Bass Player is the world's most comprehensive, trusted and insightful bass publication for passionate bassists and active musicians of all ages. Each issue delivers the latest tips and techniques that are guaranteed to make you a better player.
Funk-rock, a witches’ brew dreamed up by Parliament-Funkadelic, and Sly & The Family Stone in the Seventies, received a heady injection of chart popularity in the following decade thanks to Primus, Faith No More, Living Colour, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. While the first three of those bands have endured successfully since then, the only one to attain truly superstar status was the mighty RHCP, driven by the monster thumb of our cover star, Michael ‘Flea’ Balzary. With a must-read autobiography, Acid For The Children, out now, Flea sat down with us for a long and frank interview that went way beyond the world of bass to truly philosophical territory. It’s a privilege to have him on our cover again. I’m delighted with the world-class line-up of stars we’ve…
TRACE THE BASS A couple of Paul McCartney-related news stories have come our way recently, the first pertaining to a long-lost Höfner 500/1 Violin Bass, of which Höfner themselves explain: “In the spring of 1961, a young man walked into a music shop in Hamburg, Germany and purchased his first bass guitar, a Höfner 500/1. He would use this bass to record his band’s first two albums and several number one hits at Abbey Road recording studios. A young man’s dream came true… He is, of course, Paul McCartney of the Beatles. This first bass was replaced by an almost identical model in October 1963, the one you see Paul play today. The first bass was relegated to backup duties and last used by Paul in 1969 during the Let…
NEW ALBUM Korn, The Nothing (2019) Say what you like about Fieldy’s clicky bass tones, akin to a bag of wrenches being thrown into a steel sink, but he has his own, unique voice. OLD ALBUM Ice-T, O.G. Original Gangster (1991) The bass-line for ‘New Jack Hustler’ is astoundingly good, ‘borrowed’ from Bobbie Humphrey’s ‘Jasper Country Man’. REALLY OLD ALBUM Nancy Sinatra, Boots (1966) This album is all about Carol Kaye’s sublime descending bass part on ‘These Boots Are Made For Walkin’’, from our point of view.…
Hello low-enders! This month, we’ll be looking at the art of showmanship and how to maximize our visual contributions on stage. I think it’s safe to say that the goal of ‘looking cool’ is very much a common pursuit for many people—whether that’s in terms of fashion, cultural tastes, interests, affiliations, or in the actions we undertake. As performers, we hope that what we do on stage comes across as appealing to our audience or provides worthwhile connection, in both the visual and the auditory arenas. By no means am I the judge of cool, though; I definitely don’t have a definitive answer or formula for achieving this—it’s all very much subjective, contextual, and dependant on the individual in question. However, what I can offer is a general perspective on…
NO TREBLE KEVIN JOHNSON What would you do if Jaco offered you a bass lesson? This month, bassist Mike Frost shared an incredible experience he had 35 years ago. He landed lessons with Jerry Jemmott, whose playing enriched Atlantic records by the likes of Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack, and Ray Charles. The seasoned session player easily clocked the student’s influences, and after two weeks Jemmott asked Frost if he’d like to take lessons with the legendary Jaco Pastorius. ‘You can’t imagine my reaction to that phone call,’ Frost wrote. ‘Here was the bassist that all bassists were blown away by, and I was going to get a lesson with the one and only Jaco Pastorius. The greatest bassist of that era, in my opinion, and possibly the best player ever.’…
The closer we look into the lives of the craftspeople who devote themselves to making basses, the blurrier the line between luthier and musician becomes. One artisan bridging the gap is Albey Balgochian, based in New Orleans, whose business, A-Basses, boasts an enviable reputation. When he’s not making custom basses, you can bet your last dollar he’s playing them. “I’ve always been a part-time luthier,” he explains. “Luthier on week days, bass player every night! From 1974 to 2003, I made basses during the day, and played gigs at night. It eventually got to the point where the demand for my basses was heavy enough that I couldn’t do both. It was never a choice for me, though—I am and always will be a bass player.” Although Balgochian specializes in…
