Welcome to Music Matters podcast with Daryl Craig Harris,

talking about all things music with celebrities, artists, music business insiders, and more.

John D. Aria, editor-in-chief of Bass Magazine. How are you doing today?

Well, man. How are you doing? I'm good. I was just saying I'm recovering. One of my 10 jobs is I'm a

sports illustrated photographer, so I shot the game yesterday here in Vegas. So, yeah, just

always, always doing something like yourself. You're a very busy guy. Yeah, I keep busy. I'm not on sidelines shooting NFL games, though, man. That's got to be a trip, huh? And, you know, it's an interesting, it's a funny road I've had as a, as you know, you kind of follow my musician thing. So I've been a bass player myself for many years, was with Cirque de Soleil. When I was in Cirque to Salé, in Tokyo, I got involved in photography, got with Getty Images. So it's just kind of been a multi-tiered path. That is so cool, man. Yeah. You know, you know the deal. It's like when you're a freelancer and creative, you kind of things come up and you have to say yes and figure it out. Anywhere the road takes you, you got to follow it, man. So, yeah. So we're catching up today because, I mean, we've actually talked over the years and, you know, in various different iterations. But we're catching up today because you have the base magazine awards coming up in partnership

with NAM show January 22nd, Thursday, January 22nd, at the Observatory in Santa Ana.

Yep.

I want to talk to you about that because I know that it was kind of a different iteration a couple of years ago and you guys changed the name.

So tell me that story. Well and you guys changed the name.

So tell me that story.

Well, you know, we, we effectively our staff was base player magazine for, you know, until it got acquired by a company in the UK called Future, or Future.

And so I mean, Chris Gisi, who's one of our founders and

our senior editor, he's like the first original based journalist like period. And he started with

bass player, you know, he was writing little columns when it was guitar player would have a little

tiny. We would get a little neighbor base. And it was Chris and Jim Roberts,

who does a lot for us writing that. So, you know, we had bass player live over the years where

we gave out Lifetime Achievement Awards to, you know, all the greats, the Stanley Clark,

Carol Kay, James Jamerson, you know, we have a long list. And then, you know,

bass player got acquired and we branched off and started Bass Magazine in 2019. And we always wanted

to get the award presentation back because that was always so special for the fans and for the artists.

And we took over the bass bash for a couple years, but it was right when COVID hit.

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