Meet Todd Phillips

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Hey guys, it's Gary Dupton Bass, and I am here very excitedly, as usual, with another great bass player from around the world, in particular this time, Todd Phillips. And uh Todd, tell tell us, uh tell everyone who you are, please.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

I'm still I'm still trying to figure that out. Um well I guess I'm known as a bluegrass bass player and maybe not super traditional, a little outside the lines being a Californian. Um although the South kind of came to California in the form of guys like Tony Rice and Jerry Douglas and Sam Bush, and I got to know them. So although they're a little outside the lines too, all those guys. But um I I grew up on electric bass since I was 11 years old. And uh as soon as I could reach an upright bass, I switched over at 18 years old. 18? Yeah. Nice.

From Electric To Upright

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yeah, yeah. So Todd, if you were to if I were to send to you, someone watching this, a request, if say you knew how to play bluegrass or you're into bluegrass, and I were to say, Hey, my name's Gary. This this happened recently, if you followed along with this. Uh, I want to get playing this music because I went and did a little and it's fun. Um the person you send that request to would send you, listen to this album and this album and this album. And uh this guy happens to be on about seven out of ten of those, if uh if that's fair to say. Could be. Oh, could be. It's true, it's true. Okay, uh uh great friend and one of our players, uh, Travis Book. Hey Trav, it's Gary. I want to like really kind of see what this is all about. Bluegrass album band one, two, three, four, this and that. Go in here, listen to this. Yeah, and uh, we got to talking, and um, that turned into me making a call to you, going, Hey man, that's right. You want to talk about bass stuff? What else can I talk about? We're in a room of those guys, yeah. Uh so um I've been doing a little bluegrass thing and learning and really enjoying it. Uh and it I find it remarkable too, like you were you just alluded to like kind of the outside parts, like some of the albums that you've kindly given me with the mandolin stuff, and the as you say, that's a bit more jazzier, and I'll let you talk about that. Could you tell us about maybe like the most outside thing you did? Hmm. Where would that go?

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Well, let me think. I mean, one record I made is called Time Frame, and it's definitely jazzi or it's got drums. Paul McCannless plays a variety of double reed instruments on it. And um uh and it I took the influence of all the David Grisman stuff that I worked on in the 70s. That that record time frame came out in 1995, but I played a lot of Mando Cello, bazooki, octave mandolin, mandola, cool, like the whole family um of Mando instruments, and uh it's not bluegrass, it's not jazz, a jazz player would say it's not jazz, the bluegrass. So I it's definitely in the cracks between things.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Uh is that where like and I see this is I'm gonna show my lack of knowledge, perhaps. Is that like when I listen to Punch Brothers y stuff? Could be, you know.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Yeah, it's more in that direction. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

You hear a lot of more, a lot of melodic change in chord structure, they're like, that ain't bluegrass. Yeah. It kind of sounds like jazz, but you like you said, you show that to a jazz guy, be like, what is that?

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, not traditional jazz in any way. But you know, in the in the early and mid-70s, you know, David Grisman was using a lot of rhythm on the mandolin that was not Bill Monroe. It was not classical, it was not anything but his own uh real interesting. Uh he shook up the way rhythm mandolin was played. And I was lucky enough as a beginning mandolin player to be there when a lot of that developed. And like I was saying earlier today, that's the only style mandolin I've ever played because when I met him, I was just a clean slate. I knew a couple of fiddle tunes, and then I went straight to his music. I see. So uh in a real innocent way. And I had that, I had a rock and roll kind of background as a kid. So I I could hold a pick. He picked me out of a mandolin class that I went to, probably because I was the only guy that could hold a pick and strum in a way that made wasn't really awkward. Maybe there's some bass player feeling. At least I had that. Yeah, and I think my role in that band, I did as a second mandolin player, I stayed out of his way. I kind of had a bass player frame of mind. So I was looking at how do I fit into the texture and and reinforce certain things that most mandolin players are out front like a lead singer. Yeah. I think I I took that second chair role.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

I can relate when I was aspiring to play drums. My interest came from, was sparked from playing with drummers that I was like, oh, please just stop. Like, you know, and so I promised that I would be uh the double bassist favorite drummer. Yeah. You know, so you're leaving as much space and not tromping all over what they're doing. Yeah. Um that was a time and it was fun as an exercise, but I can I can relate.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

There should be less showing off in music. Yeah. If you ask me, we'll quote you on that. Think about the tune, think about the song.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Yeah. You said last night, uh Todd was showing me uh, I forget what the tune was, but you said like a tractor in the mud. What was that tune? Do you remember? I can't remember.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

