What's a "Moral Compass Cricket Thingy"?

[Maniakkid25]

For most bands, there is an easy answer: The Bassist. The Bass player is often the most overlooked member of a band, simply because they have a seemingly simple job. They don't usually do melody, and they don't usually do rhythm, so their job is keeping "the groove". That is they maintain a stable foundation for the other instruments to rise on top of. Now, there are easy examples of bass players that are well-known; Sting (The Police), Lemmy (Motorhead), Les Claypool (Primus), and John Myung (Dream Theater) all immediately come to mind. But you may have noticed a pattern with the bass players I mentioned: three of the four are also the lead vocalists. Of the four mentioned, only Myung is noted for his talent alone (Les Claypool is absolutely known for being an exceptionally good bass player, but he's also a lead vocalist, so him being the face is kind of inevitable).

The other obvious mention is, if the band has one, the keyboard player. Often times they are probably the most knowledgeable members of the band as far as music theory goes (more keyboardists are classically trained on piano than guitarists are on guitar), but they only really get noticed if they make a point of being noticeable. Again, finding examples of famed keyboard players isn't hard: Rick Wakeman (Yes), Robert Lamm (Chicago), Edgar Winter, and Jools Holland (Squeeze, though he's more known for reasons other than keyboards). If you know who to look for, you can find the talent, but the average fan cares about three people: the vocalist (because they're the frontman), the guitarist (because they get all the sick solos), and the drummer (because they are "the animal" on stage).

As far as specific people, it's hard to say because I rarely follow bands, so I don't know when people drop out or come in or anything like that, but there is a person that immediately comes to mind: Derek Miller. He's the guitarist for the band Sleigh Bells. He's also the main songwriter, producer, and basically the man that the entire band concept revolves around. But Alexis Krauss, both with her on-stage energy and (let's be honest) being a sexy female vocalist, steals the spotlight away from him. And I have nothing against Krauss. She is a wonderful vocalist, and the band would not be the same without her. But Derek Miller absolutely deserves way more attention than he gets in the duo.