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Well… got a full inbox off that of which 4 different replies where there’s interesting stuff I’ll record bass over and see how I feel. I’ve got a week off work, so it’ll keep me busy, and off the ale - that’s a new thing, massive reduction in booze. Possibly explains changeable moods. I appreciate all the comments and perspectives. The wife is also supportive “you can’t not play Trav, that’s part of who you are” etc. which is nice.

Spurred on by this thread… that “thing with old strings” I recorded https://on.soundcloud.com/CaawHCXeeB1A2gmN7 for the curious.. and seems I want to give something a go

We did our 2Young2Old gig at my favourite old dive downtown again. One of the founding guitar players has returned to Boston to finish his music degree , so we have a new youngin in the lineup , things went well. No real rehearsal , just a list of songs to listen to. We’ll be back at the end of next month. And try to get a real rehearsal in too. The kids are enthusiastic , jumping up on tables and stuff. The old guys don’t have to bother with that. It works.

Our set seemed to go down well at last night’s Jam Night - the crowd joining in and plenty of good comments. We had 2 or 3 new bands turned up, including one from one of the local sixth form colleges for whom it was only their 2nd time playing live. It’s good to see kids performing live and looking like they are enjoying it. Which is more than can be said for me in this one - I was having to concentrate too much on the bass line, so forgot to provide much in the way of backing vocals and didn’t manage to smile once😃😃😃. https://youtu.be/n_CpuEX8P3g?si=2NKuvaoqPktgdt8q

Seemed to go down really well, plenty of mistakes on my part, especially the brain fart where I completely blanked the intro to one song. Played our new song for the first time live, and that went down really well.

Afternoon all! When Knower Forever came out on Bandcamp it absolutely blew my mind. I’ve loved them for years but this record went to the next level. One song in particular stood out for me - Do Hot Girls Like Chords. I obsessively tried to work it out by ear from the record - no easy task given the amount of stuff going on - two keyboards, bass and guitar doing all kinds of stuff sorta/kinda in unison. I knew they’d recorded it live so I thought it would be interesting to compare what I’d worked out by ear with what Sam Wilkes was actually doing when I could see the YouTube video. Needless to say, as soon as I saw it I had to go back to the drawing board. Wilkes is a brilliant player and although Mononeon gets a lot of the attention for his performances on the record, Sam’s stuff is absolutely incredible. Anyway, I did a YouTube cover mainly to give myself a target to aim for and a bit of accountability to help me keep working at it. Have a look and let me know what you think - I’m currently able to play the verse chromatic riff right about 80% of the time on a good day which I’m ok with, but any tips on how in god’s name to play Wilkes’ fill out of the solo section will be most gratefully received. Anyone else enjoy trying to learn stuff way out of their comfort zone, obsessing to the point where you neglect family, personal hygiene etc? ✊

Shame about the white washers! 🤣

Bit of a rubbish picture but it shows I'm back owning a short scale again 🙂 no going back this time! I got this messed about with Squier CV Mustang in a trade, I can get a really nice recorded sound with the tone rolled off a bit and it plays really well so I'm more than happy, if only it was white 😄

Well I’ve found a really decent indie thing - reminds me of Echo And The Bunnymen. going to do them some demos tonight - feels like a change will be as good as a rest, instead of “let’s play funky stuff”

Ok, it was yesterday, or maybe the day before... Cheap and pretty damned cheerful! After some basic tweaks, it played well. Will do a more extensive setup once the Fender 9050 flats turn up. Squier Sonic Precision Bass in California Blue.

It might be worth having at look at Laney Amps shop on ebay to see what is currently available. They have had a fair bit of bass gear on there recently, mostly new old stock. I recently got hold of these brand new 2x10 Atom/Nexus cabs for about £200 each. La Voce speakers, 400 watt rms each, lightweight at 17kg, very well made. Can do landscape or portrait.

