Innehållsförteckning för September 2021 från Bass Player

Weather Report, ‘Teen Town’ (1977) On his first full Weather Report album, Heavy Weather, Jaco Pastorius still had plenty to prove, and contributed this iconic track, which showcases several of his best moves, including those plucked sixteenths in the intro, spiralling up into the midrange, counterpointing the famous horn motif, and playing in unison with Joe Zawinul’s ascending keyboard sequence. Few bassists can play this line accurately; even fewer can play it like Jaco did.…

Mike Dirnt pulled off the feat of serving the music while also running about the fretboard like a madman. The original punk scene threw up some unique players back in the day, as more or less any music fan over 50 will tell you—Paul Simonon, Glen Matlock, and Jean-Jacques Burnel among them. Even poor, doomed Sid Vicious brought a certain macabre charisma to the music, plugged in or otherwise. But in today’s equivalents of the punk scene—the pop-punk, emo, and hardcore movements—the best that can be said of most of the relevant bass players is that they can hold down a line pretty tightly. Not so of Mike Dirnt, bassist with arguably the first and biggest pop-punk act, Green Day. He was born Mike Pritchard, and is said to have…

Hello bassists! Over the last few issues, I’ve discussed how best to refine our edge when it comes to live performance, but this time around I thought it would be a great opportunity to hone in on one of the smaller—but still useful—details when playing live. Let’s discuss our stage positioning and how this affects our ability to perform. Now, many of us may never have consciously considered on which side of stage we want to stand, but it’s often an underestimated factor. You may simply mirror the stage line-up of one of your favorite groups, or take the lead from other members of your band. Some bassists choose a side based on the overall look of the act, the number of band-members, or even whether they’re left or right-handed.…

We like to think we’re a fairly rock’n’roll bunch here at Bass Player: After all, the bass is the coolest instrument on the planet, and it deserves to be played loud. That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a spot of academic rigor when the moment calls for it, though, and indeed, we were fascinated back in 2019 by an article called Reconstructing the History of Motown Session Musicians: The Carol Kaye/James Jamerson Controversy, published in the learned Journal of the Society for American Music, and available for your perusal online at www.cambridge.org. This extensive analysis of a particular long-standing debate over who played what at certain Motown sessions in the Sixties was authored by bassist Brian F. Wright, an acclaimed academic who holds the post of Assistant Professor of Popular…

You’ll know the Toronto quartet Barenaked Ladies, formed in 1988, for hits such as ‘If I Had $1,000,000’, ‘One Week’, ‘Pinch Me’, and the theme to The Big Bang Theory, all of which have helped them shift 15 million albums, win eight Juno Awards and become members of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2018. Bassist Jim Creeggan usually drives the music with instantly-identifiable double bass tones, although he also plays electric on occasion, and he’s joined as always by Ed Robertson (vocals, guitar), Kevin Hearn (keyboards, guitar), and Tyler Stewart (drums) on their shimmering new album, Detour De Force. The producer is Mark Howard—of Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and The Tragically Hip fame—and guests include Creeggan’s brother Andy, their former keyboard player, and bassist Fernando Saunders (interviewed in…

LIEBER GUITARS www.lieberguitars.com $1635 For decades, Stanley Clarke has been a pioneer of the bass, in more ways than one. His virtuosity changed the way we approach the instrument, but he’s also constantly working on improving the instrument itself. Although he’s closely associated with Alembic, Clarke has spent the last 42 years collaborating with instrument designer Tom Lieber. The duo first teamed up in 1980 to make the Spellbinder Bass, and continued in the 2000s with the SB II, the Mando Piccolo Bass, and other unique designs. Several years ago, they worked together to create a four-string bass inspired by Leo Fender’s Stratocaster guitar. They took it to Fender Corp to realize their creation, but after some back-and-forth on the design, the partnership did not pan out. Instead, they took it…

