No Treble Archive for October 30th

One universally befuddling inquiry is deceivingly simple, “what key are we in?” As easy as it sounds, the key of a song can often be interpreted in different ways. That’s the subject of this “Lightbulb Moment” column.

We’ve featured quite a few videos by the Blues Beatles before, but this one might be our favorite so far. In this clip, the band’s bassist Bruno Falcão takes an extended solo before he’s joined saxophonist Denilson Martins for an epic jam.

Ben Carr has released a new album called “Saturday Morning” with his solo project, Carrtoons. The bassist, who also handles all other instruments, brought in guest vocalists to channel vintage soul over hip-hop and R&B grooves.

Kasim Sulton’s Utopia will be hitting the road for a tour in 2020. The bassist and his group will be performing hand-picked songs from the 10 Utopia albums on which he played.

This week, Damian got a question about moving between triplets and 16th notes within a single line. He decided to reply with a video on how he feels and practices the divisions.

Sometimes an older video hits the radar that’s so good, I have to check our archives to make sure we haven’t shared it before. Four years ago, Anton Davidyants teamed up with Valeriy Stepanov to record a cover of Mike Mainieri’s “Self Portrait.”

Neil Young has played with plenty of bands over the years, but Crazy Horse is the one that keeps coming back. Now Young and Crazy Horse have teamed up again for “Colorado,” a ten-song album that is their first since 2012’s “Psychedelic Pill.”

KISS has just revealed the first 44 dates of their upcoming “End of the Road” farewell tour. The outing, which was revealed in September, is ultimately scheduled to run for three years. The first leg will cover North America starting in Vancouver, British Columbia on January 31st before heading down the West Coast to circle the entire U.S. with a...

At this year’s Winter NAMM Show, luthier Rob Elrick showed us a new prototype he was working on that paid homage to a classic bass design. Now that instrument has come to fruition as the Elrick Icon Bass, which adds modern updates to an industry standard. “The Elrick Handcarved Icon Gold Series bass features bolt-on neck construction with a body...

Scary Pockets keeps bringing the (re-imagined) hits with a new video. This time around, they take on the Bobby McFerrin tune, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Sam Wilkes is back on the bass with the band for this one, which is fronted by guest vocalist Nikka Costa.

Leland Sklar will be appearing at the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles on November 8th for “An Evening with Leland Sklar.” The event will include an intimate chat with Sklar moderated by museum artistic director Scott Goldman followed by a performance. The legendary session bassist has contributed to over 2,600 albums with some of the world’s greatest artists: James Taylor,...

Adamovic has some of the most incredible basses, so it’s no wonder their Private Collection has some of the most incredible basses ever built. This week we’re checking out their King Solomon that started the series. “With the first private collection bass we wanted to use one of our favorite woods: Solomon padouk,” Adamovic explains. “We chose some beautiful beeswing...

With Halloween coming up, we knew bassist Troy Hughes would have something good up his sleeve. An avid mask collector, he donned a special zombie mask to record this bass line and get in the spirit of the season. “It is a bass-cover of ‘La Caccia’ by Goblin, which features Fabio Pignatelli on bass,” Hughes explains. “The song was part...

Much of John Entwistle’s best bass work is showcased in a new collection from The Who. Maximum A’s and B’s compiles the band’s complete singles discography into a five-disc box set. The collection has 86 tracks from their time with four labels: Brunswick, Reaction, Track, and Polydor. It begins with songs they released as The High Numbers (“Zoot Suit” and...

This week, we got a nice dose of how-to’s, new bass gear, some great videos and more. Here are the top 10 reader favorites for the week of October 22-28, 2016. Thanks for reading, watching, commenting and sharing. 1. Talking Technique: Changing Technique Habits – What it Takes There is a step by step process that can help you change...

BBE’s Sonic Stomp now comes in a compact pedal called the MS-92. The stompbox is a pedalboard-friendly version of their Sonic Maximizer, which is designed to improve clarity and definition in your signal. It features the same all-analog processor as the larger SS-92 with a new circuit board and control layout for a smaller chassis. It has two controls: Process...

My Facebook friend Lloyd Goldstein posted a video a few days ago, and it knocked me out. Lloyd arranged Bill Wither’s 1972 hit, “Lean on Me” for double bass. The tone, the arrangement, and the performance are just incredible. Enjoy.

TC Electronic has introduced a black version of their Polytune Clip-On Tuner. The discreet device, which works for bass and guitar, has strobe, chromatic, and polyphonic tuning modes up to +/-0.02 cent accuracy. The polyphonic mode allows for strumming all strings at once to see their tuning. The tuner also features an ultra-bright display with an adaptive screen, a stainless...

Phish’s Mike Gordon will be embarking on another solo tour this winter focusing on the western half of the U.S. The trek kicks off off in Austin, Texas on January 22nd, 2016 before snaking its way through Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, and ending up in Colorado. Gordon’s band will include longtime collaborators Scott Murawski and Craig Myers as well...

It’s finally jacket weather. The leaves are falling, the sun is setting earlier every day, and the pumpkin spice latte has returned. Halloween is just around the corner, which means that my friends will search for the creepiest haunted houses and hayrides, only to force me to join them on an adventure that will make me extremely uncomfortable. I have...

Remco Hendrix has lots of raw talent with a style that blends influences like Les Claypool and Mick Karn. Here’s a great clip of a funky fretless groove he built with double stops, harmonics and a Boss OC-2 octave pedal.

Jazz double bassist Jon Burr and his eponymous quintet have released the hard bop album Very Good Year. The record from the group led by Burr (Horace Silver, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Art Farmer, Stephane Grappelli, Tony Bennett, The Manhattan Jazz Quintet) is getting great notices, with Jazz Inside magazine saying, “Jon Burr is a fabulous leader, composer and, especially...

