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Did our final gig last night before a 3 week summer break at Sunderland Empire theatre. It’s another great old place, opened in 1907, which has retained all of it’s period charm in the theatre itself whilst having modern backstage facilities, making it probably my favourite venue we are lucky enough to visit. The crew and staff here are the best , and always a pleasure to work with. The theatre has a capacity of nearly 2000 (seated over 4 levels), and we had around 1500 in so a good atmosphere, especially since a few punters had been to the nearby football stadium to watch their team play in a friendly match against Majorca, and had a few drinks afterwards. The gig itself was fine, good sounding room and band played well too. Back home for 1pm with no travel issues, getting to be a rare occurrence.

Four gigs in four days. All weddings and a ton of driving involved. Weds - (Kent) really uneventful and reserved with most people thinking about work the following day. Thurs - (Manchester) Friendly and enthusiastic crowd. LGBTW wedding with a really cool vibe. Had a lot of fun. Fri - (Stratford On Avon) Bride was lovely, Groom was a grade a **** who was far more interested in getting hammered with his football mates and being as obnoxious as possible. Completely ignored his new wife all night and at the end of the night had to be carried out of the venue. Sat - (Cambridgeshire) everything that's good about being in a wedding band. Lovely couple, great food (proper wedding cake), big enthusiastic crowd and a friendly venue. Also got to meet basschatter @silverfoxnik on the way up who has been an absolute legend and is helping me get a few (rather heavy) bits to another basschatter this week. Time to reintroduce myself to my wife and kids today and cook some nice food and enjoy some family time.

Getting back on the horse during recovery from a bit of surgery at the end of June, so a nice local gig just outside Sheffield to get me back into it. The place was distinctly quiet when we were setting up and the landlord was indicating that it was hit or miss for crowd numbers at this time of year. Thankfully the place filled up nicely and we played 2 spots to a packed room. I refrained from Foxton style moves though 🤣. The punters enjoyed the show so hopefully we’ll see a return in the new year.

Cheers Dave, we never take doing great venues for granted though. The band has now been going for over 17 years, and I’ve been with them for over 12. During that time we’ve done a fair few dives and places we’d rather forget, so it is nice to be able to play gigs which are better suited now to a bunch of old geezers ( not including our string section in that of course!). Having said that, I’m playing at a nice old music pub in Beverley later today with my acoustic duo. Still get a massive buzz from doing small gigs where the audience are near, and can see myself doing that for as long as I continue playing.

When it's a Sandberg California Central of course! I had a 4-string StingRay for years, and I absolutely love the distinctive sound of a StingRay, but I haven't played 4-string basses for ages now so it was sitting in it's case doing nothing, so I decided to move it on, along with an un-played '58RI Precision, then instantly regretted it! I toyed with the idea of buying another 4-string StingRay, but there would be literally no point as it would never get played, so I've been looking for a replacement StingRay in 5-string flavour. I cannot be doing with the pickguards on 5-string StingRay's so those were out of the running from the get-go. I picked up a 5-string H/S Bongo, which is a great bass, but doesn't have that StingRay sound. So I looked at the Lakland Skyline 55-02 (which is another great instrument - so good that I bought two!) but again doesn't quite do that StingRay sound. Then in walked the California Central... While I was in the shop trying it out I A/B'd it against a 4-string StingRay and a 5-string StingRay , both 3-band EQ like the Sandberg, through a MarkBass combo and then through headphones, and if you were blindfolded I guarantee you would not be able to tell the difference, it's so convincing at mimicking a StingRay. The build quality is excellent, the finish is superb, it comes with a substantial soft shell case, I love that the treble control doubles as a passive tone control while in passive mode, and I love the smoked chrome hardware, but I really wish it had an ebony fingerboard as opposed to pao ferro - it just looks odd. And seeing as I'm nitpicking, I also don't like the massive exposed truss rod route (it's not what you would call subtle!), and there are too many adjustment points on the bridge - each saddle has 5 adjustment screws! Anyway, I can live with the minor niggles as I've now found a bass that scratches my itch - it's half the price of an actual EB MM StingRay and sounds exactly the same. What's not to like!

May have already been posted but it’s the first time I’ve come across a short scale Gibson Thunderbird. Limited edition run of 400 circa 2011.

