Album Review: Are You Experienced—The Jimi Hendrix Experience, 1967

For guitar players like me, the blazing riffs and soloing on "Foxy Lady", "Red House", and "Purple Haze" mean everything to us. They are simply tunes of worship; iconic blues and psychedelic rock masterpieces that influence fundamental areas of our own playing. It is undoubtedly true that Jimi Hendrix is the greatest guitar player to ever live, and that we are all grateful for the gifts that he granted us through his band’s debut record. 

For a while, that seemed to be the story of Are You Experienced. For a while, those three songs were the only songs from that album that I had on my playlist. But in truth, Jimi's dazzling entrance to the London blues scene is much different. 

From my first listen, Are You Experienced has always been the perfect musical representation of Willy Wonka's chewing gum: a stunning course meal of savory, fresh, and sweet that presents all areas of his expertise in genre, musicality, and songwriting. Throughout the album, Jimi is not afraid to showcase his genius. The first track, "Purple Haze", rips through like a fire hose. Mitch Mitchell thrashes his drumsticks against the toms, Noel Redding thumps on bass, and Hendrix's upside-down Strat cuts through it all like angry metal.

Multi-genre albums like these are extremely difficult to dissect piece by piece. But Experienced is especially difficult to do, because the styles our ears are familiar with are smothered with a certain cosmic sharpness that is present in every track. 

If we were to separate tracks by style, well, first there are the rockers, like "Fire", "I Don't Live Today", "Manic Depression", and "Stone Free" (my favorite track). The rhythm section stands out in these songs, I feel. Mitchell and Redding are able to showcase their abilities without becoming back-ups for Jimi. They reflect his energy, constantly feeding back to his playing, and this is consistent throughout the rocking tracks. 

There are the more bluesy tracks, like "Red House" and "Hey Joe", but they are amplified immensely by Hendrix's expert blues tone, which still manages to cut through the mix and shine like a violin solo in an orchestral piece. And still, the rhythm section remains strong when they need to. 

And there are the ballads, like "The Wind Cries Mary", and "May This Be Love", which showcase Jimi's wonderful vocals, which serve as the highlight of these tracks in my opinion. To think that Jimi hated the sound of his own voice.  

But I think the tracks that really shine in "Are You Experienced", which prevent the album from fizzling out, are what I categorize as "the Experience". Songs that not just create hits, but present a clearer picture of Jimi's mind. These tracks are not necessarily tunes that people will immediately groove with, nor the songs we all know and love, but really ask the question, "Are You Experienced?"

An expert example of this "Experience" portion of the album for me is "Third Stone From The Sun", Hendrix's view of Earth from the perspective of aliens exploring Earth. As much of a guitarist he is, Jimi also proves that he is a songwriter, tying space imagery and science fiction together with psychedelic accompaniment. The rhythm section, once again, shines in this track. Mitchell explores jazzy rhythms while Redding trails behind in his own melodies. Tracks like "Third Stone" are really what sell the album for me. 

I think out of the three albums in The Jimi Hendrix Experience's short discography, Are You Experienced displays all aspects of his genius. Sure, Axis: Bold as Love or Electric Ladyland have more concrete concepts, but Experienced provides a good bunch despite being more loosely tied together. Through his first album, Jimi gave out all he had on his mind: his eclectic lifestyle, his thoughts on space, and his technological aspirations. For listeners in 1967, it must have been the backwards playing, odd effects, and ear-splitting feedback that really stood out. 

Though Are You Experienced is far from a gentle invitation, it is a letter filled with angry yet pleasant metal whining that captivates us to read from beginning to end.

My Defense of the Bass (Mega Ukulele)

It really is stunning how your phone can practically hear you and provide content fit for your interests on social media. The outcome of this, for me at least, is a barrage of guitar content, clips from my favorite artists, and weirdly, slanderous content on the bass. In Korea, at least, the bass is often called the "mega ukulele" because of its four strings and allegedly limited versatility. I laugh at this content, often in the form of skits, not because I agree with them per se, but because I used to think like this before I began working with proper bands. 

As a bedroom guitarist whose musical focus was solely on the guitar and its role in bands, I did not think much of the bass and practically disliked it out of all of the instruments I played with. It seemed like an extension of the guitar, having the same first four strings but lower. I felt as if in a mix, the bass player was in a position in which they had to constantly justify their instrument, willing to stand out and cement their importance, especially in the rhythm section. 

However, as I have broadened my musical catalogue and discovered the bass's immense potential and talent as an instrument, I stand corrected on my previous remarks. The bass, though an instrument primarily used to build rhythm, can shine regardless of how minimal its contributions are to the piece. Which is why I have decided to introduce three bassists who have completely shifted my view on the instrument. 

