My First Record: Ben Bassett of Vintage Blue

I can picture it now, the first album I ever remember owning.  I may have only been a few years old, but I can picture the cover of the album in my head right now.  Red, Yellow and Blue stripes across the front and I seem to recall some skeletons.  I was so young that I really could not even tell you the names of most of the songs on the record, but if I heard them now, you would catch me singing along.  “There’s a little black dot on the sun today.”

As for the first record I ever purchased, that is a whole different story.  I grew up with a step-brother who was ten years older than me and was into Guns n’ Roses, real early Metallica and those hair bands of the 80’s.  By the time I had eventually moved on from Sting, Bobby Brown and Michael Jackson I was ready to rock.  I remember gathering up some cash from allowance and whatnot and walking down to the music store in downtown Chico and buying (what was then a pretty new technology) a CD!

But this was not just any CD.  Branded with a nipple ring on a cow udder; it could be no other than Get a Grip by Aerosmith.  That album produced numerous hit singles and spawned the career of one of my favorite crushes of all time.  An absolutely amazing piece of music history that was one of the first hugely successful records across all media types.  Amazing and Crazy.

Ben Bassett plays bass in Chicago-based five-piece rock band Vintage Blue. The band will be releasing its debut full-length record, Strike the Mics, on February 14, 2012. For the Strike the Mics sessions, Vintage Blue enlisted Grammy-nominated producer Jamie Candiloro (The Eagles, Luscious Jackson, Willie Nelson, Ryan Adams), who not only ensured a sparkling, 13-track-strong sonic result, but also drove the band to write their most concise, structurally impactful songs to date, featuring elements of rock, folk, ska and the blues.

One of the key factors underlying Vintage Blue’s strengths as an original rock act is the dual writing tandem of Ben Bassett and singer/guitarist Ryan Tibbs, who each pen and sing their own respective material. Vintage Blue—which also includes drummer Will Crowden (the grandson of the founder and former owner of Ludwig Drums), bassist Cesar Corral, and saxophonist/keyboardist Matt Zimmerman—formed in Chicago several years ago as a cover band, and as time passed and the group solidified, the outfit started to compose their own original material. Lineup changes ensued, but the core roster persevered. The band will be performing with Marty Casey and the Lovehammers on March 10th at House of Blues in Chicago, and they’ve opened for artists such as Vertical Horizon, John Waite, and Ty Stone, and offered direct support for Sister Hazel for a Midwestern leg of their 2011 tour.