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Another lengthy story - this time about my stint in a proper, leather trouser wearin', rockin' band. It was a Tuesday night and probably drizzling outside. Not that we would have known as our lock-up was untroubled by natural light…or ventilation. But we liked it that way. We were halfway through one of our thinly veiled excuses for a wah-wah freakout, when in runs the owner of the lock up in a state of high excitement. He told us that a band had pulled out of a gig at a local venue that very night, and that there was a big rock audience there just waiting to be entertained. Excited by the opportunity to play to real people, we loaded our gear into the back of the van and set off. We pulled into the venues' car park which was FULL of expensive and opulently chromed motorbikes. While we unloaded the van, we noticed that no one seemed to be having a lot of fun – in fact there was a really sombre air in the place. Wait a minute…why are all these guys wearing black armbands? Yep. It was a wake. We’d been tricked into playing a bikers wake. No wonder the other band had pulled out. Nervously, we set up the gear. Occasionally a glass smashed and voices were raised. This was not going to be a good night for anyone, especially us. I dutifully set up my trusty bass, taking care to put it into dropped D tuning for our first, epic number. Satisfied, I left the stage and hid in the toilet for about 20 minutes. It was in there that I heard the sound of music…not ‘Led Zeppelin IV’ which had been playing on a loop since our arrival, but a Bluesy jam. I left the safety of the urinal, only to find three bikers had ‘borrowed’ our gear and were jamming away in the key of A. All apart from the guy on the bass – sorry, MY bass, who was looking bemused. I jumped on stage and told him the Bass was in a weird tuning and maybe I should carry on from here. I strapped it on and ploughed through ten minutes of aimless twelve bar noodling. After that, we had a few minutes before showtime, so I raced to the bar to get something to steady my nerves. It was there I met the erstwhile Bassist who told me the back story to the gig. Apparently, the wake was for a biker in a local chapter who had come off his bike in ‘dubious circumstances’. ‘See them?’ he pointed at a group in the corner. ‘They reckon he was killed by them’. He pointed to an equally dour looking bunch. ‘But they…’ he pointed to a third group ‘reckon it was them’. He pointed to a fourth. ‘So why aren’t they beating each other up?’ I asked, nervously. ‘Truce’ he replied. ‘Until midnight tonight’. I checked my watch. 10.50pm. Yikes. I quickly shared this information with my bandmates and we ran on stage to get this over with. We waited patiently for ‘Stairway To Heaven’ to finish as we thought we’d be beaten up if we interrupted that. Finally, we caught our breath and lurched into song number one. And so it began…. The first song had a great ‘car crash’ ending where we all played the final chord over and over, finishing off with a highly choreographed KA-BLAMM! accompanied by a heroic, Iggy-esque leap into the air. One person clapped. It was the bloke on the sound desk. We raced through an hours worth of material in 50 minutes. It was at this gig we realised that almost all of our songs had the words ‘Death’, ‘Ghost’ or ‘Murder’ in the lyrics, which were hastily changed on the fly by our quick thinking and terrified lead vocalist. After a few songs, even the sound guy stopped clapping and the only noises we heard between songs were the gritting of teeth, glasses breaking and the odd scuffle…and the occasional muted sob from our drummer. At 11.45, we finished. As the last chord rang around the room, we started yanking out jack leads and tossing equipment into the back of the van. As we were frenziedly throwing stuff off the stage, a large biker collared our drummer. He gesticulated sharply to the aged piano to the right of the stage. ‘Ay mate, d’yow play piano?’ Relieved that it wasn’t a death threat, he smiled and shook his head. ‘Y’ow can’t play the f*ckin’ drums either’ came the less than friendly retort. I have to admit that even under the shadow of doom, that made me laugh…under my breath, of course. By 11.58, we were all in the van, bloodied but unbowed and we raced out of the car park. It was a while before anyone could speak, so the usual post gig autopsy would have to wait until another, less stressful night. About two miles down the road, we passed a fleet of Police cars racing in the opposite direction, blue lights flashing. I checked my watch. The time was 12.04.

