Articles by Kevin Johnson - Page 619

If you haven’t caught on, I’m a big Jonathan Scales Fourchestra fan. The combination of steel drummer Scales, bassist Cody Wright and drummer Phill Bronson gets such a tight yet exploratory sound. Here’s the band performing “Lone Wolf” at a concert in Fairfield, Connecticut earlier this year. Wright kicks things off with some beautiful artificial harmonics before moving into the...

Here’s something you’ve probably never seen. The Jackson Steel Guitar Company has introduced the SlideKing Bass, an instrument that blends a bass guitar with a pedal steel guitar. Introduced at Summer NAMM this year, the bass is set up horizontally with pedals and comes in 4- or 5-string models. It’s built with a solid hard rock maple body and neck...

Here’s a video that will get you moving in your seat. Bassist Larry Williams drives the bus in this clip of the Mike Wheeler Band performing “That’s What Love Will Make You Do.” His enormous energy propels the group’s groove, but it’s his ferocious solo at the 4:18 mark that steals the show. After he builds from fingerstyle to slap,...

Edmond Gilmore has spent lots of time studying the fantastic playing of Jaco Pastorius. We’ve featured his take on several Jaco songs, and now he’s back with a gorgeous version of “Continuum,” from the bass master’s self-titled album. Check it out:

Creation Audio Labs has unleashed the Grizzly Bass pedal, which combines boost, overdrive/distortion, and tone shaping effects. Likening it to a tube preamp without the tubes, the pedal draws from the company’s other effects while being tailored for bass. “Grizzly Bass borrows analog wave-shaping technology from the [Creation Audio Labs] Holy Fire to re-shape the waveform and achieve tube-like FX...

Sergey Poedinko of Dahrendorf Guitars sent us the details for this gorgeous electric upright bass, and I knew we had to share it. Dubbed the Darwin EUB34, the bass mixes elements of both electric and upright basses into a minimalist design. “It has [an] absolutely ‘upright’ sound in its compact body that fits regular bass guitar gigbag,” the Dahrendorf site...

Ray Brown was the king of jazz bass, but he also had a funky side. Besides playing on some James Brown tracks, he penned a few funk and soul-jazz songs that stood out in his repertoire. We’re celebrating the bass titan’s birthday with this video of his tune “Ray’s New Funk.” The performance comes from a 2000 concert at the...

MU-FX has announced it will be reissuing the classic Musitronics Octave Divider pedal. The new pedal will retain all the qualities of the original thanks to MU-FX creator and builder Mike Beigel, who co-founded Musitronics in 1972. Equally useful for both bass and guitar, the Octave Divider has Bass, Tone, Dry Mix, and Ringer knobs, where the ringer is a...

Sylvain Audet’s bass got abducted by aliens and was recovered a year later from a corn field in rural Pennsylvania. At least that’s what the bassist claims is the reason behind the new song “Contact” from his experimental bass/drum duo Audet-Morissette. The track, which also features drummer Christian Morissette and guitarist Claude Laflamme, is a cool spacey groove with some...

Almost one year ago, David Pastorius blew everyone away with a nasty playalong with Tech N9ne’s “Questions.” That video and his subsequent videos caught the rapper’s attention, leading to some work together. Now Pastorius will be hitting the road with Tech N9ne on his fall “Band of Psychos” tour. The outing, which will be Tech N9ne’s first tour with a...

Grab a pair of headphones and get ready for a cool sonic experience. Ariane Cap put together an awesome solo bass jam in stereo with different lines panned left and right to please your ear holes. “All six string bass, a looper, a Delay pedal and a Slicer Pedal create all the mayhem,” Cap writes. “Recorded in true stereo!”

The aluminum specialists at Alusonic are getting into the bass cabinet world with the ALU112. Housed in an aircraft grade aluminum hardshell, the cab is loaded with a 12-inch aluminum cast frame woofer with a neodymium magnet. The ALU112 has an 8 ohm impedence with a nominal power handling of 400 watts RMS and continuous power handling of 600 watts...