It was a one-five the whole time. You need that dirgy, it was whatever it was, it was a dunk, tch dunk, tch dunk, tch dunk, like a real tractor stuck in the mud, kind of a groove. Yep. So if you play anxious at all, you kind of defeat that. Oh, never.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

That feel. Never, especially in front of a guy that might know how to do the thing you're trying to do. Gary got all nervous last time. It's a fact. It was fun though. I've been apologizing all day for it. Um, so and then talking about the albums uh type things. Um, some of those have done really, really well, this as standard listening tools for all of us and enjoyment. And then Grammys, of course, which was really neat. What's the most straight down the middle? If we take it from the outside thing, what's the smoke straight down the middle? Well, as I bracket it, bluegrass.

Outside The Lines: Time Frame

SPEAKER_02 6:34

I mean, the the bluegrass album band series, there's six of those CDs. Well, started on LP. We kind of crossed from the LP days to the CD days during that project. Um but that spans 15 years. We made six of them, but it's over a 15-year period. Um, but that's when I was supposed to be the most traditional, and I tried to stick to that because all of a sudden I was with J.D. Crow, uh, who was with Jimmy Martin when he was a kid, uh, Bobby Hicks, who played with Bill Monroe when he was a young teenager. He started with Bill Monroe the year I was born. Wow. So I felt like the kid from California, you know, a little bit uh I think I had to prove myself and I tried to behave myself, but then Tony was there and Jerry Douglas. So every once in a while, you know, we some of those sparks would fly and and we probably annoyed a few real traditionalists.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

But um But it's a ri it's but we held it back. But it's it's a place in time in the history of bluegrass that people reference as you know where that groove started and where that field started.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

It's kind of the second generation after the originators.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Well, it's nice you can actually hear the bass too. Not to not to be selfish, but some of that early stuff, you're like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

What's that? They gave me one mic, like in the old days, you got none. Yeah. Yeah. You got as close as you could get to a mic, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

And you're playing a K with gut strings as close as you could to a bass. Not you, I'm saying the early. Oh, back then, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

And so you just hear like it sounds a lot like a mallet hitting a cardboard box on some of the early recordings. Yeah, I've taken some of those, like tried to take the stems out and listen to them, and I'm like, Yeah. There's sometimes there's nothing there. Sometimes it's just a low note and a random high note. It's not even really a root five. Yeah. But you know, that's all beautiful too. It's like it's really real. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Rolling into today and what what they're doing, I've heard guys say, like, well, it really hasn't changed that much since then.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

What do you think about that? Bluegrass? Yeah. Music in general. Oh no, it's uh I think it started fairly wide. And it I mean, I don't want to sound too super negative about it, but I think it's the stuff is getting more and more refined and more and more lined up, the recording techniques, the instruments, the auto-tune, the click tracks, the polishing and polishing and polishing till it's just it's be it's not recital music, but you know, there's a lot of original ideas now, but the polishing, I'm missing really a unique band sound where people get together and the band creates a very unique sound. Yeah, I think that's harder and harder to find. There seems to be a finished, the bar has been set so high now for these perfection, if you want to call it that, yeah, that it's everything's getting more similar. I hate to say that, but you know, I mean it's a perspective and it's probably a fairly accurate one from someone that's watched it happen. Yeah, and I mean, all I know is driving down this down the highway listening to XM radio. Yeah. And they'll play the old school stuff, but they'll play the current stuff, and the current stuff is getting more and more similar all the time, I think. I see. And I you know, uh like the bluegrass album band had a unique sound. You could hear each five or six personalities clearly. Yeah. Um I I'm getting off on a tangent. But anyway, I like it. That's my general overview.

