On Living in the Nation of Music

On Living in the Land of Music

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I'm a Musician, and I live in the nation of Music.

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My address is 500 Washburn St. in Thumpville, which is in Dunn County in the state of Bass. I've lived here for a while. I wasn't born in Bass; I'm actually from Keys by birth and I moved to Wind for a while when I was a kid. (It was either Wind or Strings; Wind looked like it would be more fun.) I lived in Brass County--in Trombone Bluff, in fact--but I left when the price of embouchure got too steep. I saw a vacancy in Bass and jumped on it. There's always a lot of vacancies in Bass.

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Bass State is pretty big, but it doesn't have as many members as, say, Guitar or Keys. Actually, there's about ten times as many people in Guitar as there are in Bass. There's actually more people in Drums, too, but most of them are in Shuffle and Straight-Quarter Counties. Percussion Valley is pretty barren, and you can find a house for super-cheap in Glockenspiel, but good luck finding a job there.

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Most of us live in the part of Bass State that is south of Fifth Fret. The really good players live super-far north in Wooten County, but that's pretty far away from where most of the rest of us live. The Wootenites, especially those in Solotown, get most of the glory. The rest of us do the grunt work.

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I know people in Wooten County. I even know a few people who live in Solotown, and one who actually works in Mayor Pastorius's office. But she's on tour most of the time.

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I'm in Thumpville, and I work in the manufacturing industry here. In fact, all Thumpvillians are in manufacturing, and what we make is groove and pocket. We make a lot of it. So do the people next door to either side in Bottom Falls and Booty Gulch. Both B-String Park and Low-E Terrace (just north of B-String, don'tcha know) get a lot of work too. The people in FunkyTown get the most.

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I've lived here in Thumpville for over thirty years. I have good friends here. But I'm also super-close with people in other states: Drums on the west coast, Guitar to the east, and Keys, which hugs the northern border right next to Wind. I also know people in Vocals, but that's pretty hilly country and everyone lives on as high a hill as they can find, so it's rough going getting there. But it's cool; I have a couple of good friends in Vocals that come to Bass to visit a lot and we hang.

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I built my little house in Thumpville out of stuff I found lying around. I had no idea what I was doing when I got here. There are classes for architecture in Bass, sure; but I never saw the inside of a classroom and instead learned as I went. I started with a foundation of quarter-note chugging that I picked up from listening to The Cars. The floors I got from listening to Johnny B Gayden, James Jamerson and a lot of records from Stax. John Paul Jones taught me how to build walls, and I picked up the nuances of roof construction from Paul McCartney and John Entwistle, but I got the wiring diagrams from Gene Simmons and the plumbing from Sting. I then painted everything with all the bass-clef stuff from Bach, just because I liked the colors.  It's just a little house, but I built it all by myself. 

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I like my little house here. I've visited other states, but Bass is my favorite. The climate is warm and comfortable most of the time, though sometimes a fret-rattle front rolls in, or a wave of bad intonation. And, every three months or so, we get some depressing weather brought on by dead strings. All the other states have nice climates too, but Guitar can get screechy, especially in Noodleville, where most of the new people live until they figure out if they're moving to Jazzland, Rhythm Nation, Shredville, ShoeGaze Ridge or Pick-It-Boy. And Drums? I've been there a lot too, and even lived there for a little while, but it was tiring and I never was able to build a very nice house there. It had nice walls but the foundation was weak. Plus it was loud and it involved a lot of carrying stuff. I actually wouldn't mind renting a place in Keys again, but that's in the 'someday' file. Besides, I've been away for so long that I don't remember any of the streets there.

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I like going to work here in Thumpville. I like making groove and pocket. I like the people I get to work with, and I'm grateful that there are people who like what I do enough to pay me to do it. It helps keep the lights on and gas in the Gigmobile. In fact, I'm just grateful to be here.

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If you ever want to come visit, just grab a flight on UpRight Airlines and it'll take you right into P-Bass Airport in the heart of Subwoofer, our largest city. I'll even come pick you up, or you can jump on the A-Train and it'll take you right here to Thumpville. I'll put you up in my spare bedroom, even. I hope you won't mind the KISS sleeping bag I use as a bedspread, though.

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And bring earplugs.