Archive for 2014 - Page 16

La Bella has announced a new type of extended-life string called the Vapor Shield series. Instead of spraying or dipping the string into a coating, the process treats the entire surface of the string with a nucleated polymer vapor. “Using a highly sophisticated Ionic Vapor Process™ developed by Acoustic Science™, proprietary compounds are activated in a glow discharge electromagnetic plasma,...

Q: I’ve been wondering about what people really mean when they speak of “music as a language,” and how this applies to improvising. When I take a solo, I feel like I’m just running the same patterns over and over again and never really doing anything different from song to song. What thoughts do you have about this? A: This...

Before Yellow bassist Johannes Pehrson sent us this video of their new tune, “Following The Signs.” Featuring vocalist Anna Schonebeck, Pehrson said the song was recording using only a 6-string bass, drums and vocals. Great tune and sound from this trio.

Many Americans got their first look at singer/songwriter/bassist Suzi Quatro when she appeared on the hit TV show “Happy Days” several times between 1977 and 1979 as rock-and-roll singer Leather Tuscadero. But the Detroit native, while relatively unheralded in the U.S., was already a superstar in Europe, and had number 1 hits in the UK. She didn’t top the charts...

When I first saw this submission for Reader Spotlight, I did a double take… Ron Jaworski? Turns out the ex-Eagle QB is not a bassist (at least that we’re aware of). This Ron Jaworski is, and we loved his story. Ron has a pretty crazy day job, but manages to make time for his band – a band whose name...

Our third entry in the “Basses on a Budget” series includes basses we’ve covered between August, 2013 and August, 2014, with a price tag of $500 or less. As we said previously: This is not a “best bass under $500? list – we don’t like those lists much anyway. We’ll leave that up to you decide. Of course, if you...

Bassist Petros Klampanis is working on his next album and has released this awesome video for the title track. The group mixes jazz, world music, and chamber music into a beautifully organic style of music. Klampanis is currently raising money for his album on Kickstarter.

Everything one could possibly want from mid-1970s King Crimson has been compiled on the massive collection, . The exhaustive 27-disc set pretty much presents the material created by the 1973/74 version of King Crimson — particularly in its live shows — from almost every conceivable audio angle available on CD or DVD/Blu-Ray. The multi-CD and DVD set, which will only...

Luthier Bill Woger decided to make the jump to create his own business last year called Naked Bass and Guitar Company. His fourth bass ever built is the Hitchhiker 5-string, and it’s No Treble’s Bass of the Week. The Hitchhiker is a neck-through design built around an awesome 9-piece multi-laminate neck consisting of maple, mahogany, and wenge. Its body wings...

As bassists, our health is important, and paying attention to our routine is paramount to avoiding injury. Here are five tips to keep in mind to staying healthy and injury free. 1. Stay Loose Keep those joints flexible and muscles moving. Excessive tension is the enemy. Upright players tend to have problems in shoulders and upper back, followed by issues...

Prepare yourself: Erlend Caspersen sent us this playthrough of his band Abhorrent’s song “Reward System Malfunction,” and it’s scary good. The song comes from their upcoming album Intransigence, and while the band has a vocalist, this playthrough removes the vocals to focus on the instruments. Caspersen navigates the song with incredible agility moving between lightning fast fingerstyle and slap.

The Who is celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, and they’re doing some important work. The band has announced they’ll be performing at a benefit concert on November 11th in support of the Teenage Cancer Trust. The “house band” for the event will include Simon Townshend, Zak Starkey, Pino Palladino, Billy Nicholls, Frank Simes, Loren Gold and John Coury. The...