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By David E. Gehlke
“I’m sorry for the red eyes — I was in the studio all night.” So begins a groggy Dino Cazares of FEAR FACTORY connecting with BLABBERMOUTH.NET via Zoom at the non-rock star time of 9 a.m. Cazares, though, can be forgiven. The guitarist has the monolithic task of readying the band’…

Ted Nugent has weighed in on Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, saying that he is “extremely suspicious” of the tech billionaire following his takeover of the social media platform.
Musk, who is CEO of automaker Tesla and reusable rocket maker SpaceX, completed the $44 billion acquisition of Twitte…

In a new interview with Long Island Weekly, DEEP PURPLE and RAINBOW legend Ritchie Blackmore spoke about his reliance on non-traditional instruments with his medieval and Renaissance band BLACKMORE’S NIGHT, in which he is joined by his wife, singer Candice Night.
“I’m not really interested in the mo…

In early October, before the launch of GODSMACK’s European tour in Cologne, Germany, the four members of the band were interviewed for an episode of “Elena Roberg Presents: Personalities And Passions!” Guitarist/vocalist Sully Erna, bassist Robbie Merrill, guitarist Tony Rombola and drummer Shannon…

FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY, THE ACACIA STRAIN and FULL OF HELL will hit the road next year on a co-headliner tour with special guest PRIMITIVE MAN for one of the most extreme packages in recent memory.
The trek will kick off on March 8 in Brooklyn, New York and run through April 1 in Worcester, Massachusett…

During an October 28 question-and-answer session with fans aboard this year’s Kiss Kruise, KISS frontman Paul Stanley was asked what he has learned about himself through his 50-year friendship and working relationship with fellow KISS co-founder Gene Simmons. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERM…

UK post-punkers Blacklisters embrace the inevitable on their noisy new single.
The post Track Premiere: Blacklisters – “Why Deny It?” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Fender launches MonoNeon Jazz Bass V to honor the inventive bassist’s singular vision and empower players to approach the instrument with his curious spirit.As the brand that brought forth the electric bass, Fender seeks to honor the biggest pioneers of the instrument across genres and MonoNeon is one of them. Mono’s fashion sense is on par with his playing, often adorned in fluorescent layers and accessories that would give any glow stick a run for its money. Thanks to this signature model’s eye-popping yellow and orange finish and pickguard, the optics on this bass keep up with the fashion sense of the man who inspired its creation. “Getting my own artist signature bass with Fender is definitely a full circle experience happening right now,” said MonoNeon. “Seeing my dad holding my bass is really crazy. He’s like my first musical hero. He’s a very funky player. I’d just practice to all of his records, try to find anything he played on and just learn it. I wanted to be just like him and I still do.”The 22-fret one-piece roasted maple neck is C-shaped for comfort and has a 10”-14” compound radius fingerboard and pearl block inlays. Custom Fireball 5-String Humbucking Bass pickups deliver luscious and robust low end with a growl, while the 18-volt active preamp provides extra headroom. Meanwhile, the 3-band active EQ gives players endless tonal capabilities and the Fender HiMass string-through-top-load bridge increases resonance, weight and sustain. Each bass comes with a MonoNeon sticker pack and custom headstock Stance sock.Dywane Thomas Jr. or MonoNeon, as he is more commonly known, grew up with bass guitar in his blood. His father was a well known Memphis bass player who took every opportunity to share his love for blues and soul with his son. After growing up alongside musical family members and playing bass in church, MonoNeon published his first video on YouTube in 2013. His lifelong affinity with the bass and the power it wields was put on full display, for all the world to see. And the world was quick to embrace MonoNeon, in all of his fluorescent glory. Known in the broader pop culture space for taking viral clips of people talking and translating the pitch of their voices into a musical piece, his online following grew with each passing year but MonoNeon wasn’t only shining in front of his webcam. In 2015, he was asked to join Prince’s live band—a dream come true for any musician, but especially for one like Mono, whose roots exist in the emotional funk and R&B music of the 1980s. By 2020, MoneNeon’s list of collaborators had expanded to include the likes of Ne-Yo, Mac Miller, Nas, Bootsy Collins, Jacob Collier and many more.Exploring the Mononeon Signature Jazz Bass V | Artist Signature Series | FenderMonoNeon Jazz Bass $1,549.99. For more information, please visit fender.com.