Price| $3195 (review model includes some custom spec) Made In| UK Body| East Asian mahogany Neck| Five-piece laminate with premium North American quarter-sawn hard rock maple and phenolic stringers, 32” scale Neck Join| Bolt-on, five bolts Fretboard| Phenolic, 16.5mm string spacing, 24 jumbo frets Pickups| 2 x Sims Super Quads Electronics| Three-band non-stacked Glockenklang preamp (as upgrade) Controls| Three-band EQ, volume, tone, 2 x Super Quad microswitches, LEDs on/off Hardware| Nickel and black, Hipshot headless system Weight| 7.3 lbs Gigbag/case included| Hiscox flight case Leftie available| As custom option WHAT WE THINK Plus| Very playable, huge tone palette Minus| Do you actually need all those tones? Overall| A superb, state-of-the-art bass for the professional BP RATING BUILD QUALITY SOUND QUALITY VALUE…

YAMAHA GUITAR GROUP https://yamahaguitargroup.com $209, $321 The new Rocket range of combos from Ampeg has five models of varying specifications, and all share a vintage, old-school vibe. With a simple but effective control layout, cool styling and all the connections you would expect to see, these combos can be used in a variety of settings and applications. We’re looking at the 1x8” and 1x10” models which focus on home, rehearsal, and small acoustic gig situations. Let’s see what they can do. Build Quality Rated at 30 and 50 watts respectively, both combos are lightweight and portable, aided by their speaker sizes, and both are finished in the ‘black diamond’ material seen on previous Ampeg combos. Metal corners protect the units from bumps and scrapes, while cloth speaker grilles, a recessed…

Chloe Peacock challenges received bass wisdom… What a crazy month this has been. To inspire this new column, I asked the social media community for examples of negative assumptions, and in doing so opened a conversation within my own circles. One response that stood out came from my good friend Rachel Rhodes, an excellent solo bassist, songwriter and singer, who mentioned that one very common assumption which she encounters comes from being an extended-range bass player. As she told us, a lot of people have very strong biases. “They assume I can’t groove, and that I don’t know how to be a bass player in a group setting. They think I must have a bad attitude toward other bassists, that I’m a frustrated guitarist, or that I can’t play a…

Michael David Watt was born just before Christmas, 1957, and is widely regarded as one of the most important punk and post-punk bassists ever to have lived. His first band, Minutemen, blended punk with jazz and funk, but ended with the death of its frontman D. Boon in a car accident in 1985. Watt went on to play with Firehose, released several solo albums, and guested with Iggy Pop and the Stooges. In the 2000s, he continued his musical explorations with a series of collaborations, culminating in his new album, Stove Top. Having started his bass career on a cheap Kay, he went on to use a 1956 Fender Precision, and then a Gibson Thunderbird which he hacked to install a Bartolini preamp. Watt underwent surgery in 2000 and, following…

Virtually no bass player that I know who has spent any significant amount of time on their feet favors a heavy bass—but that doesn’t stop us from making them! Unfortunately, some wood combinations and construction techniques make it unavoidable, resulting in heavier basses than our weary backs would consider ideal. However, weight is not the sole factor leading to player fatigue and injury: Balance also plays a considerable role in how the weight of an instrument affects us as players. Poor balance can increase the physical stress imposed on a player, as the actual weight of a bass may be compounded by physical compensations that increase the burden upon the supporting shoulder. The obvious solution to alleviating the strain of a heavy instrument ought to be to simply find a…

The story of Wolfgang Van Halen is not like that of most bass players. For starters, his father Eddie Van Halen was one of the most acclaimed guitar players in history, having pioneered a spectacular new approach to his instrument in a band whose rock’n’roll exploits were legendary. Born in 1991, Wolfgang first picked up the guitar and then the bass in his mid-teens, and joined Van Halen a few years later when the group—also featuring his uncle Alex Van Halen on drums, and singer Dave Lee Roth—had split from their long-time bassist Michael Anthony. In 2012 Wolfgang appeared on Van Halen’s final album, A Different Kind Of Truth, and went on to play with Alter Bridge guitarist Mark Tremonti and Sevendust’s Clint Lowery. “Playing every instrument isn’t about showing…