Grisman’s Rhythm And Mandolin Textures

SPEAKER_01 10:10

But then, you know, it's it's I when I've called, for example, a kind friend mentor, a guy named Tony Watt up in Boston, I was like, hey, you know, he's like, We got a couple hours, I'll give you the history of bluegrass. And you know, he just broke it down for me. Yeah, yeah. And uh we're talking about it, and I'm I'm seeing it through the lens as a guy that loves basses and what plays the bass, and right? Yeah. And and I was like, well, I really hear you defining where this went and how this happened largely around us as bass players and what we were how we were impacting, both from an audio standpoint where like now you could hear the bass player. Yeah. And each of the again, maybe that's just my predisposition and bias to it being about bass players. Uh, but I've noticed that, you know, when he's talking about, or all you guys are talking about like the Nash sound, meaning Nashville, right? And the North Sound. And listen to the thing. Yeah, there are distinct regional things for sure. Yeah. And then I'm trying to still dissect, you know, the bass players, you know, and then we hear guys talk about obviously you're that guy in that region, there's other bass players that not to say they shouldn't be named. I don't want anyone to feel like they're not relevant, that's not what we're saying. But then like today's functioning bands of like who's the guy that everyone's like, that's the current bass player, right? We can come up with a couple names. Yeah. Um, but in hearing the differences in what you guys are doing, I agree. It's still closer.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Yeah. Right? It's refined. Well, I know all these guys, like, say if if you picked a half a dozen most known or whatever, each guy has their own personality and style, and you know how that fits it. You eat either one of us all could get hired for something depending on how we'd fit in. Yeah. And I know I'm a little greasier sounding, and Dennis Crouch is a little more gut string punch, and you know, so you just hire your flavor. Yeah. But that in another way, that's what I'm saying is like when I was in California, I moved to Nashville 16 years ago. When I was in California, I was in one band at a time. Actually, since I was 11 years old, I've been in one band at a time and real committed to that. Yep. And so you find a group of people that make a certain new sound together. And I I mean I kind of miss that. Interesting. Moving to Nashville, all the parts are kind of interchangeable.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

I see what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

So that would that would make the mass essentially the same as the independent. In a way. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And um, but I love sitting in, I get to sit in once in a while with Del McCurry band, and you know, I played with Claire Lynch or uh Allison Brown, several other, you know, where there's just one or two little random gifts now and then. And so you get to see what it's like to feel being in that band. Right. And they all have their own unique uh flavor.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

But um Yeah, thanks for telling. I I like when you get off into the real details. I genuinely do. I'm like and I think there's a ton of people that are we're we're in git beat uh bass geek territory. Look at this. Exactly. I I know there'll be bass players that will like what we're talking about, and I bet there'll be bluegrass musician lovers that will be thinking, Gary, you gotta ask him this question. We're gonna do more of this, right? I could sit here with Todd for six hours and I'd still have six more hours to keep going. And that's the same way when I'm here with pretty much any bass player, including guys that just got started playing the bass. We are gonna do some geeky bass stuff. He talks a lot. We are gonna do some geeky bass stuff with bass making and probably a bass that we'll tell you about later, right? Um, I do want to talk about something that you know you mentioned uh that is a real thing for a lot of bass players. Classical jazz, um, it the the physicality of playing the bass, how much we put into our even our hands and and being careful that we're not losing our callus or ripping them open. Um, Todd has a little big big thing for you going on right now.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

I have had frozen shoulder in the past. And it it it showed up, it went away. I got a big shot, it went away. I thought I had it again last April, but this is ten months later now, and I still have it. Something called Parsonage Turner syndrome. And how many people have it? Two people in a hundred thousand, they say get it. It takes, then they say, rule of thumb, one to three years to go away.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

But I think an awareness, I think, is a is a good share for people, right? Like, meaning, like, yeah, how did it start to show up? What did it feel like if you could because I mean there's got to be someone else that's just going, oh, I can't play bass or cello or something.

Playing Second Chair With Intent

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Well, you'll know when you get this. The first three or four days is the worst pain you can ever imagine. Okay. I mean, it brought me to my knees. And then they gave me the shot for frozen shoulder, and it didn't do anything, didn't help it. So then three MRIs later, one here, one in my neck, and then finally, this is your brachial plexus. I've learned so much about it. Um, they found the nerve damage somehow in the connecting between your brain and your shoulder, right in here, some kind of nerve system. And it's really well, for the first six months, I couldn't lift my hand. It still hurt. I still can't do this very, very well. But lift your hand off your knee or lift your arm away from your side. I mean, I could lift it out like this. Now I can come up about here, but see, I start to shake. Yeah. It's weird. Anyway, it's slowly getting better, but I still may have six, eight, or ten, or twelve months to go. Interesting. Sorry to wait. Interesting. No way to know. Yeah. Yeah, interesting. But anyway, I took in the first six months, I had 21 doctors' appointments, three MRIs, and a thing called an EMG, where they put needles in your arm and then electrocute you and watch your fingers. Try to figure out what's going on. And anyway, finally they gave it a name and said, there's uh we don't know what causes it, and we don't know what cures it. You just gotta wait it out. But the doctor didn't say to you, your bass playing caused this problem, right? Well, it it's also known as some kind of overhead sports disease. Like volleyball players get it. Pitchers. Pitchers, um, things like that. So that's my sob story, and then the bottom line is be really aware. Don't contort yourself to play the bass. Right. Stand up straight, yeah, relax your shoulders. There's I mean, it's a real physical thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