Following our “Walking Bass Crash Course,” I thought it would be useful to begin a companion piece on harmony for bassists. Harmony is a massive subject, so this will be one of a few. As I’ve told many students over the years, us bassists must exist between the worlds of rhythm, harmony, and melody. A true understanding will help you realize that these are really all the same thing, and the great master bassists of the past understood this.Harmony is when individual things are in agreement. In ancient Greek, “harmonia” meant “agreement, concord of sounds,” or the optimal joining of things. Those things could be a group of people, planks of wood to make a ship, or nations of the world who get along. We’ll focus on tones in harmony. Take A, C, and E for example. It may seem obvious that these tones spell an A minor chord. However, long ago, before the science of harmony was well established, this was not so obvious.There are two basic states within harmony: dissonance and consonance. Consonant sounds complement/reinforce each other, while dissonant sounds fight each other, creating an overall feeling of unrest. Any combination of notes will fall somewhere along this spectrum, and harmony is about balance, like light and shade in a painting.There are 12 intervals that represent all the possible two-note combinations (dyads) within the octave: unison, minor/major second, minor/major third, perfect fourth, tritone, perfect fifth, minor/major sixth, and minor/major seventh.Ear training: It’s important to train our ears to identify intervals instantly. Begin by choosing three intervals (unison, major third, and perfect fifth). Find a friend or an app to test yourself. Once you can identify these 95 percent of the time, add two more until you can identify all 12.Harmony is really based on gravity, and the entire bass role is about reinforcing this.Unison might be considered the most consonant interval, while a tritone (C to F# for example) and minor second (C to Db) might be the most dissonant. How dissonant depends on who we ask.Consonance and dissonance are both related to real world physics via the overtone series, and psychosomatics via history and culture, or our exposure to certain sounds. I put more stock in the physics explanation. What we hear as a single note—the fundamental—is in fact an infinite number of upper partials (pitches), which together create what we perceive as a single tone. These partials are arranged in a series called the overtone or harmonic series. Expressed as comparative wavelengths, that looks like this: 1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, 1/7, 1/8, and so on. Expressed as pitches, that’s C, C, G, C, E, G, Bb, C, and so on.Thus, taking into account all the partials involved when we combine two notes, we’re combining many notes. Each note’s partials vibrate in a manner which either reinforce or fight against the partials of the other note. The notes whose partials reinforce each other are the ones that are most consonant. Venturing further down the rabbit hole: Consonance is not based on overtone coincidence alone. It’s also based on the simplicity of the resulting ratio between two notes. Unison = 1:1, octave 1:2, fifth = 3:2, etc. (For a full explanation, see Hermann Helmholtz’s On the Sensations of Tone.)The fifth has a very important role in harmony. People often confuse fourths with fifths. I’ll skip ahead and say the only difference between these intervals is which direction you’re going, and which note sounds like the root. The concept of “the root” is hard to explain in words. It’s a form of “harmonic gravity” that’s much easier to hear.Exercise: Play C to F ascending and listen for which note sounds stronger—some might even say heavier or slightly louder. In most cases people will say F (the top note). Now, try the same with F to C ascending. Most people will now hear the bottom note as dominant. Try to do the same with other fifths, and then other intervals. With all intervals, except for the tritone (more on that later), one note (the top or bottom) will consistently dominate the other, and you guessed it, once again the partials are to blame.We could sum all this up by saying that harmony is really based on gravity, and the entire bass role is about reinforcing this. Bass instruments add weight to whatever is happening harmonically by focusing on roots and their progression. Walking bass, where we began a couple months back, is one form of this. Great bass players develop an amazing sense of where the gravity lies in any chord, or progression, and can instantly home in on it.In the next installment, we’ll explore chord qualities, scales, modes, harmonic function, and more exercises.