Dah dah!

Really? It's not about understanding them (which I do). It's about the constant quotes which just, well to be honest, make you sound a bit of a pink torpedo.... imho, ymmv, no offense, etc etc

Ooh! Goody goody!!! Are we doing the 'random quotes' thing again to lamely try to show we know more than others (but actually don't)? "My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump My lovely lady lumps (lump) My lovely lady lumps my lovely lady lumps (lump) In the back and in the front (Lump) My loving got you" Black Eyed Peas - 'My Humps' 2005 You're welcome......

Well this got Talkbass very quickly didn't it!! 😗 Si

Ooh the daft quotes game. My go: "How about everybody has a nice big cup of calm the fck down and stop taking potshots at each other? This playground stuff is getting really tiresome." -- Socrates.

Alright, think we're done for anything worthwhile here. Si

We did a support for Carter the Unstoppable at the Marquee many years ago... It went down so well that the Marquee offered us our own headline, which was nice, and in the week before Christmas! So we thought we'd make it special, we gathered our painters (who would paint both a backdrop and our white overalls in fluorescent paint - my Wal still has some blobs of it!), rehearsed to within an inch of our lives and booked a "festive surprise" for the audience. After our first number, our singer let slip that the surprise was due to be a stripper, which really got the male members of the audience going - you could virtually see huge clouds of testosterone condensing on the ceiling. 2 songs before the end our singer shouted "who's ready for the stripper?"; the (male bits) of the audience went wild, which he milked for every penny. When the much-hyped stripper finally came on there was a stunned silence, for it was a he... Not only that, he was a rather portly though not unattractive Father Christmas! Luckily the audience coped with the Noel-ish nudity and we finished the set without a single can of piddle thrown at us. But when we came off stage we found the singer's girlfriend snogging Father Christmas in the dressing room!

Pretty much verbatim conversation a while back with the BL: 'What time are we setting off tomorrow Pal?' 'Get round to ours at about three. You can follow my car.' 'Three? What time's the wedding?' 'Normal time; arrive for six to set up, bugger off for the speeches, we're starting the first set about half eight.' 'But...it's in the New Forest?' 'Yeah?' 'And we're in Manchester?' 'Yeah? It's only Stoke way.' 'You don't know where the New Forest is, do you?' 'Stoke way?' 'Look, to get to the New Forest, you drive South till you can see France, then turn left.' 'You're kidding...hang on...' The sound of some worried Googling... 'Oh hellfire...I've not charged for mileage...we can't go in two cars, it'll cost a fortune in petrol. Can we fit it all in yours?' Cue some Olympic-standard Tetris packing at nine the next morning; we got the three of us, the drums, the PA and all stands, the lights, two guitars, two basses and the amps into my car...and people ask why I always drive large estate cars...

Another cowboy seller.

Same here. Newcastle was the only place we got directions and didn't understand a word! We drove around the corner and asked again and this time we found someone who spoke English! Also in Newcastle, we stopped to ask a guy standing at a bus stop directions to the main road south. He said "Oh that's easy", opened the passengers door and pushed in. The cheeky sod directed us to his front door! As he got out he told us how to get from his place to the main road!

Came across an article from guitar.com (I know, I feel dirty but it popped up in my feed. I don't regularly go there. Honest) that reckons a new Meteora is on the way, not just with 6 strings, but as a bass too! It's all originally from another forum, so who knows if it's true, but here's a link and some pics.... https://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=121559 I really like the Meteora shape and reckon these look cool. Just wish they were passive (maybe there's an active/passive switch?) and Fender made them outside of what looks to be the player plus line. They'd make a good design to go after the t'bird market.

That looks awesome Nick, and I'm not normally a fan of sunbursty type finishes. Recently rejoined the G&L club myself after acquiring this little treasure from Adee.

