Explained: The Bass Player Curse
Welcome back to CK blogs, written by the one and only web master general slave to the cooperate machine and your favorite Amazon errand boi, The beater of wood, Zerch.
You know there’s always a confusion surrounding the topic of low end when it comes to Cosmic Kitten and in the course of our time as a band we’ve had a total of 7 different bass players.
Way back in 2016 when we started as a band it was just Karen and I jamming in my parents garage, I was coming out of the break up of my best musical venture at that point in my life and was exploring the idea of expressing my feelings as a musician with a new passion. Karens music struck a chord for us and we went to work making music, from the start I was writing bass parts for CK out of necessity, my desire to express myself melodically and ease of access to my experience on 4 strings, but I knew all along that if we were going to become a live band we needed low end…so as I was tied up seeing to the end of another project I sent Karen out in search of an earth shaker, some days later she goes “what about my friend Yousef?”
Enter Yousef Jazayri, Comic Book aficionado, Black metal enthusiast, Karens high school friend and most importantly at the time, a bass player. Yousef joined the battle along side us sometime in April of 2016 and we all just got along and went to work, there was no real consideration of a dynamic, it just went off and we started playing shows and writing music. I remember this time being a particularly dense time for shows, shows in quantity not in quality but it was an exciting time. We’d rehearse regularly which would normally have Karen bringing new material in, dropping the flint on my passion gun and off I’d go racing “Oh! That’s sick! Then what if this went like this! and then we did this!” was par for the course at the time, so naturally I found myself dawning the bass and showing Yousef my ideas at a time when I was at my most squirrley and least considerate. I recall a few instances of Karen and I working on music together outside of jams and me intentionally putting blinders on and not writing bass parts but when we came to rehearsal to hear his ideas (him being new to song writing) I found myself pushing ideas I’d hear in my head more then defending his (note to self, improve in the future and that I did). So we entered the studio to record some of our still fondest remembered work “Be Nice to Strangers” with Yousef in tow.
We got it down, he played the parts in his own style and we released the album to a then excited fan base and we played shows, and more shows, and more shows, and more show. All the while spending close to no time together outside of our regular music business. Karen and I in the peak of our Honeymoon faze of being together would just spend most days figuring out how to maximize our time together, but that took a new turn when my grandmother passed away. I wasn’t picking up Yousefs calls or texting him back, making half hearted plans to hang with him and then canceling, I just wanted to spend time with Karen and mend, and she just wanted the same. It had grown to feel that of a burden, picking him up for every show, helping him pick out gear, etc. etc. and I suppose we felt we wanted to move on to someone more self sufficient and dependable.
Cosmic Kitten playing live at The Mime in Los Angeles, CA on 12/17/16.
We wanted to get serious, we wanted to tour, and make big moves. That felt like an uphill battle with Yousef by our side and so we asked him to take a break. I remember thinking “I like Yousef, maybe we just need to work on our relationship and discuss what we really want this to be and in time we can resume, maybe even just have fill ins for a little while” needless to say, I was wrong…Yousef was extremely upset at the idea of his taking a break, and although I won’t repeat the things said, we walked away feeling hurt and scared by the situation and thus the curse began. We followed through with our commitments as a two piece, got used to the feeling and spent that time enhancing our stage show, becoming tighter and learning how we could make a tight setlist that flows…we used the time isolated to become a better band, but now what?
With fill in bass players of course, the next of which was an awesome dude and friend we met when he was apart of a band that he had recently parted ways with named Marky Marxist. He played one show with us, however he had his eyes set on an original project that to be honest at the time I thought sounded fucking cool. He asked me to assist on it, but I couldn’t be torn away from CK for it, we were in the middle of writing a new album, planning our first tour, I had lost friends and other bands over the growth and momentum put into the band and I didn’t want to take my foot off the gas, but I also didn’t want to stop him from making that kick ass band a reality, so communications dwindled as recording of our 3rd record came under way and Marks involvement in the group was a fading memory, but I’ll never forget his energy and fury on bass as well as the laughs and good times that came along with him.
It was at this time that we stopped caring about whether or not people knew if we had a bass player or even if we had one at all, but I knew that if we went out to play in cities we hadn’t been to before, that I’d want them to hear us at full power. That if we made a new album I’d want bass to add extra melody, and by that extension those songs would need to be heard with bass live. Occasionally we’d play shows as a two piece and have old timers come up to us saying “You guys are so great! You really should add bass though, it’d be a shame to waste what you have, it’s so great” qeue the equal parts insulted and sadness because in a way I felt they were right. That yes we had unmatched energy and passion for our music, but the low end…god damn it it’s my favorite part of music.
Enter Dylan Falcon stage left, Engineer, guitar player and at the time singer of his own band, perpetual tinkerer, surprisingly a bass player and most importantly at the time a Cosmic Kitten fan. This idea came to fruition at the first and only show Mark played with us, he came to see us play, showing his support for us on our first shot at shows without Yousef regardless of the tension, him being Marks freshly divorced bandmate. “If you ever need me to fill in on some shows, let me know!” he said with his trademark Dylan grin holding his 8th or 9th cigarette of the afternoon an inch or 2 from his mouth. He’d hang around, come to our shows, we’d go to his, say hi and honestly just be friends, until I was like “I miss bass, hey Dylan wanna do one?” he picked up the parts, we practiced them a couple times one on one, he let us use his space to jam them together and off we went.
