StarF**ker Central, Part I - Tony Levin

I've been fortunate enough to meet a number of my musical idols. Being that I'm not all that famous myself, it's cool that so many of them are down-to-earth enough to have a conversation with a relative nobody like myself. Here, first entry in an occasional series about my brief encounters with musical "heroes."

---

Tony Levin is generally considered to be a very cool, somewhat quirky guy. He's a great bassist and an innovative musician (among other instruments, he also plays a Chapman Stick). His book "Beyond the Bass Clef" is a fun read, with gig anectdotes and studio stories - and the odd crazy invention (bass rig with capuccino machine) and oatmeal cookie recipe(!) It was during a book signing that I got to have a brief conversation with him, and I just so happened to have a fun story to tell, which he quite clearly appreciated.

As you may have read in a previous post, I own several pair of Tony's "Funk Fingers" (small drumsticks that attach to a bassist's fingers for a percussive sound.) Tony used them on several tunes with Peter Gabriel. In the meantime, I actually used them on two of Second Story's more popular tunes, and as a result, if you came out to see us, you were quite likely to see them in action at least once.

A friend and regular audience member came up to me after a show one evening all excited - he told me that, the previous weekend, he had watched Peter Gabriel's "Secret World Live" video. "And his bassist - he had those crazy drumstick thingies like you have!" I, of course, filled him in that Tony was actually the inventor of those "drumstick thingies." As you can imagine, when I recounted that story, Tony got a nice laugh out of it.

I found him to be generous with his time, attentive to his fans, and quite friendly overall. Cool guy. And he signed my book.

Funk Fingers?

These are some of my favorite toys. Originally developed by Tony Levin and his bass tech, based on an idea that Peter Gabriel suggested - I believe the story went something like this: When they were rehearsing or recording one of Gabriel's tunes, to get a percussive sound, Tony was whacking his bass with a spare drumstick. Peter said, "Why not attach the sticks to your fingers? The result was this:



For a brief time, Tony actually had a bunch of sets made, and sold them on his website. I was lucky enough to grab a few sets for myself when they were there, since he no longer produces them. As a result, he gives his permission to recreate them yourself for personal use - but mandates that you cannot mass produce or sell them for profit (I think he owns a patent for them). I've since seen original pairs of the ones he produced sell on eBay for over $100 (which is ridiculous since they should be easy enough to make for yourself.)

I actually got pretty good at using them; I performed with them regularly in live concerts and bar gigs with Second Story - as well as recorded two of the songs for the second album using them ("Dancing on the Hill" and "Abducted"). I hope to soon have some video available of them in action.

But they're neat, very cool, and they never failed to get a reaction from the crowd when I started smacking my bass with them. And they can provide an ultra-percussive bass sound that just can't be matched with the thumb alone.

Here's a clip from the studio (pre-vocals) of "Dancing on the Hill," which features me playing the Funk Fingers through a distorted amp.

And here's a sound clip, from a live performance with Second Story

Ahhh... toys.