So I made a schoolboy error last night and decided against my better judgement to have a go on the LB-100 again and set the action closer to what I generally play with....what a revelation. Yes, it is just a P Bass and it always will be but it's a fabulous one at that! I bunged a set of TI's on it and it's a revelation. It also looks great too. Anyway, it's staying.

We played at a local village festival, and England had some important international footie match to play that same evening (I forget which - I wasn’t following). We were camping over so we could have a few drinks and enjoy the nice sunny afternoon. I’d brought my own little two-man tent. The rest of the band decided they’d share this big khaki tent the keyboard player assured us was brilliant. No one could figure out how to put it up, and the decision was made “let’s just watch the football and put it up later.” Later turned out to be very dark, and everyone several beers worse for wear, at which point it became obvious it wasn’t actually a tent - it was an awning for a caravan, and no way was it going to work by itself. Making the best of it they just laid down under it like a massive duvet and passed out. I crawled off to bed in my little tent just as it started raining heavily. And England got beaten after all that.

I used to book bands a number of years ago for our local "traditional" festival; gigs were to take place in a 500 capacity village hall. We had a wide variety of bands ranging from The Wurzels to Wilko Johnson and The Oysterband... The village hall committee were at best, difficult; one year (when Wilko was playing) they chained the kitchen cupboards shut so we couldn't use plates or cutlery! They also insisted on the use of a limiter, set at 90dB C weighted with the mic about 6 feet from the left PA stack. Not only that, but whoever had wired it in had only 2 sockets on stage, both connected to the limiter. This meant max possible on-stage power was just over 6kW,to include PA, backline and lights! This was before the widespread use of LEDs so the lights were more than 3kW on their own! And our PA was about 10kW too - we were believers in a quality sound, not loud but very clean, which meant headroom. However,just an unamplified gentle tap on a bass drum would set the limiter off... So we mentioned the lack of facilities to the hall comm- they said it was a council requirement,and their tame electrician pronounced our PA "too bloody loud, shouldn't need more than 1kW in there!" (for he knew all about these things). We actually asked the council, who said that they didn't require the limiter, as it was a historic thing based on a number of rather noisy and violent raves many years earlier. Comm insisted we used the 2 supplied sockets... So we agreed. However, both the sound engineer and I were electricians; we ran a length of 10mm SWA cable directly from a 63A RCBO in the consumer unit (it had the capacity, and was 3 phase), gave it a test and removed it at the end of the evening. We did this for all 8 years I was involved in the festival without the comm knowing, and without any complaints either from inside or outside the venue!

If you take a look at his career to date and philanthropic work, you realise the world would be a better place with more Blunts. And fewer Nugents.

No problem, it's here if you need it. Members of the 'Kay Restorative And Preservationists Ethical Salvage Trust' (KRAPEST) need to help each other out if possible. 😉👍

