Archive for October 2013 - Page 5

Jauqo III-X is a bassist that plays by his own rules. After coming up in a household filled the sounds of jazz and Motown, Jauqo picked up bass as a teenager and never looked back. “My interest in Bass grew into—for lack of a better word—an obsession,” he shared on his website. “If it was anything Bass-related, I wanted to...

Earlier this year, Steve Swallow released a new album featuring a revised lineup of his quintet to include organ, guitar, bass, sax and drums. “I had in mind a small band but one with interesting textural possibilities, a diversity and variety of sound,” Swallow said of his new lineup. “The knee-jerk reaction to a band with electric bass, electric guitar...

Electro-Harmonix has expanded their Next Step series of pedals to the bass realm with the Crying Bass Wah/Fuzz. Similar to other Next Step effects, the pedal features no moving parts and uses a motion sensor to translate movement. The pedal’s fuzz circuit adds distortion and harmonics to the signal and helps accentuate the wah effect. The pedal also has a...

Q: I was at a bass players’ get-together a while back, and I noticed the other cats have their action set really low, and some used ramps like yourself. A lot of high dollar basses too. I thought “this is too low for me”, and I was pulling too hard. My basses feel good to me, and I like a...

David Pastorius adds some serious fire to Tech N9ne’s song “Questions” by riffing off of rapper’s lyrical rhythm as well as throwing in his own freestyle licks. The bassist brings his incredible technique and creativity together to dish out some really cool lines and add a new dimension to the track.

Paul McCartney has returned with his first album of all new material in six years, appropriately entitled New. While the title track actually carries Macca’s classic sound, the 71-year old bassist’s latest effort features textures and songs that are both familiar and foreign to his signature style. McCartney worked with four producers – Mark Ronson, Paul Epworth, Giles Martin and...

Bassist Nick Montou’s resume just sounds cool. He’s the bassist for a well-known zydeco band from Lousiana, and one who has a pretty wicked double thumb slap style (see the videos below). Nick is No Treble’s reader in the spotlight for the week of October 14, 2013. Bio: I am a 27 year old bassist from Southwest Louisiana and currently...

Craig Akin sent us this epic video of a tune he wrote for solo upright bass. The tune, “Do it!” was featured on Abbie Gardner’s album, Hope in 2011. Craig said he’s performing this tune on his 19th century Tyrolean bass with spirocore strings. Oh yeah.

Rock supergroup The Dead Daisies has announced that Darryl Jones will be joining their ranks for an upcoming UK tour. The renowned bassist, who also plays for The Rolling Stones, will be filling in for regular bassist Marco Mendoza who will be performing with Thin-Lizzy spinoff The Black Star Riders. The rest of current Dead Daisies lineup includes former INXS...

Moog has unveiled the Minifooger family of effects pedals designed for use with bass and electric guitar. The compact stompboxes are housed in cast aluminum enclosures and feature completely analog signal paths, true bypass, optional battery power, and an expression input for adjusting parameters on the fly. Each of the pedals is designed and hand assembled in North Carolina. Moog...

Alejandro Masafret sent me this video of him performing what he calls “fragments of several improvisations” on bass. His slap skills are quite impressive, as you’ll see. But then after he lays down some loops, he switches to soloing over top of it all in an equally impressive way. Then he changes it up yet again. And again.

Megadeth has announced the Super Collider Tour in support of their album of the same name released earlier this year. The trek starts on November 23rd at Myth Live in St. Paul, Minnesota, then heads east through Pennsylvania, down to Florida, and across the South. It ends December 19th in Reno, Nevada. David Ellefson will also be making some special...