Bass! How low can you go? Jethro, what a brotha know...

Waldo and I recently had an e-mail discussion about bass duos, and I mentioned Brotzmann and Laswell (on the "Low Life" LP, PB plays bass sax only) and Waldo mentioned Numbskull with Mike Zubal and Kevin Ries. Here is a clip of them from the olden days, courtesy of drummer John Scully:



In the first appearance of the Epiphanies column in "The Wire" (or "Wire"; it's been both) magazine, Peter Shapiro discussed how he and his friends were arguing about what the greatest rock guitar riff was, Black Sabbath's "Supernaut" or Budgie's "Breadfan" (click on the header for a link to the video, as embedding is disabled).
More on this debate here: http://www.hippriest.net/archives/2007/11/01/175
And don't ask me, I don't have a horse in this race (but maybe "Veteran's Day Poppy" by Captain Beefheart?)

But what do these riffs mean? I don't know; let's ask Charles Mingus: