Dywane Thomas, Jr.

Dywane Thomas, Jr. (born August 6, 1990), also known as MonoNeon, is an American bassist and experimental musician. He is known for his presence on YouTube playing bass guitar and known for being one of the last people to work with Prince. Thomas also played with Grammy Award-winning R&B artist, Ne-Yo, on his fourth studio album. He is a native of Memphis, Tennessee.

Early life

Thomas was raised in a musical family, the son of a bass guitarist. He began playing bass at the age of four years, independent of formal lessons (self-taught). When he was about 11 or 12 years old, he performed with Bar-Kays, playing solo bass guitar. At age 14, he played bass with the South Soul Rhythm Section, the band performed at the Porretta Soul Festival 2006. South Soul was a group of young musicians from Stax Music Academy.

Education

During his brief stay at Berklee College of Music he shared the stage with David Fiuczynski. After his departure from Berklee in 2010, Thomas went to Los Angeles to perform with Fiuczynski and Alex Bailey (drummer) at the Musicians Institute and The Baked Potato.

Professional background

Playing style

While Thomas is right-handed, he plays left-handed upside down on a right-handed bass guitar, which allows him to use heavy string bending on the upper strings. Thomas' slapping style/technique is unique because he is executing everything upside-down, but he still uses the thumb for slaps and fingers for pops. He also uses fingers and palm muting to create a warm, muffled timbre and have a little more control over the length of notes. In a free/improvisational setting, listeners may hear the use of Indian melodic inflections/embellishments in his playing, including the use of gamakas. Another attribute in Thomas' playing style is the use of randomness and personal mistakes in performance, eventually moving the mistakes from meaningless to meaningful.

Thomas' overall playing style on bass can be described as "funky with unusual characteristics". Even musicians like Marcus Miller have noticed his playing style. His musical background is heavily influenced by southern soul, blues and funk. In a Bass Player magazine interview, Miller mentioned Thomas as one of several "young bad cats" he has met on the scene.

In 2009, Thomas was featured on the GospelChops Bass Sessionz Vol.1 project with Andrew Gouche, Hadrien Feraud, Damian Erskine, Janek Gwizdala, Anthony Nembhard, and Robert "Bubby" Lewis.

In 2010, Thomas released several solo albums, including Aleatorick and Indeterminacy. Also in 2010, Thomas played bass on the Libra Scale album by Grammy Award-winning artist Ne-Yo, and the album Directions by Forest Won with Georgia Anne Muldrow. Thomas was featured in the article, "Bass to the Future", in issue 52 of the UK Bass Guitar magazine.

In 2012, Thomas joined David Fiuczynski and Planet Microjam. Also in 2012, he released his solo avant-garde album, Down-to-Earth Art as MonoNeon.

MonoNeon's YouTube bass cover videos of Sonic The Hedgehog Green Hill Zone Theme and the theme song to the Martin Lawrence Show were featured on NoTreble.

In early 2013, Thomas released an album called Southern Visionary under the pseudonym MonoNeon. This album features several microtonal musicians. He also released an album entitled Uncle Curtis Answered The Lobster Telephone.

MonoNeon performed with Sheri Jones-Moffett (2010 Grammy nominee) at the Recording Academy Chapter 40th Anniversary Celebration at Levitt Shell.

MonoNeon teamed up with producer Kriswontwo to release an EP called, WEON.

July 2014, MonoNeon made his debut performance as the bassist for Screaming Headless Torsos at Jalisco Jazz Festival in Mexico.

Experimental works

Thomas' experimental works are very childlike, in terms of the energy that is presented in his compositions. In listening to some of his experimental pieces, one may hear the John Cage influence.

The idea of conceptual art plays a role in his musical compositions, as reflected in his early 2011 recordings. Thomas began creating a vague idea of bass and AM/FM radio improvisations. The improvisations/compositions are based on radio art. Some of the bass and radio improvisations/compositions can be heard on his album entitled, Introspection of PolyNeon. The "Polyneon" concept is something Thomas created through introspection and when he stopped thinking about the worldly idea of becoming or being a great musician.

Thomas is notable for his "readymade bass", inspired by his love for Dadaism and other avant garde art movements. The primary characteristics of the "readymade bass" is the ordinary sock covering the entire headstock and the name "Polyneon" on the body of his bass. The use of colorful duct tape and other mundane items upon his basses.

MonoNeon was featured in the January/February 2013 issue of Dig! Magazine, a Winnipeg jazz magazine.

MonoNeon's microtonal works and art manifesto were mentioned on The Rest Is Noise, a website by Alex Ross, the music critic of The New Yorker.

One of MonoNeon's bass cover videos performing KNOWER's arrangement/medley of Lady Gaga songs was voted Top 10 most watched video on NoTreble (March 2014).

A microtonal bass built for MonoNeon by Tim Cloonan of CallowHill Guitars was featured on NoTreble as Bass of the Week. The bass is built to play quarter tones.

Working with Prince

In 2015 MonoNeon began playing bass with Prince and his protégé, Judith Hill. Some of the live shows have been at Paisley Park.

On 11 January 2016, Tidal released the track Ruff Enuff by MonoNeon, only four and a half days after its initial recording. The instrumental track features Prince as producer and on keyboards. The following day, the track was replaced with a vocal version with lead vocals on vocoder by Adrian Crutchfield.

The linernotes provided with the track state:

"You may recognize Kirk A Johnson on drums, Mono Neon on bass and Adrian Crutchfield on sax and electric woodwinds as the house band 4 Prince’s Paisley Park After Dark Jam Sessions. Well, that’s not all they do. 4 the past week they’ve been cutting basic trax 4 their as yet untitled debut album. With Prince producing and handling the keyboard & guitar duties, the set promises 2 b picking up right where Judith Hill’s BACK IN TIME left off. These brothas murder the funk! Normally they wouldn’t let a track out until it’s finished, but this one had 2 go! It was ruining everybody’s good loox. If U think U can resist the funk, check out the key change of Mono’s bass solo at near 4 o'clockmark.

When Prince wasn't playing his solo piano shows, he was breaking in a new band at Paisley Park with MonoNeon as his new bassist.

Discography

Solo albums

• "Down-to-Earth Art" (2012)
• "Southern Visionary" (2013)
• "John Cage on Soul Train" (2014)
• "Selfie Quickie 2wooo" (2017)

with Ne-Yo

• "Libra Scale" (2010)

with Georgia Anne Muldrow

• "Ms. One" (2014)

with WEON

• "WEON" (2013)
• "Neon the Won" (2015)

with Prince

• "RUFF ENUFF" single (2016)

• "MonoNeon Releases New Duo Project, John Cage on Soul Train". bassmusicianmagazine.com
• "MonoNeon Releases 2017 EP 'Selfie Quickie 2wooo' (LISTEN)". bassplayer.com
• Kevin Johnson (July 5, 2014) "Georgia Anne Muldrow Releases “Ms. One” with MonoNeon". notreble.com
• KARASLAMB "WEON (MonoNeon x Kriswontwo) Present ‘Neon The Won’ EP [STREAM]". okayplayer.com
• "Ruff Enuff - Prince Vault". princevault.com
• "MonoNeon Releases Instrumental Track "Ruff Enuff" With Prince (LISTEN)". bassplayer.com