BASSIST MICHAEL VISCEGLIA REVEALS A VIEW FROM THE SIDE

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Mike Visceglia This feature appeared in Huffington Post June 2015

"You ask the average person what a bass is, or what a bass sounds like, and most of the time, they don't know. But remove the bass from any piece of music and suddenly it becomes the largest missing piece in the world! Whoa, fifty percent of the music just went away with one instrument! It is an instrument that is much more conspicuous by its absence than by its presence..."

A few weeks ago I interviewed Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Famer Dennis Dunaway upon the release of his memoire Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs! My Adventures in the Alice Cooper Group - and among the many profound statements he imparted to me was "rock 'n' roll ...if it doesn't kill ya, it will keep you forever young."

Which brings me directly to Michael Visceglia, an ageless cat who has plied his oft anonymous yet essential craft on recorded works and concert performances with such artists as Suzanne Vega, John Cale, Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Bette Midler, Phoebe Snow, and Christopher Cross, to reference a very few.

Shortly following his latest performance from the orchestra pit of Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein's Tony Award Winning Broadway musical Kinky Boots on a warm spring evening, Mr. Visceglia is sitting across the table from me in one of those Italian restaurants that Billy Joel once portrayed in song to discuss his new book, which, as the most mesmeric works often are, is borne of "a labor of love...it was a completely non- commercial idea at first!"

As for the play, which was cited for Best Musical and Best Original Score, Mike's grooves are worth the price of admission alone - but go see the production anyway. "For a Tuesday night" he enthuses, "this was a fantastic gig...the audience was really into it...everything clicked."

In short, Visceglia's terrific tome A View From the Side, negotiates many themes which may appear disparate at first, but they all resolve in the end - much like an effective bass-line that grabs an audience - even if they cannot fathom the source of the rhythm, harmony, and rumble by no fault of their own. His chronicles of tours with Suzanne Vega, Velvet Underground icon John Cale, the story of the mysterious Miss M as exposed in "The Fan," and his paean to a friend and mentor entitled "The Many Lives of Jan Arnet," are the stuff of Hitchcock films. And that's just the first few chapters.

"The idea came from my experiences on the road..." exclaims Michael, "hey if this happened to me, there's got to be a lot of other musicians who have really interesting things to say...but I kept it in the bass world, because I'm a bass player." True that, but few scribes can capture the range of emotions that a bass player experiences given the tangible power of the instrument and the role these dedicated yet mostly unknown practitioners play in the music that touches the lives of millions.

"But, you don't have to be a muso or a bass player to appreciate it..." emphasizes the bassist. "I want it to be for anybody who has an interest in the music business and beyond. There is value in these human interest stories. I stayed away from the usual topics of what amplifier or what instrument someone used on a record or a tour. I delved into the thought process, the creative process, how these players keep going in this ever changing business. How do they traverse all the different styles? It's something everyone can relate to."

Aside from the sometimes torrid yet always touching tales of his personal experiences, Michael's candid conversations with bassists Will Lee (Late Show with David Letterman), Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, John Lennon), Marcus Miller, Colin Moulding (XTC), and the late studio legend Duck Dunn, among others, makes known much about the character of a bass player which will enlighten fans and aspiring musicians alike.

Visceglia's in-depth exchange with James Taylor bassist Leland Sklar, another studio giant, emerges as a pop music history lesson hitherto untold- warts and all. "My goal was to get players from different parts of the country, from different genres...with Lee Sklar, you get a look through the window of how you can be with someone for such a long time and build a career for a star, and you think you are creating an everlasting bond with someone...but you're really not. And I've found that out a few times myself."

Visceglia also shares his expertise on the currently unhinged state of the music business, offering insightful analysis on the death of the record industry; the American Idol-ization of the pop music spectrum, along with practical advice on how to forge a career as a working musician regardless of the seismic shifts in how music is delivered, consumed, and valued by the masses. However unlike many veteran players who have seen it all and continue to pine for days past, Michael waxes wise and most positive.

"One thing that an audience always relates to, more than anything else in the world, is authenticity. Of course, there are a lot of fabricated stars out there...that's fine. And it's nothing new. But that doesn't mean that every artist out there is defined by that. To experience the connection that happens between musicians, a song, a voice, an instrument, and an audience...all the people who are in it for the right reasons, and are committed to the art - we will always find an outlet for it. The other stuff, well, that's just white noise in the background..."

With a Fender bass fawning forward by former teacher Gordon Sumner, better known by his stage name Sting - and moving tributes to his late father, without whom Michael would have never picked up a bass to embark on his incredible life journey, A View From the Side is among the most realistic, accurate and useful collection of essays for bass players, musicians, and fans that I've come across in many years. I'm not at all surprised that it was written by a bass player.

"The nature of the bass is supportive. It's the only instrument that exists in three worlds - the rhythmic, the harmonic, and melodic worlds. In order to have longevity in this business, from my own experiences and from everybody I talked with, you have to be highly committed, highly flexible - you cannot have a rigid outlook on your life and the way you think things are supposed to be...because the script isn't written that way!"

Michael Visceglia's A View From the Side, published by Wizdom Media LLC and distributed by Alfred Music is out now.

DENNIS DUNAWAY: THE BILLION DOLLAR BASSIST RE-WRITES THE HISTORY OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

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This feature appeared in Huffington Post in June 2015

"How can you kick the bucket if you're writing a book? Every time I'd read something about Alice Cooper, I'd complain aloud 'ah, that's not how it happened! And my kids had to put up with that for years, and years, and years. Finally they said to me 'Dad! Shut up and write a book!"

