Articles by Kevin Johnson - Page 668

Former Lambchop bassist Marc Trovillion passed away last week after suffering a heart attack. He was 56 years old. Trovillion was a founding member of the Nashville-based band and referred to himself as a “charter member.” It was in the bassist’s bedroom where he, Kurt Wagner and Jim Watkins first got together to jam in 1987, and he was featured...

Last year, Fodera teased the public with pictures of an interesting prototype hybrid bass they were developing. The company has now unveiled the result: the Fodera Anthony Jackson Presentation II Bass. Building on the AJ Presentation body shape, the next generation of the bassist’s signature series has a completely hollow acoustic body that’s built with construction techniques used for both...

Iuliu-Bogdan Diaconeasa, aka “Bass Battle”, has released the fifth video in his series of live looping bass compositions. “Finding Myself” is a solo bass song that slowly layers up, eventually adding chords, bass, melody and percussion. Check it out:

For Gov’t Mule’s tenth studio album, the band decided to do something never done before. Shout!, which is their debut on the Blue Note Label, is a two-disc set. Disc one includes the band’s eleven brand new songs, while disc two features an all-star lineup of vocalists performing their interpretations of the band’s new songs. The special guests on disc...

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has announced the list of nominees for the 2014 induction, and the bass world is well represented. Half of the artists have been nominated before, with several returning from last year’s picks, while the other half are all first-time nominees. This includes Linda Ronstadt, Peter Gabriel, Hall and Oates, the Replacements, Yes, Link...

Darkglass Electronics has unveiled the Duality, a fuzz pedal that offers up two separate fuzz circuits that can be used individually or blended for a wide variety of textures. The first side is a saw-tooth shape shifting circuit for an old school vibe while the second circuit is a 4-stage CMOS high gain distortion for a more brutal tone. The...

A couple weeks ago we celebrated the birthday of the late great Allen Woody. On that day, we posted a question on our Facebook page, asking readers which of his bass lines they liked the best. You all roared back with one of the baddest rock bass riffs ever: “Thorazine Shuffle”. Here’s the original Gov’t Mule lineup featuring Woody on...

San Francisco-based bassist Aaron Germain has released Chance, a jazz album with influences from all over the world. Germain enlisted musicians from San Francisco and France to create songs ranging from Senegalese Mbalax to Vietnamese traditional folk. While each song’s style varies, the album is balanced between electric and acoustic compositions. Germain lays down the low end on his upright...

EBS has introduced the FuzzMo, a fuzz pedal for bass that fills the gap between their distortion pedals and vintage fuzz effects. In addition to Gain and Volume controls, the Fuzzmo has a Blend knob for mixing your clean tone with your dirty signal. The pedal’s Shape control changes the shape of the gain engine from triangle to square wave...

Ryan Martinie is one sick bassist. Judging by this video, he might also be a little crazy. Here’s the music video for Mudvayne’s “Dig,” featuring Martinie’s infamous bass line.

Buckcherry and bassist Jimmy Ashhurst have parted ways, according to a post on the band’s website. Ashhurst had been with the band, known for their hit “Crazy Bitch,” since their 2005 reunion. “With heavy hearts and with great difficulty we have decided to part ways with our long time bandmate Jimmy Ashhurst,” the band wrote. “This was not an easy...

This week we check out the AVB1 from AV Basses, a versatile custom bass that comes in 4-, 5-, 6- or 7-string versions. Made in the Czech Republic by luthier Aleš Vychodil, the AVB1 comes with tons of options ranging from bolt-on or neck-thru construction to choice of woods to choice of pickups. While the bass can be made in...