Buzz

Phish bassist Mike Gordon will begin a 10-show solo tour, the “Get Bassed Tour,” along the east coast this week to promote his latest solo CD, The Green Sparrow. After the solo tour, he’ll be preparing for the Phish festival in late October at the Coachella site in California. In a recent Boston Herald interview, Gordon was asked about his...

In case you missed it, here are some of the most popular features from last week (August 29th through September 5th). Jon Burr‘s latest lesson series continues with the extremely popular “Practicing and the Mind” article. We introduced our newest column, from Dr. Donovan Stokes. Check out the first The Lowdown with Dr. D column, “Making the Switch from electric...

A 2001 Fender Precision Bass is being auctioned to help raise money for the medical needs of Deftone bassist Chi Cheng. The bass is autographed by Green Day’s Mike Dirnt, Rush’s Geddy Lee and notable session players Reggie Hamilton, Stu Hamm, Victor Bailey, Marcus Miller and others. The bass was also autographed by Cheng before his accident. Fieldy from Korn...

Sunset Rubdown bassist Marc Nicol was recently struck by lightning and survived! He was enjoying hanging out at lakeside when the lightning struck. Aside from a pretty intense burn Nicol’s is doing just fine. He describes the experience: “My heart started back up after the electrical shock. I woke up feeling like I was suffocating and was delirious. Then I...

Swiss bassist DavidSinRocks posted several playalong videos within the last couple of years, not long after he first picked up the bass. This one, Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke”, was performed just 14 months after David started playing. When you’re done with that, check out David’s Jackson Five “I Want You Back” playalong. David’s band, Deep Kick, is on Myspace.

Bassist Chris Kringel has a new bass method book out, The Bassist’s Guide to Creativity: Expand Your Groove Potential. The book/CD combo is designed to help you “opening your mind, identifying your strengths and weaknesses, and examining the many mental and physical aspects of being a bassist.” The CD contains over 80 tracks, with each music example presented in the...

Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, the creators of The Gorillaz, have asked The Horrors to collaborate on a track for their upcoming album. Horrors’ bassist Rhys Webb said: “Damon got a copy of our album Primary Colours really early, contacted us out completely out of the blue and told us how much he liked it… It was kind of...

Here’s a nice performance by the Bill Evans Trio, including a great solo by bassist Chuck Israels. The trio also includes Larry Bunker on drums. Israels joined the trio after the passing of Scott LaFaro. The performance was recorded in 1965, we think.

Gorgo Bordello bassist Tommy T is planning to release his solo album, The Prester John Sessions, on Easy Star Records to iTunes on October 13th 2009 and to stores November 10th. Tommy T, born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, wrote and produced album. The album consists of 11-tracks features other Gogol Bordello members as guest musicians. “In the ‘70s,...

This week’s rave is all about the social networking site, Twitter. For musicians “networking” has always played a big part in our lives. It helps us share information, ideas and hopefully get’s us gigs (lol). I have to say I’m really impressed with the bass community as a whole and one look at a site like Twitter shows how we...

Bassist Jean-Bertrand Carbou shares his “Bass Solo Song”, performed on a Warwick 6-string Stage Streamer I.

Michael Manring has updated his tour schedule, including dates through October 2009. Michael shares, “I’ll be staying close to home for the next few weeks to work on some new compositions, but I’ve got lots of trips in the works for the rest of the year and 2010.” Friday, September 18 Solo performance/Special Private Concert and Gourmet Vegetarian Dinner in...