Marcus Miller

Marcus Miller, though not as well known as other bass players, is a bassist who has been on most people’s favorite records. Whether it be Herbie Hancock, Beyoncé, or Luther Vandross, he has played and written for multiple renowned artists, enhancing the track with his expertise in building groove. 

Sporting decades of expertise since the 1980s and a Fender Jazz Bass, Miller is a true session musician who knows when to start and when to stop. His bass booms with volume when he slaps, but at the same time, it provides the crisp highs when he pops the higher strings with his index finger. 

If Miller's bass playing could be described in a single word, for me it would be "dexterity". His sound has what us guitarists call "bone tone"--a sound that comes not from expensive gear, but from the fingers. I have heard Miller on countless songs, such as David Sanborn's Run for Cover, or Lee Ritenour's Rio Funk. Despite the differences in genre and style, his playing does not sound alien or unnatural in either track. Somehow Miller brings his slap bass formula, pastes it onto the song, and makes his instrument pop. What a legend. 

If I learned anything about bass from Marcus Miller, it would be that the bass can be funky in whatever track. As long as it complements and benefits the track like Miller does, and remains punctual the whole way through, there is nothing wrong with keeping the groove. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQLBgLvzlng

Phil Lesh

Phil Lesh was perhaps the best for his contributions on bass with the Grateful Dead. Although not as prevalent as Marcus Miller within the music community, he was well known amongst Dead Heads (or fans of the Grateful Dead) as the second lead player of the band, along with lead guitarist Jerry Garcia. 

With the Grateful Dead, Lesh was anything but conventional. As soon as the music starts, Lesh quietly joins in with the rest of the musicians, setting the tone with his deep, staccato-like bursts. Then, as soon as Garcia steps into his solo, Lesh jumps out of the rhythm section and begins playing with Garcia, filling in the spaces Garcia leaves empty with his own melody. Unlike most bassists, Lesh never seems to care about the downbeats. He is perfectly comfortable with playing on the upbeats, where in most tracks, the bass would largely be absent. 

What is so interesting about Phil Lesh's playing is how his experimental approach to sound was conceived. Growing up as a kid on violin and trumpet, and an avant-garde jazz artist as an adult, Lesh had a near-perfect understanding of musical arrangement even before he joined the Dead. Learning bass for the first time, weeks leading up to his first performance with the band, he was told by fellow musicians to "always play root notes on the downbeat". However, seeing the improvisational nature of the Grateful Dead, Lesh changed his perspective on the instrument completely. 

Frankly, Phil Lesh sits on a slightly different plane than most bass players, sporting a six-string bass in his later years to play both rhythmically and melodically. As a guitar player, I found versatility on the bass with Phil Lesh. Though he will be one of the weirder bassists of modern music, there is still plenty to learn from his approach to the instrument. 

Pino Palladino

Pino Palladino, like Marcus Miller, is a true session musician. Drawn to Motown records and jazz at an early age, Pino started playing jazz fusion and neo soul for artists such as Gary Numan, Paul Young, and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Inspired by Motown bass legends as well as various other genres such as reggae and funk, Pino is a true master of endless melodic playing as well as keeping things in the pocket and staying in the groove.

Characterized by his thick flat wounds and often sporting four and five-stringed fretless basses, Pino's sound can be characterized as thumpy and yet melodic, reaching higher notes with the fifth string. He is also incredibly versatile, filling in for John Entwistle as the bassist for the Who, and recently working for artists such as John Mayer in his power trio. 

Although fusion is not a genre I vibe with all the time, there is still so much to be learnt from his playing. He is a melodic virtuoso, playing not just the low notes, but embellishing chords, musical voicings, and higher range into his playing. Though fusion and in-the-pocket grooves have always been the love of his musical life, you can hear Pino everywhere: from Beyoncé to Miley Cyrus. It goes to show how much of his knowledge of the neck of his bass, as well as sound, contributes to our favorite records today. 

Sure. Even after listening to these three bass players, all incredibly talented and brimming with creative genius, some, especially musicians, may feel that they are desperately trying to shine and reach for the spotlight. However, the musicianship of Marcus Miller, Phil Lesh, and Pino Palladino is that they are willing to stay in the background. The only difference between the mega ukulele player and these bassists is that Miller, Lesh, and Pino are aware that their instrument is not all about the low notes. So, to all aspiring musicians, give your bass player some slack. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7KzzospHVY

Science of Text Abbreviations

It seems like in this world, where we are moving in a world faster than anybody has ever seen, we are forced to do multiple things at once, texting while showering while brushing your teeth, for instance. But as a person who has actually attempted to text while showering while brushing my teeth, it is extremely hard to do these things all at once.

