The Lonely Bassist

His girlfriend threw him out, and he didn’t know what to do with himself (more on this phenomenon later). She’d throw him out, then take him back, and the process was continually repeated. This is a story about a very lonely bassist who had nowhere to go, and plenty of time on his hands.

DP and I had scheduled an evening session at his home studio, we planned on recording some remote bass tracks and then transferring those tracks over to the studio when we were ready to mix. The session was scheduled for 7 PM, it was a Sunday, and I went about my day as usual. I was well prepared in advance of the session so I had nothing to attend to, all I had to do was get in my car and drive a half-hour to DP’s place.

It had been a relaxing, mellow day for me. I arrived at DP’s place about 6:45 and was greeted with a look of pain, dismay and utter consternation. I knew immediately that something wasn’t quite right. “What’s wrong?”, I asked DP. “What’s wrong?”, he replied in an usually agitated manner. “I was out playing basketball with Douglas (his son), when we came home at 3 I found our bass player sitting by the front door! I needed to take care of weekend chores and spend time with the kids and in between I’ve had to entertain our session player who decided to show up four hours early!!!!” “Wow, I’m really sorry”, I told him. If anything some musicians tend to show up late to a session, not early- especially THAT early. Of course most professional session players show up on time and prepared. I won’t hire a player who is chronically late, time is money in the studio.

DP was slightly frazzled, he needed to transition into engineer/producer mode. I went to say hello to B (our bassist) and chatted with him for a few so DP could have a little space to set up for our session. B was a friendly guy who craved interaction with others. He was a solid bass player so our session went smoothly, without a hitch. He laid down some beautiful tracks and gave us a lot to work with. We listened to various takes for awhile, we were all extremely pleased. I figured I’d be on my way home within twenty minutes of wrapping up. There was just one tiny problem however- B wouldn’t leave!!! We stretched, and yawned, and talked about all the “things we had to do”- but B never took a hint. I couldn’t bail on DP, I had to stay and try to help him gently coax B out the door. It was like having the dinner guest from hell who NEVER goes home. “GET OUT-LEAVE-PLEASE DEPART IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE YOU HAVE OVERSTAYED YOUR WELCOME!!!”- but the message never gets through and you’re stuck with this person who is totally clueless. Nice, pleasant, gentle and cheerful but TOTALLY CLUELESS!!! There are only so many yawns, stretches and to-do lists you can throw out there before you have to take a more direct approach. Finally, after hours of subtle hinting, DP said in an exhausted voice, “it’s been a great night but I really need to go to bed now”. Whew- is that all we really needed?

I learned another very important lesson that night. Sometimes the best approach is the direct approach, you can still be tactful and polite while delivering your message. Not everyone picks up on subtext (especially musicians), sometimes you just need to say what you mean. After DP said what he meant B finally left, and I finally got to go home- yawning, stretching, and thinking about my to-do lists all the way. I have no idea where B went after he split but I do know that his girlfriend took him back, the very next day.