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A few years back, I interviewed Paul Belgrado, a Belgian luthier who makes amazing basses. A bit retro looking and amazing craftsmanship. His basses have always been at the back of my mind somehow. Until last week, when I met him at the Dutch Double Bass Festival. I played one of his basses and was immediately sold. So, somewhere this week, this baby is going to enter my house. Specs: Thermo alder body, maple neck, madagascar rosewood fretboard, TV Jones Thunderblade pickups, Hipshot hardware, pearloid inlay and Luminlay sidedots. It's so light, so easy to play and it sounds so killer. Like a Jazz Bass but just a little bit fatter.

Saturday afternoon's adventure. My blues rock trio Toredown played a little blues club in Billericay called 'Blues at Barleylands'. They rent a social club every Saturday afternoon and put on blues acts - sometimes pro-acts that are on tour. We'd not played there before so didn't quite know what to expect - the deal is you get door money after they take out expenses but apparently guaranteed to get £300. The place itself is what you'd expect a small social club in the sticks to be like, a little bit jaded. Lots of tables and seating, large bar. Easy load in from the dedicated car park via the fire door. Slightly raised corner stage, lots of power points behind black sheets. Covered pool table for us to stash our cases. We arriveds early, set up and sound checked before most of the people turned. Who then kept on turning up, I reckon there were around 60 people when we kicked off - not capacity but busy for a small place. Well, what a reaction! To say we got a rapturous response would be an understatement. I know the band are good but the genre is rather love it or hate it. In the past we've played pubs and gone down like a lead balloon. We have our monthly residency at a music pub and that is brilliant but still get the occasional idiot distracting us. This lot, being a dedicated blues club, totally loved it. Huge cheers after every song (after most guitar solos, too), at the end people wouldn't let us get on with packing up, kept coming up to us wanting to chat. Even with me! Such a diffrent vibe from playing in a pub. No drunk tw@t shouting for Wonderwall. No drunks, in fact. At the end we were handed an envelope containing £500 - a much bigger payday than usual - and we sold some CDs, too. Absolutely fantastic. Post gig some lovely comments on their Fb page. They immediately booked us again for next year, too, promising a packed crowd as word gets around. I used my recently acquired Gibson SG - my go-to now - straight into the desk via a TC Spectradrive. Sounded good, really sits in the mix. Obligatory pic. Looks like I am doing a mic swallowing act.

Our acoustic duo played this evening at what is now approaching a residency at The Lookout , situated on West Pier in Scarborough. The recent storms fortunately subsided so a mild evening with plenty of people around the sea front. Usual requests led set list from the capacity audience, with plenty of variety to keep us on our toes. We also had a bloke in from the PRS, who needed to know which songs we were playing, and seemed amazed that we didn’t know until we got started! Highlights included ’This Masquerade’, ‘Fire and rain’, ‘Watermelon Sugar’ and ‘Wichita Lineman’ amongst many others. I absolutely love playing this venue, the audience are all there to listen as well as help with the song selection, and are very appreciative of our efforts. We’ve just been given another half a dozen or so gigs there for early 2024, along with a couple of Xmas parties too so pleased we’re part of their ongoing business. The pier is being developed soon to be focal point of the harbour area, with shops and bars/eateries planned. The Lookout is going to be extended which will mean more tables / covers , so should hopefully ensure that our gigs there will continue.

Satdy night pub gig up in the sticks Nelson way, main road, no car park, but I cared not a jot as my load-in these days is a rucksack with leads and Stomp, and my bass case. Just as well, there wasn't much room for the band. It was quietish (I suspect would've been even quieter without the rugby on) early, we were scheduled for a 10pm start, but the landlady asked us if we could go on at half past 'because it gets busy after that'...I looked at her skeptically, but it turns out it was one of those pubs where it's the last place open (1:30am closing) in the locality, so people end up there...sure enough, by 11 it was banging, which made a change from the last few evenings of sparsely-attended indifference we've had of late...it's also nice to see a well-run pub can still make live music work... Inears were, as always, a joy, and I was packed up and loaded in the now-traditional three minutes, which made the 35-mile trip home a lot easier...

Quiet night for the Sunday Jam in the bar we call the Land of Dreams. Wet , and soggy. Rain and drizzle. We did’t get the regular crowd but had some good players. An old friend is getting back to playing bass , so it was lovely to have him up. The days are numbered in the old dive , it will change location in January. Parking and loading will not be as easy in the new location. It’s just a mid sized room and just vocals are in the PA. I can easily fill the room with a single 12 in cab. A Bergantino HDN , usually powered with a Forte head (the first version without the drive) and a tube preamp. I brought two basses , a Dano Longhorn from the first batch of reissues , and a vintage UniVox HiFlier Mosrite copy. The Dano still has the factory strings and has a wonderful old school thump , the Flier has some not too old chrome flats. Sometimes I will bring a Yamaha Samurai. I seem to have become a cheap bass , nice amp kind of guy. I’m ok with that.

