Alternative / Indie Rock 2

Matthew Sweet hit it out of the park on his third release.  Great songs with 2 of my favorite guitar players,  Richard Lloyd of Television and Robert Quine. Richard takes the lead on this one.  Also a shout out to  Francois who reviewed this transcription for me.  I usually prefer not to use staccato markings if I think the note duration is correct.  i.e. I prefer a 1/16 note If I think the intention is a 1/16 note, and not a staccato 1/8 note.  However in this case the finally results were  really tough to read so I listened to him and updated the score.  If you want to see the original, send me an email and I'll send you a link to the original unlisted version on YouTube.

If your not familiar with Naval ship deployments, they can be out to sea for long stretches of time without visiting a port.  Fortunately whoever was the buyer for the music available in the ship store had good taste.  I had heard of Slash records but had never heard the music. So in the middle of the Indian Ocean  I took a chance on the following cassette -   

Slash: The Early Sessions - Various Artists [1983] Border radio - Blasters/ Sex Beat - Gun Club/The Conductor Wore Black - Rank And File/Blister In The Sun - Violent Femmes/Long White Cadillac - Blasters//Los Angeles - X/New York's Alright If You Like Saxophones - Fear/Caught In My Eye - Germs/Tell Me When It's Over - Dream Syndicate/White Girl - X.  

This song written by Rudy  Toombs was a hit for Little Willie John in 1960.  I heard this as a riff based based song so I didn't see any value in adding E chords to the transcription.  I thought it would be a quick transcription but I spent some time messing with repeats and was able to fit the notation only version on 1 page. 

This was a request from a supporting member.  I was working on the transcription using a VHS copy of the music video.  Then I discovered it had been remastered and included as bonus material as part of the 40th anniversary release of there debut.  Much better results.   This song has a very interesting bass line.  It's worth a few minutes to listen and follow along with the transcription.

This is one of those albums you need to listen to before you die.  In my opinion, the Minutemen took the punk DIY ethos one step further, with no limitations on music styles.  They even cover Steely Dan on this album.   Mike Watt is the Phil Lesh of the Punk Scene.  Like Phil he plays counter melody's creating innovative and unique bass lines.  

It was time to review transcriptions that are the "shelf" and need to be cleaned-up before publishing on the internet.  I Haven't released a power-pop song in a while.  Here's a classic from 1983, I'm pretty sure the first time I heard this was on 91X out of San Diego. Since this is pretty straight forward (and the YouTube Video has the tab)  I'm posting the Notation only version here for those that want to practice there reading. Checkout Measures 19-28

This was a requested song.  Can't go wrong with a Replacements song

I love the Replacements.  One thing I've  noticed about that the bass tabs and bass cover videos for this song ,  they all seem to play the guitar part an octave lower. For this song  I used Transcribe! filtered for bass only frequencies and bump the song up an octave.   It made it  easier to clearly hear the bass line.  

If I had to pick my favorite Smiths song I think this is it.

RIP Andy Rourke. 

Another fantastic Bass Line by Andy Rourke. Some consider this his greatest bass line. Picking near the bridge , use of chromatic passing notes and hammer-on's really give the bass line its distinctive sound.

12 bar progression (8 bars of I  then 2 bars of vi, 1 bar of V,  1 bar of IV) The notes in the bass line over the I chord (E) are consistent, however he changes the timing of the notes on the and of 1 and on 2.  This   keeps the 8 bars of E interesting. 

A power pop master-piece.  The single was released in 1974 becoming a top- 20 hit, but due to label issues and other bad luck the album release was delayed 18 months.   Unfortunately the album didn't sell very well   He had a second song "Girls" chart in 1984 . Unfortunately he passed away in October of 2023

 I wasn't sure what category this song belonged in.,  They are not,in my opinion, classic rock so I guess they are the original indie rock band. This was their first album on Atlantic, where they were asked to  "avoid sex and drugs in song and instead focus on making an album loaded  with hits"  Someday I'll transcribe the Rock n Roll Animal version but  for now you 'll have to settle for this version. Nothing difficult about  this song, there are some chromatic note runs from chord to chord.  If  your not already familiar with them they should be added to your  repertoire.  F to C there's a 1 3rd b4th b5  in there verse and the  chorus its 7 R 2 from F to C 

99.9 F° (1992) is part of a great trilogy of albums produced by Mitchel Froom.  Los Lobs Kiko (1992) and Richard Thompson's Rumor and Sigh (1991) round out the trio. Add the great Bruce Thomas (Elvis Costello) on bass and you get folk songs with an edgy sound.   There are a number of slides on this song you'll need to listen to get the exact feel (it definitely doesn't translate to the musescore play along)