Archive for April 2014 - Page 6

Bass and voice duets can be so powerful. Here’s a gorgeous song by the Mexican duo Boisse, comprised of bassist Hector Baños and vocalist Majo Saenz performing “Flor.”

Or Lubianiker shared this video of his group Steroid Puppets’ new video for the song “Muddy Bright.” “[It’s a] very bass heavy tune of course, like all tunes should be,” he explained. And we agree. Starting out with some ambience, the song develops into a huge groove before morphing through various styles. The pocket is held down by Lubianiker and...

The Mac is back — and that’s the full, classic version of Fleetwood Mac — and it’s going to tour North America this fall. The “On With the Show” tour begins Sept. 30 in Minneapolis at the Target Center. Keyboardist/vocalist/songwriter Christine McVie will tour with the band for the first time in 16 years, and her ex-husband, bassist John McVie,...

Over the past year, I’ve dug deep into the nether-regions of my brain, week after week, to figure out all of those things I wish I knew. Lucky for me, the crazy turmoil that is life as a professional musician has been inspiration enough. My goal in writing this series was to highlight those things I’ve learned the hard way…...

Aimee Mann and Ted Leo stopped by NPR for their Tiny Desk concert series in February, performing four tunes. NPR’s Bob Boilen said the members of duo “are often at opposite ends of the volume knob. But what started as separate sets during a mutual tour, then a few walk-ons during Leo’s solo set, is now an adventure in collaboration...

George Mraz, the Czech native and master of jazz acoustic bass, has joined up with pianist David Hazeltine and drummer Jason Brown to create the George Mraz/David Hazeltine Trio album, . The record features the players’ interpretations of classics like Rogers & Hart’s “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was” and Cole Porter’s “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” alongside Mraz’s...

Murray Kuun is a South African luthier who admits he came to the profession relatively late in life, but his passion is in creating fresh designs. “I am not keen on making copies of instruments that have been copied ad nauseam,” he shared. “All my instruments are original designs.” His first bass model is the Elemental, a neck-thru bass with...

Up for a review is the Ibanez SRF700 Portamento, a 4-string fretless from the company’s new Bass Workshop series. The bass is fitted with some nice features for a bass under a thousand bucks, namely piezo pickups imbedded in the bridge and integrated with Bartolini active pickups. The bonus here is that the piezos actually sound great and not harsh....

Anthony Crawford sent us this video of a rehearsal with drummer Virgil Donati for their upcoming European tour. This is his bass solo from Donati’s tune, “Eleven.” Good luck keeping up with it!

Guitarist Zakk Wylde’s Black Label Society is back with its first studio album in five years, . With John “JD” DeServio on bass (Cycle of Pain) the record is as heavy as you’d expect from Wylde, who was Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist for more than 20 years. “Catacombs” is the band’s follow-up to 2009’s The Order of the Black, which debuted...

Italian string manufacture D’Orazio has announced a new set of strings for upright bass called the Spyrachrome. Designed for psychobilly slap style players, the new strings are described as soft to the touch with high magnetic response for improved use with pickups. The Spyrachrome is made with a flat wire steel/chrome winding over a steel rope core created by D’Orazio....

Q: How do you hear music, as in a critical method of hearing? How can your playing or musicality get better just by hearing a certain genre or style? Do you perhaps hear a piano comping and try to do the same if you are digging it? A: The answer to this question could fill a book, for sure. It...