Leaderboard

I joined this v odd band because a mate was singing in it - we dressed up as vikings and played '80s anthemic pink torpedo rock to bemused people out for a quiet pint. It was fantastic fun as the singer had an amazing rock voice and the guitarist was a brilliant player of that riff-heavy, blistering solo style. Guitarist was a bit odd, though. I worked hard to arrange my work and young family life to make it on time to rehearsals. He had v little else going on (self-employed, no family or really any other commitments) but would breeze in 45 minutes late to a three hour rehearsal - every time. Drove me nuts. He was stone cold broke - so bad he couldn't contribute to rehearsal costs sometimes and actually just took a whole gig fee once without consulting us because he was so strapped. But he always drove a new Merc on lease 'because it gives the right impression'. We never worked out who he was trying to impress. He had other quirks, like being a bit of a conspiracy nut and carrying his thoughts/convictions to pretty extreme ends, but he could be lovely too. It all came to a head one night in a pub with a full-wall plate glass window looking out on to a side street. His gear gave him grief and he wasn't loud enough on a big solo so he got in a huff and unplugged his guitar. He walked out the door, took his guitar by the neck and started battering it on the ground, Pete Townsend-style. Trouble was he wasn't very strong (or the guitar was very well built), and not much happened. It stayed intact. So the rest of us keep playing on, just cycling through the chords as we and the bemused punters watch through the window as this guy in a viking outfit and Christina Aguilera wig ineffectually leathers his guitar at the road outside. We, and the crowd, were pissing ourselves. Best bit was when a homeless guy came up and tried to take it off him, thinking it a terrible waste. He came back in sheepishly, picked up his spare guitar and finished the gig. The band dissolved in acrimony not long after because of a bitter dispute about the ethics of giving to charity. Odd all round.

Instead of boiling your dead strings or soaking them in meths like some mad scientist simply stop being a tightwad and order some new ones from a guitar shop or online store, the end result will be the sound of a new set of strings which lasts longer than one gig and is much less time consuming than faffing about with metre long glass tubes or pans.

Got a new base last week (I blame the snow – I worked from home due to the travel warning a couple of weeks back, and found I could fill some of the time I was waiting for network connections by looking for bargain basses on my tablet. Ahem.) I don’t have easy access to a guitar shop with a decent range of basses, so I am dependent on basschat for working out which guitar will suit me best. Based on what I’d read on here, I began to focus on G&L, with my criteria for my next bass being: passive, 38mm nut width, not JJ pickups. There was a B-stock Tribute Kiloton on DV247 with about £120 off. It was white, with the reduction for a “chip in paint by the neck joint”, although there was no photo of the actual bass/damage on DV247 website*. It arrived, as promised, in 4 working days from Germany (got to say, I was impressed with the communications from DPD via their app). First impression out of the box is that it’s a bit chunky. Reviews mention the slimline SB body, but it’s about twice as thick as my Squier VM Jaguar. In terms of weight, though, both have basswood bodies but the Kiloton (counter-intuitively) is half a pound lighter. The plastic scratchplate protector had been removed, and there was no documentation at all in the box. The strings are not the standard stock d’Addario EXLs (no coloured ends or silks), and feel like they’re nickel-coated. I’m guessing that this is an ex-display model, and that the strings have been changed at least once. The serial number dates the bass as Sept 2017. However, the scratchplate has no scratches, so there are no actual signs of wear, and everything else is fine apart from the paint chip and the neck joint, which isn’t the neatest: some of the cuts appear not to be perfectly straight. Plugged into a practice amp, at first it was all about playing with the 3-way switch, working out which is series, parallel and single coil. Online reviews mention the increased output through the series setting, and this is clearly the case. The neck is nice and quick; the large inlay dots somehow make it look wider than it actually is. The tuners are smooth (noticeably smoother than the Gotoh GB707s on my step-son's SR1605). I was asked to play in a one-off band at a local church 4 days after it arrived so had an early chance to give it a proper test, playing through their huge Peavey combo. I instantly had to turn the master volume on the amp down from 5 to just under 3: this MFD pickup is certainly as hot as all the reviews suggest! The thing with the three-way-switch pickup variations is that they have such different outputs that I decided to stick to just one: in this case the parallel because it was a church, and I didn’t want to blast them away with the series option. I’m afraid my ears aren’t good enough to tell how closely this sounds like a Stingray, j-bass or p-bass in the various pickup settings: all I know is that there is a lot more variety than I expected, and that I can see each having its place. To me, the bass sounded brilliant – deep, rich, clear and with incredible sustain, I’ve never really considered why sustain is important to a bass, but now I think it means the full tone of the note lasts longer: for any notes of a minim or more in length, the outstanding, full timbre of the Kiloton just keeps shining though. And there’s no worries about getting lost in the mix: you won't. Even with the unknown strings , I didn’t want to stop playing. It's made me aware of my poor technique (particularly right hand) – there’s no hiding place with such a powerful pickup, but I’m looking forward to the challenge as it means more time playing this bass. Next step is some new strings, probably GHS Pressurewounds as I’ll be playing a fair bit of pick and I hate string noise. Overall, this was an excellent purchase, and for the first time, I can't imagine needing (or even wanting) any other bass. * BTW The paint chip is about 1cm across and ugly, but only visible to the player, and there’s no damage to the neck joint. I reckon a dab of tippex and some superglue on top will be good enough for me: I’m not selling this beast!

