Bassnectar on his history, posted via bassnectar.net
A quick run down of my musical life:
When I was in junior high I began discovering music that struck me, as opposed to music that felt familiar (like my parentβs music). This was mostly Metallica (the first song I heard of theirs was βEnter Sandmanβ, so this was after they had already become βmainstreamβ and blown up), NWA (which I memorized completely verbatim), and Nirvana (again my introduction to them was βSmells Like Teen Spiritβ their βbreakout singleβ which all hardcore Nirvana fans I am sure despised and griped about) but for me this music was raw, pure, and extremely riveting. I gravitated towards anything heavy, and fell headfirst into the local underground scene, which was full of freaks, lunatics, and overall playful, strange, creative people.
I begged my parents for a crappy guitar, and after three quick lessons I formed a band with my best friend, and we set out to lose ourselves in heavy metal. To this day I do not know THE SLIGHTEST musical theory, I donβt understand notes or chords or anything like thatβ¦ I taught myself to play by basically remixing the songs I loved best, or combining riffs from different songs. Or I would take a hook (like the opening guitar in Black Sabbathβs βIronmanβ) and play it at various alternate speeds, trying to change up the feel but maintain the essence.
About this time, my Uncle Joe (who has always been a bohemian world traveller) started bringing me hand drums and teaching me beats. He would leave me with cassette tapes of brazilian Samba and Batucada beats. As I learned to play the drum, my ability to keep time with my band mates improved significantly.
The music I was into became progressively more and more hardcore, and as I began turning away from Religion and mainstream American culture, my friends and I descended into an obsession with the darkest, heaviest music possible. Death metal, Black metal, doom, grindcoreβ¦ and I mean we became *OBSESSED*β¦it was all we ever did. There was an intense camaraderie between the various metalheads in the area, and a network developed. There was so much creativity and experimentation exchanged as the 2 or 3 kids from each high school influenced each other, shared new styles, and got together to form bands or make underground shows happen. Sometimes we would have informal βshowsβ in our practice studios, or in my bassistβs garage (or on crazy days we would set up and play on his rooftop), as well as taking over various Battle Of The Bands, or throwing grindcore/punk crossover shows in the basement of the Cupertino Public LIbrary. A very unique community formed, comprised of freaks from every nook and cranny. It was a community of misfits and oddballs and rejects, but it felt like home. Bands like Exhumed, Spazz, Gory Melanoma, Dawning, etc were all very influential.
As time progressed, my songwriting developed, and although I did not officially know what I was doing, I was writing most of the music for my band from intuition, and again from opening to all the influences around me. I experimented with 4-track recorders and FX pedals. During senior year of high school, as my friends and I started going to βravesβ, I started making rough forms of DIY techno music (with crappy drum machines, my guitar, my effects pedals, and bad vocal effects) and listening to late night electronic music shows on KFJC.
Upon going to my first rave on September 5, 1995, I basically changed irrevocably. I was still extremely obsessed with music, but the rave scene at the time opened my eyes to the beauty of community (something I had been raised with in the hippy commune I grew up in) and I felt completely open and connected to other people. As opposed to the introverted darkness of metal, I found βrave musicβ to be just as raw and powerful and immersive, but the values were very positive and friendly, and so was I.
I got into raves not for the drugs, or even the music (although both were very powerful) but rather for the community. I was so mesmerized by everything i found in the rave scene that my only response was to give back. I wanted to get as utterly involved as I could, so I could re-create my experiences for as many other people as possible. I was usually completely sober, running around all night long taking care of everyone I met or dancing for 8 hours straight like a mad man.
Soon I knew all the promoters in the area, and thousands of people in the San Francisco scene. As my tastes developed into hardcore psytrance (we called it βGoa Tranceβ since it supposedly originated in trances that took place on the beaches of India), I quickly got behind the scenes and started throwing parties in SF warehouses and throughout the beaches in Santa Cruz. I was working with hundreds of other people, this was not a lone wolf thingβ¦ there were multiple communities, simultaneously pushing the boundaries further and further and I wanted to be at the core of all of them, working with all my heart to contribute. (I am tempted to start listing names of people who i worked with but the list could get long, maybe in another post, i can tell a better history, with more details).
