Archive for February 2014 - Page 3

Lake Street Dive is often called a string band with soul, and its latest album lives up to the description, as well as the acclaim the folk band has received in its young career. , out on Signature Sounds Recordings, features an eclectic pop style created by double bassist Bridget Kearney, vocalist Rachael Price, drummer Mike Calabrese and guitarist Mike...

Orange Amplification introduced the new OB-1K bass amplifier at the NAMM Show this year. The 1000-watt solid-state amplifier is inspired by bi-amping and splits the signal into two separate paths. The first side offers a tight, clean bass sound while the second features two stages of controllable gain and is rich in upper harmonics. Each channel can be toggled or...

Miki Santamaria never ceases to amaze us, and it would seem he raises the bar with each new video. Here he is performing his solo bass arrangement of Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed”, a song he calls one of his favorites. The bass is a Yamaha BB2024X, and he’s using reverb from Garage Band. Amazing.

George Porter, Jr. will be returning to tour the UK for the first time in years. The bassist will be taking his band The Runnin’ Pardners on a four-date run of Brighton, Manchester, Nottingham, and London. Porter is famed for founding the legendary New Orleans band The Meters and can be heard on such classics as “Cissy Strut,” “Just Kissed...

Jon Willis shared a photo of his pride and joy on our Facebook page, and needless to say I was floored by the instrument. But the story behind it is even better. The bass is a near perfect replica of Billy Sheehan’s famous Wife bass, which the Mr. Big bassist used from his very first gig in 1971 until the...

Think about your favorite bass line. Sing it in your head. Picture yourself hearing it on the radio… you’re driving in the car and suddenly you hear this groove pulsating from the speakers. At that moment, you bop your head, tap your fingers, and forget about where you’re going. You don’t worry about the work that’s at the office, the...

Here’s another great video of Ray Brown doing what he does best. This clip is taken from his performance at the 1977 Montreux Jazz Festival with Milt Jackson. With the help of a star-studded band, the duo tackles “Slippery,” which is also found on Brown’s album Something for Lester. The rest of the band includes Clark Terry on trumpet, Eddie...

Progressive metal band Cynic, and its bassist, Sean Malone, have released the group’s long-awaited record, , Cynic’s first in three years – and its first full-length album since 2008. Malone, aside from his Cynic and solo work, is also an author, having penned four music books, including Music Theory for Bassists and A Portrait of Jaco: The Solos Collection. It’s...

The members of Korn are getting new signature instruments from Ibanez this year including bassist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu’s K5 Signature Limited Edition bass. The updated K5 takes an opposite aesthetic approach of Fieldy’s black signature bass and features a flat white finish as well as a white painted maple fretboard. The white theme is accented with a set of blue...

Q: Some people stand strongly by the notion of having a true practice routine while others claim that routines stunt growth, because the same thing is being practiced each day (e.g. scale modes in broken thirds with such-and-such technique striving for X bpm). Will you please elaborate on what a routine is and how to create one that keeps one...

Sometimes you just need a nice buttery groove to make your day. Here’s Jerry Jemmott making it happen with Aretha Franklin on the song “Make It With You” during her 1971 concert at Fillmore West.

HELLYEAH has split ways with guitarist Greg Tribbett and bassist Bob “Bobzilla” Kakaha, according to a new post on Blabbermouth. The supergroup didn’t give a specific reason for the split, but posted about it on their Facebook page. “Things happen for necessary reasons,” they wrote. “It’s so easy for people to assume or makeup reasons for things. Don’t ASSUME anything!...