Save money on expensive plectrums by learning to pluck with your fingers

I’ve bought several different Flea basses, I don’t sound remotely like him, unless I’ve had a drink... that means it’s me.. 😳😂😂

It was actually a song about his Cuban shoes that were en vogue at the time. He had damaged the heel of one of them and just as he was about to walk on for his encore the loose heel fell off.

What's the reason for wanting 35" scale? If you like the extra space between the frets fine, but if it is specifically for getting a better feeling and sounding low B string you may well be disappointed. IME adding an extra inch to the overall scale length on its own does virtually nothing to improve the low B. It is far more important to have a well constructed neck and got neck to body joint, and all these things can be achieved on a well-made 34" scale bass.

Lost your bottle-opener & struggling to open beer bottles? Simply use the headstock of your Rickenbacker! Eh, @Ricky 4000

I've put this in my diary - I can bring a Fender Performer (as in the 80's rarity, not the new 'perfomer' line) and maybe a Hohner Custom V.

Please make them stop..... I thought it was about fishing in Norfolk using an old guitar as a fishing pole and loosing an Eel..... Since ma baby left me, Ay go fishin all the time I don't have no kit An ol' geetar done be my prime I caught me an Eel, slippery soul to go Oooooh Loose Eel.....Ooooh Loose Eel

I love it! And top end Yamahas are brilliantly made. I'm actually looking forward to seeing one in the flesh. Could be on my next bass list.

