{"id":368,"date":"2021-01-13T21:21:38","date_gmt":"2021-01-13T21:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/williewaldman.com\/?p=368"},"modified":"2021-01-13T21:21:39","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T21:21:39","slug":"rob-wasserman-relix-aug-2003","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/williewaldman.com\/index.php\/2021\/01\/13\/rob-wasserman-relix-aug-2003\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Wasserman Relix Aug 2003"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-jambands wp-block-embed-jambands\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"6odTxWPg1V\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jambands.com\/features\/2016\/06\/29\/used-with-rob-wasserman-from-the-archives-august-2003\/\">Used with Rob Wasserman (From The Archives: August 2003)<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Used with Rob Wasserman (From The Archives: August 2003)&#8221; &#8212; Jambands\" src=\"https:\/\/jambands.com\/features\/2016\/06\/29\/used-with-rob-wasserman-from-the-archives-august-2003\/embed\/#?secret=6odTxWPg1V\" data-secret=\"6odTxWPg1V\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption>Relix August 2003<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>When talking about the great music stores in the Bay Area, I\u2019d be remiss if I didn\u2019t take a drive out 101 North over the Golden Gate Bridge for a visit to Village Music in Mill Valley. Most people say John Goddard has been running the place ever since he was hired on as a clerk in the 60s, even though he didn\u2019t officially carry the title of owner\/operator until 1978. In an era in history when computer kiosks have replaced the old music store employee, John is truly a throwback to a time when the trusted recommendation of your local record store clerk was as good as gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As you make your way through the front door of Village Music, you\u2019re met with the store\u2019s Music Hall of Fame and Sometimes a Cover Is Enough displays a subtle nod by store management to music collectors knowledgeable and inane. John is usually manning the desk, while a clerk runs around the store stocking and hauling in boxes of inventory. Nearly every square inch of wall and floor space is covered, be it boxes of 78s, records, CDs, tapes, 45s, videos, t-shirts, pictures or concert posters. I knew it was my kind of place when I saw a life-size cardboard cutout of Stevie Wonder tucked in a corner in the back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>John\u2019s music memorabilia collection is vast, a direct result of his friendships with customers with last names like Garcia, Clapton, Crosby, Santana and Jagger. Most every picture he has hanging on the wall is signed personally to him, and it\u2019s likely John has a good story behind it if you ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I probably wouldn\u2019t have ever found out about Village Music if it weren\u2019t for Rob Wasserman, bass player extraordinaire and local Marin County resident. Wasserman suggested we go visit the store shortly after he returned home from touring with the Willie Waldman Project, a jazz fusion quartet out of Los Angeles that is joined by a painter onstage each night to provide a visual background. Waldman\u2019s musical credits range from playing the trumpet on albums with Snoop Dogg and Tupac to a 2001 Perry Farrell solo album, though his current band\u2019s sound borrows heavily from Miles Davis\u2019 Bitches Brew-era. Wasserman said playing with Waldman and company provides a nice escape for him musically, and to expect to see the lineup out touring this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Willie\u2019s a good friend, and I love playing with him,&#8221; Wasserman said. &#8220;Some people find playing without really talking about what we\u2019re going to beforehand stressful, but I think it\u2019s fun. It\u2019s like a vacation.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we make our way through Village Music\u2019s aisles of vinyl, Wasserman pulls up at the Beatles section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;My first big influence was the Beatles,&#8221; Wasserman said as he leafed through the albums, pausing briefly to glance at the covers. &#8220;I really liked McCartney\u2019s bass. I wasn\u2019t playing at that age, but I heard it. I guess that was my hint to play. Records like Abbey Road and Rubber Soul, and then later on the White Album. I also remember listening to the Beach Boys on the radio when I was young, which was really cool when I worked with Brian Wilson for a song on my Trios album.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Turning around, Wasserman catches a glimpse of Billie Holliday\u2019s face in a picture on the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I think Billie Holliday had the best female voice of all time. Ella Fitzgerald was more pop, but Billie was more soul,&#8221; Wasserman said. &#8220;I love great singers. Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Patsy Cline, Chet Baker. I love Van Morrison\u2019s voice. His Beautiful Vision album is great. Neil Young\u2019s stuff is great. Dylan\u2019s Nashville Skyline is one of my favorite records.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite his close friendship and musical history with Bob Weir, Wasserman was never a Deadhead growing up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I never really listened to the Grateful Dead,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I started listening to them and hanging around that scene once I started playing with Bobby. He eventually wanted to start playing Dead tunes with RatDog, so we did. I was a hippie for a little while when I was younger, but then I turned into a classical player.