Basehead (Dan Grandpre)

Prominent PC-scene musician of the mid-1990s — "one of the very best techno/trance/ambient trackers" to TraxWeekly's first interviewer — of Imphobia, kosmic/KFMF and iCE, and from March 1995 one of the five-musicians (sources: s-tw001-interview-basehead, s-tw003-interview-five-musicians). Chuck Biscuits credits him with "showing us all how trance/ambient can be done through trackers" (source: s-tw003-interview-chuck-biscuits); Pinion, Catspaw and the 1997 newcomers name him with necros as the scene's establishment (sources: s-tw014-interview-pinion, s-tw057-interview-catspaw, s-tw105-newbie-interviews).

Facts#

• Dan Grandpre, 18 in March 1995 ("19 on toozday" in July 1995), out of school, playing in a real-life band (sources: s-tw001-interview-basehead, s-tw003-interview-five-musicians, s-tw018-interview-basehead).
• Followed the Amiga scene ("i loved 4-channel stuff, still do") but never learned protracker; first song Out of Time Again in May 1993 after KingMod; about 80 finished songs by March 1995. Twelve years of piano, plus guitar, bass, drums, sax, trumpet, trombone and "a lot of musical theory" (source: s-tw001-interview-basehead).
• Tools: scream-tracker-3 and Wave for Windows; samples from CDs, a friend's synth, "and from other songs of course". Own favourites: Shades of Night 3 (EGG Music Disk #2), Sokoban, Forever, Spartacus, Imajica; favourite trackers Audiomonster, Dizzy, Heatbeat, Delorean, Sidewinder (source: s-tw001-interview-basehead).
• Speciality by his own account: smooth jazz, ambient, slower music, percussion and mood (source: s-tw003-interview-five-musicians).
• 1995 releases: Imajica (189 orders, "just 94 patterns repeated with an ending thrown on"), which was ripped and re-signed by others (source: s-tw018-interview-basehead); the solo musicdisk Lotus Position (September 1995: seven songs, ~4 MB, ~57 minutes; Open Your Mind has 208 orders over 99 patterns; songs sized to his 512 KB GUS), earlier disks/songs Night 2, Night 3, Dope for Your Mind, Poetry in Motion, Chiba City (source: s-tw027-interview-basehead-lotus-position).
• NAID 1995: he attended; Spartacus was the compo's most-imitated song — "a lot of Spartacus (Basehead) rips … with the drum solo at the end" (source: s-tw006-naid-opinion-interviews). Was to appear on ACiD's 1995 musicdisk with pinion, Rimbo, psibelius, Pianoman and beaner (source: s-tw011-interview-beaner).
• Mentor of lord-pegasus: taught him chords over the phone on the piano ("he says I track like him sometimes"); about half of Lord Pegasus's samples are Basehead's, and Basehead's poet!klf is a remix of one of Lord Pegasus's own songs; Lord Pegasus learns theory from the "nec / bh" articles (source: s-tw018-interview-lord-pegasus). Gave liam-the-lemming a critical breakdown of AutoEmotive — percussion, sample choice, "cheeziness"; Liam's favourite is "Wastelands" (source: s-tw066-interview-liam-the-lemming).
• populus (June 1995) counts him among those who "did very good techno" and says his #15 article parodied the "dumb bassdrum on 2 tracks" style (source: s-tw016-interview-populus).

How he works#

Mood first, then 30–35 samples that fit it, a main chord progression or hook, an intro that builds into it, then variations and second and third parts (source: s-tw001-interview-basehead). Composes only on "MEGA inspiration", then in one 5–6-hour sitting (source: s-tw027-interview-basehead-lotus-position); the week he lost internet access he wrote three songs in three days (source: s-tw003-interview-five-musicians). Against drunk tracking — "you end up writing rambling crap and missing all your mistakes" (source: s-tw018-interview-basehead).