first of two I'm going to nominate. My first serious band, 30 years ago, playing thrash metal when it was still new and exciting, and the first band I'd been in where I didn't know everybody else in advance. I was the last in, and at my first practice the guitarist (and BL) showed me the riffs to a couple of songs, we run through them, and then we're away. The singer steps up to the mic...and it's dreadful. Like a dying, vomiting dog. There wasn't any attempt at a melody, just shouting in the deepest voice he could manage. Now, there is a place for that style of vocals in extreme metal, but we were far too melodic, touching on prog even, to be in that category. To add to this, when we started gigging, the singer had no on stage personality whatsoever - no confidence or showmanship (he is a bit of a dull man anyway), just stood at the mic, staring at his shoes, making a horrible noise when he was singing, and muttering a few words between songs, never engaging with the audience. Me and the drummer (my mate, who'd invited me to join) complained about him endlessly - it was really affecting the band as everybody agreed that the music was great but the vocals were awful - but the singer was there because he was the guitarist's best mate and he was never going to get sacked. This went on for a couple of years. Then we did a fairly high profile gig as main support on a four band bill, and a load of my non-metal liking mates came along. As the band finished and started packing down, the singer left the stage to get to the bar, to be told by my mates that he was terrible, not the band, just him, what with him not being able to sing and everything. We had a gig the next day and after we soundchecked he announced that he was leaving the band to move on to new projects! I already knew the story of what had happened, as did the drummer, so we sniggered and had more than a few celebratory pints, but not ones to look a gift horse in the mouth we said nothing and let him keep his dignity. We certainly didn't do anything to persuade him to stay (which I think is what he was hoping for). And that would have been the end of it, someone I would never be in a band with again because he has no musical ability, but not somebody I'd avoid contact with... But he's stayed in my circle of friends, and I see much more of him these days than before - we go to a lot of gigs and festivals together. So for the last 25 years I have heard a non stop stream of fake news about how he's always one step away from being in new band, how he's working on a new project, how people said he was a great singer (based on one comment from 20 years ago taken out of context - he does that a lot), and including himself in any discussions that me and my actual musician friends have about bands, gear, etc. He seems to genuinely believe that everybody loved his vocals in the old band and that we wanted him to stay. To hear him, he's currently in between bands, and the casual observer would never know that he hasn't been in a band for a quarter of a century. Worst of all, he saves special disdain for the musical exploits of his former bandmates - me and the drummer mainly, who have remained active in bands from then until now. I'll save the numerous stories, but he manages to dismiss anything we do, but if there is any praise being given, he will bend over backwards to make sure that people know he was once in a band with us, like he's one of the cool kids. When I was depping with a name band for a couple of gigs at Christmas, I joked that he would tell me to my face that it wasn't anything special, and behind my back tell everybody he knows that he's mates with the bass player in this band that they will have heard of. That is exactly what he did. So about a year ago we were out for a drink and the subject of bands came up - him complaining about the delays in yet another one of his projects that never quite seem to happen, so i told him I'd been talking about forming a band with a singer from an old band of mine, who knew a guitarist, and i knew a drummer, etc. He spent the next three hours banging on about how that was a really bad idea because that singer (now fresh out of rehab) couldn't be trusted, he'd let down my old band, what was I thinking? Every time anybody tried to move the conversation on he kept dragging it back to this singer and why he was a bad choice. His girlfriend got fed up and went home, leaving me to listen to him going round and round in circles about it. Which sounds bad, but was a beautiful moment, because it finally gave me the excuse to say to him that I didn't know why he was fixated on telling me that this other singer was awful, but if he was trying to suggest that I should instead be asking him to join my new band he should forget about it because he cannot sing, has no musical ability whatsoever, and I will never, ever ask him to be in any of my bands. Ever. I slept very well that night. He seems to have selectively forgotten that night, or at the very least decided that he definitely wasn't suggesting that I ask him to be in a new band and is back to his usual, deluded self. Oh well, still worth it.

Hi All the shapes I have ever done are still available. The Recurve and Finn still front and centre have been about from pretty much the start. However I don’t get asked to build most of them very often. What you currently see as the main models Recurve,Finn,Krell, Salace and RetroB are the models people actually order. ACG has now been about for 14 years so I am no longer in anyway a new upstart. Cheers Alan.

Interesting; I have an uncanny ability to change the atmospheric conditions myself, though I'm not sure it's a feature people would pay money for.

Tired of forking out for expensive sets of nut files? Simply detune a string enough to slide a 30mm square of 400 grit wet/dry (dry) half way under the string, hold the wet/dry around the string, tune up slightly to provide enough tension to nearly trap the wet/dry under the string, then "sand" the nut with it toward the tuner for the perfect break angle. I don't know if that's a common hack, but I thought of it myself. I've only done it once, and it seemed to work OK. 👍

Oh yes, I forgot I put them together the other day for a family shot

If you're having trouble dialing in tone and just can't get the sound you're looking for, don't waste money on a new amp, just drink beer! Everything sounds fkin superb after 8 pints. (Unless you live in the South of England, then it's probably cheaper to just buy a new amp)

Got this thread on BC Twitter earlier today. I'll try BC Facebook now if it hasn't been shared already. Good luck.

Need a catapault? Place an elastic band across the horns on the headstock of your Jaydee Bass....

Won't this run the risk of damage to the tops on your beer bottles?

