The Last Bass Outpost

My recurring dreams are variations on the same theme.  I'm in a foreign country, not easily identifiable in the dream.  It's nearing dusk.  I'm lost.  Often the language spoken isn't English.  But sometimes it can be.  Each city I find myself in is very different from all the others.  I'm on foot and trying to find a hotel.  Everyone is a stranger. 

I'm pretty sure psychoanalysts would say fear of being a lost is fairly common with someone who is growing older.  But I think at least part of this may be drawn from real life experiences.  Being very lost in Germany, the Netherlands, and Ireland.  In the case of Ireland, I was so lost there that if people hadn't been speaking English, I might still be there trying to find my way.  In Germany, I got lost almost immediately in the airport, although it really wasn't my fault.  Customs took a long time with me.  By the time I got out the group of strangers I was with had left me.  Getting lost in Rottenburg was almost fun, though.  It was December.  Although I wasn't around many people, the atmosphere was turning a little festive for Christmas which was approaching.  Nevertheless, I barely found my way that night.  And in the late 1980s, in Germany not many people spoke English.  But my German was beyond horrible.  One time, for instance, I was in a store with some Americans.  A German sales clerk came up to them and started politely speaking to them.  Finally, I said "she is trying to ask if she can help you!"  They were just standing there ignoring her like she didn't exist.  Actually, I was a little embarrassed.  Ignorance of a language doesn't mean you shouldn't even try.   

This will get me killed, but technically Dickey, a taught banjo player, was likely superior to Duane. All that Bluegrass influence and even Jazz.





Duane had feel and style in loads + that slide thing, but he was also a bit of a one trick pony.

And when you hear the Allmans on Classic Rock radio it's almost inevitably either Jessica or Ramblin' Man, both Betts compositions after Duane's passing. Or Midnight Rider, a Gregg Allman song.

Now lynch me!





Fame attaches itself for the weirdest reasons, but Joe Perry isn't the best guitarist in Aerosmith either, that laurel belongs to Brad Whitford. Or to put it with Duane about Dickey: “I'm the famous one, but he's the real guitar player!”

   Just a heads up Bill's (drbassman) Gibson EB2 is up on Ebay. This is one of the last from his collection. Bill always bought quality and took great care of his instruments, you won't be disappointed. https://www.ebay.com/itm/134990212425?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=PtXTjMXzR5C&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=QrNemjUJT7-&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Dickey never quite received the attention he deserved while in the Allman Brothers or after, IMO.

Huh  He basically hijacked the band after Duane's untimely death and kept it going while Gregg was sinking into his heroin and whatever-induced stupor.his

Rest in peace. Excellent guitarist in a band that had an embarrassment of riches as great guitarists go.I was under the assumption that his health had suffered under decades of substance abuse too.

It depends on your perspective.  The people I was around a lot, some of which even had some contact with the Allman Brothers before they got famous, tended to put Dickey in the shadows and elevated Duane.  I'm sure I have told this story before.  But I went to high school with an amazing guitarist who once got the chance to jam with Duane Allman.  His name was Edwin and he had long red hair.  He said after playing with Duane, he put down his guitar for two weeks, thinking there was no need to attempt trying to be a guitarist after that experience.  In all the years I've known him, that was the only time I ever saw true humility in Edwin.  Because the fact is he was a great guitarist.  Certainly the best local guitarist.  But trying to compare himself to Duane Allman was another matter. 

Those mock satanists are of course intellectual provocateurs, not everybody comprehends their approach of putting free human will - I can see Auntie Ayn R smiling from her grave, she never thought much of religion - above adoration of and devotion to any form of supernatural deity. When I read about them on school boards a while ago, I thought to myself this might not end well in the US of A, never underestimate stupidity and ignorance. All religion is potentially dangerous.

I arrived at the conclusion that there is no devil already as a child, even earlier than surmising that there is no God either. I can't have been older than eight or nine, I just defined both out of my life. Psychologists will however have to say something about the fact that I love movies about the occult - it's all humbug to me, but I'm thoroughly entertained by it and find hanging on the edge of my seat with goose bumps pleasant. Ghosts, Satan, Lucifer & the Beelzebub, demons, exorcisms, haunted houses, vampires, bring'em on! And when the end credits roll, I switch on the light and go to bed totally unperturbed (but deeply satisfied if it was a good one) and no creaking door, wind-flung window or rushing curtain bothers me. I never dream of anything occult either.



PS: Well, there was one dream ... A year or so after my dad had died I had this extremely vivid dream of him and me doing garden work together. Now if you knew my dad: Doing garden work with him was excruciatingly terrible and best avoided, because nothing I did was ever good enough.  But this time we worked smoothly together, got things done - an unreal experience! And near the end of the dream, we're standing around looking at the heaps of garden waste as I suddenly ask him point blank: You are aware that you're dead though, right? And he just gave me one of those trademark slow silent crooked smiles of him, nodded a little and then starts fading away like in some cheesy ghost movie ...

And then I woke up and felt real good about it!