Sorry, this is a bit of a long one, but it is eventful... It’s 1990 and my Birmingham based indie band thought it would be a great idea to travel up to Bolton for a gig, on a Thursday night in January. When we set off, a few non-threatening flakes of snow pitter-pattered on the windscreen, but spirits were high. We got to the venue, climbed the stairs (of course) to the stage area and got busy setting up. Eventually, we caught sight of the landlord of the pub- a pimpled youth who looked too young to get served in a bar let alone run one. He was accompanied by an elderly lady we took to be his mother and a barmaid in her early twenties. After a while, Andy, our lead singer/guitarist went up to the baby-faced barman and asked where the PA was. Babyface pointed to two speakers, suspended from the ceiling. ‘Those are speakers’ said Andy, confused… Babyface was adamant that we should have bought a PA amp and stomped off to try and find us something ‘from out the back’. After about twenty minutes, he emerged with a desk mounted microphone about the size of a telephone directory with a curved horn protruding from it…the kind of thing a 1920s taxi controller would use. When we pointed out that Andy would have to lie on the floor and sing with one finger on the ‘talk’ button, Babyface seemed to think this was a viable option. After a while he came back with the kind of microphone that came free with a 1970s music centre. The lead was about five feet long and held together with sticky tape. To make it work, it had to be plugged into the spare input on Andy’s guitar amp which gave the vocals a certain ‘Stephen Hawking’ timbre. We also had to gaffa tape it to a cymbal stand. It was at this point, I decided to drink heavily… We struggled through our hour long set, said ‘Thank you Bolton and goodnight’ and I trotted off to see Babyface for our fee. ‘You ain’t finished. Play for another half hour or ya dunt get paid’ came the reply. I relayed this information to my colleagues and unsurprisingly it was greeted with less than joy. After a brief discussion, we decided that rather than repeat numbers we had already played, we would play the Velvet Undergrounds’ ‘Sweet Jane’ for 30 minutes exactly. I decided I needed something to make this ordeal slightly more palatable and marched to the bar and ordered two large whiskeys which I downed in about 20 seconds. Now, I was ready. Andy decided he was just going to sing and left his guitar on the stand and improvised often profane variations on one of Lou Reeds’ finest works, whilst glaring at Babyface, who seemed oblivious to it all. By now, I was steaming drunk and barely capable of playing the incredibly simple bass line. Occasionally, I would stop to steady myself on the drumkit or reach forward and steal the drinks from the table of two nice young girls, who looked at me like I was a basket case. Our drummer and guitarist diligently plugged away with murder in their eyes. Half way through the song and feeling slightly unwell, I decided I needed a rest and found a suitable place for a lie down…a ‘bench’ about 18” wide. Perfect! I gingerly manoeuvred myself into a horizontal position and continued to plunk away whilst grinning inanely and looking at the ceiling. Something felt wrong…and then it occurred to me that I was lying on the railing at the top of the staircase and to my immediate right was a thirty-foot drop to the ground floor. With all the elegance I could muster, I got back into an upright position and after EXACTLY 30 minutes, in the middle of a chorus, Andy yelled ‘STOP!’ and walked straight over to the bar for the fee. But Babyface was nowhere to be seen. Andy asked the barmaid where he was, and she opened the door to the stockroom…there was Babyface in the middle of a passionate and noisy clinch with the woman we took to be his mother. It was at that moment I decided I needed another drink. Whilst at the bar, I was slapped hard on the back by a drooling drunk – obviously feeling I was a kindred spirit – and with his face about an inch from mine he yelled that we were ‘the best thing he’d seen since Hendrix!’ Given that he looked about 30, he was either a precocious gig-goer or, more likely, King of the B*llsh*tters. Anyway, he bought me a drink and then fell down most of the stairs. The journey back was hell. At one point, three of the lads decided they needed a toilet break. Rather than pull into a service station, Andy immediately wrenched the van to the side of the road and flung open the doors. By now, the light scattering of snowflakes had turned into a blizzard and we were ankle deep in white slush. On leaving the van, the three intrepid travellers had to go down a fairly modest incline to get to the nearest tree to relieve themselves against. All well and good on the way down, but due to the weather conditions and the inebriated state they found themselves in, no one could get back to the van. They would get halfway up and then slip down like contestants on some unholy episode of ‘Total Wipeout’. I was alerted to their plight by the screams and profanities which shattered the peaceful night air. I fell out of the van to see what the commotion was, to be greeted by the sight of three soaking, mudsplattered figures yelling at me for assistance. I am not proud of this, BassChat, but I laughed so much at their condition, I was completely incapable of reaching down and pulling them up. Eventually, they scrambled back to the van and one of them punched me. Mercifully, I was the first to be dropped off at home. So, at six thirty in the morning – half an hour before I had to get up to go to work – I extracted myself woozily from the van, steadied myself against a rather lovely Oak tree on the traffic island in the middle of my street and puked over my Chelsea boots. Full of self loathing and feeling like I had moments to live, I brought my gaze upwards from my ruined footwear to be greeted by the faces of the postman, the milkman and my next door neighbour, just arriving home from the nightshift. That’s showbiz.

