"Bassicly" Speaking July 2021 Update

What a busy start to summer! Hopefully you've all been enjoying this glorious weather! I've been extra busy since the last update & glad of it too!

Teaching

I've had an amazing influx of bass students again & mentorships too! Love working & helping professional musicians strive further industry/academically too.

I'm still teaching online & spaces are limited but I'm very grateful to all of my new & old students & the hard work they put in!

Session Work

Well, what can I say? I have been immensely busy working with so many amazing artists, live & in the studio.

Mr Bewlay -

What a month! First of all I headed to the studio with him to track bass on two singles coming out later this year. It went exceptionally well, but it was so hot in the studio (more than usual) no fans either as we were tracking bass & drums together! Ussing my Fender American Deluxe Jazz V & a pick! plus some very fancy preamps & O.D's to get such a phenomenal sound!

With rehearsals & run-throughs we were given a live session to play on.MY FIRST SINCE MARCH 2020!!! This was performed live in front of a seated audience & live-streamed too at The Queen's Hall Narbeth. Recreating some of the bass/bass synth lines was quite tricky with the lack of prep time but I got some amazing accurate sounds that worked so well! There will be a shoutout to a certain pedal manufacturer for helping me out at such short notice! With rave reviews & reactions, this show went down so, so well! You can watch our live show here!

The next day, prep started for a recorded live session again at the venue - Motel Nights in Cardiff. Following along the same themes as the Narbeth show a lot more control was had & again, went exceptionally well! Huge shout out to Mr Bewlay, Francis, Al & Mia for the exceptional work for these sessions. plus another shoutout to Sanders of Kings Road Studio for the amazing engineering while I was tracking bass.

Here is a "supercut" of all the cool bass parts & sounds from the Narbeth show

Feralman -

These sessions are going so well! I'm really enjoying the creativity & stripped back bass sounds needed. I ave been working on all the bass lines for his music & they are sounding great & ongoing sessions are really establishing a connection between all of the musicians! Feralman has a new single out too! Let It Heal You which you can listen to here

Jazz - I was approached to play bass on a very nice arrangement of Herbie Hancocks - Watermelon Man. This would be a remote session & right up my street! After tracking the bass & bass solo too! I sent over the bounces & a little video performance (this will be recorded again, in person) I was informed that the drummer on that track was Nath from my Jazz Quintet The Bakery! Which was such a lovely surprise. Hope fully this will be out no later than September for you all to hear.

Misc Sessions -

Quite a few sessions for artists & groups have some in remotely too! A lot which I can't talk about (NDA's) but cover Rnb, Pop, Neo Soul & more! When these are up for release/released I will update this section.

Learn Bass Daily

Work mentoring the members of Learn Bass Daily has been going very well. I'm very happy with the progress of my mentorees. I'm really enjoying my work with LBD & can't wait to get more mentoring groups together & helping even more players through their journey! Visit Learn Bass Daily here

Other Work

Planning for my masterclass in Gloucester is well underway! Just covering meetings & specific topics the attendees would like have portrayed/taught. I haven't given a masterclass since before the pandemic either, so i'm exceptionally excited to teach all of these attendees.

My ongoing work with the Musicians Union is going well & is very heavily involved with the ongoing struggle to re open and/or support live music in the best & most safest way possible.

I'm in the middle of writing numerous articles for placement here & other publications too. Including on on how the pandemic affected my career & the way I "re-invented" my involvement in the music industry at large.

Gear & Companies Update

I've had quite a few lovely pieces of gear come in too! (all for work purposes I promise)

Firstly this Fender Precision Bass in Shoreline Gold with a really nice replacement neck! Currently strung with Optima RB flats, attached chrome covers & "tug bar" I've used it at one session for Feralman with great reviews. I actually strung it up & took it with me straight to the session!

I have to give a huge shoutout to Aguilar & The Bass Gallery - London for this lovely Aguilar rig to try! Its the Tonehammer 500 & limited edition SL112 in Poseidon Green. I've used it on numerous sessions, instead of my usual Markbass rigs since I've received it & absolutely love the clean, transparent & crisp tone. I've used it live with Mr Bewlay & with no complaints just compliments I can't fault it! Alhrough my Markbass rig does scale down nicely the tone, portability & the fact the Aguilar matches perfectly with my Overwater. I think this will be my number one for a while! I may look around for another SL112 cab too!

Electro Harmonix who I use for my octave up tone/octave up original & octave down with the Nano Pog really came though with helping my tone shape some of Mr Bewlay's tracks with the Bass Micro Synth Pedal! Although it doesn't fit on my pedalboard it has helped so much in making these bass synth sounds needed for the live sessions! A huge shoutout to Electro Harmonix for providing me with this pedal.

Another pedal to mention is the Boss CE3 Chorus which I also required to cover a really cool bass part on another Mr Bewlay track. An amazing & robust pedal as all Boss's are. I used the chorus effect on just the higher frequency notes & it worked really well! Unfortunately it has taken the place of the Digitech Bass Synth Was, which is a formidable pedal, but needs must!

Now, here is another pedal to mention. So in the last update I mentioned my acquisition of a "black label" OC2 from Taiwan. An absolutely incredible find & iconic vintage pedal. Well...... Courtesey of the recently discovered Bass Bro's shop I have acquired an original Boss OC2 'black label' made in Japan!!!!!! What a find & such a rare & highly hunted pedal! I've used it in the studio but very much doubt this will be taken out on the road! Check out BassBros here

A huge thank you to Bass Bro's for the assistance & for the kind gift of sending me some strings to try! DR High Beams, which I have never tried before so that should be very fun to try on a few basses! Check Bass Bro's out here

I visited A Strings again for the first time in ages! I managed to pick u a lovely volume pedal, again by Boss & it really fits the bill & has become quite useful! Again it doesn't fit on my pedalboard but it will definitely be getting plenty of use.

Optima Strings have also sent me some amazing strings again! Including some new flatwounds & round wounds in various configurations. Cant wait to try them out & use them in studio/live sessions. Thank

All in all I'm busy & so grateful to be too! I'll be working with some more varying artists shortly too along with new students to teach & music/bass work in general.

I hope you have enjoyed my latest update of a working bass player.

Please feel free to contact me regarding booking my services etc.

Phill.