This is a column about bass guitars that isn’t actually about bass guitars. You know, in the way that Tin Cup is a golf movie that isn’t about golf.
Unlike Tin Cup, it’s not about exorcising my inner demons — or as Dr. Molly Ringwold (Rene Russo) rightfully points out to Roy McAvoy (Kevin Costner), “… you don’t have any inner demons, what you have is inner crapola.”
It is about crapola, though, namely the crapola of tribalism.
I belong to several bass Facebook groups. They can be fun, interesting and full of all kinds of useful information. They are also full of all kinds of crapola.
I’m sure every other kind of group, whether it’s photography or gaming or basket-weaving, is full of the same kind of nonsense, but I don’t belong to those so bass guitars are what you are getting here.
For a lot of people, it’s not good enough to say, ‘I’m not really fond of Fender (or Rickenbacker or Ibanez etc.) basses’ or ‘I haven’t found that those basses work for me for the kind of stuff I’m playing.’
No, it’s ‘Fenders are the best’ or ‘All Fenders suck.’ And it gets even more granular than that, like ‘only American-made Fenders are the best.”
But just try to point out there are all kinds of factors to consider and the vitriol you get back would make shock-talk radio host Howard Stern blush.
This brand loyalty taken to the extreme as if they’ve played every bass that ever existed and ignoring all the subjective factors is really silly and kind of disturbing.
Is a Ferrari 296GTB better than a Dodge Grand Caravan? Not to a soccer mom.
Is a Fender American Pro II Jazz Bass better than a Squier Affinity Jazz Bass? Not to a 15-year-old kid who doesn’t have $3,000 to spend.
Canon versus Nikon. Playstation versus X-Box. Who cares?
Don’t get me wrong, I love my basses just as much as the next bassist, but I’m not going to go to war over it, they’re just tools I use to make music.
Unless it’s just all in good fun.
Sometimes it’s kind of fun to debate things just for the sake of argument. For example, my son and I debate movies all the time. Is Tin Cup the greatest golf movie of all time (even though it’s not a golf movie)?
I can give you 100 reasons why it is. And I would be right. But I would also be wrong.
The vehemence with which some people empirically defend subjective topics, however, as if it were life and death, is indefensible and makes me a little nervous about humanity.