But the original performer doesn't always perform their bass line like on the original. eg listen to the Ox play Substitue in the 60's, 70's, and 90's. Different each time. Still awesome though

If the quotes are anything to go by, this is going to be superb! The Mighty Crim

A case in point: When Darryl Jones asked Keith Richards how a particular 'Stones bass part went, and Keith replied "you're the bass player, you tell me".

Sneak peek of the top

I'm just waiting for a quote from Ayn Rand..... then my 'quote bingo' card is complete!

Innocent posting about a potentially new bass release from MM goes south really quickly. This seems to be what BC threads do now and makes me sad. Different strokes for different folks people, just because someone doesn't like what you like, doesn't invalidate the pleasure that you derive from it (or wish to name it). Take a breath, please. As to the potential for a new JD MM bass, I feel, perhaps somewhat cynically, that it's potentially just another Jack Stratton/Sterling Ball ploy to prise money from people's wallets, but I guess that it is show 'business' and EBMM are there to make money. I should just get over my dislike for Jack Stratton.

My first thought upon seeing this new design, too. The top horn needs to extend towards the twelfth fret, otherwise with a traditional Fender-style headstock it will neck dive in a very annoying manner. This new shape will also mean that the neck will feel further away than on a traditional Fender bass when the bass is on a strap. Those things,(along with a so-so Fender preamp) were what undermined the Dimension Bass, in my opinion. It's a shame, because I think bass players would be very receptive to new designs from Fender, if only they were the right designs. If they could make it feel like a Fender there is plenty of scope for new sounds. Get it right and they would sell plenty. So many times Fender try to recycle old parts from previous experiments into so-called new models only to fail yet again.😟

“The principles underlying propaganda are extremely simple. Find some common desire, some widespread unconscious fear or anxiety; think out some way to relate this wish or fear to the product you have to sell; then build a bridge of verbal or pictorial symbols over which your customer can pass from fact to compensatory dream, and from the dream to the illusion that your product, when purchased, will make the dream come true. They are selling hope." Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited. A Joe Dart whatever won't make you play like Joe Dart. Also look up 'Final Stage Capitalism.' When manufacturers have run out of ideas, they market any old absurdity, to keep the wheels of industry turning.

There's always one band member who won't leave his car parked anywhere they decide is a 'bit dodgy'. Played with one drummer who would often unload and then disappear off to find somewhere 'safe' to park. It got so bad that he would refuse to do some gigs because he didn't want to park his car anywhere near the venue. And a singer who would turn up 2 minutes before start, go straight to the bar, arrive on stage with a pint of beer and a pint of water. Spend the first 3 songs complaining he couldn't hear himself and then have to announce his own car registration as he was parked causing an obstruction in the venue car park.

Ah - so this is just a "I don't like Vulfpeck / Joe Dart" complaint. Fair enough. They are not to your taste. Try not to let it annoy you.

This sounds like funk: This is not, far from it: It sounds like a bunch of music school students.

Got one two weeks ago , love it . Aux in was very quiet ( play along tracks ) shot email to Laney , they said it should not be , they arranged pick up ( UPS ) to check it out . Awaiting result , what more do you want from a UK company . EXCELLENT ! Overall l recon they are onto a winner here . By the way, changed the dials for some Boss ones - can see them better now .

My Gas is affecting the particular 5 string bass I want but it doesn't mean the motivation and commitment isn't there. The whole reason for this is that learning to play a 5 string is something I have been putting off for a while. In our last rehearsal I had to detune to D standard for one song and it would have all just been much easier with a 5 string. I will be staying at home for a couple of weeks from Monday so its the perfect time to do it as I'll have plenty of time. You don't know me but the reason I started learning bass in the first place was a desire to learn and the constant learning keeps me going.

If you play fretless it's a rare munter that will approach you for a loan. Bump it up to 5er and the potential drops to near zero.