Cripes! Do I really own something that beautiful? (Ohhhh yesssss😍)

"*EZO or ES Method – Energy/Space Method of wood, metal, and ctr. treatment. Modifications: mass crystallisation (wood), resonating in human emotional range. Sound effects: real presence with element of reverb and chorus. Developed by Mr. Papian." I was reading this in the ad and I thought, that's familiar. Then I remembered, it's one of Jon Anderson's lyrics from side three of Tales for Topographic Oceans.

This is just amazing looker.

Its not a complaint, its a fact. There are many, many threads about gear that has a big name on it and how some people will expect to sound like the name on the headstock etc. Not my words, that too is fact. What makes this any different? Hasn't Geddy had this tone for decades? That was my point about the fingers etc. He never used a Geddy branded effect in the past to get this tone, yet his tone has remained fairly consistent and distinctive. im not knocking the pedal or Tech 21 as such, im just replaying to your comment about mine. If the new box gets you very close to that tone then thats cool, but so can other boxes i would assume, as many people have gotten that tone. The Jaco statement seems strange. Surely if you buy the same bass as him you will sound like him......unless its to do with how he plays 😉

. .Look for a Peavey TNT 130 - it'll last a while. There's a current thread about it. Shouldn't be expensive either G.

Don't boil your strings. Steep them in meths overnight to clean them then hang them up to dry. Works a treat!

Badum-tish

Mine was a Greek wedding function gig where we used a couple of deps who reassured us they were au fait with the repertoire. One of the deps was a keyboard player - this guy was asking me for an E note and sticking a screwdriver in the back of his ancient keyboard and turning it to tune the bloody thing. I was using a guitar synth as part of my rig and had better sounds than him. That keyboard of his just made an awful sound. Anyway, it wasn't our finest hour but it didn't help that the crowd were pretty hostile, rude and there were problems between the Bride and Groom's respective families, which became evident throughout the evening when a couple of squabbles took place outside. Of course, we did our usual thing of placing business cards on the tables as that normally gets us a couple of enquiries or bookings. Big mistake as it had a couple of our mobile numbers on there. Well, from more or less the minute we finished, and for a good few days later, we were getting prank calls with a common one being 'Do you do funerals'? It was a Greek Tragedy! Name of the band, Jason (the singer's name) & The Argonauts.

My vinyl sounds better in the house for some reason.

I think some on the forum know I have an ACG or two so with that in mind, and having removed my tinted glasses, I would challenge the comment above about pricing of ACG basses. I do look around to see what other builders are offering and still find Alan's basses to be very competitively priced, with the acknowledgement that it's almost impossible to compare apples with apples in the space. I must drive Alan nuts as I very firmly in the traditional shapes fold and am a particular fan of the J Type and RetroB. I did dip a toe in slightly choppier waters recently and bought a Border Reiver S/S but have now scuttled back into the relative safety of a new Finn that I suspect will become my favourite fretted ACG in short order 🙂 As always YMMV

Top sports people become faster / stronger / more capable than the rest by really investing time, effort, practice, and thought into it. Making music is highly demanding, and musicians need to take the same approach. Work on improv8ng your technique. Get a bass that fits you well and get it professionally set up. Show your body some love with healthy living and the occasional massage. Purchase gear that makes your life easier (and your sound louder). Learn how it all fits together - that’s why forums like this are invaluable. I’m too old to work harder, so working smarter is all I’ve got!

Or spend about £1.50 on these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gas-Welding-Tip-Cleaner-Needle-file-set-Jet-cleaner-Nozzle/220417704077?hash=item3351eb408d:g:ohoAAMXQ71xRYR0i:rk:1:pf:0

Aw, sorry to hear you're retiring from gigging But as bigsmoke says above - don't hang that bass up for good. Keep one beside the sofa, for an occasional noodle You know what, I stopped playing in my 20's, and didn't play again for nearly 25 years! And I'm so glad I started playing again - I couldn't live without bass now, I love it more than ever But whatever you decide.... all the best

Sorry to hear your leaving and hope you don't hang your bass up, always good just to noodle and keep the passion going, even just at home. I'm sure speaking on behalf of everyone here that we wish you all the best, hope you enjoy your golden years and you may come back in time

Flash Clap Pensioner? Never heard of them.

