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WoT Snr is far, far handier on the tools than I am. He's just built me a stand, and it's marvellous. Have a look...

I used to love Andy Stewart on NYE when I was a kid!!! And shortbread and Mum and Dad drinking whiskey. And then my Mum would always go first footing to the next door neighbours, with salt, mince pies and a piece of coal. NYE doesn't seem so special any more. But that said, Happy New Year everyone and enjoy whatever you're doing (even if just staying in and watching Jools, like me) x

Sorry.... *snicker*

I've been playing keys now in Petrichor (leeds based Doom band) for the best part of a year and things have been fantastic. Joining a band that's been going for in the region of 3 years with plenty of shows under their belt (so right in the deep end). We started the year playing some shows spread across the country including some pretty big "pre-festival" type slots, charity events and all dayers. Later in the year we're supporting some world touring acts (Christian Death, A Pale Horse Named Death... apparently we do well with bands with death in their name) However, the BIG win was landing a slot at "Under The Doom" festival in Portugal. My first outing in Europe. Flights out weren't too pricey and accomadation was dirt cheap so it was all very feasible (thanks Air BnB!) At the festival we were supporting bands I've grown up listening too as well as some more recent additions to the playlist (Alcest Particularly!) This was the final lineup Unfortunately I couldn't get my keyboard out there (cost of putting it on the flight was ridiculous due to size and weight). So I hired a keytar (YES a keytar) and learned how to play it the day before the show Nothing like making things easy for myself! The show went great though! Lots of great pics out there and some awesome videos which I'll link below Self indulgent rant over https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8cyTEvP1ow

Thanks for all the replies and support peoples, it’s really appreciated. To update I did my last gig as a substantive member of the band last night, not too many details as it’s in the gig last night topic for anyone interested, but was a gig I’d really wanted to do, in Hamburg with friends of ours. I’m sad it’s over but I’ve had 6 wonderful years in the band, I’m looking back at the whole period with a smile 😃

I like Jools' Hootenanny so much I'd happily pay double the license fee just to keep it on air. That said, it shouldn't all be about what I want and I think poor Mr Holland deserves a rest from all that running around so next time they should bring back the much-loved all round entertainer Mr Andy Stewart to compere a Scottish-themed Hogmanay show with musical contributions from Mr Jimmy Shand (and his band). Sneering pedants might point out that Mr Andy Stewart went to God in 1993 but I see this as no insuperable obstacle. The BBC could just get some old footage of Andy and tap it into a computer and superimpose his face on a hologram or a picture of someone of approximately the same height and weight. An initiative of this nature means that Jools gets a year off and young people can discover the pleasure to be had from a toe-tapping Scotch reel, possibly The Dashing White Sergeant. That way, everyone's happy.

Ohh, you said clock. I really should increase my font size!

Here are some of mine, I really don't like lined fretless basses because you tend to play with your eyes and not your ears. De Gier Origin Deluxe Fretless 6 Ernie Ball MusicMan StingRay 5 Fretless Fender Precision Bass Fretless 1970 Fender Precision Bass Fretlessised 1978 Laurus Quasar SL 190 Leduc MP 628 SF AA Leduc MP 631 SF Leduc MP 628 SF MTD 635-24 Fretless Nexus Gom Jabbar Magellan Fretless 6 Noguera Fairplay Fretless 6 Noguera YC Signature 8 Fretless Paul Lairat Gabriella 5 Fretless Stradi Symphony Bass #6 Most of them have gone...

We were off out tonight but I think I'll stay home and follow this thread instead!

Constructive? Judging by the opening post the thread has fallen at the first hurdle!!

Couldnt wait till tomorrow! Play great new set og chrome flats. Lovely.

Hmmm, what is this that has just arrived in the post?

Whatever you do, don't ask to borrow a Pixar movie from Rick. He's never gonna give you up.

You may find this interesting , he’s now moved but Andy Baxter’s shop was not far from me , fast forward to 4.30 🙂

I was reflecting how I used to spend hours rehearsing on the day of a gig. How times change. Nowadays I have come to realise that once I've decided which amp/cab/bass combination I'm going with, the only important thing to do is assemble, take, apart, and reassemble pedal boards. All day.

“Never gonna give up yer troosers”

It's just occurred to me that there's a way for us to enjoy the hootenanny (see get sloshed). Hootenanny bingo! Make a bingo card of the acts and/or anything else you expect to see and cross it off when it occurs, whilst taking a drink for every cross. Now that's entertainment! 🥴 Happy New Year, everyone. 🍾🎉

Step 1. Check that my rig is still working and nothing is missing. Step 2. Check that my main bass and back up bass are in fully working order. Change strings if necessary. Step 3. Load gear into car/van. Step 4. Check where the gig is. Step 5. Unload gear again as gig is on another day.

Did someone say orange...

