#basitar

[music2liveby]

DAY 186: Peaches by The Presidents of the United States of America

Album: The Presidents of the United States of America Release: March 10th, 1995 Genre: Alternative

Musicians take their art very seriously. Especially in the alternative genre, there isn’t much room for light-hearted humor and jest when the subject matter revolves around drug abuse and personal loss. Songs with high emotions can be gripping, but it does get exhausting listening to music that is so downtrodden and grievous in nature. In an era where alternative music dominated the airwaves, it was only a matter of time before bands emerged on the scene that were completely candid and almost comical to a point in their approach. Early material from Weezer employs this method of not taking themselves too seriously as rock stars or even musicians, instead understanding their real life status as just a bunch of guys who love to play music together. While I wouldn’t define Weezer as comical, there definitely exists an underlying adolescent tongue-in-cheek attitude to the lyrical content. For an artist one layer deeper on the comedy spectrum, I love introducing people to The Presidents of the United States of America. An intentional mouthful, the trio of Chris Ballew, Dave Dederer, and Jason Finn wanted a band name that would stick out in an industry clamoring for attention by name alone every which way. Naturally, they chose the longest band name they could come up with. To their credit, there aren’t a whole lot of bands with eight words in their band name, so the drawn out naming definitely helped the band stand out. The second peculiar element to PotUSA is in their instrumentation: Jason Finn mans the drum set, while Chris Ballew and Dave Dederer play basitar and guitbass, respectively. Each instrument starts out as a regular six-string guitar, but basitar replaces two of the strings with bass strings, and guitbass has half bass strings, half guitar. This effect helps experimenting between octaves and gives the rhythm section something of a wonkier tone to match the band’s unusual aura. Looking to break into the mainstream, PotUSA took to Laundry Room Studios in their native Seattle and cranked out a ten-song cassette in one sitting entitled Froggystyle. Sold at local shows around the area, PotUSA promoted their work tirelessly until the small Seattle label PopLlama Records brought the band back to Laundry Room Studios and recorded their self-titled debut. Columbia Records eventually acquired the rights to PotUSA, and shortly thereafter rereleased the album to a much broader audience. Listeners weren’t yet accustomed to a mellower overall flow that nonetheless carried the energy of alternative rock, and surely were taken aback at the borderline nonsensical lyrics of hits like Kitty and Lump. Despite the uniqueness at face value, PotUSA quickly found their foothold, peaking at number six on the Billboard 200 with the assistance of a handful of singles. The third of which, Peaches, comes off innocently enough as a little ditty about Chris Ballew’s infatuation with peaches over a simple, laid-back rock style. Ballew’s fascination of peaches began with a childhood crush who owned a peach tree in her yard. Ballew grew the courage to confront his crush about his feelings for her, and waited in her yard under the peach tree for her to return. As the story goes, Ballew wrote Peaches during his wait, but chickened out after waiting for so long. Although he may never known how that encounter would have played out, the fate of Peaches is well-documented as PotUSA’s most successful single and was a setlist staple for the tenure of PotUSA’s run. Even after the departure of original member Dave Dederer, the band continued on with new guitbassist Andrew McKeag until 2015 when Chris Ballew called it quits. The reasoning? They got old. A respectable choice for musicians that endured a 26 year run!

[apfelsindie]

Dawn Gazers: “Killer Whale” (2015)

[dongbearer]

Anyone want to start a band with me, but only using Guitbasses and Basitars?

[jfk-blown-away-blog]

An Experiment With A Landline And The Basitar

[onetenthpolarbear]

A re-post to announce that my cover of The Presidents of the United States of America song Lump, has had over 500 views!

[jfk-blown-away-blog]

Hit a couple chords I liked together and just fucked around with it.

[jfk-blown-away-blog]

It Could Have Been Real Forever If I Hadn't Woken Up.

[jfk-blown-away-blog]

It's so mindless to play on, but so fun to smack around.

[jfk-blown-away-blog]

Giving You New Life: Revived Corpse

[jfk-blown-away-blog]

Seriously fun to play with, and it only cost about $30 in supplies and a morning + afternoon to actually work on it.

[jfk-blown-away-blog]

It actually works.

Fretless basitar

Oh, I've got a plan for you today. See if I can't turn you into something playable.