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After 40 years at the helm, Rich Appleman retired as Chair of the Berklee College of Music’s Bass Department in May of this year. During his tenure, Appleman helped shape the face of the school by growing the bass department by leaps and bounds. Succeeding Appleman this fall will be bassist Steve Bailey, who brings his own incredible credentials to...

Peter Hook has announced that his memoir is set to hit the shelves October 1 from publishers Simon & Schuster. Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division. will document the bassist’s time in the seminal post-punk band, from helping to form the band to lead singer Ian Curtis’s death. Hook will also delve into his time with New Order, which was formed...

Rock legend Rudy Sarzo has left the ranks of Blue Oyster Cult, he revealed in an upcoming interview with Ultimate Classic Rock. The bassist, whose resume includes work with Ozzy Osbourne, Quiet Riot, and Whitesnake, said his departure was on good terms. “Due to my scheduling with other projects that I’m doing, it became a little bit hard for me...

Tommy Stinson will be reuniting with his former Replacements bandmate Paul Westerberg to benefit guitarist Slim Dunlap, who suffered a stroke earlier this year. The duo will be recording a single as part of a limited edition project of covers songs of Dunlap’s original music done by his friends. The recordings will be split into limited edition 7-inch albums and...

Mars Volta/Big Sir bassist Juan Alderete has launched PedalsAndEffects.com, a new website with which the bassist hopes to spread his knowledge of using effects. Alderete, whose genre-bending career spans over two decades, is known for making some of the most incredible sounds with his extensive pedal collection. “Because of my 25+ year obsession for pedals/stompboxes/effects, I wanted to share my...

Funk Brother and bass legend Bob Babbitt will be getting part of his due respect by receiving a star on the Music City Walk of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. Babbitt’s star, which will be the Walk of Fame’s 60th commemorative sidewalk marker, will be unveiled at a ceremony on June 5th that will also be inducting Steve Winwood. The bassist...

Roger Water’s tour of The Wall will be coming to a gigantic finale on July 21st in Quebec City, Quebec. Held at the Fields of Abraham, the recently added concert will be the last tour stop of the current North American trek, but will differ from the rest in that the production will feature a set twice as large as...

We’d heard rumors about this, and now a report has come out via USA Today confirming what we’ve been hearing: a film about Jaco Pastorius has been in development, and it is being financed by Metallica’s Robert Trujillo. Trujillo, you may remember, has another tie to Jaco, having purchased Jaco’s Bass of Doom a year ago, years after it had...

Between his constant tour dates with the Flecktones, intrepid bassist Victor Wooten has been hard at work, and the final proof of that work comes out this September with the release of two new albums: Words & Tones and Sword & Stone. Words & Tones will be comprised of 13 tracks featuring vocalists Saundra Williams, Divinity Roxx and Me’Shell Ndegeocello....

Mike Watt, bassist for the Stooges, the Minutemen, fIREHOSE and others, has released Mike Watt: On and Off Bass, featuring photos, thoughts and diary excerpts culled from his archives over the last ten years. Watt, who has a deep interest in photography, has had his work featured at Track 16 Gallery, in his home town of San Pedro, California. The...

The Rolling Stones are gearing up for a 50th anniversary celebration, and with it comes news of the band entering the studio for another album. A 50th anniversary event is rumored to be in the works for 2013, 50 years after Charlie Watts joined the group, which happened in January, 1963. Bill Wyman, the bassist who joined the group in...

Nearly nine months after parting ways with Michael Todd, Coheed and Cambria have announced Zach Cooper as their new full-time bassist. Cooper, who played with AM to AM, got a cold call to audition from the band’s manager. The group made the announcement with a YouTube video introducing him. Coheed and Cambria is currently in the studio working on the...