Back To Bass Licks: Lesson Three
Written by Rob Lane
Saturday, 25 May 2013 03:00
So – Who’s your favourite band?
It’s the everyman’s music question right? The ever reliable music icebreaker, but one of the most difficult to answer, particularly nowadays at least. Do we have favourite bands anymore, I’m not sure? We jump from one song, or even artist, to another, very rarely getting the chance to religiously play an album over and over again until we know every single note and track list as if it were tattooed on our arm. Bands let us down, the old bands make comebacks which tarnish their pasts and the newer bands seemingly split up after a couple of albums to become nothing more than fads. It’s a weird time.
I read a comment by someone a while ago that it must be pretty amazing to be a U2 fan. Take from that what you will but I often say they’re probably, in my book at least, the greatest singles band in history. Pretty much all of their releases have been top draw. Okay, I know not everyone likes them, the wife in particular can’t stand them, but that’s down to personal taste, but wow, here’s a band that has been around for over thirty years, with the same original line-up and they’re arguably still at the top of their game with albums and live shows. That is pretty damn impressive if you ask me.
So, if you hit me with this question, what’s my reply? Well, I guess my stock answer usually lands on Van Halen. A band I’ve travelled twice to see live in the USA and one I have a tribute tattoo of on my leg. I was totally late to the party though. I didn’t buy my first Van Halen album until 1991 which was ‘For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge’. By this time I’d seen David Lee Roth live but, if I’m honest, knew very little about his earlier employers other than how much the guys from Extreme used to bang on about their sheer genius. Once I signed up though I went in deep! Do I regret not being a fan earlier? Sure, but on the other hand it was so ridiculously cool to discover, and properly fall in love with, a band with such a rich history which I could study and immerse myself in. Pretty much every week I could go to the record store and pick up a brand new Van Halen album, take it home and just wallow in its awesomeness. How often does that happen?
I have another favourite band though. A band I love for more than just the music, a band that serves up so much more than just the songs alone. In October of this year it’ll be exactly ten years since I first saw Bowling For Soup – 26th October 2003 to be exact. It was the early days of TrashPit Magazine, a fanzine I ran for probably four years or so before it became a Record Label. I’d put out the first issue a few months earlier and was compiling interviews for the second. After hearing the song ‘Girl All The Bad Guys Want’ on TV (again, late to the party) I knew there was something different about this band. This wasn’t your average pop punk, there was a little more melody to it and certainly a whole lot more Hard Rock bubbling under the surface. Perhaps the singer wearing a LA Guns shirt and a Butch Walker co-write should have given me a clue but this definitely needed more investigation.
I managed to arrange an interview on the afternoon of their Sheffield show and as they walked in, frontman Jaret Reddick said “Hey” to me. Does that sound ridiculous that I remember that? Well, if a total stranger says hello to me when they walk into a room they’re already in my good books so there’s a fair chance I remember when it happens. What I wasn’t expecting though was for them to recognise the band on the cover of the first issue of TrashPit. “No way, Robin Black! We know that guy!!” was the band’s reaction. At the time pretty much all the glam fraternity of Nottingham was in awe of the blue haired mini Canadian Rock God but the last thing I expected was a Pop Punk Band from Texas to be fans. Like I said, it was obvious there was something different about them. During the sit down interview with the entire band we covered all the important topics such as the first Poison album and the Footloose Soundtrack, I was sold.
The show which followed would seal my musical future for the next ten years and beyond. A show which ignited my love for all things Texas and one I’ve since seen probably more times than any other band and never once I have got tired of it, simply because it is always different! (Read my earlier Blog for how important I feel this is!). Here is a band that has NEVER let me down and I doubt ever will, both musically and for giving out the greatest ever lessons in the ol’ PMA – they should teach this shit in schools. Coming up on forty years old, music is still as important to me now as it was to that spotty sixteen year old, sleeping on railway station platforms after a gig, waiting for the first train back home in the morning. I still look to music for an escape and no other band delivers it to me like Bowling For Soup and I truly mean that. I’m too laid back to want my music to be laced with angst and aggression, I’m not sure I ever have needed that. I just want that chorus that blasts through the roof and lyrics that put a smile on my face no matter what mood I’m in. This band has given me, and many others, a family outside my family – a group of people who simply love great, fun songs and feel as much a part of the rock show as the four guys on stage. I feel pretty damn lucky to have a band as important as this so far down the line. Yep, music is great like that!
So if I can give you one tip for 2013 it would be to go and see Bowling For Soup on their Farewell UK Tour this coming October. No, they’re not splitting up… they’re like me, you and a lot of us out there – we’re getting to an age where you reach a particular crossroads, things change. There’ll still be plenty of BFS mega music pumped our way just not the touring so this is your last chance to either call me out for being a liar if you don’t enjoy them or go, “Laney, yep you were right – that was a LOT of fun.”
That’s all music is and ever was about for me so that’s why they’re my favourite band – who’s yours?