Well I got the gig (had to learn 11 original songs) and the guitarist told me that the effect in the OP was some sort of Big Muff

Looks like I’ll be rejoining the Short Scale club again, new (to me) shorty bass inbound. Looks an interesting thing too, never see one before. Details to follow 🙂

Hi Dave, I can almost say we no longer play bar/oub gigs. There are so many fair and festival gig opportunities in the summer we can afford to pass on bar gigs. We get a theatre gig once in a blue moon. On 9/ 16 we're playing The AL Ringling Theatre in Baraboo WI. Daryl

Here are my two black basses 🙂 Lakland Skyline 55-02 Sandberg California Central

A tuner for myself, then whatever the guitar player could use. Oh wait, a fantasy desert island? No guitar player then! 😉

It was ok! First one since 17th June with 4 Play (🙈). Black Bull, Kirton. Landlady wants us back next year. Crowd seemed happy enough, but some rust showing in places - the guitarist doesn’t play in other bands whereas the rest of us are out most weekends with other bands and it shows. But overall, ok! Some sort of pub slash caravan site next. Hellooooo Holbeach Hurn! Beer and nuts time now 👏🏻

Mine was just insane. I took the covers band I play for to my local, where I’ve played literally hundreds of times with other acts and all my mates go etc etc. It’s much smaller than our usual venues, so I knew it would be a squeeze, but I was totally unprepared for the sight that greeted me when I arrived! Cases and cables were just everywhere, it was utter carnage. We started playing and a few songs in, the power to our area died. It took ten minutes to get it back on and the router connected to the iPad for the Xair mixer again. Next song - the mic stand on the guitar amp just randomly collapsed…and the guitarist’s board locked up and had to be restarted. Then the power went off again. Another ten minutes later we were back in business (again) - when the singer’s acoustic battery ran out. Engineer ran up and switched it while he switched out to electric for a song. Back to acoustic again for the next song and his transmitter failed…so the engineer switched it for a cable mid song… …which failed in the next song. Then the drummer threw up all over his kit…. A lot. I mean a LOT. Then he did it again….and again…so much it splattered my bass as it bounced back off the snare head. The entire kit and drum mat was just coated in the stuff. And the walls. And the drummer. And basically everything else. We stopped. Singer did an acoustic song to finish the show whilst the drummer went white and scraped chunks off his kit…Gig was over. … Until the drummer decided to keep going, and so we pressed on and did three more songs with the poor lad looking very peaky and a tremendous smell hanging over us... Show must go an’ all! Crowd loved it, we had a great time and are being rebooked for a higher fee. We’ve not had a single issue at a gig in three years. I think all three years’ worth of minor niggles caught up with us in one night! Sorry, no pics, the pub was too full of people dancing for the engineer to even see the band and we were all busy dodging chunks!

Meet the family! MkV AH150 head MkV AH250 head MkV 1048 cab MkV 1518 cab Boxer 65 combo ELF head 2x ELF 2x8 cabs

Generally I'm not a massive fan of pointy basses, but there's something about the Explorer shape that I really like. I would love an Aria ZZB.

Funk is a broad church but there’s some stuff that people classify as funk, that is definitely too smooth or slick to be properly dirty and funky. I’d take the raw stuff every time. Poets Of Rhythm for instance: or The Fabulous Counts: or Mickey & The Soul Generation: or The Wax Preachers: maybe Jungle Fire: or Cymande: or Leo Nocentelli from The Meters: ...and the obvious J.B’s, Sly & The Family Stone, early Parliament, Maceo & The Macks, Marva Whitney, Lyn Collins etc. I used to DJ in funk and soul clubs and things like Placebo (the 70s band) might be just on the right side of the jazz-funk thing and keep the dancers dancing but something like Steely Dan would clear the dance floor and you’d lose the crowd. Same thing with Prince or Cameo or something like that. But you could easy bring them back again with an Ike & Tina Turner 45... The bass on a lot of these kinds of records is often distorted and hard to cop exactly right without headphones on. And whether or not they’d make it into a “Funk Classics” study book, I couldn’t say. But they’re all funky AF.

You'll need to know some Parliament/Funkadelic/Bootsy'sRubberBand!

Final got the neck in to finish this bass, it’s a standard burst squier vm jazz, but I fitted a Avedissian T bird pickup in the bridge, even added some black pickguard screws! And the standard for me upgrade to a high mass bridge. obviously the main change is the aluminium neck from Baguley, custom spec’d to have reverse headstock and block inlays!!

Bargain price for a signature model. 😁

Diversification has already started, apparently

And don't forget the GoGo crew...

Ooh, colour me (and no doubt others) intrigued.

Can’t see the Stratford On Avon marriage lasting very long, the guy sounds an absolute chocolate starfish.

