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Am I Too Old To Start a Career as a Session Bassist?
Q: I’m 58 and a semi-pro bassist (I have a day job but have gigged for the past 30+ years and consider myself a very good player). I wanted to ask your thoughts on me trying to focus on becoming a session musician. I’m semi-retired and have a lot more time on my hands but have less interest in trying...
Tedeschi Trucks Band: Shame
Tim Lefebvre shared this fan-shot video on Facebook recently, saying “Cool jam I co-wrote with these fine folks…” The jam took place at the Beacon Theatre on October 6th.
Dream Theater Announces New Album, Tour Dates
Dream Theater fans rejoice! The progressive metal band has announced their 14th studio album, Distance Over Time, will be released on February 22nd, 2019. The new record, which is their first in three years, is described as “showcasing a newfound creativity… while maintaining the elements that have garnered them devoted fans around the globe.” The whole band, including six-string bass...
Reader Spotlight: Lucas Fernandes
Meet Lucas Fernandes, a bassist from Brazil who first picked up the bass in school and said it was “love at the first low note.” Lucas is this week’s No Treble reader in the spotlight. Here’s his story… Bio: I have studied bass with some great names of the local scene, like Oswaldo Amorim, Hamilton Pinheiro, and Alexandre Macarrão. I...
Dwarfcraft Devices Releases the HAX2 Pedal
Dwarfcraft Devices has released a new take on one of their earliest effects. The HAX2 is described as “light years beyond” the original and adds the option of a square or sine wave ring modulation. Each of the waveforms has a broad frequency range, which Dwarfcraft says ranges from subsonic tremolo to laser blaster highs to a warm chorus-like effect....
Wintergatan: Marble Machine
Cory O’Brien sent us this video with a note that says it all: “This video is a few years old. I just discovered it. I can not get enough of it. In a time of turmoil and unrest, I’m so grateful for videos like this. It reinvigorates my hope and imagination. Can you believe that someone not only conceived of...
Frank Kimbrough Releases “Monk’s Dreams” with Rufus Reid
2017 marked the centennial of the influential jazz pianist Thelonious Monk’s birth. Frank Kimbrough has celebrated the occasion by releasing an incredible six-disc album called Monk’s Dreams that features performances of all 70 of the late legend’s compositions. “The recordings form a fantastically diverse collection,” the liner notes read. “On the six-CD set, Monk’s compositions are played in various configurations,...
Bass of the Week: XTRM Basses “The Bass of Navarone”
This week we’re checking out a total monster of a bass built by Dimitris Matkaris, who says he likes to build “weird” basses to test his building skills. This instrument, which he dubbed The Bass of Navarone, has a multi-scale neck with a behemoth 47-inch scale B-string. For comparison, that’s 13 inches longer than a standard bass scale. “Electric guitars...
John Entwistle with Rick Wakeman And His Band: Go America
Now this is the kind of email we like to get. Brian Thomson wrote in with this incredible clip of The Who bassist John Entwistle from a TV show in the early ’80s. “[Yes] Keyboardist Rick Wakeman has been posting clips from the TV show GasTank that he co-hosted in 1982-3, in the UK, and John Entwistle was a guest...
The Rolling Stones Announce 2019 Tour Dates
The Rolling Stones have announced a new leg of their “No Filter” stadium tour that will take place in the U.S. for 2019. The 13-date outing will kick off at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida before heading to both coasts and then wrapping up at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. Of course, bassist Darryl Jones will be laying...
MXR Releases The Mini Iso-Brick Power Supply
MXR has introduced a new power supply for your pedalboard with an emphasis on saving space. The Mini Iso-Brick Power Supply offers noise-free DC power while “taking up less space than a candy bar.” It has five fully-isolated outputs, four of which supply 9-volts at 300mA. The fifth can dish out either 9 volts or 18 volts at 800mA. If...
Cory Henry & The Funk Apostles: Staying Alive
This one is all pocket. Cory Henry & The Funk Apostles took the stage at Frankfurt Jazz in 2017, with Sharay Reed on bass, and performed their groovy version of the Bee Gees’ “Staying Alive.”