I was always drawn to bass-forward music, like Primus, Rancid, and a local Hudson Valley act called Pitchfork Militia, whom I now fill in on bass for, 25 years later. I loved the music world, and the punk, hardcore, and metal scenes in particular. I taught myself how to play bass guitar a little, just enough to play in punk bands. I started upright bass after getting into roots music a little more, which is when I got my own upright bass. I was fascinated by the upright bass slap technique. I found psychobilly music, and I didn’t pick up a bass guitar again very much for 15 years. My first bass guitar was a an old Schecter P-bass clone with no name on the headstock, painted flat black with…

Price| $1635 plus shipping Made In| Produced in Korea, assembled in USA Color| Sunburst Body| Alder Neck| Maple, 30” scale Neck Joint| Bolt-on Nut Width| 38.1mm (1.5”) Fingerboard| Rosewood Frets| 25 Pickups| 3 x Kent Armstrong/Tom Lieber-designed single-coils Electronics| Passive Controls| Master volume, dual tones, two-position miniswitch, five-position pickup selector Hardware| Chrome Weight| 9.3 lbs Case/gig bag included| Yes Left-hand option available| No WHAT WE THINK Plus| Amazing tones and playability in a familiar shape Minus| Build flaws incongruent with price Overall| An extremely fun and inspiring instrument, but not without issues BP RATING BUILD QUALITY SOUND QUALITY VALUE…

AMPEG ROCKET BASS RB-108 COMBO Price| $209.99 Made In| China Power| 30 watts @ 4 ohms Features| SGT (Super Grit Technology) switch, volume, bass (+13/-21dB@40Hz), midrange (+16/-10dB@500Hz), treble (+12/-16dB@4kHz) Speakers| 1 x 8” speaker Dimensions| 433mm (H) x 411mm (W) x 306mm (D) / 17.04” (H) x 16.18” (W) x 12.04” (D) Connections| 1/4” jack inputs x 2 (0/-15dB), 3.5mm Auxiliary input, 3.5mm headphones output Weight| 23 lbs AMPEG ROCKET BASS RB-110 COMBO Price| $321.99 Made In| China Power| 50 watts @ 4 ohms Features| SGT (Super Grit Technology) switch, grit, level, volume, bass (+14/-20dB@40Hz), midrange (+15/-10dB@500Hz), treble(+12/- 16dB@4kHz), ground/lift switch Speakers| 1 x 10” speaker Dimensions| 481mm (H) x 411mm (W) x 330mm (D) / 18.93” (H) x 16.18” (W) x 12.99” (D) Connections| 1/4” jack inputs x 2…

Born in 1935 in Everett, Washington, Carol Kaye began playing guitar at 13, gigging at 14, and was on the road with a big band at 18. “My husband was the bass player and I was the guitar player,” she told BP a while back. “We travelled and played in the nicest places throughout the country. I was young, but back then, at 18, you grew up fast. When you were born in the Depression years, there were no entitlements. If you wanted to eat, you got out and worked.” Kaye began working at age nine to support her mother; at 15, prior to going on the road, she was a working musician, playing jazz and bebop guitar in Los Angeles clubs, and also worked as a technical typist. “I…

“Our mission was to create an incredible album after being away all these years” The Chicago-based rock band Styx, formed in 1972, isn’t so much as a group as an institution. One of the last remaining Seventies giants to remain active as a recording and touring unit, the septet—still featuring two founder members, bassist Chuck Panozzo and guitarist James Young—has a catalog including several multi-platinum albums under its collective belt. Their new release, Crash Of The Crown, continues the grand Styx tradition of arena-sized melodies and arrangements, underpinned by bass parts from Panozzo and Ricky Phillips. As the former has been suffering from poor health for some years, he and Phillips have shared bass duties since 2002, both on record and live: We meet both bassists here. Your new record…