This afternoon, Blues At Barleylands, 2pm start. Local gig for me, which makes a change. No A12 involved!! Here's a snip from their Fb page.

After a long time thinking about it and flip flopping on choice of a new bass, I spotted this online and it instantly drew all my attention. I have looked at Btb's for several years and nearly bought one in the USA a few years back. I always thought i could never do an instrument like this any justice when it came to playing. It turns out i don't care 🤷‍♂️ Still playing around with the mid frequency switch and discovering what it does. So far it's incredible , nicely set up straight from the box , neeeearly in tune with one or two strings needing a tweak only. 5 string is entirely new to me and so is multi scale and i have to say i'm loving both. That low B string...oh man that sounds goooood. Clear as a bell , meaty as hell. Love me some beef. The sounds it can push out are punishing my little 25W orange amp , the poor little 8" speaker was farting its life away at a tiny tweak of bass boost with the amp eq flat. Good enough reason for something else i reckon 😬 Here are the obligatory pictures , the only i have taken so far

It's like what my Mum would think Squarepusher sounded like if I tried to explain it to her and she could will the music into existence. Is this a good thing? Is it a bad thing ? Only Mum knows.

Sounds like 'Heavy Weather' era Weather Report. Not everyone's cup of tea but I wouldn't say it's all that odd for a bass player to take inspiration from that particular band.

Young Parisiens - Adam and The Ants

I was with the last band for nearly a year. Just sick of rotating the same dozen songs, the vetoing of new material, not jamming etc. Suppose this is what it must be if you're just a backing musician. Interestingly, the singer has lost his whole band in the last ten weeks. This probably says a lot for what we were sold Vs the actual reality.

So the full album is out... And much to my surprise it's bloody good! Maybe not ground-breaking, but that's not the point. If this is a last hurrah then it's a great way to stick two fingers up to old age and just make a proper old-style Rolling Stones album with modern tech.

I used my Squier CV Mustang Bass last night at rehearsal, with the tone backed off to about 60/70% it pretty much matches the tone of my JMJ Mustangs.

I've just joined a Fleetwood Mac tribute band so a simple rig is what's needed now. I had about 4 weeks to learn the book before the gig which was fine. I've stripped my pedal board down to a TC tuner and a SansAmp VT DI. I played my Limelight "Pino" all night but took my '89 Ray as a spare. I'm working on getting a bitsa P as my back-up. I used my trusty Little Mark II amp and Barefaced 2x12 cab. I bought a Xvive wireless IEM system to go with my ZS10s and everything worked & sounded great. We have lots of gigs booked & a great drummer so I'm looking forward to treading the boards again after a quiet 2022 & 23.

Busy week for me. Last Monday night the seven piece swing band rehearsed for a couple of upcoming gigs including one that features some Christmas swing arrangements that are challenging in a few places. On Wednesday it was a jam with a couple who used to be touring folkies and are wonderful finger picking guitarists and among other things we worked out a nice arrangement of Ashokan Farewell, I learned that sometimes less is more in terms of bass parts. I enjoy jamming with them, intricate guitar arrangements and they both have great voices and have worked out good harmonies. On Thursday I had a rehearsal with a bluegrass band I have played with at a couple of festivals, we are working on material for next summer. Unfortunately the leader will be off to spend the winter in Florida soon so we are working now because he will be gone from mid November until April. Friday afternoon I had my DB lesson and we worked through some material I will be playing with my teacher's youth orchestra in December. I just started weekly lessons with the bow a year ago and my teacher is amazed at the progress I have made and so am I, I should have done this years ago. I am old but he adds several of his adult students for a few pieces to fill out the cello and bass section of his youth orchestra and it is a lot of fun and a challenge, the last concert was one of my best gigs ever, next one is in December. For my lesson I play my Shen SB 100 but I use my Yamaha SLB 200 and Acoustic Image amp for the others.

