[no subject]

See what the bass player will have
By Steve Crump 
      
''You check out Guitar George, he knows all the chords

But he's strictly rhythm he doesn't want to make it
cry or sing. 
They say an old guitar is all he can afford 
When he gets up under the lights to play his thing.'' 
      -- From ''Sultans of Swing,'' by Dire Straits 
      
The best rock 'n roll bass guitar player in the world
died last week, an event about as newsworthy worldwide
as the passing of the archduke of Ouagadougou.

But John Entwistle, of The Who, was a hero in the
footlights, and I'm sure somewhere Benny Martindale
shed a tear.

Benny was the bassist in a garage band I played with
briefly in high school, which is to say, he was the
weakest guitar player in the bunch except for the
drummer and me -- I played keyboards

Plus, Benny was the quietest, which virtually
guaranteed he'd spend his 15 minutes of fame thumping
out the bass lines in forgettable covers of ''Hang on,
Sloopy'' and ''Judy in Disguise.''

At first, Benny didn't even own an electric guitar; he
used an acoustic bass, which quickly got lost amid a
blizzard of off-key chords and feedback.

But eventually, Benny's uncle bought him a used
electric bass at a police auction, and Benny started
to Fender for himself, prowling the precincts below
middle C with greater and greater confidence.

It was never easy -- it never is for rock 'n roll bass
players, who are constantly asked to tone it down in a
musical form whose very essence is excess.

I never met a bass player who wasn't always, always
fingering the frets on his guitar, itching to bust
into the melody line of the song, or better still,
some manic, Eric Clapton-style earsplitting riffs.
 
But nobody lets the bassist get away with that, which
I suppose is why all the great bass rockers tend, like
Entwistle, to be English -- Paul McCartney, Bill Wyman
of the Rolling Stones, Jack Bruce of Cream, John Paul
Jones of Led Zeppelin, Noel Redding of the Jimi
Hendrix Experience, John Illsley of Dire Straits. The
Brits are a people who celebrate understatement and
excel at restraint.

But even they are human, and eventually Entwistle
began to bust out of his three-chord ghetto on a
string of Who hits -- ''I Can See for Miles,'' ''Won't
Get Fooled Again'' -- by wrapping his snarling bass
line around Pete Townshed's melodies in a sound that
was interesting for rock fans and positively
irresistible for amateur bassists like Benny.

We found that out at our band's first paying gig,
which was at a summer picnic for a Catholic youth
group, their families and clergy.

The entire faculty of St. Anthony School -- seven nuns
-- was on hand, along with three or four priests and
visiting monsignor.

The order of the day was light rock -- a lot of John
Sebastian, a lot of Association songs, which are
pabulum to a bass player.

The No. 1 song on the radio at that time was ''Smoke
on the Water'' by Deep Purple, which contains easily
the most recognizable bass line in rock 'n roll. As
our band was midway through Sebastian's ''Summer in
the City,'' a car loaded with teen-agers rolled past
on a nearby street, ''Smoke on the Water'' blaring
from the 8-track.

The speakers were cranked up so loud that the bass
rattled the risers on which we were standing. That was
Benny's breaking point.

He launched into a series of bass riffs the like of
which I've never heard before or since, a
fillings-rattling, 15-minute-long electronic rant that
variously sounded like rolling thunder, shattering
crockery and a chorus of moose in heat.

Finally, the monsignor stood up and shouted, at the
top of his lungs, ''That will be enough of THAT!''

The silence that followed was louder than Benny's
guitar. We all stood there, looking at our shoes, for
what seemed like an hour. Benny was pale and
trembling, as if his amp had backfired.

The band's keyboard was set up four or five yards from
where the monsignor was standing, so he glared me and
demanded, ''What do you have to say for yourselves?''

I blushed deeply and stammered, ''He's Episcopalian.''

And you know what? I read it in his obituary: so was
John Entwistle. 
      
Times-News features editor Steve Crump has given up
the keyboard, but is almost ready to solo on air
guitar.


=====
-Brian in Atlanta
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