Archive for 2015 - Page 17

Weeks after leaving her longtime post in All That Remains, Jeanne Sagan is back on the scene with Crossing Rubicon. The Connecticut-based hard rock band, which is fronted by Sagan’s fiancé Scotty Anarchy, has announced their next album, No Less Than Everything, will be released in early 2016. The rest of the band includes guitarists Zach Lambert and Steven Riccio...

Time for your monthly dose of the 10 reader favorite gear stories. You’re welcome. (And thank you for reading, commenting and sharing). 1. Sandberg Guitars Forty Eight Bass Sandberg Guitars is now shipping the Forty Eight, a bass that throws back to old school rock and metal. The model is available in several finishes including a metallic hardcore aged red....

I’ve somehow avoided listening to Miley Cyrus’s hit tune, “Wrecking Ball”… until now. It is all thanks to bassist Lior Ozeri, who sent me his interpretation of this tune where he drops the original instrumentation and turns it into a bass arrangement behind Cyrus’s vocals. I dig this, and I don’t mind admitting it.

The second album from the bass duo EchoTest, featuring Julie Slick (Adrian Belew Power Trio, Crimson ProjeKct) and Marco Machera has arrived. Le Fil Rouge, recorded at The Bunker Home Studio in Latina, Italy, during the summer of 2014 and mixed and mastered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in January, is billed as blending trip-hop and post-rock elements to progressive rock, creating...

When I was growing up – and was a young and impressionable musician – every bass player wanted to be Jaco Pastorius (that’s not true, the rockers wanted to be Billy Sheehan). These virtuosos seemed unreachable. There was no Internet. There was no Twitter. No Skype. All we knew about these icons was what we heard on vinyl, cassettes and...

Fan clips and audio of the Dead & Company’s recent Halloween performance at Madison Square Garden have been trickling onto the web over the past few days, proving that the group is firing on all cylinders. The band features three original Grateful Dead members – Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann – with the “company” consisting of John Mayer,...

Status Quo bassist John “Rhino” Edwards has released his second album with his side band, Rhino’s Revenge, called Rhino’s Revenge II. The album comes 15 years after the original Rhino’s Revenge, released in 2000. “By any standards, that’s a long time between albums,” Rhino said, “but when you’re fortunate enough to be in a band like Quo, you’d don’t get...

NRBQ founder Joey Spampinato has been diagnosed with cancer. The bassist, who has more recently been touring with his band The Spampinato Brothers, will be going on a rigorous 12-month treatment plan. The news was broken via a YouCaring Crowdfunding page by his wife, Kami. “Joey has been diagnosed with cancer. It’s not stage four. We are grateful for that,”...

Q: I am a beginning bassist. I want to know your opinion about studying bass with a teacher vs. self-teaching. Which do you think is more useful and advantageous? I’ve studied with a teacher since last year, but I don’t find I’m progressing anymore, and I’m in doubt if I should continue with the same teacher. I feel like I...

Back in September, Berklee held their Beantown Jazz Festival. Victor Wooten, Steve Bailey and Derico Watson took the stage, and thankfully, they recorded it.

The latest release from experimental composer/bassist/producer Bill Laswell is absolutely all about the bass. The seven-track piece, Bass Culture, features not only Laswell, but a divers group of bassists including funk icon Bootsy Collins (James Brown, Parliament-Funkadelic, Bootsy’s Rubber Band), Robbie Shakespeare (one half of reggae legends Sly & Robbie), Jah Wobble (P.I.L.) and Gabe Katz (noise rockers Blind Idiot...

If you’re a regular reader here, you’ll know I love the Reader Spotlight. It might just be my favorite thing we do here. This week, I’m thrilled to share Carlo Dellepiane’s story. Carlo is about to embark on his next big step in his musical career, which is awesome. But wait until you read the advice his father gave him...