Articles by Kevin Johnson - Page 818

Famed New Orleans bassist Walter Payton Jr. passed away October 28 following a longtime illness. Payton, who is father to trumpeter Nicholas Payton, suffered a stroke early this year while on the road with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, with whom he had been working with since as early as 1965. Besides his spectacular playing, the bassist touched lives through...

Jack Bruce has a new DVD out, entitled City of Gold: Live Performances. The 22 minute long DVD is a snapshot of Bruce between two performances over 10 years in 1991 in Sevilla, Spain and 2001 in Donington, UK. Bruce is joined by musicians including Phil Manzanera, Michael Schenker, Uli Roth and others on the four tracks that include “City...

On a recent episode of VH1’s That Metal Show, Michael Anthony shared his story about why he’s no longer in Van Halen. The bassist, who now holds down the low end in the rock supergroup Chickenfoot, said that he was never asked about the band’s recent “reunion” tour, as well as their new album, due out early next year. Anthony...

Gospel legend Andrew Gouche has shared details of his new Signature MTD bass on his Facebook Page. The Andrew Gouche Signature MTD 635-24 is a 6-string, 35″ scale bass that features an alder body with a maple burl top and a maple neck with a purple heart fingerboard. The neck’s side dots are made from Luminlay, which allows them to...

Free improv bassist Joelle Leandre has teamed up with violinist India Cooke for a new album entitled Journey on NoBusiness Records. The new CD contains a real-time improvised performance split into six tracks from a conference called “Improvisation and Identity: Discovering Self and Community in a Trans-Cultural Age,” which was held in Denver, Colorado. Drawing from free jazz, modern classical...

After rumors of being fired from RATT, bassist Robbie Crane responded by stating that the iconic glam metal band is on “indefinite hiatus.” He responded to a question from the bloggers at Metal Sludge: “As far as I’m concerned there is no Ratt to be ‘fired’ from as Ratt is on an indefinite hiatus as we’ve finished the Infestation tour...

After reuniting last year for a Japanese tour, the shred kings in Mr. Big have announced that a new album will be released in January 2011. The band, which was originally formed by bassist Billy Sheehan in 1988, has not released a studio album since 2001’s Actual Size, and the new album will be the first to feature all original...

Here’s an incredible solo by bassist Scott Ambush, during a performance of “Wiggle Room” by Spyro Gyra at the Kaunas Jazz Festival in October, 2004.

The audio book version of Victor Wooten’s The Music Lesson is in the running for a Grammy, according to a recent mailing from Vic himself. The unabridged 7 CD set, which has been listed in the ballots for Grammy nominations, contains the spoken version of his book as well as unique information and original music, including his song “The Lesson”...

Les Claypool will be pulling out all the stops this year at Primus’ 2010-2011 New Years celebration. Claypool and his trio will be playing the Fox Theatre in Oakland, California on December 30th and 31st as part of the special event, which is a milestone for the innovative bassist. It will mark his 20th anniversary of playing New Years performances,...

A few days ago, we covered the news about Squarepusher’s latest release, Shobaleader One: d’Demonstrator. Here’s a video of the song “Megazine”, from the album. Check out the bass solo starting at 2:40!

A Perfect Circle has announced the dates of their upcoming reunion tour we reported on last month. The tour will feature the band playing their entire discography, spread out over three nights per city, with the exception of Las Vegas, which only gets two. The five cities for the tour are all based out of the west coast, beginning in...