Fodera is ramping up their Standard series with two new additions, two new combinations of existing models, and the return of two artist standard models. As part of the Standard series, all of the basses are built in small batches with a single configuration with no options to keep wait time and prices down. First up is the Yin Yang...

The music world is mourning the loss of the great Jack Bruce this week. Here’s yet another reminder of his talent and longevity in this 2009 performance with Robin Trower. The tune is “Lives of Clay”. RIP, Jack.

It seems unlikely that Slipknot’s permanent replacement for late bassist Paul Gray made an appearance on the masked metal band’s latest album, . While band members have acknowledged that original Slipknot bassist Donnie Steele played on some of the record, guitarist Jim Root tells Blabbermouth that he and guitarist Mick Thomson did most of the bass work on the new...

Q: During jam sessions, I normally have a “hit and stick” approach to coming up with grooves. Essentially, there’s a lull between grooves where I end up peddling notes or playing the one. My keyboard player pointed this out and it bothers me. Is this something that I should be worried about? How do I lead a groove during these...

Rick James’ “Super Freak” was a mega-hit in 1981, and listed at #477 on the Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”. Here’s James’ isolated bass from the original multi-track master. Thanks to Rick Suchow for sharing this one!

As a former bassist of both King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Greg Lake has plenty stories to tell. So many, in fact, that it’s been hindering the release of his long-awaited autobiography, Lucky Man, which derives its title from a song Lake wrote for ELP’s debut album. “I’ve been writing it for some years now,” he told Sean...

Meet Amy Humphrey, an “accidental” bassist from Missouri who got hooked on the bass 25 years ago and has been playing ever since. We love Amy’s story and her gear list, so it was an easy choice to make Amy our player in the spotlight for the week of October 30, 2012. Bio: Accidental bassist who has been making it...

Pavel de la Fuente has announced a new line of basses through his custom shop, Pavel Musical Instruments. The new Jazz Pro Vintage USA bass models include both 4- and 5-string basses, with a choice of Alder or Ash for the body, Rock Maple neck and a choice of Maple or Rosewood fretboard. The basses are available in natural, white,...

Iuliu-Bogdan Diaconeasa, aka Bass Battle, sent us the latest in his live looping adventures with this song called “Breathe”. Kick back, relax and enjoy! Bass Battle has also made the audio track available via Soundcloud:

Hal Leonard has published their latest in the Bass Recorded Versions series with the new (and phone book-sized) edition, Ultimate-Guitar Bass Bonanza. The 352 page book contains transcriptions for the bass lines to 50 well-known tunes, presented in both standard notation and tab. In addition to the bass line for each tune, the lyrics and vocal melodies are also included,...

With a collaborative album with Lou Reed due out this week, bassist Robert Trujillo has revealed that the next full-fledged Metallica album is under way with producer Rick Rubin’s help. “We’ve been in the studio with Rick Rubin, working on a couple of things, and we’re going to be recording during the most of next year,” Trujillo told Gulf News....

We love covering bass gear, and we covered a lot of it in October. Here are the top 10 most popular gear stories on No Treble for October, 2011. 1. Fender Introduces Modern Player Series Bass Guitars Fender has unveiled the Modern Player Series, including three new basses. The Modern Player versions of the company’s Telecaster, Jaguar and Jazz basses...

What a show this must have been! Here’s Israeli bassist Adam Ben Ezra performing his arrangements of “Black Orpheus” and “Besame Mucho” live at a Victor Wooten show in Tel Aviv in May, 2011. Bassists ruled the night, the way it should be!

Punk band NOFX will be ringing in the new year with a West Coast tour. Anchored by founder/bassist/vocalist Fat Mike, the group will kick things off with the New Year’s Heave! party in Las Vegas, Nevada before several two-day residencies throughout California, Arizona, Oregon and Washington. The tour comes in support of a recently released self-titled EP. Referred to as...

Nearly a year and a half after the passing of basketball star and jazz bassist Wayman Tisdale comes the release of his final album, The Fonk Record. The 11-song album was 12 years in the making, with three funk legends lending support, including George Clinton, George Duke and the late Ali Woodson. Tisdale collaborated over those 12 years with Derek...

If it’s James Jamerson on bass, you don’t need anything else. This isolated track of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” proves it.

Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament has opened a skate park in his hometown of Big Sandy, Montana. Ament funded the $40,000 project so he could “give the kids around here something to do,” besides school sports. The park is finished now, and Ament says he plans on buying some skateboards and gear to keep handy for kids who don’t have...

The latest Bonnaroo DVD is set to be released on December 15, 2009. Live from Bonnaroo 2009 includes a wide array of artists and styles, taken from the 140 bands and over 200 shows from the 2009 event, and includes backstage footage and exclusive performances. Bonnaroo takes place each summer, and is hailed by many as one of the premier...

One of my current favorite bass players to hit the scene is Evan Marien. Voted one of 2009’s “Most Exciting Players” in July issue of Bass Player magazine, Evan has already accomplished a lot at age 23. A recent graduate of the Berklee College Of Music, Evan has already worked with some amazing musicians such as David Fiuczynski (he is...

Our Facebook friend Kirk Dickison shared a video with us featuring this odd, “convertible” bass that allows fast switching between fretted and fretless modes. So we decided to dig around and find out some more. Mikhail Chtchetinine, inventor of the bass, shares the background for the instrument: “Having discovered the liberation of fretless guitar music, I went in search of...

Recently, Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones – along with band mates Jimmy Page and Jason Bonham – had considered touring as Led Zeppelin with a session singer. Original vocalist Robert Plant stated in 2008 that he “will not be touring or recording with Led Zeppelin,” even after the December 2007 reunion show attracted 1 million fans for a mere...