Pimp It Up Elvis Costello

Reviving this thread with my recently acquired 1973 4000-to-4001 conversion. Loads of mods (tuners, bridge, bezel, controls and extra pickup) but loving it - even the crudely carved "Crue" in the body! Nice slim neck and ultra low tension TI strings to suit my knackered left hand.

It's like aggressive elevator music. "And here's Scott Devine's new band Rage Against The Elevator with their single 'Know Your Floor'"

We played a surreal event at a golf club last night. German pop 'music', picnic benches indoors, bangers and mash, some people in fancy dress, oh, and us in a big empty room while the punters sat in an adjacent room watching rugby.

Well, if you don't understand no matter how hard you work then it is safe to say you don't like them. Which is fair enough and no need to feel bad about it in my opinion. There is no way one can like everything and quite frankly mot everything is good. But then there are some considerations that are interesting IMO in terms of what conclusions to draw. So, I agree art should please us and make us want to go back for more. But it does not mean that you have to like it the first time around. I am sure that, like everybody, it happened to you that you did not like something, then years later something clicked and you started liking it. I figured out that maybe I like Jamiroquai less than a year ago. They used to irritate me. Now, I am not meaning here that Scott's album is a masterpiece and one day you'll get it. I still have to listen to the album properly. They make me think of Gary Willis' Tribal Tech a bit. Which I don't get. But then I love Gary Willis solo (eg Bent). You replace the aggressive guitar with a fiery sax and suddenly it works for me. There is music of the kind played by Scott that I can confidently say it's just good. Not everybody has to like it but that goes for everything. As it happens, I do not get Twomby either. But I do seem to get stuff that at first sight is just as minimalistic and abstract such as Fontana, Kounellis and Klein. It pleases me and make me wsnt more. While I seem not to get stuff that on paper seem less abstract and complex such as Hirst. So I think the fact that Twombly is not our cup of tea does not mean there's anything wrong with making stuff that's minimalistic and abstract. It's just a matter of whether it's good or not, and whether we click with it or not

Do you understand what a bright sound is? It’s the opposite of that 🙂. hope that helps 👍

I hear you. Listen, I'm a jazz fan, along with metal, dub, funk, Britpop (😉) etc etc... a vast array of different genres.... I'm a music fan, like most of us are. I love fusion.... Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, Jamiroquai, (early) Level 42 etc... some amazing stuff there. I also love art and poetry. However, there are, for example some works of art and poetry that make me work too hard to understand. I want to understand, but no matter how hard I work, I don't get it. There's nothing for me, intellectually, to grab on to. It makes me feel like I'm too stupid to get it, and gets my back up. That's how I feel about this music. In my opinion, art should make you feel good and make you want to go back for more. For me, this art makes me feel like a Cy Twombly painting. Confused and irritated.

It's worth having a look on Ebay for PMPO in titles and descriptions, just for a laugh. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/125986388583 Output power: 600 watts PMPO RMS: 2x 2.5W

Well, it's fusion. I have listened to two songs only, just coming back from seeing a band live, I really do not have an opinion on it yet. But I must say why I adore some fusion albums, it's not very many and rarely that's the case when the guitar player clearly likes their metal (nothing against "normal metal though"). That being said, in my opinion, any consideration on this album should be made in the context of its genre. If someone doesn't like fusion they won't like this full stop. Same way there's no chance I'd like a Britpop album. There's part of BC that seem to find it hilarious that some musicians study music, build chops and god forbid try to push the boundaries of what can be done on the instrument - or at least move to the vicinity of those boundaries, as I think it's more the case here. Not a comment on the OP, to be clear.

In the flat field. Bauhaus

I think of a dark sound being something like a Gibson Thunderbird without much treble on the amp.

Love this tune:

I think you'll find there expert at the fiddle

Good to know. going to dust off the fretless too - be foolish to go in with something comfortable… 🥴😂

Dive - Cardiacs

...that the Volumes will go up to 11 ?

The Penis Mightier Than The Sword - Van Morrison

When fusion bands play live, are they on torus ?