MAGIC WAND

by SONIC YOUTH

Bass tab by Chris Lawrence (silvercircle@shaw.ca)


Kim has heavy distortion on her bass:

Fade in at 0:19

G---------*7*---------
D---------------------
A----------------0----
E---0------------0----

She kinda lightly drones the low E while Thurston sings, though I think she doubles Lee on the 
big G chord at 0:40

G---------
D---------
A---------
E---0-3---

Back to a low E drone.

Around the 1:00 mark she's less audible but probably still chunking a low muted/scraped E.

At 1:18 fade in again:

G-------*12*-------
D------------------
A------------------
E---0----------0--- sustain low E til 1:31 or so

When Thurston starts singing "Seventeen" hang on this note:

G--------
D--------
A--------
E---12---

At 2:08 hit the low E again:

G-------          -----------
D-------          -----------
A-------          -----------
E---0---  then:   ---15b-0---  x 4

The bass fades out then back in making feedback with the droning open strings, then she hits the low E
again at 2:40

G-------------------
D-------------------
A--------*7*--------
E---0-----------0---  the last note is faded in and out


This is quite a strange arrangement, with a similar "wacky mix" approach as "Come and Smash Me". 
I think the basic elements are: 

- Thurston's guitar, which is mostly untouched in the mix
- Lee's guitar, which is basically just riffin' in E, faded and panned radically in and out 
  through the whole song
- Kim's bass, with heavy fuzz, also faded in an out but not as heavily
- The percussion may be courtesy of the Oberheim again, or it may be a live drum kit with lots of 
  metallic accents like cracked cymbals, perhaps an oil drum lid, and a very rickety tambourine that 
  is heard through most of the song (the Oberheim DMX model had a tambourine sample, and more tom 
  samples, which may be what is heard at the end)
- Thurston's vocal
- After the vocal, there's about 25 seconds of random mixing including toms, droning bass distortion, 
  and T's guitar




last updated: 11/12/24

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