I'm writing this column from the road, on tour with Mike Keneally & Beer For Dolphins. For some, the word "touring" evokes images of a merry band of medieval jug-bangers and ale-swillers, happily playing everything in 6/8 for the benefit of the local dancers and the one step they can do without falling down. Alas, bringing a successful show to your town is not quite that simple, especially on a small budget. A gear truck and two cars do not a merry band of medieval jug-bangers make. This is especially hard on The Touring Bassist, a breed of control freak that desires a steady, reliable groove, both onstage and in life. Unfortunately, with an entourage of 11 and the harsh world confronting him in new and exciting ways at every gig, The Bassist is too often rendered helpless, causing him to fly headlong into apoplectic fits of anguish every ten minutes or so.

To avoid this embarrassing condition, I have developed a little prayer I say as we approach every new city on our journey. It calms my nerves, gets some issues off my chest, and serves notice to the non-denominational gods of music that I, too, can have faith in something other than my ability to make the wake-up call on three hours' sleep.

Let us pray.

O gods of heavenly music-and the God of Bass in particular-grant me the strength to play a good show tonight. Your power is broad and massive, much like the promoters in the Northeast, and your wisdom awes me, no matter how bad the monitor mix is.

I beg your mercy and kindness in all things groove-oriented, and a little extra bump in finger-energy to play those fast licks at least 80 percent as well as I did on the record (in ten takes).

Please use all your power to help prevent gear failures, especially as I start the first bass solo of the night. Faulty AC cords are the work of the devil-cast out this demon! I know you work in strange and mysterious ways, and I understand the lesson of finding the positives in every situation-in this case, that people actually started paying attention to the bass solo once the power cut out. I humbly suggest there are better ways to educate me.

Please guide my feet as I switch sounds on my pedalboard so I don't accidentally turn on the overdrive during a clean guitar solo. The guitarist mentioned you by name when that happened, though I'm not sure I should be telling you that.

Please infuse our techs with your divine wisdom, especially when changing strings. I can reach a much more spiritual place when playing a bass tuned BEADG, as opposed to some other random sequence of letters.

Please provide us with a front-of-house soundman and monitor engineer who slept last night, or at least sometime this week. Also, at soundcheck, it would be great if he could say, "I'm not sure that's loud enough. Can you turn up your stage volume?"

Please watch over whoever prepares our pre-show meal tonight, be it a pizza tosser, a Subway Sandwich Artist, or the bartender. The other night, some teriyaki noodles I ate didn't react well with frequencies below 100Hz. It was a tough gig. I'm really asking for your help on this one.

Please do something about our keyboard player's left hand, especially when it dips more than an octave below middle C. Those are my frequencies. Can't you smite him, or cast some plague on his fingers, like gangrene? Oh, wait, I didn't mean that-really. You know in all your wisdom that I would never think like that. Don't hurt him. Just have the soundman kill his left hand in the monitors. And the mains.

Grant me the strength to give our new drummer the right cues, even when I don't know where the one is. (I should probably ask you to help me with that, too-but you already knew that.) Please also infuse him with the Groove of Life, and make our perception of the pulse one and the same. I know that if he were here, he would ask you for lots of bass in his monitor every night, so I'll just ask for him.

Our entire entourage has asked me to pass along a request: Please keep the cockroaches and other insects out of our admittedly inexpensive lodgings. If this is part of a worldwide plague, I understand-but if not, a little bug reprieve would be nice.

Please also grant your kindness to Mr. Keneally and his equipment as well. You see, when his gear fails him, he tends to yell "bass solo" into the microphone, and that's when I really need your divine guidance. Especially if the tune is in a flat key.

Most of all, I ask you to remind me just before I go onstage that I really do know these songs cold, that I don't have to stand pigeon-toed and perfectly still and look unhappy while I play them (unless the pre-show meal was off-kilter), that my already-poor technique will be at least as good as I need it to be, that I can hear myself, and that, if everything goes well, I will be happy, I will smile, and I will be musical at all times. Amen.

[Sound of loud thunderclap.] Bryan, this is the God of Bass.

Oh, my God-James Jamerson? John Paul Jones? Gene Simmons?

[Another loud thunderclap.] No! I have come before all you mention. I am the God of Bass, and I have heard your prayer. You have asked for a copious quantity of my merciful guidance. What good works have you done to deserve so much of my loving kindness?

Well, I taught bass lessons for a while. I donated my old fax machine and some T-shirts to the Salvation Army last year. I've tried to be a good influence, and I've never done anything lewd onstage, except maybe for that solo back in Boston.

Yes, that was a poor effort, but no matter. I speak of good works for the bass community at large. What have you done for them?

Uh, I-I-I write a column for Bass Player!

[Lightning strikes author.]

By Bryan Beller, copyright 2001 United Entertainment Media. Reprinted from the December, 2001 issue of BASS PLAYER. Reprinted with permission from BASS PLAYER. For subscription information, please call (850) 682-7644 or visit www.bassplayer.com