Stevie Wonder Announces Final “Songs in the Key of Life” Tour Dates
If you missed Nate Watts laying it down on Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life tour, you’ve got one more chance. The R&B legend has announced 20 new North American dates to the tour, which celebrates the ground-breaking album by performing it in its entirety. The trek continues on September 30th at Montreal’s Bell Centre and focuses on...
Snow Owl: Live at Nisville Jazz Festival
Snow Owl, aka Juan Garcia-Herreros, is a bass player that I can’t get enough of. His outstanding chops and ear-bending musical compositions are always intriguing. Here’s the bassist throwing it down with his band at the Nisville Jazz Festival. The group rips through “Touched” and “Pequeña Samba” with Snow Owl mixing things up with a pitch shifter before slowing things...
Cannibal Corpse Announces Fall 2015 Tour
Cannibal Corpse, anchored by metal bass legend Alex Webster, have announced a fall tour in continued support of 2014’s A Skeletal Domain. The tour kicks off October 8th at Underbelly in Jacksonville, Florida before snaking up the East Coast, heading west to California, and back east across the South. While most of the performances will be in theaters and clubs,...
Michel Falcão: Bach’s Sonata No. 1 in G Minor
Transferring Johann Sebastian Bach’s music to the electric bass is always an interesting feat. Here’s an outstanding clip of Michel Falcão pulling out all the stops on the composer’s Sonata No. 1 in G Minor.
Iron Maiden Releases First New Single in Five Years
Prepare to up the irons: Iron Maiden has released their first new music in five years. “Speed of Light” is the first single from the band’s upcoming album, The Book of Souls, which is due out September 4th. Of course, the legendary Steve Harris provides his snarling bass lines to the album in addition to writing contributions on seven of...
MBS Effects Introduces Parallel Universe Bass Blender
MBS Effects has released the Parallel Universe Bass Blender, a pedal they describe as a parallel mixer that allows you to mix your dry signal with the pedals placed on its effects loop. The Blend feature has become more popular on many new pedals, but the Parallel Universe allows for blending with older pedals or with multiple pedals. “Doing this,...
Bass of the Week: RG Custom Basses Pathos
Bassist Sam Battaglino shared some details of his new RG Custom Basses Pathos on a Facebook group called Best Boutique Basses, and it stopped me in my tracks. The left-handed bass features a neck-through design with solid spalted Ambrosia maple body wings that give it a raw, organic, and yet refined aesthetic. Its five-piece neck brings together spalted Ambrosia maple...
Vail Johnson Releases “The Seventh Son”
Session bass ace Vail Johnson has returned with The Seventh Son, a thirteen-song album that brings together several genres to create a style the bassist calls “JazzAmericana.” Johnson, whose has worked with artists from Herbie Hancock to Whitney Houston, fuses country, blues, R&B, folk, and jazz for an eclectic yet cohesive sound. “This mix of originals and covers of timeless...
Nordstrand Guitars Introduces Dan Lutz Nordy DL vM5 Bass
Nordstrand Guitars has teamed up with bassist Dan Lutz to unveil the Nordy DL vM5. The bass is a take on the company’s Nordy vM5 model that brings together their NP5 and BigMan pickups for a unique configuration. Similar to the vM5, the DL vM5 is built with either an ash body and maple fingerboard or an alder body with...
Rise to Power: An Interview with Don Slater
You know you’re doing something right when metal mainstay Kirk Windstein is singing your praises, and that’s precisely the case for Don Slater of Battlecross. The bassist brings an intense energy to the stage every night with a unique voice on his instrument. Battlecross is now gearing up to release , a 10-song collection that combines their thrash and groove...
Oteil Burbridge to Join Grateful Dead Alumni Band “Dead and Company”
Hundreds of thousands of people witnessed The Grateful Dead’s “Fare Thee Well” concert series, marking the final time the “core four” surviving band members would perform together under the band’s moniker. A month later, three of the four band members – Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart – have announced a concert on Halloween night at Madison Square Garden...
Universal Audio Introduces Ampeg SVT-VR and SVT-3 Pro Plug-Ins
Recording bassists have some new amp modeling software options with Universal Audio’s new Ampeg Bass Amp plug-ins. The two new plug-ins focus on the SVT sound with an SVT-VR model and an SVT-3 Pro model, both of which are included in UAD Software v8.3 and are made exclusively for UAD-2 hardware and Apollo interfaces. Each of the amp simulating plug-ins...