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we walk through the store\u2019s folk section, Wasserman spots a Woody Guthrie album and grabs it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;When I was a teenager, I bought all of Woody Guthrie\u2019s albums,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I really liked folk music, and I eventually read Woody\u2019s book. I really just got into it.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As fate would have it, Wasserman is now working on a project based on the writings of Woody Guthrie that started from a conversation he had with Guthrie\u2019s daughter, Nora, at a tribute concert for Robert Johnson at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He\u2019s recorded three songs so far, including &#8220;Union Love Juice,&#8221; a hip-hop and bass tune with Spearhead lead singer Michal Franti based on Guthrie\u2019s journal entries about hanging out in Union Square in the 1940s. Wasserman\u2019s most recent recording for the project reunited him with old friend Lou Reed on &#8220;The Debt I Owe.&#8221; Wasserman played bass in Reed\u2019s band from 1988 through 1994, and still remains a fan of his former band mate\u2019s music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I like the Velvet Underground,&#8221; Reed said. &#8220;I\u2019m more into their melodic stuff. I didn\u2019t get it at first really, but I really love it now\u2026now that I\u2019ve played with Lou, I understand it more.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wasserman looked up from the Guthrie records and asked if I knew the name of the Charles Mingus album with a man carrying his bass over his shoulder. I didn\u2019t, which sent him wandering over to the jazz section to find out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;He played this tiny club in San Francisco, which I ended up playing early on in my career,&#8221; Wasserman said as he searched for the Mingus. &#8220;He was just so far ahead of his time. He was brilliant.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wasserman found Mingus\u2019 1964 album Right Now: Live at the Jazz Workshop in short order and jumped up the aisle to Dave Holland, a bass player second only to Mingus as a composer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I had a chance to meet him once and I asked him for his best advice,&#8221; Wasserman said, laughing. &#8220;I was 18 years old, and I\u2019d just bought my first string bass. He told me to go to New York. I didn\u2019t do it.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Talk of different bass players from Willie Dixon to Charlie Haden to Stanley Clarke eventually leads us to Jaco Pastorious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I bought his first album and thought it was incredible, but I never really wanted to play the bass guitar,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I met him once and hung out a bit. He was a crazy character.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Besides his solo work and tours with Waldman, Wasserman is currently on tour with DJ Spooky in collaboration the duo dubbed &#8220;Fresh Funk.&#8221; Prior to the start of the tour on August 5, Wasserman had not yet met the deejay nor was really sure what they\u2019d play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I haven\u2019t met him yet. He doesn\u2019t like to rehearse,&#8221; Wasserman said with a smile. &#8220;I called to see if he might want to fly in a day early to practice, and they said he just wanted to show up and play. Sounds like fun.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Wasserman\u2019s Picks of the Day<\/strong><br>Charles Mingus, Right Now: Live at the Jazz Workshop<br>Beatles, Abbey Road<br>Captain Beefhart, Trout Mask Replica<br>Anything by Pablo Casals<br>Herbie Hancock, Headhunters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When talking about the great music stores in the Bay Area, I\u2019d be remiss if I didn\u2019t take a drive out 101 North over the Golden Gate Bridge for a visit to Village Music in Mill Valley. Most people say John Goddard has been running the place ever since he was hired on as a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[44,31,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-reviews","category-rob-wasserman","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/williewaldman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Rob-Wasserman-image_2003_08_30.00-Rob-Wasserman.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/williewaldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/williewaldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/williewaldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williewaldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williewaldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/williewaldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":370,"href":"http:\/\/williewaldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions\/370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williewaldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/williewaldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williewaldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williewaldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}