Miles Perkin . Autobiography
canadian double bassist . composer . improviser . songwriter . singer . multi-instrumentalist . musical explorer . based in berlin . blah blah blah .
Ok, you know all that, right? You came here because you want to know more. I’m going to tell you the whole story here. This is the long read.
Part 1 . Brandon
Brandon is a small town in the middle of the Canadian prairies. Maybe you've heard of it? if you’re not Canadian you might not have. It’s in Manitoba. Close to Winnipeg. Still no idea? Just take a world map and point at the dead centre of North America. It’s somewhere around there. You’ve probably flown over it in an airplane, or if you’ve driven across Canada in a car, maybe you’ve stopped at the gas station on the highway a few kilometres away from it. Brandon is in a valley, so you didn’t see the town unless you said “Hey, let’s go to Brandon!” and drove into the valley.
Besides the town in the valley, it’s flat. Very flat. “You can watch your dog run away for days,” they say.
So that’s where it all started. That wide open landscape. The big sky. I still think that imagery informs my music as much as anything.
And then there’s my Dad. He’s a guitar player, a Stratocaster guy. He always played rock ’n roll. That was my first contact with music. He played in a local band called Dr. Rhythm. As a young boy I’d go to the shows, try out the drums at soundcheck, and learn some tips and tricks from him and the musicians.
My dad was also high school teacher. He combined his teaching job with his passion for music. He invented his own music courses. He basically founded the school of rock in this little town. The school bought instruments, microphones, lights, a big sound system, the whole deal. So I’d follow him to the evening rehearsals with the high school rock band. Sometimes they’d let me sit in for a song. That was a big thrill for a 5 year old kid!
On other evenings, he’d go to his office at school to grade papers. I’d tag along and spend hours in the music room. It was like a musical playground filled with tympani, vibraphones, guitars, amps, gongs, drum set, full PA system with rack effects units. I’d just mess around with all of it and learn how it all works.
Throughout the next 10 years I dabbled around with a lot of instruments, but it was the drums and electric guitar that I spent the most time with. I played drums in a country cover band called "6 Pack"and later started a Nirvana-esque grunge band called "Rudis"as the lead singer and guitar player. Meanwhile there was always a double bass sitting there at school in the corner, but I never went near it. I was small, it was huge, and you couldn’t plug it in. I had absolutely no use for it.
That is until I was 16 years old. A friend played me a vinyl recording of Sonny Rollins, The Bridge. At one moment the band stopped playing, and I heard 4 unaccompanied notes of Bob Cranshaw playing the double bass. The sound of his bass went straight through me. What’s that instrument? I asked. I have to play that!
So the next day I went to the school and for the first time I picked up that big bass that had been staring me in the face for 10 years. I never put it back down.
Part 2: MONTREAL: Student Years
After graduating from high school, all I wanted to do was play the bass. I sold my guitars and moved to Montreal with a suitcase and my bass. I needed to be in a city where there was a thriving music scene, and where real jazz was happening. Montreal fit the bill, and in McGill it had the biggest and most respected jazz studies program in the country. I honed my skills with some really great people at that school. I spent hours every day playing with Chet and Jim Doxas. There were so many amazing musicians at that school. I owe a lot to learning alongside people like that. The teachers were fantastic but it was really my peers who had the most impact.
I studied with a lot of great bass teachers in Montreal including the best of the local jazz scene and members of the Montreal Symphony, but the most influential teacher was one I encountered outside of school. George Mitchell. This guy unlocked everything. It’s hard to explain, but anyone who knows George knows what I’m talking about. Watching and hearing him play was thrilling, and the energy in his lessons was electric. He woke me up to all kinds of things in music and otherwise.
During my student years I held down a regular gig every weekend at Biddles Jazz Club. I was in the band for the early show, and Chrarlie Biddle himself would play the late show. Charlie was a great bassist and a Montreal jazz legend. We got along immediately because the bass I’d brought with me from Brandon used to be his bass. He told me he had sold that bass 30 years ago to some kid who moved out west. He knew the story behind some of the scratches and chips in the finish. We got along well, and I had a huge respect for him. He’d always come early to listen to our last set and after a while he would ask me to sub for him when he wasn’t feeling well. On those nights I’d just stay on stage and play the late night set too. Those were some big shoes to fill and they were nerve wracking gigs because the audience had paid to hear Charlie the legend, and instead there was this scrawny, white, 19 year-old kid on stage. I really had to bring my A-game on those nights! I had to know every tune inside-out, and I had to play my butt off or the audience would stand up and ask for their money back. That experience was way more valuable than any schooling.
By the time I was finished school I was playing all over the city 6 nights a week, 3 sets a night, year round. It was a crazy pace, and I kept my hand in that fire for years.
It was during that time that I started playing with drummer Thom Gossage and his band Other Voices. Oddly enough, I replaced my mentor George Mitchell in this band as he had packed up and left Montreal. Again, some big shoes to fill. It was in Thom’s band where I really found my creative voice on the bass. Thom’s astoundingly imaginative compositions required a different kind of bass playing. I was young, but Thom put a lot of trust in me and he always had very insightful advice. Over the next 10 years we played together all the time. This ongoing collaboration with Thom has been hugely important to me.
Part 3: Brooklyn
In winter 2006 I went to New York for a while. I received a generous grant from the Canada Council of the Arts to study bass with great players such as Mark Helias and John Hebert, and to check out some music going on in the city. Mark sent me to bass boot camp. He gave me some really difficult but extremely rewarding things to work on. Lots of endurance and control things. Fine muscle work that payed off in a big way. I had only one lesson with John. He worked on some resonance things with me that I never stopped doing. He showed me how to have more than one note ringing on the bass nearly all the time. More notes ringing = more resonance = bigger sound. I never forgot that, and I still do it like that every time I play.
During my stay in New York, I didn’t play out in public at all, but I went to Jeff Davis’ house every Wednesday morning. We’d play with whoever he could get to come over. I met and played with some really great people that way. Besides that, I went out to hear music every night. I saw so much great live music it was pretty incredible. It was a short, but intense learning experience. After a few months of that I ran out of money and spent my last dollars on a train ticket back to Montreal.