Darryl Jones Joins Dead Daisies for Tour
Rock supergroup The Dead Daisies has announced that Darryl Jones will be joining their ranks for an upcoming UK tour. The renowned bassist, who also plays for The Rolling Stones, will be filling in for regular bassist Marco Mendoza who will be performing with Thin-Lizzy spinoff The Black Star Riders. The rest of current Dead Daisies lineup includes former INXS...
Moog Introduces Five New Minifooger Effects Pedals
Moog has unveiled the Minifooger family of effects pedals designed for use with bass and electric guitar. The compact stompboxes are housed in cast aluminum enclosures and feature completely analog signal paths, true bypass, optional battery power, and an expression input for adjusting parameters on the fly. Each of the pedals is designed and hand assembled in North Carolina. Moog...
Megadeth Announces Tour Dates and David Ellefson Book Signings
Megadeth has announced the Super Collider Tour in support of their album of the same name released earlier this year. The trek starts on November 23rd at Myth Live in St. Paul, Minnesota, then heads east through Pennsylvania, down to Florida, and across the South. It ends December 19th in Reno, Nevada. David Ellefson will also be making some special...
Cody Wright: “Blackbird” Solo Bass Arrangement
“Blackbird” by The Beatles may be one of the most covered songs ever written, but Cody Wright of the Jonathan Scales Fourchestra puts an awesome spin on it with his unique bass arrangement. Switching between tapping, fingerstyle and picking, Wright’s mesmerizing version was captured during his performance at the Asheville Music Hall in Asheville, North Carolina on September 26, 2013....
Randy Brecker Releases “Brecker Brothers Band Reunion” with Will Lee and Chris Minh Doky
The surge of jazz fusion in the ’70s produced some incredible music, especially the work of the virtuosic Brecker Brothers. Led by trumpeter Randy Brecker and saxophonist Michael Brecker, their self-titled debut blew listeners away with an electric sound that melded genres and spawned the classic track “Some Skunk Funk.” “When the band started back in the day, the original...
Fender Introduces Vintage Hot Rod ’60s Precision and ’70s Jazz Basses
Fender has rolled out two new basses as part of their Vintage Hot Rod series, an American-made lineup that the company describes as incorporating the best of old and new features. The Fender Vintage Hot Rod ’60s Precision Bass and ’70s Jazz Bass riff on classic designs while adding new features like a 7.25″-12″ compound-radius fingerboards, new neck profiles, and...
Eventide Introduces PowerFactor 2
Eventide and Danish company Cioks have teamed up to release the PowerFactor 2, a power supply that can run up to four Eventide pedals as well as up to four other pedals. It has eight regulated, isolated DC outlets – four rated at 400mA, two rated at 200mA, and two rated at 100mA – all of which are protected from...
Lynn Seaton and Christian McBride: “Blues in the Closet”
It’s always a blast to see musical masters having fun jamming on a tune. Donovan Stokes sent me this video of Lynn Seaton and Christian McBride playing on the Oscar Pettiford song “Blues in the Closet” at the University of North Texas, where Seaton teaches Jazz Studies. The two bassists trade some of the tastiest blues licks you’ll ever hear...
Korn Releases “The Paradigm Shift”
Korn has released The Paradigm Shift, the band’s eleventh studio album and the first to feature guitarist Brian “Head” Welch since 2003. Blending elements of their old and new styles, bassist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu says the mix is the best of both worlds. “The new record is everything we’ve wanted to be,” Fieldy shared. “Everybody is doing what they want...
SolidGoldFX Announces SuperDrive Beta Pedal
SolidGoldFX has introduced their first bass-specific effects pedal, the SuperDrive Beta. Designed with an EQ tailored for bass, the pedal offers tones from old school thump, to an “Ampeg inspired” drive. The SuperDrive Beta is built with a JFET preamp with subtle germanium clipping to double as an always-on tone shaper or a cutting fuzz. Controls include Gain, Tone, and...
Bass of the Week: Aquilina Basses DB
Sébastien Aquilina of Aquilina Basses is making some beautiful instruments. Case in point: the Aquilina DB, a suave singlecut design with French aesthetic. The neck-through bass is built around a sycamore and ash neck with carbon reinforcements, topped with a sycamore fingerboard. The body wings are mahogany with a stunning flamed sycamore that continues the theme. It’s fitted with a...
Alberto Rigoni: Dream Theater’s “Erotomania” Play-Along
From the tricky fingerings to the melodic phrasing, Alberto Rigoni absolutely nails John Myung’s part on the Dream Theater song “Erotomania” in this play-along. Dig that tone, too!