Here you go 😄

🤞A man dressed as a clock, please let there be a man dressed as a clock 🤞

Yep, I play unlined fretless almost all the time. In fact I've played unlined for so long now I am completely disorientated on a lined! Here's my squeeze: a beautiful Franz Sirius from Germany.

Righto, I've set Jools to record (in case I need to look back for forensic pedantry purpose later on). Nothing on there is going to top this though, from a few years back: May all your new years be the greatest, fellow bassers!

Yeah normally behind static keys. I used my smoothound wireless I use for bass and it did great! 😁 Was nice to be able to move around again and get in on the action Yeah would have loved a black keytar but beggers can't be choosers and hiring my usual keyboard would have cost me nearly £300 a night so not really a viable option. This was my favourite shot of the night

off next door to see the New Year in Happy and Prosperous New year to all

Played my last gig as a substantive member of my band last night, at Knust in Hamburg. We’d been invited to do the gig by friends of ours, Razors who are a great bunch. Set off at 5:30am, got to our hotel at 3pm for a brief rest before getting to venue for 5pm. Quick soundcheck - awesome sound for all 3 bands both on stage and out front, then off for a quick meal before the fun started. First band on at 8:30, Sixteen Again, a Buzzcocks tribute - they really got the crowd going, then we were on at 9:30. And it was amazing, crowd singing along with the songs, the reception after each song was jaw-dropping. Then Razors on for the end of the night, and as always delivered, they’re so good - and should be seeing they’ve been together since 1978! Back to hotel for 2am, set off at 11am to airport, just got home at 5pm, rather tired. I’m so glad I managed to get to do this gig, we were asked over a year ago to do it and when I said I was having to leave it was the one gig we had that I still really wanted to do, fitting then that it was my last, I went out on a high!

1. Smoke ½ oz dub cabbage. 2. Summon ancestors. 3. Turn up at gig with golf clubs instead of bass. 4. Tee off.

Agreed! Consumables, repairs, servicing ≠ new gear. New gear = new gear! Simples Blimey after this year's gear fest, it's gonna feel very virtuous not buying any new gear! Although if I said I was up just one bass, down a cab, and down 3 pedals for 2019 you might consider me to have been very restrained? But if I explained that was the net result of 9 basses , 6 amps and cabs and 43 pedals or pedal-gear being bought, sold or traded you'd get a better feel why @bassfan's 2020 challenge is going to be (a) very cathartic (a good word) and (b) almost impossible 😁

Now that's just against the spirit of this place...where would the whole industry be if we played cheap basses that were just fine? 😕😁

Luckily, I don't have any back issues, but the heaviest bass I have is just under 9lbs, and now I wouldn't consider anything heavier. My 7.5lb Dingwall is fantastic for a long gig: the difference, even between 7.5 and 9lbs, is huge.

Unless the postie magics up in the next hour or so, I won't know if it's the best or worst but it's definitely the last of the year, an old Aria Pro II IGB-600. I started playing in the late 80's and I have a real soft spot for basses from that era. I'm really looking forward to checking it out.

It looks like it's sunk into the floor.

Happy New Year (when it comes - it's 22.20 as I'm writing this) to you too, Shelley! And to all Basschatters. I cannae think o any other forum where I've felt so instantly at home. We're not bothering wi Jools. Our Hogmanay has consisted o a meal and drinkies in oor local, to be followed by a trip onto the roof to watch the fireworks from the castle, assuming I stay sober enough tae open the attic hatch. Hic!

Well that didn't take long. Thanks to xzodar who actually delivered this to my gig this evening.

The likeness is uncanny; supernatural even (shivers).

No, but apparently his hat is making a special appearance.

-

Ooh guess the word, I like a good quiz. I know what my guess is but would anyone drop the C bomb this early on New Year's Eve?

