fender-mustang

Photo by Chiara D’Anzieri

With his latest release, FOREGROUND MUSIC, the singer-songwriter muses through his stress, anxiety, and sociopolitical unrest to reflect back to listeners their own human experience.

Ron Gallo has a quick answer when asked what went into his latest record, the cheekily titled full-length FOREGROUND MUSIC. “Pure, daily, existential crisis,” the Philadelphia-based musician says in a flat, sarcastic tone.

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This not-so-special-looking Mustang bass sold for $384,000. Introduced in 1966 at just $189.50 (about $1,600 today), that’s a big markup for the historic and collector’s value it accrued on tour with the Rolling Stones.

Photo by Julien’s Auctions

In his final Bass Bench, our columnist ponders what innovations will come next.

Roughly 70 years into the history of the electric bass, I find myself wondering: Is there a target in the evolution of our instrument? Are we aiming for superb playability, the highest tuning stability, tonal superiority and versatility, ergonomics and comfort, or even all of these things?

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Small refinements make this Kurt Cobain-designed fusion of Fender short scales a sweet-playing serving of surprises.

Improved, more versatile pickups. Fast and narrow neck. Excellent quality. Unique styling by Kurt Cobain himself.

Humbucker can still feel a touch antiseptic and flat. Narrow neck will be too narrow for some. Mustang-style switching can be cumbersome.

$1,249

Fender Jag-Stang
fender.com

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It doesn’t take deep analysis of Kurt Cobain’s lyrics, journals, and visual art to glean that he was, in many ways, a fluid and impulsive artist—one that reveled in riding waves of free-association and stoking musical and poetic conflagrations from sparks of incidental information and observation. Cobain also admired (and collaborated with) author, poet, and visual artist William S. Burroughs, whose embrace of cut-up technique, a collagist approach to writing and language, informed his most famous work, the novel Naked Lunch.

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