Weekly Top 10: Mike Devol Interview, Bass Lessons on Palm Muting and Ghost Notes, New Tours, Albums, and More

I love finding new instruments and builders I’ve never heard of before, and our bass of the week is a great gem from Croatia. Luthier Igor Krsticevic shared his latest bass with us.

Charles Berthoud is back with another video in his “The Hardest Song In The World” series. This time, he runs through the Bee Gees’s “Stayin’ Alive” with a lot of different techniques. He even throws in some keys.

Steely Dan will be hitting the road for their “Earth After Hours” tour in May. The band, anchored by bass guru “Ready” Freddie Washington, will be in good company for their amphitheater tour, including Snarky Puppy and Aimee Mann.

UnderTone Audio has introduced the GB Tracker and Satellite, two units that make up a combination instrument DI and re-amp device. The company calls them an all-in-one solution for capturing and re-amping your signal.

In this week’s “Keep It Groovy” lesson, Ryan Madora gives us the low down on palm muting. Ryan focuses on Duck Dunn’s intro to the Otis Redding classic, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay” as a guide.

The Who has revealed a new North American tour called “The Who Hits Back!” that will run this spring. Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend will continue to be joined by bassist Jon Button, who fills the big shoes of the late John Entwistle.

Metal mainstays Korn have returned with their fourteenth studio album, entitled “Requiem”. While Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu has been on hiatus from the band, it’s still his rumbling bass lines that fill out the record’s thick textures.

In this new “Bass & Creativity” lesson, Olivier Babaz talks about how improvisation is a great tool to practice and expand the use of new musical techniques or ideas. He covers two ideas: ghost notes and modulation with voicings.

Although they have traditional bluegrass instrumentation, Greensky Bluegrass is anything but traditional. Since 2004, the pulse of the band has been kept steady by bassist Mike Devol. We caught up with him to get the scoop.

Stuart Hamm has been creating jaw-dropping music for decades, and now Bassline Publishing is helping you to learn his back catalog. “Stuart Hamm Bass Transcriptions – The Early Years” features detailed transcriptions from Stu’s first three albums.