Behold our world-beating bass gear review section, where we bring you the crop of each month’s new, interesting, or otherwise relevant bass guitars, bass amplifiers, bass cabs, and bass effects. Occasionally we’ll review a guitar effect if it’s useful for bassists, but generally speaking, this zone is reserved for bass-specific gear. We take our reviews seriously. BPis the last English-language print magazine devoted solely to bass in the world, and we have readers all over the planet, so we’re responsible about our conclusions. If a product is worth your time, we’ll say so; if it’s flawed, we’ll make that clear. We’re not answerable to advertisers in any way, and our tests are independent of the views of musicians, manufacturers, and distributors. When you read about a product here, you’re getting…

SIMS GUITAR WORKS www.sims.guitars/enfield-guitars $3195 Sims Guitars, makers of Enfield basses, hit gold a few years back with their versatile Super Quad pickups, which enable the user to emulate Precision, Jazz, and humbucker tones at the flick of a three-position microswitch. With this new headless bass, the Antoinette, two of these futuristic units are installed alongside a whole range of features, many standard, but some as custom extras, so investigate the options with Sims if you’re thinking of investing. Talking of investment, the pricetag is hefty, but not unreasonably so given the quality and spec of the bass: Whether you’ll require all the tonal tools is another question entirely. Let’s plug and play. Build Quality From the hand-painted gold rose on the back of the Antoinette’s sort-of-headstock, down to the magnetic…

Price| $1399 MAP Made In| China Body| Red alder, maple burl veneer Neck| Maple with ekanga veneer stripes, 34” to 35.5” scale Neck Join| Bolt-on Fretboard| Wenge, graphite nut, 24 extra high jumbo nickelsilver frets Pickups| 2 x passive MEC Soapbar pickups Electronics| Rockbass two-way Controls | Volume, balance, treble, bass, two three-way miniswitches (series/parallel/single-coil) Hardware| Warwick tuners and bridge Weight| 9 lbs Gigbag/case supplied| Gigbag Left-hand available| No WHAT WE THINK Plus| Great tones, great build quality, great price Minus| Nothing significant Overall| An impressive entry into the multiscale world from Warwick BP RATING BUILD QUALITY SOUND QUALITY VALUE…

I SPY... 62 RYAN MADORA Dig into your favorite bass parts... and discover treasure! Ryan Madora is one of Nashville’s most sought-after touring and session bassists. Recent touring and session credits include Robben Ford, Kyshona Armstrong, and her instrumental trio, The Interludes. For the past five years, she has served as musical director for Bobby Bones, and has played with Garth Brooks, Darius Rucker, and Carrie Underwood. In addition to instructing at Nashville’s campus of Musician’s Institute, Ryan has taught at Gerald Veasley’s Bass Boot Camp, Rock’n’Roll Fantasy Camp, and at universities across the USA. She has contributed columns to No Treble for over a decade and in 2019, published her first book, Bass Players To Know: Learning From The Greats. Ryan offers online education at TrueFire and her website.…

Welcome! Continuing on from last month, we’re going to take a deeper look at finding notes on the neck, and connect the fingerboard to what we know about music theory. Let’s start with unpacking some of the logic in music theory—perhaps it will make a little more sense after this than is first apparent! Within Western music, the naming conventions in music originate with the Major scale. Whether we’re talking about note names, chords, or intervals, the Major scale is our default, and everything else is labeled as it differs from that. We also know that the scale of C Major is particularly useful because it contains no sharps or flats. This is because the sequence of ‘natural’ notes in C corresponds perfectly to the distribution of tones and semitones…

eaning against a colossal amp stack, there’s a battered and bruised Fender Precision bass, road-worn after years of blood, sweat and tears spilled on tour, on planes, and on stages around the world. For me, this is an iconic image that comes to mind when I think of some of my favorite basses and bands. For a P-Bass, a favored upgrade that you’ll see often is a new bridge. Lovingly known as the ‘bent bit of tin’, the standard and original Fender bridge was a seemingly utilitarian offering that was designed to spend its life hiding under the fitted cover. We can do better... So, we’re upgrading bridges? Yep! Last month we talked about bridge features—their hardware, their functionality and of course, their perceived improvement in tone. The market for…