By the time my band has kicked in, just about every nuance i can hear on my own, with any string gauge, has virtually disappeared under a wall of keys, drums guitar, and vocals. Just buy the gauge strings you're comfortable with, and quit worrying.

Yes, they messed up the grid bias circuit on the early models, but sorted it with a simple mod on later production.

I love listening to Kraftwerk in the car, also that’s where I listen to anything heavy, on car rotation at the moment... Sepultura Soulfly Helmet Venetian Snares Squarepusher

Sax player. Jazz snob, abrasive, arrogant Scottish knob. Played in a band with him for 6 years and I don't think he ever bought a round (not that I'm stereotyping him).

Contestant #2. have to say, this one's probably the winner, being somebody that I not only wouldn't be in a band with again, but don't want to hang out with either. A drummer mate of mine was playing in a rock covers band, and doing OK with it - plenty of pub level gigs, and while not earning a living from it, all his expenses were paid for and he had a few quid to take home with him whenever they played. His background was in heavier music (he's the drummer that asked me to join the thrash band in the story above) and he'd been chatting to this band's lead guitarist, who also liked the heavier stuff. Me and the drummer had been kicking our heels a little after the guitarist left an originals band that we were in, and he came up with the idea that we could start a new covers band to run parallel to the rock one, doing heavier stuff with this lead guitarist. I knew the guitarist a little at this point, having been to a few of their shows. A bit on the quiet side, but quite funny and seemed like a good bloke, and while not a stunning guitarist, a decent enough player for the pub covers band level (and a mastery of picking songs with long, bluesy solos that made him look good). He was keen to bring the other band's rhythm guitarist with him, which was fine by me (I knew him much better, a great bloke, if not the greatest guitarist, but a good guy to have in your band and seemed able to cope with most of the rhythm playing). It all went well for the first few months, and picked up after we found a singer with a fantastic voice. But after a while me and the drummer noticed that the set list was getting a bit skewed. The idea was to play songs that a metal fan from the '80's or '90's would recognise, but wouldn't often get to hear in pubs - the No Paranoid Rule. Me and the drummer drew up a list of metal club floor fillers that we remembered from our teenage years and early twenties. The guitarist only really liked Maiden, the Cult and Guns n Roses. Whenever anybody suggested a song by anybody else, he would argue that the completely fictitious crowd wouldn't know it, so why don't we do another Maiden/Cult/GnR song instead? I once had to tell him that I fundamentally disagreed with his argument that the (non existent) crowd would not recognise Bomber or Overkill or anything else by Motorhead and that we should learn Rime Of The Ancient Mariner instead because everybody loves that one and the punters will all know it. My argument being that we already had five Maiden songs in our repertoire which was at least three too many for any gig and I wouldn't be learning any more until we actually had some more variety. If he wanted to play in a Maiden tribute band that was fine, but it wasn't this band as I wasn't interested. His answer was to suggest that we did a fourth Cult song, and when that got knocked back, he bullied the rhythm guitarist, who's turn it was to suggest the next song that we would be working on (which never really got followed when it wasn't the lead guitarist's turn), into agreeing that we should have a third GnR song. It was becoming a problem and stopping us playing because we couldn't get a set list together to be able to start playing live. Whenever the band picked a song that he didn't like, he just didn't bother learning it, so was never ready to run through it at practice, and why don't we play this other song that he does know instead? There were several songs that only made it into the set because after months of waiting for him to learn them we told him that regardless of whether he'd done his homework, we were playing them in the studio and he could either join in or go home and come back when he had learned them. He then found all sorts of difficulties in the arrangements and some of the trickier lead parts for those songs that meant we had to keep working on them, and maybe it was dragging on for so long that it wasn't worth it, eh? In fact all this did was highlight some of his other playing limitations, mainly his appalling sense of timing. For instance, he could not play the lead licks at the start of Back In Black, because he could not pick up the timing of when to play. If you're going to deliberately play some songs badly, the risk is that people will think that the fault is you, not the song. As ever, when there are problems with the music, it highlights all of the other petty stuff that you can put up with when things are going well. He was no stranger to the hissy fit when things weren't going his