary pop ditty that takes me back to WEAM, AM 1390 on my then state-of-the-art green L.E.D. display clock-radio. I sure did listen to a lot of AM radio back then, we're talking the early to mid '70's, before getting hip to the album rock of DC 101. Another pop nugget we blasted through was Go All The Way, this time being much more convincing. I have practiced those harmony vocals over and over - it's really still a mystery as to what they did, or what I should try to do. A great set of changes on that one. Eric Carmen did a good job on writing the ultimate power pop ditty.

I spent some time working on the "quite difficult to discern" bass lines that young Mike Mills plucked on Driver 8. When it's crunch time, like say, 10:45 at night and I'm waking up at 5:30 or so, I'm not above resorting to YouTube to watch some other bloke instruct me on how to do it. The mix on Fables of the Reconstruction is a bit too "roomy" as far as the bass goes. I could never quite get what was going on. We all hear the guitar loud and clear. The bass part is a whole other counterpoint melody; busy yet complimentary. Glad to know it a bit better. Thanks to you, Mr. YouTube Bass Lessons Hawker. You taught me well, and you held my interest. I also learned from you that we could all benefit from a lighter touch every so often. It drove home the point that there is a time and a place for plectrum usage. I think it's just cleaner to play it with a pick - that's how Mike did it. We all took verses on our versions of The Byrds' version of Dylan's My Back Pages and Green Day's version of Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone. David slyly threw out a few we had never tried before, not even rehearsed (not that I was there for all of those rehearsals, mind you): TP's American Girl, with a clever "Dylanesque" spoken intro and R.E.M.'s The One I Love.

In the heat of the moment up there, I lost some of the finer points as far as my two-handed technique on the NS/Stick. I had some cool things worked out; they just didn't work out for me. Some chordal things did work, with some nifty new effect patches; I even got a compliment afterwards on the sounds from a discerning ear. At least I know my place and that is to hold down the bottom, perhaps at the expense of the top end. I felt that Ira and I grooved a lot better this night. That means a lot. The older you get, the more you realize that the rhythms are more critical than the note choices. If it ain't groovin', well, even the non-musically-inclined can tell, shall we say. We were locking in and having fun with it as well. Karl was stellar on the violin parts, adding so much and spot on with intonation. His playing on "Heroes" gave me goose bumps. Gotta love it - such a cool instrument. David's new Rick was beautiful - such a rich and full tone that made the songs jump up and stand at attention. It's the perfect axe for this man who loves this music. Now that I think about it: Townshend, Buck, McGuinn, Sweet, Petty, Lennon (alas, we never got around to She Said She Said) - that's a lot of Rickenbacker guitarists that we were honoring! Dave let loose a few times, ripping off some searing runs that are all the more effective as he doesn't go there so often. The man doesn't show all of his cards, I tell ya.

We're working on details for another show, back at Atlantic Station from what I know. I'll report here when it starts to coalesce.