Keep getting drawn towards the Euro LX in the matte black stain. I love the finish and the all black hardware. Lovely looking bass. Having said that, the new gold and blue colours on the Euro Classic are pretty fantastic too

Wroot Rocks in Wroot near Doncaster on Friday night. It wasn't packed but there were plenty in. Apparently quite a few couldn't make it due to closed roads etc. caused by the weather. Abdoujaparov were on first and I loved it. It's just super tight, quirky rock and roll really, but a great show. They're fronted by Les Carter of Carter USM fame and he's a lovely bloke. Our set went really well, we sold plenty of merch and signed lots of stuff so that's a win. The promoter here really takes care of the bands with food and drink etc. A long drive back in the rain managed to kill the van not long after the dropped me off. I really hate the van, nicknamed Vantanamo for it's lack of leg room, cupholders, fans in the back... the list goes on, so fingers crossed this is terminal and we can get something I actually fit in! Here's a terrible low light photo from just before we started. Saturday in Corby at the Ex Servicemen's Club, which was very "pheonix nights". The venue was too big for the audience really, only about 40 people turned up, which is cool in a small venue, but this was a big old room with loads of horrible echoes. It sounded alright anyway, and everyone seemed to love it.

Depped for a covers band on Saturday. I had agreed to dep for New Year’s Eve and a few weeks back was given a set list of 42 songs, of which I knew 6, had played another 10 once and the rest were completely new to me. Given the 3 month lead time, I was taking it easy learning one or two a week, until they contacted me last week to say they had a gig lined up for the 21st and their regular bassist was going to be in the US sorting out a family crisis. Somehow we fitted in two rehearsals beforehand and I did the gig on Saturday with chord sheets on my iPad. Amazingly, it went pretty well with me remembering most of the intro and must do cbass lines and jamming the rest. The punters at the village hall we played in the Norfolk Broads, were very complimentary and there were loads of dancers. No action shots but one of setting up below. All in all a great experience and good preparation for New Year’s Eve, despite 2 pm bedtime.

Indeed. And at 40 mpg you’re only losing £3 each trip!

Based on my own experience, I'd say learn to play the music you like, first, by whatever means stimulates you. There is no right way other than the one which keeps you interested. You can move on the becoming the new Jancko Pansaurdius later, but start by finding the joy in playing music first.

Day Kipper - The Beatles

Handed my 414 over to a well-regarded local tech for a fret dress and setup (she's earned me lots of money over the last year, including being the House Bass at a regular weekly jam night (tho this has now finished)), and picked her up Satdy before my gig, and she plays and sounds as well as anything I've ever owned. If she was a pound lighter (and I wasn't such a collector) I could probably sell everything else...

My rant; Just another thought for perspective. I'm 70 and I brag a lot about the fact that I'm still gigging 65 shows annually. However, it's because I'm in a good, smart band. Are we the best local band, no, but we're one of the smartest. We do things that are right for us. For those who follow my posts, you know I'm an advocate for good people over good musicians. I'm also into " good decisions ". For example, we've been around since 2007. We've been through the 3 gig weekends and the 4 hour bar gigs that are still prevalent in the States. When I say we're smart, I mean we're smart enough to know we've outgrown late night bar gigs. We've also avoided band drama and turmoil. Many of those band dynamics, drama, band turmoil and bad bookings contribute to guys giving up. It's not because they don't like gigging or being in a band but more not liking their particular negative band circumstances including age, medical and physical issues. I'll stop when walking on stage is no longer physically possible or no fun anymore. I can't really imagine it not being fun. Blue

Dace Like These - Low

The telly on showing the footie drives me bonkers. You can usually find the on/off switch of that particular telly and turn it off. Nice Ampeg rig btw

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I would imagine that they would actually just assume you are lazy! I arrive, get all the stuff from the car, set up the PA, do the gig, break down the PA, load the car. If the drummer is there, I help him with the drum kit from the car and back to the car and he helps with the PA. The singer also carries stuff from the car and back, and does a little of the PA setup. The guitarist does FA. Because he is lazy. He stands around chatting.

Bluetooth has too much latency for real-time audio transmission. There will be a noticeable delay between you plucking a string and hearing the note in your headphones.

I'm not a great bass player, however I know how to pick the right band for me to play with and I'm pretty sure I know how to be in a band. My rule of thumb, always be positive and keep your mouth shut . Daryl

It's Ricky ～ Run DMC By no means an affirmation of R2's spurious claim..

Bluetooth headphones themselves not great for playing bass through, you get quite a delay, but connecting your music via bluetooth with some other headphones, that is an easy enough thing to do

D H L Better know as Drop, Hide, Lose

We played a gig once where they had forgotten to put the telly behind us off (sound was off though). Was on rolling news and something significant had happened in the Russia/Ukraine war so it was quite ominous to have Putin looking over our shoulders at various intervals...