way, and was a master of blaming others for his mistakes - if a gig didn't go well then it was usually my fault for being too loud so that he couldn't hear himself...despite him being able to hear himself just fine at the soundcheck. Or somebody not playing the cue he was expecting, and how can he be expected to play something right if we're putting him off. But the main problem was his perpetual lateness. He was never on time for anything - gigs, rehearsals, a night in the pub. Which, again, was never his fault - he always left for gigs in plenty of time but his satnav apparently always sent him the wrong way, or there were roadworks, or the turn off wasn't properly signposted. It was more of a feature with the other band as they played a lot more gigs than us, but he was showing the same issues about song choices, etc with them, and it was wearing a bit thin with everybody. He insisted from early on that he couldn't guarantee when he could get to the weekly rehearsal because he never knew where he'd be working or when he would finish. Practice was in Surrey and the studio booking ran from 6.00 to 10.00 but all of us came straight from work (three of us in London) so we'd generally roll in by 6.45, ready to set up and kick off at 7.00. the guitarist was rarely there by 8.00, and frequently didn't arrive until 9.00. And a few times he'd ring to say that he wouldn't get there until gone 9.00 and we'd pack up and go home, not having played anything of note. Until we started a new rule that if somebody cancelled on the day they'd have to pay the full cost of the studio...then he managed to show up, albeit often only for an hour's actual rehearsing It later emerged that his version of coming "straight from work" was to drive home, pick up his girlfriend to do the weekly food shop, put his gear in the car while she cooked him his tea, and once he'd sat down and eaten his meal, then set off for practice. He thought it was unreasonable to expect him not to have his tea before setting off...while the rest of us survived on crisps that we got at the studio, or maybe a sarnie that we'd picked up from a corner shop on the way there. This particularly grated with the drummer who had got married and moved to the Kent coast, so was giving up a night at home with his lovely new wife to pay to sit in a practice studio not playing the drums for more than an hour most weeks, and then kip on my sofa. There are many, many similar stories across both his bands - one that springs to mind was him dropping out of a long standing Christmas booking with a regular venue that the other band had because he'd now bought tickets for him and his girlfriend to go to the panto that night and it was unreasonable of the band to expect him to miss out on that when he'd already spent his money (they did it with a dep, and it was the start of the end for him with them) So, always late, always blaming others for his mistakes, unwilling to understand the concept of compromising or doing what the band agreed on, and not as good a musician as he thought he was... Basically the good bloke we thought we'd got in the band turned out to be a bit of a c#nt. Which seems to be a feature of most lead guitarists, but the best one's I've played with embrace it and limit it to their guitar playing rather than being a c#nt at all times It all came to a head when we recorded a demo, so that we could send it to pubs and finally get out and start gigging properly rather than picking up the odd show from venues we knew. We spent a day at a studio doing three tracks, and paid extra for the engineer to do the mixing after we'd finished. A few exchanges of e-mails and we get a mix the rest of the band are happy with - after all, it's only purpose is to send to pubs to get gigs so it's not worth spending any more time on it. The guitarist had paid the studio for a memory stick with the data on it so that he could plug it into the Pro Tools he had at home, purely to mess about with it himself (so he said) and see how what he does compares to a professional. It then emerges that both he and the rhythm guitarist have been re-recording some of their parts (possibly justified for the rhythm guitarist) and there is radio silence from the lead guitarist for a couple of weeks, broken when he sends round his own mix, what did we all think? The drummer, who now wants to strangle him, sends a much politer response than his true feelings on the matter, that while it's nice that the guitarist has bothered, he's happy with the studio mix so why don't we just send that out on the demo? The singer has been on to me saying FFS!!! let's just send the demo out, how much longer do we have to wait? The guitarist replies to the drummer - he hasn't finished with his mix of the other two tracks and we should wait for him to do that before we press up any demos. I check with the drummer - he's happy for me to go ballistic. I warn the singer that the band might well be looking for a new member before too long... I send a fairly polite, but direct response, last thing on Friday night from my work e-mail, saying that we've paid somebody to mix the demo and that the rest of the band are happy with it, nobody agreed that the