Funk Fingers being played by their inventor, Tony Levin.
Funk Fingers are a kind of drum stick that attach to the fingers of a bass player for producing percussive, funky sounds on a bass guitar. They were created by Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, Liquid Tension Experiment) and his guitar technician, Andy Moore. The aim was to recreate the effect of drumming on the strings of a bass, as done by drummer Jerry Marotta for Peter Gabriel's song "Big Time" when recording the album So. They later appeared on the songs "Steam" and "Secret World", also by Peter Gabriel, and Levin can be seen playing them on the video and DVD release Secret World Live.
Levin's record and publishing company, Papa Bear Records, briefly made Funk Fingers available for sale to other players, making a run of them in 1998/1999, but as of July 1999 had sold completely out of them and did not plan to manufacture them again. The commercial version of Funk Fingers had Velcro fingertip holders, and the tips were dipped in "rubberizing tool grip" for an optimal playing surface. They also, like Levin's personal sets, came with slightly different lengths on each stick, to accommodate the different lengths of the index and middle finger.
Levin's original Funk Fingers were strapped to the fingers, but after some experimentation with cutouts and elastic loops for fingers, Levin decided the most comfortable design has a rubber cap at the end of the fingers. In the Secret Recipe DVD, Buckethead is shown in an early video playing bass; here, he appears to be wearing a Funk Finger on his thumb.[original research?]
Expanding Hands Music produced Funk Fingers from May 2013 to December 2023.
Yes are an English progressive rock band formed in London in 1968 by lead singer Jon Anderson, bassist Chris Squire, guitarist Peter Banks, keyboardist Tony Kaye, and drummer Bill Bruford. The band has undergone numerous lineup changes throughout their history, during which 20 musicians have been full-time members. Since February 2023, the band has consisted of guitarist Steve Howe, keyboardist Geoff Downes, bassist Billy Sherwood, singer Jon Davison, and drummer Jay Schellen. Yes have explored several musical styles over the years and are most notably regarded as progressive rock pioneers.
Liquid Tension Experiment (LTE) is an American instrumental progressive metal supergroup founded by Mike Portnoy, in 1997. The band initially released two albums, between 1998 and 1999. An extension of their second regular album, with the absence of John Petrucci was released in 2007 under the name "Liquid Trio Experiment".
The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and is used to play bass lines, melody lines, chords, or textures. Designed as a fully polyphonic chordal instrument, it can also cover several of these musical parts simultaneously.
William Scott Bruford is an English former drummer and percussionist who first gained prominence as a founding member of the progressive rock band Yes. After leaving Yes in 1972, Bruford spent the rest of the 1970s recording and touring with King Crimson (1972–1974), Roy Harper (1975), and U.K. (1978), as well as touring with Genesis (1976). In 1978, he formed his own group, Bruford, which was active until 1980.
Anthony Frederick Levin is an American musician and composer specializing in electric bass guitars, Chapman Stick and upright bass. He also sings and plays synthesizer. Levin is best known for his work with King Crimson (1981–2021) and Peter Gabriel. He is also a member of Liquid Tension Experiment, Bruford Levin Upper Extremities (1998–2000) and HoBoLeMa (2008–2010). He has led his own band, Stick Men, since 2010.
Union is the thirteenth studio album by English progressive rock band Yes, released on 30 April 1991 by Arista Records. Production began following the amalgamation of two bands that featured previous and then-current members of Yes: Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe (ABWH), consisting of vocalist Jon Anderson, drummer Bill Bruford, keyboardist Rick Wakeman and guitarist Steve Howe, and Yes, comprised at that time of bassist and vocalist Chris Squire, guitarist and vocalist Trevor Rabin, keyboardist Tony Kaye and drummer Alan White. The eight musicians signed with Arista and a combination of unfinished tracks by both groups were selected for Union. The album's sessions were problematic from the start, including disagreements between some of the musicians regarding the "merger" of the two bands, strained relations during the recording process, and decisions by the production team of Anderson and producer Jonathan Elias to bring in session musicians to re-record parts that Wakeman and Howe had originally completed.
