Happy Birthday, Ted! One last time! All these years, I never realized you shared McCartney's birthday! Which of those two is the better bass player? That's a tough one!!!
Me and Hube? We could slop things up from time to time. No shame in that, we delivered the goods plenty, but sometimes..... Frank and Lawrence? They could hit wrong notes. When they hit the good ones , forget it, there was nobody on the planet who could beat them. Nobody! When they didn't hit it? Ouch. In fact...double ouch!!! It happens. You try inventing solos fifty times a night, composing melody after melody on the fly, whenever the lead singer decides to shout "Take it!" Not so easy!
But from the earliest tape to the last tape, Ted is always solid, always apt....and ALWAYS distinctive, inventive, dripping with personality in his playing, you can always pick Ted out of a lineup. That's actually something we all had, we all had distinctive voices on our instruments....you know who's playing guitar, or bass or drums, or electric piano, or accordion....in two seconds. And those instrumental "voices" matched the personalities behind the players, did they not? We all have that quality.....Ted has that in spades.
A girl once told me - a musician, no less, someone who you'd think would know better - she told me she didn't get what was so great about Ted, she didn't get bass, period, and she didn't understand why Ted was such a great player. I looked at her with such revulsion, I still can't take her opinion seriously! To not get Ted.....is to not get music, itself! Or to put it more bluntly.....you don't like Ted's playing......you are against puppies and children!
Other than a few "Return Britain" solos - and even then, only when he's playing fretless, and gets a little "slurpy"..... and even then, only very occasionally - Ted never, ever, ever plays the "wrong" thing - Ted is pretty much the secret weapon of the band. The guy grooves like nobody, he is so damned melodic, think of all the catchy bass lines in LOOB! Off the top of my head, "That's Not The Way", "I Owe","Gimme Fun", "Wintertime", the little tagline he puts at the end of the "Return Britain" chorus....it's more like which basslines of Ted's WEREN'T catchy. He has a tender, playful touch. Emotional. His sense of humor is VERY present in his playing, his playing can be totally funny, that's rare. He is funky as hell....and with, like, two notes! Not fifty. He doesn't dazzle you with bullshit. He is never in the way, never busy. Every note is filled with heart and soul. Every fucking note! Find me one tape where it isn't! Even when we were kids - and Ted wasn't particularly nimble on the bass pre-1984 - but you can't deny, he had a sound, a style, and you always know it's him.
I've played with tons of bass players who can do all kinds of fancy stuff, real impressive, complicated tricks, just like any instrument. Back then, a lot of guys were into slapping. "I can slap", they'd say. "Yeah? Who cares!" I'd say. Or think, rather. (don't want to antagonize bass players, they are very in demand!)
Very few bass players can contribute to a song, and contribute to a jam, like Ted. The guy was our shortstop. And, if you're onstage and something needs to be said to the audience? Ted's been on the radio since he bluffed his way onto the college station, when he was in 8th grade! Many times I've been onstage and had to tune, and I just say, "Ted, give us the weather" and off he goes, like the EverTeddy bunny!
Best bass player I've ever played with, bar none.
Were that all there was to dear Ted, we would have been quite the lucky band. But Ted brought more to the table - (leans in close) - much more.
For a starter - staying on the musicianship track here - he gives his all to harmony singing. Practically a lost art - I remember three generations of my family breaking into three-part harmony just singing "Happy Birthday" - I found a tape of my mother, my brother and I singing doo-wop in 1983 - harmony is just not all around like it used to be. Well, Ted - who, again, didn't necessarily come naturally to harmony singing when I first met him at the age of 11 - sings his heart out. Always supporting the song. This was very helpful when I'd bring in a song, like, "Caveman", and no matter what else happened, you knew Ted would be with you on the harmony. Hubie & Ted had a particularly good vocal blend.
We'll get to his writing in the next post, but on top of all that: logistics. Brains. Idea man. Hustler. Shmoozer. King Shmoozer. This guy never met a conversation he didn't like. He's got lots to say, and boy does he say it. And bless his little cotton socks that he does! The whole idea that Life Out Of Balance didn't die in its crib can be laid at the big feet of Maestro Schreiber! This guy would let NOTHING stop him from talking who needed to be talked to. This guy could sniff out who was who in a room within moments, while the rest of us are still loading in gear.
Oh, and did I mention funny? Ted Schreiber = laughter!