guitarist was going to mix it, we could have been sending the demo out a couple of weeks before now, we're not going to wait God knows how much longer for him to have another crack at it, we need to start looking for gigs. The guitarist replies when he gets in from work on the Friday night, but I don't see it until Monday morning. However, before i get to work on the Monday the rhythm guitarist has sent me a text saying that it was nice while it lasted, and the singer is texting that surely we can make it up... I get in to find an e-mail of abuse - how rude we're being to him (despite his effing and jeffing at me in his response - it wouldn't get through my company's swear filter if he'd sent it to my current work address, but no, it's me being rude to him), he's put all of this effort in and we don't appreciate him, we agreed that he would take the Pro Tools tracks (er, no we didn't) and we should have the decency to let him finish, and what about the artwork he did that we didn't like (he's right, we didn't, it was awful, the sort of thing that would actively stop pubs give us gigs) why should he bother making all this effort when we're all horrible to him. Like we're lucky to have him in our band and should be bowing down to his genius, not complaining that he's taking too long to sprinkle his magic dust on our pitiful offerings, and if he decides that he's going to do something without checking with us first then we should be pleased, not unhappy. I was in two other bands at that time - one with the drummer that was pure fun doing punk covers, and one playing originals with significantly better guitarists than this one. So I wasn't going to miss it at all. rather than take apart his e-mail and answer him point by point, or and tell him exactly what I thought of him, I took the high road and sent a very simple reply saying that I'd had enough, I wasn't putting up with him any more as it hadn't been any fun for quite a while and he could look for another bass player (knowing that as a minimum he'd also need to find a new drummer, and probably a singer too). So officially I quit. I was secretly hoping that he's send a reply so that I could tell him exactly what I thought of him, but as it turns out, there was no need. The drummer then e-mails me to explain that the other band had played a gig on the Saturday which ended with the drummer screaming "I am never playing in the same stage as that c#nt ever again!!" so technically the guitarist had been sacked from both his bands before I quit. Hence the rhythm guitarist's text. I saw the guitarist a few weeks later - in the first of several ironies to follow, we were going to a Cult gig, and I'd bought tickets for him and his girlfriend some months before. To nobody's surprise they were late, meaning that I missed the Mission who were support. they then didn't have the money to pay me for the tickets. It was cordial if distinctly cool, I suspect mostly because his girlfriend was there, and having popped into the pub to pick up the tickets he manufactured a reason for them to then disappear rather than going straight into the gig with the rest of us. I haven't seen him since, and that was, what, five or six years ago now, maybe more. The next irony was that the rest of the band excluding me and him formed an Iron Maiden tribute band! He wasn't invited, and actually the rhythm guitarist knew that he wouldn't be up to it and dropped out quite early on. If only he'd played nicer he could have been in his ideal covers band. And lastly, I listed to the demo for the first time in years a few months ago. You know what, it's really good, that's the shame of it all. Except for the one Maiden song on it, which is terrible because he let the (not very good) rhythm guitarist play one of the solos. great bloke, below average guitarist. Maybe the audience wouldn't have been so keen on our Maiden songs after all. He spent a lot of time complaining about how bad the rhythm guitarist was (and on a demo for the other band that he was allowed to mix, he took him completely out and re-recorded the rhythm parts without telling him), so we could never work out why he was so keen to have him in bands...we suspect it's a bit like a young girl I used to work with who made a point of only ever having fat friends: she was very slim and pretty,and wanted to make sure that she was always the prettiest one in the group. So it seems to the rest of us that he prefers playing with a below par rhythm guitarist, who always makes him look good, and is slightly in awe of his bog standard playing skills. He did start a new band, and as expected took the rhythm guitarist with him, and they were almost a carbon copy of what we were doing. the band is still going, but without him. he quit to spend more time with his family, telling them that he was done and wouldn't be playing the two gigs they had in the diary for the following month. Basically still a c#nt

It's beautiful. Oh and it's a six string headless.. which is, of course right up my street!

Gorgeous...I think that the rosewood tailpiece actually looks great - a happy accident rather than design but I think that it looks really good!

Over 65 only? Even when I’m 64?