Hello, my name is Matthew Ezzard, I’m a 24 year-old bassist from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I play in two rockabilly bands, The Hi-Lo Tones, and Cowboys & Indian (two white guys, one indian). I used to post some on rockabillybass.com when that was a thing, but life came hard and fast and I didn’t practice alone as much as I would have liked.
Lately, I’ve been having more self practice and am trying to take my playing to the next level, from sufficient to great. I have been watching and trying to imitate Joe Fick, Joe Zinkan, Djordje Stijepovic, Nicolas Dubouchet, and Willie Dixon. I like their work because it incorporates melodic lines, has unique timing, and great solo ideas, as opposed to the average rockabilly players’ solos where one just slaps the chord changes, which is where I’ve kind of plateaued at and am working at getting past. I would especially like to work on the quick finger thing Nicolas Dubouchet and Willie Dixon seem to be fond of.
The greatest opportunity I’ve had to date with my bass playing has been being able to perform at Viva Las Vegas 15, having The Hi-Lo Tones featured on track 8 of the Viva Las Vegas 15 compilation cd, and being able to meet some of my favorite players there, Kevin Stewart, and Djordje Stijepovic (who came out to watch us play Sunday night…no pressure). We are also pressing a 45′, so that’s exciting too.
My drummer playing while I try to imitate Joe Zinkan:
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