U.K. were a British progressive rock supergroup originally active from 1977 to 1980. The band was founded by bass guitarist John Wetton and drummer Bill Bruford, formerly the rhythm section of King Crimson. The band was rounded out by violinist/keyboardist Eddie Jobson, and guitarist Allan Holdsworth. Bruford and Holdsworth left in 1978, and Bruford was replaced by drummer Terry Bozzio. Jobson, Wetton and Bozzio reformed U.K. for a world tour in 2012.
Nashville Rehearsals is an album of studio sessions and rehearsals by the band King Crimson, released through the King Crimson Collectors' Club in November 2000. The band were working towards a new King Crimson studio album, but decided progress was unsatisfactory and did not develop these ideas further.
Live in Mexico City is a live album by band King Crimson, first released as a free Windows Media Audio download in 1999. Some tracks later appeared on the live albums Cirkus: The Young Persons' Guide to King Crimson Live (1999) and Vrooom Vrooom (2001), and as part of the expanded "THRAK BOX" in 2015. The album was recorded at the Metropolitan Theater, Mexico City, Mexico, 2–4 August 1996
THRAK is the eleventh studio album by the band King Crimson released in 1995 through Virgin Records. It was preceded by the mini-album VROOOM in 1994. It was their first full-length studio album since Three of a Perfect Pair eleven years earlier, and the only full album to feature the "double trio" lineup of Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Trey Gunn, Bill Bruford and Pat Mastelotto. It is the group's final studio album to feature Bruford or Levin.
Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe (ABWH) were an English progressive rock band active from 1988 to 1990 that comprised four past members of the English progressive rock band Yes. Singer Jon Anderson left Yes as he felt increasingly constrained by their commercial and pop-oriented direction in the 1980s. He began an album with other members from the band's 1970s era: guitarist Steve Howe, keyboardist Rick Wakeman, and drummer Bill Bruford, plus bassist Tony Levin.
Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe is the only studio album by English progressive rock band Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, released in June 1989 on Arista Records.
Back Against the Wall is an album released in 2005 by Billy Sherwood in collaboration with a number of (mostly) progressive rock artists as a tribute to Pink Floyd's album The Wall. A year later, Sherwood followed it with the release of Return to the Dark Side of the Moon, a tribute to Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon.
Live at the Orpheum is a live album by the band King Crimson, released by Discipline Global Mobile records in 2015. The album was recorded on 30 September and 1 October at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, California on the band's The Elements of King Crimson US tour of 2014.
Levin Minnemann Rudess or LMR is a debut collaboration album from half of Liquid Tension Experiment; bassist Tony Levin and Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess with the addition of drummer Marco Minnemann. It was released on September 5, 2013, by Lazy Bones Recordings.
Rehearsals & Blows is an album of studio sessions and rehearsals by the band King Crimson, released through the King Crimson Collectors' Club in January 2016. As with The Champaign-Urbana Sessions, this album shows the development of material intended for the group's 1984 album, Three of a Perfect Pair. King Crimson biographer and historian Sid Smith described the album as "work-in-progress sketches, outtakes, bright ideas, dead-ends and cul-de-sacs ... where ideas either bloomed or withered." Two recordings present on this release were later included in the box set On The Road, and one of them is also included in the 40th Anniversary Edition of Three of a Perfect Pair. While this release is numbered Club 42, it was released several years after Club 46 as it was delayed several times.
THRAK is the fifth of the major box set releases from English progressive rock group King Crimson, released in 2015 by Discipline Global Mobile & Panegyric Records.
Liquid Tension Experiment 3 is the third studio album by the American instrumental progressive metal super group Liquid Tension Experiment. Released on April 16, 2021, it is their first studio effort since 1999's Liquid Tension Experiment 2.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