ooh, good topic! Here's mine Me and my oldest musical friend, a drummer that I've been in bands with on and off since we were teenagers, were at a bit of a loose end. We were notionally in a three piece band, but the guitarist had been, all guitaristy and it wasn't really happening. The drummer was in another band at the time, playing rock covers, and he suggested that we might form a heavier version playing metal. he knew that their lead guitarist loved heavier music, and the rhythm guitarist could be persuaded to come along too. The lead guitarist being a nice bloke, not a bad guitarist...oddly lacking in the egocentric selfishness, let's call it the C-gene (because what it really is won't get past the swear filter) that all good lead guitarist have got. Or so we thought... We find an excellent singer, and everything's coming together...but the guitarists are becoming a problem. the rhythm guitarist is a really nice guy, but not very good. However, he was a fixture in the rock covers band, everybody liked him as a person, so as long as we can turn him down a little and he's not making too many obvious mistakes...but he is struggling to learn the songs and it had taken months to get a set together. But the lead guitarist's C-gene is starting to show. He won't learn the songs that the rest of us want to learn, he is permanently late - often two or three hours late to a four hour rehearsal (which is never his fault...until he tells us why he's late and it always sounds like it's his fault) and whenever he makes a mistake it's always somebody else's fault, particularly if he makes it at a gig. Hissy fits a plenty. While he's a not bad lead guitarist, his sense of rhythm isn't great and it'd been showing in some of his playing. If you're going to act like a diva you need to be the best musician in the room. I'd place him fourth out of five - I'd put myself third, and while he's a better lead guitarist than me, I'm a better bass player than he is a lead guitarist. Me and the drummer are regularly discussing how to sack him. Well, the drummer is discussing how to punch him, I'm keeping it limited to dealing with his musical issues. I've told the story before on other threads, but it came to a head after we recorded a demo. The lead guitarist had got the data files from the studio on the premise that it was just so he could try mixing it for his own amusement, to see how it compared with a professional, and despite us having paid for it to be mixed, and the rest of us being happy with how it sounded (well, with 2 of the 3 songs, the last one being murdered by the rhythm guitarist having been allowed to play a solo) he spat his dummy out at me wanting to press it up on CD to send out for gigs, because he hasn't finished his re-recording and re-mixing and we should all have the decency to wait for him to finish. This being some weeks after we'd had the final mixes from the studio, and he'd finished his version of just one track (which was no better than the studio mix). I got a very rude e-mail from him on the Friday about how ungrateful i am at not appreciating his genius, and I stew on it over the weekend, before sending my reply first thing on Monday morning saying that I'd had enough and he should start looking for a new bass player. Knowing that the drummer would back me up and quit too (we'd had enough of the band for assorted reasons, mainly him) but genuinely not caring because I was in an originals band by that point and was enjoying that far more and didn't need the covers band. Little did I know that the rock covers band had played a gig that weekend and he'd tried to blame the drummer for his latest mistake, missing his cue for a very well known solo in a very well known rock song. Very loudly blaming him in front of everybody else in the band, and very incorrectly. Unaware that the drummer already hated him, he found himself sacked from both bands before I hit Send on Monday morning's e-mail. What happened next... I carried on in my originals band, playing with some musicians who are reasonably well known in extreme metal circles (although that's not what we were playing). We played around the London circuit for a couple of years, at much bigger and better venues than I'd previously been used to. This led to me depping with a fairly well known extreme metal band last year, headlining at the Underworld and the Rebellion, and swanning around like a rock star for an excellent weekend of appalling behaviour. And my current active (not actually very "active") band is playing covers with most of them. One of my ongoing arguments was that the lead guitarist only liked Iron Maiden and the Cult, and he kept insisting that we should only play Iron Maiden and Cult songs "because the crowd will know all of those and they won't know the songs from those obscure bands you keep wanting to play like Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Motorhead". The drummer and singer (who both love Maiden) started a Maiden tribute band, and invited the rhythm guitarist along (although, perhaps luckily for them, he dropped out). Had he not had such a prominent C-gene the lead guitarist could have been in an Iron Maiden tribute act as a side project. That band broke up after a couple of years, with the drummer going on to join an originals band, playing a lot of shows and recording their well received debut album before life intervened and he moved to his favourite part of the world to do his dream job. The singer, having previously been in an AC/DC tribute band (and sounding exactly like Brian Johnson) was asked to join Chris Slade's Timeline - that band that Chris Slade runs when he's not on tour with AC/DC. He's played the main stage at Hellfest, headlined the Underworld a couple of months back, and is loving being a paid semi-pro musician. That leaves the rhythm guitarist...who joined a new rock/metal covers band with the lead guitarist, with a very familiar sounding set list. In fairness, he was the one person who didn't fall out with the lead guitarist...although we always wonder why the lead guitarist always wants him around, given that he's the harshest critic (and on a demo for the rock covers band, he'd recorded over the rhythm guitar tracks without telling the rhythm player). We suspect it's because he likes being the top dog in any band, and keeping the rhythm guitarist around means that there's no debate about who's the best guitarist. But you can't keep a good C-gene down for too long. the band play a lot of gigs on the local circuit, and had a few in the diary when the lead guitarist announced that he was quitting with immediate effect and they'd have to find somebody else to play the gigs they had booked in the next few weeks. I'm not sure I'd have wanted to be at the next one, when the rhythm guitarist played all the solo parts, but they soon found a replacement and have carried on largely as before, still playing a lot of gigs in the local area I'm not aware that the lead guitarist has been playing in any bands for the last couple of years

My prep for tonight's gig will mostly consist of being horizontal on the sofa for the afternoon, watching The Man in the High Castle.

Excellent. I always think it’s better to have done something, than to be able to look back twenty or so years later and wish that you’d done it.

Thanks for the replies. The consensus seems to be that I should go. Read a statistic saying the average earnings 5 years after graduating are £25000 so it looks like I’ll never earn enough to start repay the student loan so there’s no point worrying about it!

Ahem 🙂

The OP's guitarist is Ritchie Blackmore and I claim my five pounds.

You got the words to Red Barcheta wrong!

Nice. It looks like it has been used as a rhythm stick... to hit people with.