Never owned or even played one of those but that’s what I would take to a deserted island if money and availability was no problem.

45? haha how I remember those halcyon days..haha. Did my last turn at 61 two yrs ago and packed it all in and gone back to my classical roots. My problem was the amount of 'new' music people want to play, not enough melody and good writing for my tastes, but man, you've got years ahead doing the bass thing. Go for it.

Mildje!: My project almost 20 years ago with 3 basses and 1 drummer and a single track of 45 minutes named Stuyvenbergh (which means mountain of dust in ancient Dutch) and subtitled Arhythmic Deconstruction... It says enough. 6 months of rehearsal for a unique concert that was sold out...

It's quite simple - if you're not playing a song then STFU. Save the noodling for the bedroom or maybe initial setup gear check. Sound check is not the place for it, let alone during the gig I'm so glad that I have the guitarist I do

Today at a festival in Dorset, gagglefest (due to it being the gaggle of geese). Did an hour between 2-3pm, when it threatened to rain but didn't so people could sit out. it was a bit early, had some dancing but not as much as you would get later. Were told that the venue were laying on a PA with a sort of implication it was a PA company, but turned out that one of the other bands from later were putting on the PA, and it was considerably smaller than ours! Last year a group laid the PA on and it was massive. this time there wasn't any micing for the drums and no monitoring, so couldn't hear anything. Sort of sounded ok out the front with no real drumming. Still, I didn't have to worry about it and it was nice being like the guitarist for once and just turning up with an amp, pedalboard and bass. But my bass was pretty clear, so that was nice! Still, got to love a full paying 1 hour gig in the afternoon where you can get home before the shops shut and have food at home!

A Short is usually a single, I prefer a double. Both pickups were sourced here on Basschat along with the Lakland bridge and Schaller tuners. The Hipshot bridge and tuners were direct from the States. Both made by J Douglas Guitars in Leeds. First was the multi coloured, so pleased with that I asked John to make another. Both are a bit unusual. The gold one is absolutely thunderous, so deep its fantababoomulous!!! If you fancy something a little different then talk to John.

Enjoying watching the 2012 BBC performance. Great band, DB looking like he’s enjoying himself, his voice is terrific and the audience are loving it. Sadly let down by the music stand to his right. Amateur.

Well, I think with the xr18 it's a bang for buck thing. Not a lot out there, if anything, doing the same thing for the money.

So true. People listen to live music with their ears and their eyes so instruments, staging, band members appearance and antics and other visuals are all part of the "music" for the average audience members, musicians in the crowd will usually see and hear something quite different. I use my EUB for rehearsals but almost always play DB at gigs, it is an attention getter and just looks better, especially, at the jazz or bluegrass gigs that I play.

… and you could definitely lose yourself in this. It’s in E. Just E.

Tumblin' Dice(d Carrots) - Rolling Stones

This book is highly recommended https://www.alfred.com/the-funkmasters-the-great-james-brown-rhythm-sections-1960-1973/p/00-MMBK0061CD/ James brown classics with bass drums and guitars notated

Music is therapy! Spent the morning with the kids, two gigs in the afternoon and evening and I feel a new person.

Whilst loving doing venues like Sheffield CH, I’d always be be more chuffed if I was doing them with an originals band like a lot of people on here. We’ve been fortunate in that there are still lots of people who want to hear ELO’s music and the theatre environment seems to suit them ( and us!). We do the occasional festival too - e.g Camper Calling at Ragley Hall in August - but theatres are our mainstay really.

I was a bit worried initially but it’s changed how I play and opened up huge opportunities.

Gotta love this..

I had that on cassette, needed to buy it a few times as I kept wearing them out. Saw Prince in London with the Lovesexy tour, fantastic show. Proudly wore the tour shirt at punk gigs for years afterwards. Still listen to the Black Album on a regular basis, copy I got in Camden had 'Royalty' on the label. Love this track.

Prince rocked. Simple as.

So, in NZ and Wales, sheep have another thing to be nervous of. Sorry

Yes, indeed, anyone can start their own topic of stuff they would like to share. Soooooo, just to keep the ball rolling along here, here's another of my 'top' selection...

New toy... just bought it yesterday as a substitute for the 4-string StingRay that I sold a few months back. If you were blindfolded I'd defy you to tell the difference between this and a StingRay, it's that good!

I’m more wondering is some of those old big box electro harmonix pedals would be big enough to work as a canoe and get off the desert island? otherwise do you think it would be possible to get the Hudson broadcast to actually broadcast?