So bass playing's been a bit of a pause for you right now. Um, and but we're still obviously. I I had to call Todd and be like, hey man, pardon me referring to you as man, like I'm getting in into this music. Uh I hear you're kind of one of the sources.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Starting it with hey man is perfect. All right, good, good, good. Me and a lot of my friends, that's the first two words out of our mouth every time we speak.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Hello, sir. This is Mr. Upton. Hey man's just fine. He was very polite. Yeah. And and I said, Hey, would you want to come up and and have a little bass geek hang and maybe impart upon me some, A, have a fun time, and impart upon me some nuggets. I really appreciate just, you know, all of the stuff. It's really great. And the the learning. Um, I'm sure there's tons of bass players that'll be happy to hear what we're talking about. And uh, I don't know, are there any other things that I'm missing that we said we should talk about here today?

SPEAKER_02 17:17

I don't know. I think we're just spending what 48 hours together. And I don't often get to talk about bases for 48 hours. You know, I've I've got a home life with wife and kids, and uh we don't talk about bases. So You don't talk to your wife about bases? She's not not that interested.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

I ask you like this little question, and it I it's the tip of an iceberg, and next thing you know, you're telling me this whole story that I'm like, wow. I think that happens with with base making and the businessing. Yeah you know, I feel like I've already told everyone everything. And then I realize I'll get asked this what I consider a benign thing that I've already talked about, spoken about for hours, you know, and then I'll go into it and someone will be like, oh my goodness, that was great. I'm like, really? I didn't bore you bore your ears off. You know, and they're like, no, keep going about it.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

And I I think that's you know, you talk about talking about bases for 48 hours. I would say that this is pretty much what I do every single day all day.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, there's not a lot of outlets for that or places you're that's why your videos are great and being here is great. And right, I like to turn it on and off. You don't get yeah, yours is pretty much on, but even for fun, I play the bass.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Yeah. It's a little bit of a problem, right? Like do the bass. That's where I struggled for a long time. Truth in my little bit, like going to school for jazz, not really being not that I don't love jazz, I absolutely do, and avid lover of and player of at times in my life. But I think that kind of the the institutionalization of that, go into school for that, the music ed thing, up in bass. And then now I'm at a different it's just it's just a different avenue playing bluegrass. Yeah. Where I've found like I'm not, I don't know, I'm able to use a different side of my brain or something because it's challenging me because I don't know the repertoire and it's not been in my DNA since I've been a kid, maybe like you.

Groove Over Flash: Serving The Song

SPEAKER_02 19:08

You're reminding me of a friend of mine, Buell Neidlinger, great jazz player. He kind of got steered towards the bluegrass and he called it good time music. Yeah. Just play some of that good time music. And uh, you know, he was capable of Boeing a Bach cello sonata when he played with Cecil Taylor for years, but then all of a sudden he discovered how to play old Joe Clark and he dug that too. Well, yeah. Well, I don't have the the greatness of those people, just to be clear, but it is the interest is there. Yeah, right. I mean, music's music, yeah, and uh bluegrass is good time music. Absolutely. It's got a nice community around it, yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

One of the things that is kind of uh um mission-based for me is based upon my experience, and I talked to like Pete Wernick about this uh and a lot of the other people that educate in the bluegrass world, um because of like for a kid in the 90s, you know, you've got to go to school, maybe in the 80s too, right? Um, but you've got to pick your you've got to pick your major, you've got to go to school, you've got to do your thing. Well, I was playing the bass for fun, and it's like, well, I guess I'll go to college to do this. Well, there's a lot of people like me that went and got said classical or jazz degree on the bass. And I know because I chat with lots of them, yeah, those basses are then sitting in closets because you know it wasn't really that musical style that they wanted to go after. Yeah. And what I would encourage them, and again, it's it's like a pro athlete that goes back to playing basketball after you know not not doing it, or anyone that's done it at that like educational level, when you go back to it and you do a different style, you can actually approach your instrument the way you used to when you were younger for fun. Yeah, yeah. And and that's I would encourage a lot of bass players that think they know what bluegrass is. Because that was what that's what you know, that's where I was. I was like, oh, bluegrass. Oh, it's just this.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Like it's like actually, no, that was country music before the bluegrassers did what they did.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

And yes, there might be a three-chord or a two-chord song. Yeah, but it there's actually a significant level of sophistication.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

Well, yeah, today, I mean, people are going to Berkeley School of Music to learn bluegrass. Yep. But the soloists are as capable as any great jazz solo. Or cla or the in the or the classical page written rep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