I usually help drummer in with his gear and let him get started. While he's setting up his drums i'll rig up the PA cabs and lights. Drummer runs the desk so he sets the desk up. I run in mic cables etc. Once PA cabs in place i'll set up my own bass rig which only takes me a few minutes. At end of the gig i pack away my own gear first and then strip PA down and pack away while drummer packs his drums away. I'll then give him a ahand to load his drums etc into his car. To be fair we all work that way in both my bands so that everyone leaves the gig at same time except our guitarist in Glam band as he normally has further to drive than us lot and we tell him to head off as soon as he's loaded up. Most gigs he'll stay and help pack drums, lights and PA gear so its all very friendly and helpful. Dave

Mr Fix it. - UB40. 🤔

Come little children - donny hathaway

You'll make more progress with a proper teacher than you will without. It can be frustrating learning stuff that you think you might never use, but split it into 2 sections: academics and art. You'll be frustrated within a month about slow going with proper lessons... and absolutely amazed how far you've come in 1 year. All knowledge is a stepping stone to playing the things you want to play. Do it properly with sight reading and theory too. That does not have to mean orchestral composition or anything so complex! It opens up so many doors. Not limited to TAB, able to work out a good bass part from a piano score. More paid gigs available. Not wading through 50 websites worth of awful tabs to find one that might be accurate. Being able to play every tune in every key without retuning your bass - transposing on the fly is such a useful skill to have for bands if a singer doesn't have a range the same as the original artist. Never overdo it. Many people try to do a couple of hours in one sitting and that's pretty useless. Doing 5-10 mins per day proper practice is the key. Little and often. It's no different to learning any other language, and if you can speak English being one of the hardest and most confused languages on earth, you can certainly cope with music. I don't know what it's like in Ipswich, but where I am we have an educational trust that supplies music teachers to schools and also has the details of private teachers who take both adult and child students. If there's something like that near to you, then give them a call.

Find yourself a drummer or guitard who is one notch better than you are. You can motivate each other and learn to play along with other humans (that’s except guitards of course, who have a straight ascent from amoebas) the best musical experience I’ve ever had was playing Stsnd By me with my teacher on guitar. At the end he said “you’re a lot better at this than you think”

Oh no not my baby. Carole King

First step would be to get whatever bass you have set up correctly - nice low action (so the strings are not really high off the fingerboard), nut slots are cut correctly for the same reason and to ensure that the intonation is good (so what you play sounds good and in tune). Making sure all this is done first will ensure that your learning experience will be a pleasant and fun one seeing that you won't have to fight the instrument needlessly. I wish I knew this when I started learning! I would have progressed a lot quicker if I had known.

We had a rehearsal yesterday to get ready for Hereford gig next Saturday and the guitarist didn't turn up! So no annoying noodling between songs, no unnecessary feedback drowning out the vocals, no poorly set up pedals making almost as much noise when there's no sound going through 'em... So it was just bass, bass, drums and 3xvocals, which was great! Everybody could hear everything, and excitingly, when we did a dead stop there was no extra bit of guitarnoise cos he hasn't worked out how to properly damp the strings. So we were tight as, and ready to gig without guitar if that happens!

I know what you mean, I’m one of those who prefers the Sterling to the Ray but explaining to the uninitiated what it is…. Still looking for an illusive Starry Night finish 4H Sterling

The waza airs are the boss wireless link, not bluetooth. They have bluetooth for audio in from a music source and for app control.

Was last week, on the friday. We started practicing in a new venue, one that we had played a new years on about 6 years ago and had been through managers since then. They said it sounded like their sort of music so gave us a gig there. Set up easily enough, not very crowded. Were supposed to start at 8:30, which is early for us but the landlord said it was up to us, the place was generally dead until 11 when the floods came in from the other closed venues in the town so we could start later if we wanted a bigger crowd. we opted for later and a longer break. There was a woman at the bar who was amazed the drum kit was seethrough and had lights in it, and asked if it was supposed to be like that (not sure what she meant, did it accidently have lights in it?) so was pretty blown away when I got my acrylic bass out, which I have now changed the blue lights in the body for green, and looks better. There was a buzz in the PA which was driving the singer mad but I couldn't hear (which is odd, I passed my hearing tests a year or so back), but we had 5 minutes trying to stop that, and then it just went, so I suspect it was a dodgy PA lead, will have to buzz them out again. first half went well, small but appreciative audience, no major issues. Second half quite a few people had come in which coincides with our more party / fun half (first half a bit rock and blues, second half more ska /. disco and pop) and that went down well. Sure enough at 11, there was a flood of younger people in, and it really picked up again. Could have done a few more songs in the end but as usual our guitarist decided we had to stop there, so we did. Still, better to go leaving them wanting more.

Is the answer you're looking for that modern pop is largely unmemorable, repetitive sheeeeeiiiiite with no discernible sense of melody and it's hard to sell fast food or insurance over monotonous, monosyllabic self-pity/self-aggrandising?

I just got my beloved Euro LX4 back from my master tech geezer, who fitted my preferred EMGX pickups. This was my first ever Spector, and for some reason known to no one, I sold it on. Idiot. Instant regret. I managed to get it back about 4 weeks ago after 18 months apart, and I’m just so happy about it. Anyway, it’s now sounding the way it should, plus is now volume, pickup selector, bass, treble. I can’t wait to start gigging with it. Happy days. Cheers ✨