Archive for 2013 - Page 12

Dave LaRue sure deserves more appreciation, including from us. Here’s a great live performance of Flying Colors in Europe, performing the tune “Odyssey”. LaRue’s soloing is epic.

Meet Nick Wells, a bassist and member of a party/disco band who plays “death defying music without a safety net”. Unlike many we’ve spotlighted here, Nick was first drawn to the bass. He also uses the word “crikey” in a sentence, which is not common for us in the States, but something we think is cool. Nick is No Treble’s...

I’ve been listening to a lot of Ben Harper lately. My favorite era of Ben’s is when he was backed by The Innocent Criminals – and specifically, by bassist Juan Nelson. Here’s a great segment of the band performing “Fight for Your Mind” with Juan laying down one sweet groove and soloing throughout (with some nice quotes). I’ve said it...

It’s hard to believe that Lamb of God’s As the Palaces Burn is ten years old, but the band is celebrating the anniversary with a remixed reissue of the pivotal album. The original catapulted the Virginia-based metal outfit to the forefront of the metal scene due to its fresh mix of southern groove and technical, hard-hitting riffs. Bassist John Campbell...

My experience has been that when musicians work, they really work. It is completely feasible that we can play gigs morning, afternoon and evening. When times are good, we can find ourselves playing nine hours a day, or more, many days in a row. Needless to say, when these periods come around our stamina needs to be high. The demands...

To me, there are very few bands as timeless as Steely Dan. Here’s the band in 2000, performing live in New York around the time of Two Against Nature. Bassist Tom Barney makes the slow groove go on “Babylon Sisters”.

After staging 219 performances of “The Wall” over the last three years, Roger Waters has revealed that he’s getting back to writing. The former Pink Floyd bassist is hard at work on a new record that will prove to be his first rock album in over two decades. Similar to the iconic production he’s been touring, the new effort is...

Last week was mostly about three things: new bass videos, new bass gear and new bass how-to’s. In other words, it was awesome. Here are the top 10 most read stories and most watched videos for the week of November 10 – 16, 2013. Thanks for reading, commenting and sharing. 1. Nine Inch Nails with Pino Palladino: “All Time Low”...

Two years ago, luthier Sheldon Dingwall and bassist Alberto Rigoni began working on a new bass. The goal was to create a versatile bass with a lot of punch and blending Dingwall’s ABZ and Z3 series basses. The duo has just unveiled the creation, the Dingwall AR5. While the bass offers up some of Dingwall’s instrument characteristics, the AR5 is...

One of my favorite Vulfpeck tunes is “Outro”, from the EP Vollmilch, released earlier this year. Here’s the band performing it as the closer of their set at Rockwood Music Hall in October. As usual, Joe Dart is laying it down, and the whole band is just cooking. So cool to see them in a live setting like this. They...

For his fourth solo album, Elevation, bassist Tony Grey recruited an all-star cast of musicians, including Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Hiromi, (Grey’s uncle) John McLaughlin, Branford Marsalis, Zakir Hussain, Mike Stern and Steve Lukather. Each of the recruits had something else in common – they have all been backed by Grey at some point. The 10-track album features six originals...

Croatian custom instrument company Aries Basses has announced a new model named the Alpeluti. Described as their entry-level bass, the simple design is built in batch to keep prices down. The Alpeluti features bolt-on construction that pairs a mahogany body with a 3-piece maple neck and Indian Palisander fingerboard. It has a long 35″ scale and an asymmetrical neck profile...