Bassnectar

Bassnectar is the stage name of Lorin Ashton, a freeform electronic music producer and DJ based in Santa Cruz, California. He is best known for his live performances, light shows, and community engagement. Musical style and influences edit: Bassnectar's original musical influences included metal and rock bands such as Metallica, Megadeth, and Nirvana. In his early career, he played session bass for American death metal band Exhumed on their 1995 split cassette with Haemmorhage. He integrates these influences into his own musical career, sometimes quite literally like his track "Pennywise Tribute" which was released on Vava Voom. He has also stated that early ambient artists, such as Orbital, played a major influence in his style; the chords from Orbital's 1991 hit "Halcyon" can be clearly heard in Bassnectar's track entitled "Empathy", off the "Vava Voom" album. Bassnectar experienced an immediate sense of welcome and comfort going to raves in the mid-nineties, which led to the confluence of his heavy and electronic style of music. He has been creating genre-bending music since the 1990s, using a variety of programs such as Vision/OpCode, Reason, and Ableton Live. Bassnectar describes his music as amorphous and ever-changing, which is reflected in the diverse sounds and personalities of his numerous albums, EPs, and podcasts. Bassnectar honed his style playing house parties in the San Francisco Bay Area, known at the time as DJ Lorin and began gaining momentum at Burning Man, often playing up to 7 sets a night. Lorin Ashton performed as Bassnectar for the first time in 2002. Since gaining momentum and commercial acclaim, Bassnectar has collaborated with and remixed a host of artists and producers, including Lupe Fiasco, Perry Farrell, Ellie Goulding, Gogol Bordello, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Datsik, ill.Gates, Mimi Page, and Jantsen, among others. Tours and live performances edit: Bassnectar is distinguished by his live performances and light shows. Since 2005, he has been touring constantly in the States as well as overseas, including performances at the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheatre in 2011 and 2012 as well a special performance each New Year's Eve. His performance for New Year's Eve 2011 at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, TN sold out to 10,000 fans, and a sequel event took place for New Year's Eve 2012. Bassnectar also performs regularly at a variety of music festivals, including Camp Bisco, Coachella, the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, the Electric Daisy Carnival, the Electric Forest Festival, Lollapalooza, and Wakarusa. In 2012 alone Bassnectar sold over over 250,000 tickets (not including festivals) The scale of these shows have come to embody Bassnectar's vision. On his 2011 release Divergent Spectrum he mentions, "This is a collection of songs I have created for maximum impact in large settings on massive sound systems for groups of people who want to get wild." Bassnectar has coordinated a number of large regional events called "Bass Centers" in addition to his tour performances. The original Bass Center took place in October 2010 at the First Bank Center in Broomfield, Colorado. Since then, the Bass Center legacy has continued through seven installments, the most recent being Bass Center 7 in St. Louis, MO, which took place in October 2012, two years after the original Bass Center debuted. Each Bass Center has proved to be massive, including special opening acts, musical collaborations, and circus-style performances. On August 13, 2011, Bassnectar launched the inaugural Bass Island event, the first of a trilogy, which was held at Governor's Island in New York City. The event was attended by 10,000 people and included supporting acts from Lupe Fiasco and DJ Z-Trip. On February 29, 2012, Bassnectar announced via Twitter that the next Bass Island would take place in summer 2012 at a new location; however, no further details have since been released and it appears that the Bass Island trilogy is on hiatus. Instead, Bassnectar returned to New York City for a double-header at Terminal Five in November 2012. Bassnectar rounded out 2012 with three massive concerts: Two BASSLIGHTS shows, in which he co-headlined with Pretty Lights and NYE 360. The New Years Eve show at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee featured Bassnectar at the center of the arena on a rotating stage, giving an incredible view to all 11,000 people. Community and causes edit: Bassnectar has openly advocated for causes such as free press and true media, net neutrality, ending corporate personhood, public knowledge, and the non-profit organization Conscious Alliance. Some of his tracks are laced with voice samples of a socio-political nature, including clips from Martin Luther King, Jr., Noam Chomsky, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Fred Hampton. Bassnectar has been a strong advocate of charity, and in 2011, he donated $1 from every ticket sold on his tour to charity via the "Dollar Per Basshead" campaign. This amounted to $250,000 distributed across three charities -- Alternet, Free Press Organization, and Reach Out (non-profit) -- which were voted upon by fans. The Dollar Per Basshead campaign continued in 2012, and once again fans were able to vote in order to determine the distribution of $100,000 across another four charities -- A Home Within, Democracy Now!, Free Press Organization, and HeadCount. The Bassnectar movement has resulted in a community of like-minded fans that refer to themselves as "Bass Heads" and travel frequently to attend his live performances, similar to the Deadhead community centered around jam band The Grateful Dead. To recognize this community, Bassnectar events always feature a short break toward the end of the show in order to take a "family photo," during which Bassnectar faces the rear of the stage and the photo is taken with the entire crowd behind him. Family photos are always posted for the online community after the event. Most recently Bassnectar rewarded the most dedicated of his fans by launching #Passnectar, in which he would give away a pair of VIP season passes for every show on the upcoming Spring 2013 tour. The outpouring of appreciation from his fans was so overwhelming he gave away three pairs of VIP season tickets.

Source: Wikipedia

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