Archive for 2013 - Page 63

Nearly 22 years to the day, Primus’ second studio album, Sailing the Seas of Cheese is being reissued. Bassist Les Claypool oversaw the restoration project, which has been remixed for the new release. “Musically, it holds up incredibly well. Sonically, it holds up fairly well,” Claypool said about the original album. “There’s some old-style reverbs that are a little bit...

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 where to start. What do you think makes effective networking in the context of being a musician as opposed to an artist who has written songs? How do you know the right person...

Back in 1991, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Omar Hakim and Stanley Clarke took the stage at the Jazz à Vienne festival. Here’s the quartet playing Herbie’s tune “Cantaloupe Island” and having a lot of fun with it.

Trevor Bolder, who played with David Bowie’s backing band Spiders From Mars, has passed away after a battle with cancer. He was 62. Born in Kingston Upon Hull, England, Bolder was a prominent member of the local R&B scene in the ‘60s before replacing Tony Visconti in Bowie’s band. He appeared on the albums Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall...

Meet Spencer Herbert, a bassist who first got stuck in some sort of “enrichment class” for people who wanted to play the guitar, knew better, and got a P Bass. Ten years later, he’s still loving the low end. Spencer is our reader in the spotlight for the week of May 20th, 2013. Bio: I’m a twenty-three year old bass...

Here are some cool patterns for you to try out, using open strings for creating fast passages and note doubling. In the video demonstration, I first play it at full speed, followed by a reduced speed. Follow along with the notation/TAB (PDF). For the gear heads: I’m playing my 1966 Fender Precision bass (I don’t use the Jazz bass bridge...

I’ve never heard of Mr. DanZ until today, but I was glad I found them. Here’s the group – with bassist Ben Shepherd laying it down, slapping, soloing and jumping – performing their cover of Alan Pasqua’s “Proto Cosmos”. Tight.

Many people simply pick up their instrument and start playing without any warm-up. While there is value to this approach, I generally advise a gradual warm-up for students. Although slow scales can often serve as a warmup, even a slow scale can be quite complex technically. After all, it involves tone production, shifting, light left hands, lifting and dropping fingers,...

Bassist Franck Hermanny put together this video to demo recording multiple bass tracks on video (started out as three, then became four). For the demo, he chose to do his all-bass cover of Greg Howe’s “Jump Start” (with some drums in the mix). While it isn’t a complete song performance, what he does is quite impressive.

Master vocalist Bobby McFerrin has released Spirityouall, a thirteen track album compiled of classic spirituals as well as original compositions. Integrating many of McFerrin’s musical influences, the effort pays homage to the legacy of the singer’s father, the late baritone Robert McFerrin, Sr., who was the first African-American to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Opera Company. He was also...

The Deftones were nearly finished with their album Eros in 2008 when tragedy struck and a car accident left bassist Chi Cheng in a coma. After some time, the band decided to shelve the project out of respect for Cheng and recruited bassist Sergio Vega to start a new album, Diamond Eyes. Eros turned out to be Cheng’s final recording...

Great bass is alive and well here in No Treble land, from videos to gear new and old to great how to columns. Here are the top 10 most popular stories, features, videos and columns on No Treble for the week of May 12-18, 2013. Thanks for reading, commenting and sharing! 1. Fabienne Gilbert: “Come On Come Over” Bass Play-Along...