The World's 12 Richest Bass Players

Bass players generally get the least attention in a band, but that doesn't mean they don't profit from it just as much as singers and guitar players. The Richest took a look at the top bottom enders and it found there's quite a bit of wealth in those low notes. Here's what it found:

1. Paul McCartney – $1.2 billion (no surprise there)

2. (tie) Sting – $300 million
2. (tie) Gene Simmons (Kiss) – $300 million

4. Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) – $270 million

5. Adam Clayton (U2) – $150 million

6. Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers) – $115 million
6. John Deacon (Queen) - $115 million

8. John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) – $80 million
8. Bill Wyman (Rolling Stones) - $80 million

10. Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath) – $65 million

11. Tony Kanal (No Doubt) – $45 million

12. Krist Novoselic (Nirvana) – $40 million

Here's the trick. All of the above except for Wyman are songwriters as well as bass players, which proves the old music adage, "If you want to get rich, write a hit song!"

KISS "Detroit Rock City" - Isolated Vocals

Here's one for the KISS Army out there. It's the isolated lead vocal for "Detroit Rock City." The third single from KISS's hit album Destroyer, DRC didn't go anywhere on the charts except in Detroit. That is, until the B-side of the single, Beth, caught fire.

Today, DRC is still a KISS concert favorite, while Beth is.........that KISS song with strings.

1) Paul Stanley's vocal is doubled with a regenerated short delay and long reverb trail. The sound is state of the art for that period in time (1976).

2) Stanley, Gene Simmons and Peter Criss have always sung very well together. In this case, the harmony vocals on the chorus are very tight, especially the releases, which is unusual for the period. Chalk that up to Bob Ezrin's most excellent production (he also co-wrote the song with Stanley).

KISS has always been under-appreciated for its music skills. Tracks like this show you just how good they were, and still are today.

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Bob Lefsetz vs. Gene Simmons

In one of the more hilarious confrontations in a while, industry gadfly Bob Lefsetz takes on Kiss's Gene Simmons in a separate dedicated session in Toronto at the Canadian Music Week conference.

The confrontation resulted from a posting in the Lefsetz newsletter accusing Simmons of a long commercial for his new record label during his keynote address. Simmons responded with an email of his own, basically saying, "Who is this guy? What has he done to dare diss me?"

As if he doesn't know. And if he doesn't, Simmons is too far out of the business to own a record label, since Lefsetz has been in the craw of label heads for about 20 years.

The following video is quite an enjoyable exchange though.