Bass Player Magazine Masterclass:
"Cold Fusion: Neil Stubenhaus On Vinnie Colaiuta’s ‘I’m Tweeked/Attack Of The 20lb. Pizza’"
by Bryan Beller
Published May, 2006

NOTE: This article contains references to transcribed musical examples not listed in this reprinting. Click here to see the article on Bass Player's website.

In the course of their playing careers, most bassists develop a special bond with one drummer: someone with the same inspirations, the same sense of time, groove, and fill placement, and the same intangible musicality. For Los Angeles session ace Neil Stubenhaus, that drummer is the masterful Vinnie Colaiuta. “We connected way back in the ’70s,” recalls Neil. “We both loved the Miles Davis period with Ron Carter and Tony Williams. They heavily influenced us, the way they messed with the time and played over the bar line.” So when Vinnie decided to make a solo album (Vinnie Colaiuta, Stretch/GRP, 1994), he called Neil to put that shared experience to work. The album’s opening track, one of the more demonic fusion tunes in recent memory, has become the stuff of legend.

“I’m Tweeked/Attack of the 20lb. Pizza” is a wild ride through some of the most difficult-to-follow 16th-note beat displacement drums ever recorded. The bassist’s reward for surviving that is the hellacious unison lick shown here, which starts at 1:48. From a purely technical perspective, it’s a hand-killer, chock full of wide interval jumps and enough string skipping to give both hands a gut-check workout. And Neil not only plays the lick, he plays it at the 5th and 7th frets, as opposed to taking the easy way out with open strings (except for the open E’s). “It’s much more comfortable to have your finger in the middle of the neck,” he explains. “And open strings change the tonality. The bigger the string, the fatter the note.” When I told him that my hands were sore from just practicing it a few times, he sympathized, but only to a point: “I had to be in shape for this shit.”

One of the trickiest parts is switching from bar 4’s lick to the one in bars 5 and 6. They’re the same but different, like a musical tongue twister. If you make it that far, then the real pain begins: a three-string, five-16th-note lick that repeats five times and crosses the bar line twice before quickly descending in pentatonic fashion down to the root. It’s not for the faint of heart, but that’s why we call this column “Master Class.”

And that’s all just to play along with the written part. Playing with Vinnie while he toys with the rhythms at will is another thing entirely. What’s Neil’s advice for bassists who find themselves challenged by a technically advanced drummer? “Concentrate, and be secure. Confidence is a big issue. But ask questions if you’re not sure.” That might seem surprising from a session pro who’s delivered the goods on countless pop albums, films, TV shows, and jingles, all with deliberate musicality and serious professionalism. But when it came to Vinnie’s album, and a track like “Pizza” (as he calls it), Neil knew it was a different ballgame. “The approach is, if I’m doing a record for Vinnie, this is for life.”

By Bryan Beller, copyright 2006 United Entertainment Media. Reprinted from the May, 2006 issue of BASS PLAYER. Reprinted with permission from BASS PLAYER. For subscription information, please call (850) 682-7644 or visit www.bassplayer.com