jacks.jukebox

A little known fact about me – I play bass. I’m not great but I’m not terrible, it’s just a nice little hobby. When you ask a bass player for their greatest influences, you might get Paul McCartney or Flea or, if you’re a real bass nerd, Jaco Pastorius. But for me, the basic brilliance of Kim Deal is unmatched.

An article from Far Out Magazine describes her style better than I ever could, “Deal adopted a no-frills approach to bass playing: no complicated fills, no diversions from the form, and no changes. Her basslines were static, driving, and completely unaffected by what her bandmates were doing at any given time.”

Most bass players are desperate to stand out, they want to complicate things as much as they possibly can, they want to be heard over the dominating lead guitar, they might even want to confuse their fellow band mates by taking it in some weird, avant-garde direction. Bunch of pricks am I right.

But Kim Deal wasn’t driven by this need to stand out. She kept it simple, slow and scrumptious. She rarely diverts from the root notes and ensures she doesn’t over complicate anything. In my opinion, this subtle style not only adds to the Pixies sound, but IS the Pixies sound. If Kim had tried to fill in the gaps and branch out, I guarantee the magic would be lost.

Whether its ‘Monkey Gone to Heaven’, ‘Here Comes Your Man’, my personal favourite to play ‘Hey’, or the extremely basic and restrained bassline of ‘Where Is My Mind’, she’s never tempted to break away from her style.

If you can find a bassist which makes you tap your foot along as naturally as Kim Deal please do inform me of them. This might make no sense, but her style produces the most dum-dum-dum sounding music I’ver ever witnessed. You just can’t help but bop along to it. Great walking music.

If somehow you’re not familiar with the Pixies catalogue, do check them out. That dum-dum-dum comment will make sense. I promise.