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BASS LINES BY JAIME VAZQUEZ: THE SIXTEENTH-NOTE GROOVE PART IV – Rocco Prestia’s STYLE
BASS LINES BY JAIME VAZQUEZ: THE SIXTEENTH-NOTE GROOVE PART IV – Rocco Prestia’s STYLE… Hello BMM and Community! I know that you’ve been waiting for the Master of Fingerstyle Funk and one of the most influential figures in electric bass history and here it is! Rocco Prestia, the american bassist of the legendary soul/funk group Tower of Power. For Prestia’s bass sound, you’ve got to lightly mute the strings with your left hand to get a percussive sound and be prepared for a highly inventive melodic approach to bass lines. For the examples, I’ve choosed an excerpt groove from different albums. You will notice that Rocco’s playing is so energetic, rhythmic, melodic, percussive, aggressive, tight, etc. What else can I say? Is Mr. Prestia’s time! So, let’s go to the grooves and learn from the best!
Fig. 1 – The main riff of You Got To Funkifize, the first song from the second album called Bump City (1972). Notice the use of octaves and chromatic approaches to the groove. Simple but very tight!
Listen to: You Got to Funkifize
Fig. 2 – The basic groove of What Is Hip from the albumTower Of Power (1973). This bass line is a good example of a fingerstyle funk groove using only the root. The game with the octaves at the last bar creates a very interesting fill.
Fig. 3 – This is the main line of Squib Cakes from the fourth album Back To Oakland (1974). Play this melodic groove in unison with the baritone saxophone. Prestia used staccato, octaves and rests for a full bass attack! Make sure to play the cool chromatic approach fill at the last bar.
Fig. 4 – An excerpt of Ebony Jam from the album In The Slot (1975). Enjoy this interaction with the band in a very melodic groove with the use of rests, octaves and chromatic approaches.
Fig. 5 – The groove of Soul With A Capital “S” (1993) is definitely an example of Rocco’s playing. Here we have the application of accented notes, muted notes, tied notes and chromtaic approaches.
Listen to: Soul with a Capital_S
Fig. 6 – Souled Out (1995), a very cool bass line using slides, muted notes, stacatto, octaves, chromatic approaches and tied notes. Notice the emphazise at the 4th beat of bars 1 & 2, the idea is to create a sense of repetition of the groove.
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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