When I met Ted, I hadn't met anybody like him. This was a new teaching. The guy was erudite at 11. He knew politics, how business worked, could size people up, often scathingly....usually accurately. Not to employ an old hackneyed expression from merrie ole England, but he never suffered fools gladly, that's for sure.
He could ruffle feathers with his forthrightness and directness. He doesn't mince words. He has a habit of keeping you on your toes by giving you back-handed compliments: "Great show...so much better than your last one!" He also has lots of heart and is one of the most generous people I've ever come across.
It couldn't have been easy for Ted. Let's face it: the guy has been heavy his whole life in a society that can't even give Cass Elliot her due without making a fat joke. Shame on them! He came from an intelligent family in the middle of the dopey American suburbs. He was Jewish in a small, pre-dominantly Catholic town.....then was shipped to a born-again Christian private school. (I still can barely fathom Ted in that setting) Ted could easily have been a walking bundle of self-doubt and insecurity.
Instead, Ted is one of the most confident people I have ever met. And he is EXACTLY as he was the day I met him, when I was 10 and he was 11. Not a thing has changed. This guy used to make mincemeat of his teachers! That's why they sent him to private school.....his public school teachers would get red-faced and angry!
One Ted story, a legendary one that only you guys will get, and then we'll end this asskissing. I don't know why this popped into my head but here it goes......
Ted and I, even before LOOB, could fight like crazy. It didn't help that I'd steal his records (sometimes that attitude of his caused a little resentment, what can I say!). Don't know what the problem was on this particular day...but he chased me around his house with a fucking steak knife! I fled for my life and seeked refuge around the corner at my buddy Andrew Atkins' house.
Calming down and coming to his senses, Ted began to worry about where I was. Maybe he thought he could get in trouble. What was he going to say when my mother showed up to drive me home? What was he going to say to his mother when came home and asked where I was? So Ted got on his ten-speed bike....who knew Ted even had a ten-speed bike!....and decided to cycle all the way across town......nowhere close, this was going to be a trek.....and see if I somehow made it there and....if need be.....tell my Mom what happened.
Trouble for Ted was: he didn't quite know where I lived! Or at least how to get there! And any of you guys who remember where I lived will remember....HILLS. Big, giant, steep steep hills, going up, going down, and then back up. San Francisco has NOTHING on the old section of Rocky Point. Not only are there tons of hills.....but miles and miles of them, streets, side streets, winding streets, it is so easy to get lost back there......and you can drive for a long time before you find something familiar. Even my brother and I would leave a trail of breadcrumbs when walking around...and we're from there! A couple of years ago we thought we'd walk around the old neighborhood and look at the Christmas lights.....we got so lost we almost started to panic!
So Ted enters the rollercoaster maze of hills...on a ten-speed.........and he proceeds to gets lost.
Let's take a look at some of the hills Teddy had to drive up, or down!
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| Going down is a blast! |
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| .....going up....not so much. |
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| ....almost there, Ted! Keep pedaling! |
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| ....hmmm.....now where do I go... |
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| ....shit....more hills.... |
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| maybe this way.......wasn't I just here?..... |
Oof. Can you imagine??? MILES of this! Ted! Our Ted....perched on a ten-speed! Trying to negotiate hill after hill after hill....with no end in sight! Would he ever make it home? Would he be lost forever? If only there was a portable phone you could carry around with you at all times!
Just as the sun was setting, my Mom looked out her window and was startled to see a red-faced, out-of-breath, sweaty, worried Ted Schreiber, pushing a bike up our driveway (another hill) and panting....."Is.....is Mike here?" He'd made it.
"Why no! I thought he was with you!"
My mother invited Ted inside and gave him some water.....and quickly deduced that I was probably around the corner from Ted's house at my buddy's....and so I was!
The point of this all? There is no point! Ted's got heart, how's that?! He might be heavy....but he can pedal the fuck out of a ten-speed!
Happy Birthday, Maestro! I could write fifty more posts about you, how I STILL play one of your earliest songs, "My Town", on the piano....how I play lots of your songs on guitar.....in fact, I very well might record a Mike Sings The Songs Of Ted album one day! I just might! And of course.....without Ted......NO LOOB!
And so, for that, more than anything.....readers of this blog have much reason to celebrate this day of days!
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| The Maestro at work.....the Rickenbacker bass behind him was bought as an homage to Sir Paul McCartney....also born on this day...... |
