Ropeadope

arkenstat is one of the more philosophical musicians ever to find his way to the banks of the deep end. a query about his awesome and deceptively minimalist technique is likely to elicit a zen-laced meditation on the nature of existence. arkenstat doesn't waste a word - or a note. "i think bass is the instrument that connects people to their ancestors," he muses. "it's fundamental, like dna. the vibration is universal and timeless. vibration is important. look at earthquakes: pure vibration can ruin a thousand homes in 20 seconds flat."

just what sort of musician could inspire so much awe and loyalty among the upper echelon of the bass-playing fraternity? and how could such a towering figure remain virtually unknown to the general public? these mysteries are bound up in the details of arkenstat's quixotic life, which began more than five decades ago in the rugged copper-mining country of utah.

joey arkenstat was born on april 13, 1948, in provo, utah, a sprawling city perched between the wasatch mountains and utah lake. copper looms large in the legend of the arkenstat family, which has owned partial shares in area mines for generations. his grandfather, ezekial arkenstat, invented the penny-flattening machine, a fun and lucrative fixture of america's arcades. because of his inherited wealth, joey never had to work or worry about money, which allowed him to follow his bliss. like a restless young bob dylan - who likewise wandered the iron-mining "rust belt" of his native minnesota - arkenstat spent his adolescence on railroad tracks, flattening countless pennies while walking the ties. closer to home, arkenstat became a dirt bike hobbyist, a budding musical prodigy and a devotee of copper. "the story of copper and its principal alloys, bronze and brass, is a virtual chronicle of human endeavor since man emerged from the stone age," he notes sagaciously while working a penny across his knuckles.

arkenstat's first musical experience came as a member of lambs of the wasatch, a mormon youth choir. the first instrument he picked up was the piccolo. he took lessons from an elderly provo spinster named miss prim. a fierce, humorless disciplinarian, she helped channel arkenstat's restless creativity, and under her remorseless tutelage he became something of a piccolo virtuoso, finishing second in a district competition in his area of utah. yet he ultimately found the instrument and its repertoire limiting, and he switched to bass guitar after a prophetic dream in which he visualized himself playing electric bass deep in the darkened catacombs of an abandoned copper mine. in his dream, the vibrations from his bass strings wreaked havoc on the "real world" above him. when he awoke, he knew he'd found his calling and weapon of choice.

but before arkenstat attained his curious state of quasi-celebrity in certain musical quarters, he experienced an episodic and eventful period of years. fascinated with and almost mystically drawn to metallic ores, he worked for a spell in the open-pit copper mine at bingham canyon, utah. he also, unfortunately, began drinking heavily after breaking up with a pregnant girlfriend. seeking a "geographical solution," he fled to iceland, where his scientific bent drove him to devise a refinement for smelting technology that aided in the processing of diatomite ore from lake myvatn. meanwhile, his fertile musical mind inspired him to author a pamphlet on bass playing that found favor in musical circles in reykjavik. among his icelandic disciples were a few pre-teen members of what would later become the sugarcubes.

arkenstat returned to his homeland after his father took ill with a severe and eventually fatal laryngeal ailment. the two had never communicated well, and now that his ailing father was incapable of speech, they could not communicate at all. magically, however, they bonded in his final months over checkers, exchanging secrets, knowledge, wisdom and recipes as if through legerdemain via the checkerboard. carrying his fixation one step further, arkenstat subsequently devised a means of linking checkers-playing strategy with musical-note choices. "i had a revelation that i could model my bass lines on movements in the game of checkers," he recalls. "in checkers, if you can think clearly four moves in advance, you'll probably win. in music, if you can think four notes in advance, you'll be communing with the gods."

henceforth, the game of checkers would strictly dictate arkenstat's approach to the bass in ways that students of the instrument continue to pore and marvel over. the gradual refinement of that technique - upon which he elaborated in a low-budget instructional video entitled "king me: lessons with joey arkenstat" - eventually established him as a bass-playing visionary.

in his late 20s, arkenstat hit the road again. while meandering below the mason-dixon line, the itinerant bassist met and befriended allen woody, a fixture on the southern-rock scene who would eventually join the allman brothers band. arkenstat's short-lived outfit trauma, which fused progressive rock and rockabilly, almost opened for lynyrd skynyrd at an outdoor festival in skynyrd's home state of florida. during this ill-fated swing through the south, the temperamental arkenstat also had an unfortunate run-in with jaco pastorius - another bass-playing genius whose blood ran hot - at a roadhouse in south florida where both were judging a "broward's baddest bassist" competition. arkenstat averred that jaco's celebrated "flanging" technique sounded like flatulence to him, and insults and glares were exchanged.

the peripatetic arkenstat, moving about the country liked a kinged checker, continued falling in and out of projects, including such intriguingly named groups as pretzel warfare and domino penny. to arkenstat's chagrin, the latter group was misidentified as "dominion hinny" in the 2002 documentary film rising low. "it's 'domino,' as in a game of skill and strategy like checkers, and 'penny,' as in a one-cent copper coin," snaps arkenstat. "anybody familiar with my work would've known that. the guy who made that film, the drummer for phish, must not have done his homework."

after the unalloyed - and largely unheard - brilliance of domino penny, arkenstat's trail went cold. while making a pilgrimage to the site of bob dylan's fabled motorcycle mishap in 1966, arkenstat crashed his own chopper on a rain-slicked back road just a mile from the destination. a closed-head injury resulted in mild amnesia and loss of feeling in arkenstat's fingers. over time he regained sensation in his hands and, much like fellow musicians jerry garcia and pat martino - who underwent similar "relearning" experiences while recuperating from medical cataclysms - arkenstat learned how to play bass again. nonetheless, certain years of his life remain hazy or blank, which has complicated the assembling of his biography.

in the wake of his accident, arkenstat's all-consuming interests - bass guitar and copper ore - have continued to inform the life he's endeavored to rebuild note by agonizing note. anyone who's heard his playing or commentary in rising low realizes they've been touched by low-frequency genius. in the film, arkenstat transforms an otherwise pedestrian boogie into an instrumental statement for the ages - one that resonates like cosmic semaphore signals.

no less inspirational are arkenstat's theories on the role of bass and its intimate connection to the life force. "any time you're playing and go higher, even one note...intellect," he states, tapping his brow. "when you move lower, that's your instinct or gut. gut takes you lower. just follow it."

currently arkenstat is prepping his long-awaited first solo album, copper mind. after three years' labor, this notorious perfectionist claims to have completed nearly half an album's worth of demos. last year he re-tested the waters as a live performer, making a well-received "stealth tour" of canada's northwest territories. "i nearly caused a riot in yellowknife," he chuckles. and they're still talking about his 20-minute bass solo along the shores of baffin bay.

arkenstat continues to experiment with radical new bass designs. he is having a copper bass forged for him by modulus in conjunction with the kennecott utah copper corporation.

surely the instrument has never known a more eloquent advocate than joey arkenstat - nor a more reluctant celebrity. "i am not a rock star," he snorts. "really, i'm a workhorse." the proof, he says, is in the playing - and this is where his genius shines as bright as a newly minted penny.