Archive for 2013 - Page 59

Queens of the Stone Age has released …Like Clockwork, their first album in six years. The album’s title comes from the hard-fought process, an effort that began as far back as 2008 but was met with numerous obstacles. “We’d have these great victories and then something would go south for a bit,” leader Josh Homme told Rolling Stone, “and we’d...

Editor’s note: Damian wraps up his series on Getting Noticed Out There with some advice on connecting with your local music scene. Check out Part 1: Your Demo and Part 2: Social Media. Q: I’ve reached the point where I know I need to meet new people to get my career up to the next level, but I don’t know...

This is “Jerry Was a Racecar Driver” like you’ve never heard it. Filmed at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in October 2012, Les Claypool and guitarist Marc “Mirv” Haggard tackle the Primus song in a bluegrass fashion, but that doesn’t stop the bassist from unleashing his signature style. Claypool shouts, “Look at me, Mirv, I’m jamming it up!” before breaking...

Billy Cox will be paying tribute to Jimi Hendrix on a week-long tour of the northeastern U.S. in mid-June with his group The Band of Gypsys Experience. Cox, who anchored the original Band of Gyspys with Hendrix in the ’60s, will be performing the legendary guitarist’s classics including “Machine Gun” and “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” as well blues and roots...

Meet Sal Pisciott, a bassist who describes his band and music as “blues-punk” and who caught our attention with both his story and his witty bio. Sal is No Treble’s reader in the spotlight for the week of June 3, 2013. Bio: I’m a 21 year-old musician and student living in Queens, New York. Majoring in English, I look forward...

A couple of weeks ago, the Summer Camp Music Festival took place in Chillicothe, IL. Thanks to a guy named Kyle Hess, we have some pretty cool footage to watch. Kyle recorded this private set of moe. and Victor Wooten playing the moe. tune “Kyle’s Song” (a happy coincidence for the lucky videographer). Rob Derhak’s bass part is mighty nice,...

Weeks after Eric Avery announced his departure, Nine Inch Nails has announced that they’ll be touring starting this summer. Bandleader Trent Reznor has recruited longtime NIN collaborator and guitarist Robin Finck to fill out the ensemble for the trek, which consists of festivals across the world. Things kick off July 26th at Japan’s Fuji Rocks Festival before the group heads...

Iron Ether’s newest pedal is a multi-timbral analog synthesizer and octave pedal. The handmade “Subterranea” pedal features three synthesized voices that track the input pitch, two of which have selectable waveforms and a third that has its own unique sound and lowpass filter. Iron Ether says all of the voices can be mixed together to create a “massive synthesized voice”...

Although I advocate a traditional left hand foundation (i.e. 1-2-4 fingering system), any bassist who plays long enough will come across passages that don’t lie well using this fingering system. “Pivoting” can be an attractive solution for such passages. Often, especially when playing two consecutive notes on the same string more than a step apart (for example: A-C on the...

Over the years, we’ve been treated to some videos of Weather Report’s 1978 performance in Reading and Washington, Pennsylvania. These videos, shared by Rick Suchow, were filmed by Dr. Fred Erskine, the father of drummer Peter Erskine. As Rick shared previously, “The sound came direct from the front-of-house mix board, engineered by Brian Risner, and my dad was using an...

In 1972, Charles Mingus was making his return to the music scene, after a six or seven year layoff. Playboy writer John F. Goodman reviewed Mingus’ comeback concert that year, which brought the two together for various interviews between 1972 and 1974. The interviews were recorded by Goodman for a proposed memoir. Forty years later, these conversations are now collected...

Funk Fingers are available once again thanks to a licensing agreement between Tony Levin and Expanding Hands Music. Levin invented the Funk Fingers after mimicking his intro to Peter Gabriel’s “Big Time,” in which drummer Jerry Marotta played Levin’s bass strings with his drumsticks while the bassist fingered the notes with his left hand. Though he produced them on his...