Directions to gigs seems to be another rich seam of tales. My mates band was playing in Dundee and when they couldn’t find the venue they stopped and asked a character for directions. He said he was going that way and offered to jump in the van and direct from there. When he got in, he took one look at the keyboard player who had long hair and a beard - I can’t do the accent but this character says “Christ, you’re a hairy b@stard”, which didn’t get him off to a very good start. So, they set off and after a short while he says “turn left”. They went on a bit further and he says “turn left” again and a little bit further after that he says “turn left” again. One of the lads says “if he says turn left one more time I’m going to lamp him”. Sure enough a bit later he says “turn left” and the other lad says to him “you don’t really know where you’re going do you?” to which he admitted that he didn’t. What a chancer!

So finally got time to reshuffle and with a bit of Jiggery pockery, managed to fit another pedal on the board. So in the synth loop, after the Frantabit I have put a Copilot Orbit - Frequency Modulated Fuzz- An outrageously cool pedal which has 2 sections and a blend to move between them. On the left is a Gated fuzz, in the vein of a Mastatron/Wooly Mammoth. The right hand side has a VCO/ Ring Modulator, which just makes these mad, synthy laser gun sounds, which can also be controlled with an Expression pedal (must get one, no two). This version appears to have been modded with a clean blend, although I don't use it as not needed.

This apparently Tilt is a dynamic, powerful SEE SAW EQ control. This control has a central neutral position. Turning the control clockwise increases the overall mid to high frequencies and decreases the lows thereby giving your sound more presence, which can be useful for cutting through live band situations. Turning the control anti clockwise reduces the overall mid to high frequencies and increases the lows making your overall sound rounder. I turned it a little more to the mid lows, just a smidge, gave me a nicer smoother low end, not too much though.

@Grimalkin - have you got anything constructive to say of your own? Anyone can pull quotes out, if they so wish.....

There’s not really much point in debating the merit of a band/artist/comedian etc. if they have an audience they have merit.

The good news is that it's a 120V, 50/60Hz transformer so a step-down transformer will work just fine. That replacement power transformer in 230V is going to be an expensive part, and in a vintage amp will probably reduce its value to a collector.

Just got back, sounded F@ckin' brilliant, The Mosfet input is especially nice and The Tube breaks up lovely. That tilt function is very useful. Very happy and it's silent when not in use as well.

Continuing the subject of power supply... I can go far enough back to when we used to take a bagful of all sorts of plugs with a common 13amp socket so we could connect to whatever the hall/pub had pre ring main. We also had an earth rod to hammer into the ground if required. By 1966 I was playing with a very good five piece with two saxes, keys, bass, drums. We had a weekly gig at a country club outside Reading where we’d play a jazz/ bop set before the interval and then a rock set afterwards. Various people would come and sit in, including a vibraphone player who was an eye surgeon by day. Power was provided by a single cylinder ‘thumper’ generator and I considered it advisable to stand on a rubber mat to keep the tingles away when I played bass guitar. The vibes player used to complain that his rotors turned slowly on this particular gig. When a guitarist sat in he reckoned he was getting distortion in his amp. So he put an AVO across the supply and we were getting not much more than 120 volts! I remember going up to Tottenham Court Road where they had all sorts of component shops and getting a step up transformer which got us to 240 volts and clear sound on the PA. One Saturday evening we played a big do at REME Arborfield. There were two massive marquees, bright lights all rigged by the army and powered by a massive generator that appeared to be powered by a Spitfire engine! We set up and proceeded to play. After a while I got the distinct whiff of wet paint. I hadn’t realised they’d painted the marquee, or so I thought. The paint smell got stronger and all of a sudden there were dense acrid white clouds of smoke that caused a complete evacuation. What had happened was that the guy who carried our electrical gear thought, ah, generator and put the step up into our feed. So a very strong 240v was going into a primary that was expecting 120v and in no time cooked the lot. Surprisingly none of our gear was damaged, apart from the step up which ended up as a charred mess. After a while the gig continued as though nothing had happened.

Elvis Costello - Pump It Up