Of course, but it's unwritten. You know, a solo is a personal thing. Composition, yeah. And you can compare, I mean, I don't want I won't even come up with examples, but I mean, I like to listen to Cannonball Latterly. I like to listen to Stuart Duncan invent a solo on the spot. Right. They're beautiful and they're unique and and they're equally as uh whatever, I don't know, magical, you know? Yeah. Uh mysterious. Virtuous, all those words. Virtuostic, and um but so anyway, yeah, you can't judge it by the number of chords that are in it. Right. The rudimentary elements, like we're talking about, just keeping time back to the bass, it's not as easy as it sounds. Right. Just to keep uh Good time, and there's so many different styles of keeping time, right? Or feels it might be dunk, donk, donk, donk, but the nuance of that, there's no place to hide. Yeah. And there's no drummer to kick your butt. So yeah, anyway, yeah, it's a challenge. It really is.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

I don't think many of us that are that were drawn to the base, we're like, oh man, I'm I love it. I'm gonna do all this complicated stuff. Right. You know, I'm gonna be the front guy. It's like, no, we we like being a big cog in the machine, yeah. And that's what I'm urging people that think they might know what bluegrass is, and they think they might know it's like you might find that you get to do exactly what you used to do or what made you fall in love. That's my story. That happened. I'm like, this is what I like to do.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

We have to love being in the rhythm section.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

I mean, although a lot of bass players are just waiting for their next solo. Yeah. But we're in the rhythm section, you know, and that that's the main gig.

Bluegrass Album Band And Tradition

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Maybe that solo thing is maybe I my guess is probably because of some of the levels of people you're around. A lot of the guys that I talk to are like, you know, do I have to solo if I don't want? Like, no, no one minds at all. Like you're cool just to they they actually are worried about you that you're getting bored. Oh, you know, like not me. Yeah, you're but I'm saying your fellow musicians are like, oh, you want a solo? Yeah. We don't want to pass over. And I found, you know, I'll take one like one in ten tunes if I'm at a jam. Yeah. But like it doesn't need to be everyone I'm not a soloist.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

I like a fill, a little fill, a little bridge here and there. And uh, but yeah, you can keep yourself entertained by tastefully moving through some real simple chord changes and making it work. Like that nuance of whether it's going to work well or not work well is uh the other guys in the band will really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Serving the serving the tune, that's uh serving the song. Like that's what Barry Bale said to me. He's like, you know, the way he said it, you know, it's like and and who's like you were talking about yesterday, like who's playing, where they're playing, where you're sitting against them, especially with the five string that we've been arguing about. Yeah, you know, are you down here? Are you up here, or are you up here? You're trying to get them to change octaves on a few things. Don't just sit camping out there. But it it I think that's the you know, this guy does it on automatic, it's amazing. Um, but yeah, I think all of that is for me the excitement of where bass players could dig into this. And I I just warn people to have their preconceived notions about anything in life, of course. But in particular, like, oh, I'm not gonna go play bluegrass, you're you're crazy, Gary. I love you can actually play with beginners, you know, on other instruments and still have an okay time where you're learning. Yeah, it's not like, oh my goodness, I need a bunch of elite guys, or that the the best people can only play with each other. It's you know, it's it's very community-based. Yeah. And I've yet to go to many experiences where um I've seen it a little bit and it does stink. I think that the people, there are some top-level people talking on about this, but it's it's been fairly welcoming. It's not been like I've experienced with other stuff, true, which has been nice.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Yeah, and I was saying my kind of philosophy when I teach at a music camp is the beginning rudimentary stuff about just mechanics of approaching the instrument are exactly the same as the most advanced stuff. Yep. Be like I said, Tiger Wolf. He's always working on his swing. Yeah, he knows how to play golf, and you can play the most complicated music on earth, but you should always be working on your swing. Those rudimentary mechanics of playing, um, they never go away, and you can never stop trying to improve on those, you know.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Yesterday, Todd gave me the kind of this exercise. I'm not gonna tell you about it because we're not gonna get into the top secret. Yeah, top secret. But there's gonna be a way to get it later, I'm sure. I mean, it took him two minutes. He's like, you know, you should try. I'm like, wow, and it is something that I absolutely will integrate into my daily practice. There's no question. It's gonna be until it becomes automatic.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

That's the first hurdle I throw out there to everybody. And it's like, oh no, I got something to work on.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Boy, I thought I had that down.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Yeah, sometimes it's very simple, but yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for doing this with me. Absolutely. I'll be back.