Sometime in the summer of 2005 I got a phone call, from Atomic Brother’s James, asking me if I was available to play bass on a song for a guy named Pharrel Munch. Turns out the name was Pharoahe Monch not Pharrel Munch. He was a member of an underground hip hop group called Organized Konfusion. Either way, I had no idea who this was. They needed to cut bass immediately and they couldn’t find any one. I said sure and his manager, Angie, rang me up with the details. Anyway, I didn’t have a bass with me, but, I said if the studio could hook me up I could be there in a few minutes.
I got to the studio and the place was buzzing with activity. Pharoahe was behind the board directing a few singers in their background parts. As typical with hip hop sessions, there were people all over the place, and people coming and going, in and out of the control room. Very distracting environment. I got to meet the man shortly after and was asked to wait until they finished up before cutting my part.
When we got to it, I was asked to, as they now call it, “re-interpolate” an old James Jamerson, Mowtown bass part. Seemed easy enough. The studio hooked me up with this ratty old ESP bass that sounded surprisingly good after I tweaked the amp a bit. After a few playbacks I learned the part and recorded it the way they asked me; just like the record. Something wasn’t sitting right with Pharoahe and the part was almost scrapped. So, I asked them to let me record the part the way I heard it in the song. The original was great – it was James Jamerson – but didn’t bounce the way the were building the track. A few minutes I gave them the part they wanted.
Almost 2 years later and I hadn’t heard boo about the record, until this week. I log into MySpace and see Pharoahe on the front page. I visited his profile and found my track, with my bass part, in his player. The track is called “Push” and was released as a single in September 2006. It’s definitely not my bag, but sounds great. The album is coming out in June. I haven’t seen the single or the album to know if they properly credited me as the bass player on the track as they said they would.
Buy “Push” on iTunes: 