On Monday (August 9, 2010) I saw Rush perform at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA. While the show was by no means perfect, the good – the great – far outweighed the bad. Rush fans of any generation should make every effort to catch the band this time out. They seem to be [...]
I love the sound of the fretless bass guitar. Apparently the modern version of this instrument was invented in 1961 by Bill Wyman, bass player of the Rolling Stones, though it was popularized starting in the early ’70s by Jaco Pastorius, best known for his work with Weather Report. Jaco kicks of my selection of [...]
Time to highlight a few of my favorite recorded tracks by some of the greatest upright bass players of all time. The first is by Milt Hinton, nicknamed “The Judge.” If any single person can be said to have created modern acoustic jazz bass, it’s Hinton. He’s the most-recorded jazz musician of all time. The [...]
Over the past few years I’ve posted more than a thousand photos to Flickr. A few of them are actually good. But somehow this mundane shot of an electric bass is the most-viewed. Thousands of looks at this unremarkable photo, followed by hundreds of others in the same set. Posted only as a supplement to [...]
This attractive Epiphone guitar laudably attempts to be the “high end of the low end”, but it ends up caught in a disappointing middle ground of uncertain value for the price. Disclaimer: I am not a guitarist. I am barely a bassist. But over the past couple of years, as I’ve picked up the bass [...]
“The Beatles LOVE” is Cirque du Soleil at its Vegas essence, made even better with a beautifully remixed and reimagined soundtrack of the greatest pop songs ever recorded. I’m not much of a Cirque du Soleil fan, though somehow over the years I’ve seen at least a half dozen of their productions. Most were in [...]