I remember in early 1996 when I realized that all a DJ was doing was playing a record. Before that, I had thought they were *making* all those sounds liveβ¦ I found a pair of turntables at a friends house, and after a 20 minute lesson I gave it a try and seamlessly beatmatched the two records (her name was Bonnie, she was a SICK downtempo DJ out of San Jose) β¦I remember laughing out loud, partly because it was so much fun, but also because it was *SO* painlessly easy. Years of drumming had prepared me and I thought that since I was already throwing ill parties, why not play at them as well? Until that time I had never considered being a DJ (although I was taking the Electronic Music minor at UCSC and playing with tons of amazing gear). I was mostly focused on making events happen, and making music, in addition to going to school (I majored in βCommunity Studiesβ at UCSC, and also minored in Education)β¦
One Sunday morning, a few hundred friends and I were deep off in the boonies on a beach outside of Santa Cruz. We had been there all night absolutely raging, and as the sun rose over the water and illuminated the beach I noticed another sound system and group of people way, way down on another side of the beach. I was usually the sober guy who would go talk to the cops if they came to bust our fun, or to basically handle whatever needed to be handled, so I started walking over to this other party. Halfway there, I met one of their representatives, a small guy who looked kind of like an Ewok. He introduced himself as βBrotherβ and explained that his group (they were called βSpaceship Gaiaβ) had noticed our party and wanted to come make friendsβ¦ Brother was (and is) a huge influence on the early Santa Cruz full moon collective scene, and also one of my favorite DJs to this day. One time he gave me a sticker he made that said βButterfly Beings Drink Bass Nectarβ and as soon as I saw it I thought that if I ever made a band again I would name it βBassnectarββ¦
That is the long and short of it. I can tell you more about the hippy commune I grew up in, or the death metal scene in California in the early 1990β²s or the illegal warehouse raves or working as Barney The Purple Dinosaur at little kids birthday parties while I was in collegeβ¦ Or I can tell you how the sounds and styles morphed from the 1990β²s through Y2K and into the present day, but this feels like a good place to stop for now.
Lights
Bassnectar Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Losing it all on my own
I had a heart then
But the queen has been overthrown
And I'm not sleeping now
The dark is too hard to beat
And I'm not keeping now
You show the lights that stop me
Turn to stone
You shine it when I'm alone
And so I tell myself that
I'll be strong
And dreaming when they're gone
'Cause they're callin
Callin
Callin me home
Callin callin callin home
You show the lights that stop me
Turn to stone
You shine it when I'm alone
The lyrics of Bassnectar's "Lights" suggest that the singer is going through a hard time in life. They had a way before, but they lost it all on their own. They had a heart, but now the queen has been overthrown. It seems like their life has been turned upside down, and they're struggling to cope with it. The darkness that surrounds them is overwhelming, and they can't beat it alone. They're not keeping the strength they need to push themselves forward, but then comes someone who shows them the light. The person who shines the light is there for them when they're alone, struggling to find their way.
The chorus of "Lights" suggests that the person who's shining the light is giving the singer hope, a reason to be strong. The lights stop them from turning to stone, and the light shines when they're alone. They tell themselves that they'll be strong and dream when they're gone because they know that they can count on their support. The person who they're talking to is calling them home, which could signify that they feel lost and need someone to guide them back to safety.
Line by Line Meaning
I had a way then
In the past, I had a path that I followed
Losing it all on my own
But I lost everything, being alone in that path
I had a heart then
At that time, I had feelings and emotions like a normal human being
But the queen has been overthrown
But the reigning power over my emotions and feelings has been defeated
And I'm not sleeping now
Presently, I'm not getting any sleep
The dark is too hard to beat
It's difficult to overcome the darkness in my life
And I'm not keeping now
I'm not holding on to
The strength I need to push me
The courage and power that I need to keep going
You show the lights that stop me
But then you come, and show me a guiding light to halt my suffering
Turn to stone
To make me feel as if my problems are insignificant and trivial
You shine it when I'm alone
You bring light into my life when I'm by myself, feeling lost and hopeless
And so I tell myself that
And then, I think to myself
I'll be strong
That I have the strength within me to stay strong and continue on
And dreaming when they're gone
And to dream again when my problems are gone
'Cause they're callin
Because I'm being distracted and called away by other issues
Callin
Being called
Callin me home
Being called to my true home
Callin callin callin home
Repeated calls to my home
You show the lights that stop me
You're always there to show me the way when I'm lost and confused
Turn to stone
To make me feel as if my problems are insignificant and trivial
You shine it when I'm alone
You bring light into my life when I'm by myself, feeling lost and hopeless
Lyrics Β© Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: ASH HOWES, ELLIE GOULDING, LORIN ASHTON, RICHARD STANNARD
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@NesquickGuy
2009-2012 were truly golden years of dubstep
@JamesDBlanc
It was fun while it lasted
@alijah4k
@@JamesDBlanc for real
@DreamseedVR
yes, this was the peak as the wave crashed
@joshuamitcham1519
To real party monsters who were 20 in 2000,this is haunting.
@loganweeks2353
And festivals
@jptothetree
There will never be a better remix. This one is so epic and powerful!
@AaronAlso
This should have been the original release of the song, but that is all too often the case with remixes these days.
@baschoen23
+AaronAlso The original release was actually really good and much clearer. This version gets pretty muddy if you don't have the your system turned up nicely
@themop7437
+Pitra Media I mean... Fytch doe...