My hot-blooded Sicilian mother oft warned me that there were three sides to every story "his, hers, and the truth!" The same loving women who doted on her only son also made a habit of tearing Alice Cooper posters off my bedroom wall in the 1970s- thankfully she never discovered the panties that spilled out of my vinyl copy of School's Out (1972) back in the era when a certain band was re-imagining the art of album packaging. She also warned me that these degenerate creeps whom I worshiped and inspired me to join a band were actually Russian operatives on a mission to rot the minds of American teenagers. Nowadays my mom's behavior is commonly referred to as "menopause."

Behold the third side of the story of a bona-fide American rock 'n' roll legacy. Dennis Dunaway, bassist, songwriter, conceptualist for the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame Alice Cooper band - that's right, Alice Cooper was a group before he, the former Vincent Furnier, emerged as a Hollywood Square, celebrity golfer, and singular show business entity - has composed the definitive and most truthful tome detailing the groundbreaking collective that also included Michael Bruce, the late Glen Buxton, and Neil Smith.

Aptly entitled Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs! My Adventures in the Alice Cooper Group (Thomas Dunne Books - St. Martin's Press, 2015), and written in collaboration with veteran rock journalist Chris Hodenfield - Dennis vividly details in the first person how the Alice cooperative of five endearingly misfit pioneering adolescents put the Woodstock generation to rest; and the rest, as they say, is history. Kiss, Marilyn Manson, Guns 'n' Roses, arena rockers too numerous to mention, and even MTV took their cues - and then some - from the original Cooper clan.

Dunaway laughs as I bestow upon him the new title of "literary lion." He revels traveling in writers circles in New York City too. "I'm meeting all these famous authors...individuals who wrote books about such important historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln. I wrote about a band who threw a chicken at an audience!" I remind Mr. Dunaway that he too is an important part of history and that his new book documents the missing link between the transformations in American pop culture from the 1960s to the 1970s - an era that continues to resonate.

Among the unsung heroes afforded due recognition in Snakes! is his wife, Cindy Smith, sister of drummer Neal Smith. "Cindy created the look that set off the whole gam rock thing...other people got credit for it, and accept credit for it...and it's not that they weren't part of it...but Cindy was doing it way, way, before anyone else..." Dennis also speaks lovingly and reverentially of the band's dearly departed guitarist, Glen Buxton. A true rock 'n' roll outlaw with a razor sharp wit to which Dunaway often quotes, it was Buxton who created many of the group's signature riffs which every player who followed in his platform boot-steps is required to replicate, and air guitarists young, old, and middle-aged continue to mime.

Effectively re-writing the script to a vital period in rock 'n' roll history as demanded by the Dunaway brood actually commenced for Dennis during Easter of 1997 - the same number of years ago as the age of a rather distraught young adult who can't figure out if he's a boy or a man as per the libretto of the band's first hit. But first he had to overcome a life-threatening disease. "If I was going to write a book," Dennis recalls, "I had to survive the surgery. That sounds strange, but that's what drove me as well." Dunaway also had to conquer moods of bitterness borne by the age old injustices of the music business, and a feeling that the fans had forgotten him. Truth is, the hardcore fans always held Dennis and the original Alice Cooper band to close their hearts despite the fact that the Cooper brand continued without them.

"We were overshadowed by the monster we created," emphasizes Dennis. "There are a lot of newer Alice Cooper fans out there that don't even know that I or the band existed!" During our conversation I note that oft times in my career as a musician - my band-mates and I would refer to the sounds and mixes of the original Alice Cooper albums for our producers and engineers - all of whom nodded their heads with respect and approval. Even without the theatrics, the Alice Cooper band canon was Hall of Fame worthy.

My comment flatters Dennis, who is quick to point out that "we also upstaged ourselves as musicians with the visuals in the Alice Cooper band." Ditto the boa constrictor which infamously slithered around the body of Mr. Furnier during concert performances. "Journalists would write half an article about the boa and not even mention the great songs we wrote for the snake!"

That was then, this is now. Mr. Dunaway, author and bassist, currently plies his craft in a kick ass trio dubbed Blue Coupe - which is made up of former Blue Oyster Cult members Joe and Albert Bouchard. They record, tour the world, and to my ears, they put guitar slinging bands (more than) half their age to shame.

At the official release party held in the Rare Books section of The Strand in New York City - Dennis and Blue Coupe tear the house down much like his old band did when a certain type of music was indeed a threat to society. To thunderous applause from glam grannies, young rockers, and Strand employees spattered in black eye-shadow akin to Dennis' former singer, the bassist bellows "no more pencils...one more book for your summer!"

Dennis and Blue Coupe ripped the joint with rousing renditions of "I'm Eighteen," "No More Mr. Nice Guy," Blue Oyster Cult's 1976 anthem "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," and close with "School's Out" -abetted by the backing vocals of New York City legends Tish & Snooky.

During the question and answer segment for attendees, co-author Chris Hodenfield speaks eloquently of his time touring with the band for his well-known Rolling Stone magazine feature in 1972. He quips "Dennis has an appallingly good memory....everyone in the band was a comedian who tried to outdo each other." Reminiscing how Groucho Marx and George Burns were Alice Cooper band fans, Dunaway praises his wife, the band's former managers, his beloved band-mates, the road and lighting crews from years past, and of course, his loyal fans. "Rock 'n' Roll," proclaims the author to me - "if it doesn't kill ya' it will keep you forever young!"

Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs! My Adventures in the Alice Cooper Group by Dennis Dunaway and Chris Hodenfield is out now on Thomas Dunne Books - St. Martin's Press, 2015