li'l pit debut 7" debuts watt on stand-up bass

   a few years ago, I traded a mac se I bought in the recycler for an engelhardt stand-up bass. when I first took in my hands I thought "boy, what a monster." this was more like a giant violin than any kind of bass guitar. the only thing missing was chin rest! damn, what a trip. anyway, learning on it was slow in coming. then a pedro friend of mine, thalia ferreira, played me some carmen mcrae songs she said really liked. the sparce arrangements held up by a strong vocal line were perfect. I thought, yes, let's record a couple of these and I can surely rise to the challenge of recording my first stand-up bass. I asked essential bud stephen perkins (who've I played w/banyan and porno for pyros) to wail the stick and boot while leo chelyapov would twirl w/some licorice stick (clarinet). leo's a klezmer man from russia.

   I then got in touch w/los hemanos reyes regarding a pad to do the recording. tom reyes hooked me up w/his brother joe. joe reyes suggested his own crazybird studio in montebello, ca. it was a gee-oh. on april 2, 1997 after a run-through a week before at perk's pad in the val, we went for it. in a couple of hours we had both songs, "feeling good" and "sometimes I'm happy." the first one is an uptempo, minimalist type of samba-like thing that snakes all around. good growl on the stand-up. perfect cut on the perked-up hi-hats. leo weaving it up w/the licorice stick. "sometimes..." has a walking line on the bass w/perk doing the buddy rich swing-a-ling thing on the ride. it was all good fun and quite a hoot. unique baffling and isolation situations at crazybird led to some trips but we dug it.

   there's a bar up in l.a. called the white horse that had the tiniest pit right in front of a tiny stage. this pit could hold only maybe two, three folks at the most. it just got stuck in my mind that night that one day I should be in band called li'l pit. this opportunity to put my sad ass to the stand-up test seemed like the time to unite both reality and concept and it was done.

   many thanks to los hermanos reyes, slim moon and the folks who jumped in the ring w/me. here's the card:

   this 7" of 45 rpm red vinyl is out now on

   kill rock stars
   120 ne state av., #418
   olympia, wa 98501 usa
   email: krs@killrockstars.com

this page created 11 sep 97