Archive for March 2010 - Page 4

Flamenco guitar is impressive enough, but when the bassist matches the lines note-for-note, watch out! That’s exactly what bassist Hova Burian does with guitarist Babak Amini, who wrote this tune.

Alfred Music has announced their newest book in their Ultimate Bass Play-Along Series, featuring the music of the Rolling Stones. Ultimate Bass Play-Along: Rolling Stones, a book and CD set, each with complete versions of eight classic Stones tunes, including “Brown Sugar”, “Gimme Shelter”, “Honky Tonk Women”, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, “Let it Bleed”, “Paint it Black”, “(I Can’t Get No)...

Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon will be releasing a new book of artwork on March 23rd entitled Performing/Guzzling. Published by Rizzoli, the book is a collection of paintings, watercolors, photographs, and poems that all revolve around the main theme of Gordon’s onstage experiences. Also included are written contributions by artist Jutta Koether and writer Hilton Als. The first 3,000 copies...

The new P-Retro from East UK is a P-bass style active/passive preamp equalizer that is be installed without permanently modifying your bass. The P-Retro fits in easily, and uses screw terminals, so no soldering is necessary. Therefore, no physical modifications to your bass are required. The P-Retro features two stacked knobs with pull switches on each. The regular volume control...

Here’s the young and talented Eldar Djangirov playing “Point of View”, a tune from his self-entitled 2005 release. The original tune features John Patitucci on bass and Todd Strait on drums. In this live video from 2006, Marco Panascia is playing the double bass. Check out our previous coverage of Eldar.

Hot off the heels of Mike Gordon’s solo project tour, Phish have announced a 2010 summer tour which will be their biggest yet since reuniting last spring. The 29-show outing begins in Chicago during June and finishes up in Wantagh, NY in mid-August. Also look out for Phish 3D, which is a feature-length theatrical concert film that takes the best...

We normally think of scales in terms of eight-note patterns and treat them as a unit. There are the standard modal forms for both major and minor, the bop variations, blues variations, but all of these still cling to the paradigm of an octave based scale unit (even if the total number of notes in the scale changes). As bassists...

Here’s Mexican bass player Neftali Lopez doing a neat bass adaptation of Aram Khachaturian’s piece, originally written for piano, “Ivan Sings”. For more of Neftali Lopez check out his Myspace page.

Orange has upgraded their Crush PiX line of bass amps, and the company will be displaying the new range of models and changes at Frankfurt Musikmesse next week. The Crush PiX is now available in an optional black finish in addition to Orange’s trademark bright orange colored amps and picture-frame cabinets. The line has also been extended to include the...

Rush will be among the artists inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame this on March 28th. The 6th Annual CSHF Gala will be presented at the George Weston Recital Hall at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. The music of Rush will be celebrated with performances by Les Claypool, Alexisonfire and Jacob Moon. Claypool will be playing the...

Q: I would love to know what you do when you can’t hear yourself on stage or at rehearsals and when you can’t change it. A: That’s just a tough situation, really. It does happen fairly frequently, though. Honestly, that’s when knowing your fretboard and having a strong relationship with your instrument comes in handy, as well as knowing the...

In part 2 of an ongoing video series, Ansir Music’s Jody Michael explains the build process for their basses, and specifically, the prize bass for the No Treble contest. This week’s installment discusses the updates to the body, neck and electronics. Speaking of electronics, Ansir has decided to upgrade the pickup system for the prize bass, incorporating their new Variable...