You might have heard someone speak like this: "It is in a world like this, so fast-paced and busy, and so many things happening through online spaces, that we have developed a culture of abbreviating the things we have to say. Grammar and proper sentences are abhorrently ignored and set to the side, being replaced with phrases such as "laugh out loud" and "be right back". And we reduce our lives even further to letters: "lol" and "brb". If one stage of abbreviation wasn't enough."

I used to be one of these people. Even as a kid, I hated times when my friends would respond in these ways, even in scenarios where their hands and time were fully available or reasonable to type out a full word or sentence. For instance, I remember learning what "smh" meant for the first time. When I realized that "smh" was widely used to replace the word "no", I scoffed. "Smh" had one more letter than "no", which, unlike the former, would be a straight answer for everyone. Was it cooler to type in abbreviations, even if it meant costing rationality and even more characters? As much as I despised text abbreviations, I also wanted to learn more about the dawn of their existence. Although I had lived through abbreviations in texting, my parents had lived through abbreviations in paging, where they had to use similarly nonsensical abbreviations to fight the numerical barrier that was ingrained in the technology of paging.

The SMS Language, or the texting language, has been used for centuries, even before the dawn of computers and the texting age. In the age of telegraphs, many words were shortened as telegraph messaging was charged based on character count. Instead of reducing words to letters, however, messengers often removed unnecessary vowels or consonants that served no purpose in denoting the word itself. This often resulted in words such as "about" and "week" being shortened into "abt" and "wk".

As telegraphs were the most advanced and widely used form of communication at the time, besides mail, the changes in language were quite significant in terms of how they shaped the culture of communication. With that said, however, all of the alterations made in this era were based on practicality, such as limiting the number of characters as much as possible to fill the limit and pay less. 

The same principle applied to paging. Since the first pagers only had a numerical keypad, messages that would normally make sense as words were forced to be converted to expressions formed entirely of numbers. In contrast to telegraphs, the "booms" of which differed by region and were mainly used in Europe, the use of pagers globalized much more quickly. This resulted in many more "phrases" in multiple different languages. In English, most phrases consisted of numbers, which denoted the number of letters in each word. For instance, the phrase "I love you" was "143" as there is one letter in "I", four letters in "love", and three letters in "you". Singular words, such as "Hello", were often represented in letters that resembled the word flipped upside down, resulting in "07734". In Korea, the sounds of the words themselves contributed to the translation to pager speak. For instance, the phrase "Come on, quick" is "8282", which resembles the pronunciation of the actual Korean phrase: "빨리빨리".

When text messages came around, they possessed the same sort of limit. At the dawn of SMS messaging, a single message was limited to 160 characters. Like telegraphs, this meant that fitting this limit as well as getting a point across using the fewest number of characters possible was always the priority. However, with the advent of smartphones, text messaging reached many more younger people, especially teens and those in their 20s, resulting in a much more modernized shift in language that suited this demographic. Common phrases such as "laughing out loud" and "rolling on the floor laughing" turned into "lol" and "rofl". But this still does not explain why, even after the disappearance of the character limit, the text abbreviations used still stay the same.

The truth is, text messaging is somewhat different from other forms of communication. In truth, paging only existed for about 10 years. Not many older people, part of the mail generation, knew about it at the time. However, unlike paging, texting has remained unchanged for the last 25 years. As more and more of the older generation pass, and more of the new generation adopt text messaging as their primary source of communication, the language used at the dawn of messaging, when limitations existed, continues to be used. Thus, text abbreviations take a natural course of evolution, where the abbreviations themselves orient themselves to the faster-paced and media-focused world of today. In a quite uncanny example, I found "TLDR", or "Too long to read", to be directly related to the faster days of today, where most people are invested in other tasks to be reading long passages. It is almost eerie and scary to think that text messaging is aging and developing with us. 

But perhaps the most crucial part of why abbreviations in messaging sit on a completely different plane is the linguistic differences. While telegraph and pager speak were abbreviated to shorten or convert a word or phrase, SMS speak exists purely to simplify. Unlike previous forms, it has no strict pattern, follows no rules in terms of practicality, and can even be nonsensical. While pager and telegraph speak have certain purposes, a person can abbreviate their text without having a specific purpose. It is this unbound and free form of speech that makes it so widespread and such a staple in communication.

Sure, this doesn't quite explain why receiving text abbreviations is so annoying, even to people who partake in them all the time. But at least we know that the fault is not ours; it is the changing world, the flexibility of language, and the changing standards of norms in communication that allow us to speak like this.