Opinions#

• In the #trax chord-theory argument reported in traxweekly #37–#40 he, necros and Aahz argued that music theory "can give you a lot of backing" in any style; he stressed he never claimed chord theory was required and that he likes "musical" and "non-musical" styles equally (source: s-tw039-chord-theory-debate).
• Against shareware CD-ROMs that sell scene music for profit; found his songs on "every random cd" without a cent in return, hence the disclaimer in every Kosmic release (source: s-tw018-interview-basehead).
• "try to open your mind to more styles of music" (source: s-tw001-interview-basehead).
• Zinc's percussion article ends "Don't overdo it! — unless you happen to be basehead" (source: s-tw075-it-percussion-tips); on #trax he is the resident idler (source: s-tw080-trax-mass-interview).
• Told zinc "there's really no way to tell what chords will sound good together unless you just play them, so get a guitar or keyboard" (source: s-tw107-laymans-music-theory); shawnm names "the theory the Necros and Basehead use" as the scene's tonal benchmark (source: s-tw046-serial-composition) — his own classical training against the "jazz theory" of Basehead and Necros (source: s-tw041-interview-shawnm).
• Beacon (1996) names "Basehead's and Necros' super-samples" as the sets everyone ripped — his argument for sampling your own (source: s-tw024-sample-ripping-debate; see sample-ripping).
• necros defended Basehead's NAID 1995 compo entry against perisoft's charge that it was "35 % ripped from CD samples": most of the audience could not tell without soloing the samples in ST3, and making riffs work "like Basehead did" is harder than it looks (source: s-tw009-samples-lameness-preconceptions). Perisoft's own account (May 1995): he judged by the song's sample credits, "didn't realize he reworked the sax samps", was kick-banned and called "anal retentive", and meant "to shock people into thinking" (source: s-tw011-interview-perisoft). Hartrell's tips end with "Respects to Basehead (THE Music Man)" (source: s-tw021-tracking-tips); Atlantic's advice to beginners: don't try to sound like "Skaven or Basehead" at once — start small (source: s-tw032-not-so-advanced-tracking-tips).

In the interviews (1995–98)#

• Named an influence or favourite by nemesis, thehacker (ambient), beaner, claim ("on occasion"), big-jim, scirocco, saxy, ender (who had had "a few little arguments" with Basehead and Floss), khyron ("for a while") and mental-floss ("early basehead stuff"); in balrog's PC dream team; thanked by daedalus; perisoft's favourite tracker musician in 1997; one of zalt's "very unique" Americans; ryan-sprott got the samples he did not get from a friend from Basehead and names "Urban Culture Bomb" a favourite (sources: s-tw004-interview-nemesis, s-tw005-interview-thehacker, s-tw011-interview-beaner, s-tw015-interview-claim, s-tw013-interview-big-jim, s-tw054-interview-scirocco, s-tw054-interview-saxy, s-tw030-interview-ender, s-tw111-interview-khyron, s-tw119-interview-mental-floss, s-tw042-interview-balrog, s-tw052-interview-daedalus, s-tw087-interview-perisoft, s-tw040-interview-zalt, s-tw063-interview-ryan-sprott).
• Hero-worship from his side: master-of-darkness relays Basehead's complaint about it ("can I shine your shoes") and his own past of "buggin necros and basehead and then complaining" (source: s-tw030-interview-ender); fisherman (May 1996): "Basehead and Maelcum ... are famous"; zinc's FITC charter: "there was a time when even Basehead was a nobody!" (source: s-tw060-interview-fisherman).

Contradictions and opinions#

• Overrated or underrated — opinions, not facts: vegas (June 1996) — overrated, "well-tracked, but boring and often too unconventional for me to enjoy" (source: s-tw062-interview-vegas); ryan-sprott a month later — "VASTLY underrated", "one of the best trackers that ever lived", "bashing basehead and mellow-d has become what bashing pm and skaven was... people are just jealous" (source: s-tw063-interview-ryan-sprott).
• The "Floss" that Ender argued with alongside Basehead is not identified — Floss (George Nowik) of the 20-minute-chip-compo column or mental-floss (Andrew McCallum) are different people (sources: s-tw030-interview-ender, s-tw119-interview-mental-floss).

Related#

necros · five-musicians · kosmic · scream-tracker-3 · tracking-workflow · traxweekly · sample-ripping · perisoft · lord-pegasus · shawnm · master-of-darkness

Sources#

s-tw001-interview-basehead · s-tw003-interview-five-musicians · s-tw018-interview-basehead · s-tw027-interview-basehead-lotus-position · s-tw039-chord-theory-debate · s-tw075-it-percussion-tips · s-tw003-interview-chuck-biscuits · s-tw014-interview-pinion · s-tw057-interview-catspaw · s-tw105-newbie-interviews · s-tw080-trax-mass-interview · s-tw107-laymans-music-theory · s-tw046-serial-composition · s-tw024-sample-ripping-debate · s-tw009-samples-lameness-preconceptions · s-tw021-tracking-tips · s-tw032-not-so-advanced-tracking-tips · s-tw004-interview-nemesis · s-tw005-interview-thehacker · s-tw006-naid-opinion-interviews · s-tw011-interview-perisoft · s-tw011-interview-beaner · s-tw013-interview-big-jim · s-tw015-interview-claim · s-tw016-interview-populus · s-tw018-interview-lord-pegasus · s-tw030-interview-ender · s-tw040-interview-zalt · s-tw041-interview-shawnm · s-tw042-interview-balrog · s-tw052-interview-daedalus · s-tw054-interview-saxy · s-tw054-interview-scirocco · s-tw060-interview-fisherman · s-tw062-interview-vegas · s-tw063-interview-ryan-sprott · s-tw066-interview-liam-the-lemming · s-tw087-interview-perisoft · s-tw111-interview-khyron · s-tw119-interview-mental-floss