Rear View

Phil Kay

Base thoughts and a brother in a band

don’t mean to be bassist. it is just one of those things: there

is something to being the bass player. There is a particular

reperettssiye essence to eyerything; immediately on hearing a word things enter the frontal mind. Things mean stuff to people straight away.

There is a particular essence to being the bassist in the band. They are the one playing the bass. providing the bass line. nailing up the beams in the sonic mainframe. They sing with Doyes. though not often elsewhere do they have a mic. They are free to move around as if holding a stuffed marlin.

Often they are not the one at the front-middle with their top off. tattooed flames licking up and out from the low—cttt rolled down tops of some fur-tight hairy Velour. hoof—bottomed pants. Very. very often it is the guy with longer hair and the extremely great balls eyidently on fire that does not play the bass.

So I have come to see the Darkness play as part of a night which is not a tribute to x\('/D(‘ more a contemplation for the love of said iconoclastic riffage umtshamedly felt by modern rock outfits and with room especially left ayailable within each of the bands‘ sets for covers of ‘Backseat liducation'. ‘l lighway to llell‘ and also ones not named after the chorus.

‘I know the bassist] I say proudly. It is free to get in.

The lead singer of the Darkness has long hair and flames rising out of his yeloutinous flares and. as the ideal combi— combo. the other lead guitarist is the singer‘s brother and he's just married the lady manager and their new old best friend is the drummer and the bassist . . . the bassist is mysteriously handsome. moustachioed like an agent deep under coyer still telling his bosses he hasn‘t gone over yet.

The bassist is Frankie l’oullain: l’rank. my brother. l‘ranny. Fran-man. l‘rancis -- tall. thin handsome and fairly heavy-metal. he’s my brother.

John Farcjell

I accept he is there playing. I haye no problem accepting his lines just because I had seen him chasing us all in his pyjamas haying a benny. He is my only pin- up. a full page shot ofjust him in ])(l:(’(/ um/ finalised. l haye the whole magazine stapled to my wall.

("The Darkness are the light and when a glam reyiyal happens they are the flesh-tipped godhead of an arrow piercing and unleashing a bleeding reyolution diamante-tipped loye-heads fitted to a missile of music that will detonate the dull robotic softly-porned clone- chrome of cheapo corporate sport-slack metal and explode with full blinding Darkness . . . at the heart of the Darkness beats a bassline so smooth and dirty it rhymes with Vaseline . . f)

finally an anti-bass bias is shed: all bassists are sotnebody’s son. brother. gardener . . .

lie and l played a lot of

An llmlhitll together: he was the gum“ “l. lhe walled

_ garden. possessor of all bass|sts are knowledgcs way beyond 5 mine. He had the [times y s and height too l‘ranny— SOI‘I, man played with boys way older than him.

9 l was \ery keen and would run around a great

deal. l-‘lames came up from his feet.

Absolutely directl} aboyc ‘1 know the drummer" and ‘llow much is it to get in . . . right. well l Used to go to school with Dougie] the next best way to get into a club free: ‘I know the bassist. he is my brother. I am the bassist’s brother. I mast enter for the bassist is my brother. I wish to buy drinks here in this club in which my brother is to perform soon. as a bassist . . .’

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