At that time he would play with us occasionally whenever he could but it wasn’t a regular thing, he even came to visit us in the studio a couple times to see our process when we were recording our 3rd LP Lobotomy that I was laying bass down on again. The rest of that story is public knowledge, we took him on our tour, he was excited, we were excited and we were all together. We returned a tighter and happier band, even released a Live Album of the tour, but that didn’t last forever.
a year or so went by, him coming to shows off and on, he had one foot out the door and his heart in another city, with his other band, the band we were taking him from. One day the opportunity to record an album analogue with our then friend and now good friend Ulysses Noriega was presented so we dusted off all the songs we’d been taking our time on and said “Hey Dylan, record with us? New stuff?” That lit him up, excitement back, just like tour in we rushed to the studio, some songs he was excited for some not so much, even some songs that for the first time featured bass parts not written by myself and we recorded and album together and it felt great. We were super excited, we were shopping it to labels things looked good.
But we got no bites…oh well…”LETS BOOK A TOUR! A BIG FUCKING ONE! LABELS CANT IGNORE WORK ETHIC AND SACRIFICE LIKE THAT!”. (They can and they did) So the booking started and took the better part of a year all of which we were playing with Dylan and he was away from his other band. Till time to leave was coming near, and he was gone. Talking to him wasn’t the same, asking him for anything in regards to the band was like drinking from an empty canteen hoping some how water will trickle out to quench your thirst even though you know it’s empty and with 2 weeks till departure for tour he said “I’m not going…” and the floor dropped out from under us…just like that Dylan was gone, exit back stage left…the same way he’d come in…suddenly…
But…Hasn’t stopped us before…won’t stop us now…so we put out a call looking for bass players and looking for them quick in lieu of our coming tour and some 24 dates across the country fast approaching. All our friends band together sending out our ad for a bass player all over…it was a wonderful feeling to feel so loved and have people shouting to save us from our impending doom.
Enter Josh Drew, a gentle hearted, lovable, editor, dedicated dad, beast on bass and other wise as a musician and most importantly of all at the time, fellow music lover. We were beaten down and tired “How could we lose another one, I thought that was the one” sinking ourselves into music we loved, looking at what made the bands we loved special and trying to find the reasons. Josh came to audition through the recommendation of a mutual friend and it was pretty great, he was the most prepared, most solid and most rhythmically inclined which when looking for a bass player is the big thing I look for.
Best of all though, he LOVED music, we would just talk and talk about bands we loved, local and otherwise, shows we’d been to and geek out forever about it. The catch thoe? he can’t come on the tour…hear that sound?…that was the sound of my heart breaking…but the reason?…”I have a kid on the way”. disappointed but struck with understanding and admiration for his greater purpose we moved on with the open invitation that a friend like him is always welcome on stage along side us, and so he’s dawned the elephant stick many a times for us since then, becoming somewhat of a regular fill in for us when we’re in times of need.
Enter Cody Sparti the 6th at bat for bass in CK. A cool, hipstery, sharp, experienced and most importantly at the time lost, fellow lover of atmospherics. He auditioned around the same time as Josh and was determined to be a part of the tour. At a cross roads of sorts and in the need of some soul searching the road called to him and we answered with a seat in the van and later in the band. We rehearsed together and grinded, played a few shows one of which Josh passed off the bass and Cody took the reins for the tour. It was a great time traveling the country with Cody, he taught me things about myself as manager and tour manager that I might not have learned otherwise in more timid hands, and he challenged me to lighten up and have trust in myself and the people around me to take care of business. A big hard lesson to learn, but I did.
We jammed with him all over and it was a pleasure. We came home and the band wasn’t quite on the fast track to success we hoped we be on after such an endevour (what with labels not emailing back) and we still had an album to finish. Cody was at a cross road, with a choice to make, and he made the right one. Get my stuff together, music later, and we respected that step away even though I felt like a catalyst for the struggle he was going through. To this day we still talk off and on, with him expressing interest in even joining us on the road again one day if that time ever came.
but there we were again, off on our own the two of us, but we had ideas and we had plans. One crazy one in particular…
Enter Jade Lome, bass player and singer for defunkt band Hard Habit, old old friend/fan and effective earthshaker with low end matched by very few. We were planning an Iggy pop tribute set, and were looking for someone to rock bass so that Josh could jam guitars to free Karen up to do Iggy, she answered the call and learned them songs with a quickness and it was a super fun night. Since then Jades being going through changes, finding a place musically in her life post Hard Habit and we’ve spoken of jamming again having done so on a few occasions however communications have been sparse since her loss of her band that she held dear so long and through so many incarnations.
Where does that leave us now? Does the curse continue?
No fucking idea! Wanna jam?
xoxo,
-Zatch the Latch
