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So, for a while I have been eyeing up the new ocean turquoise Gretsch junior jet ii bass, not having a lot of disposable income my wife had offered a couple of times to go halves with me on the cost of one but I had always declined. Anyway the other day my wife told me that she had a delivery and asked if I would sign for it when the courier turned up. Anyway the courier turned up I signed for the delivery and then my wife told me to open the box, I thought maybe it was a new computer chair or something, I opened the box and my eyes lit up when I saw a Gretsch box inside the box, I was over the moon. Anyway it is a great bass, the photo doesn't do it justice, in person it is much prettier and the colour is much nicer, it sounds great too and if someone told me this bass sold for twice what this sells for i wouldn't question it at all

After a few beers at Christmas I ordered a knock off Dingwall from Ali express.. I woke up the next morning to an email from the seller asking what “customisations” I wanted.. what a treat.. a custom bass!!… so I went to town, orange finish, 3 x pickups, maple neck… and a custom headstock logo! It arrived this morning - it’s awesome!! Obviously it’s not actually a finely crafted, custom instrument - but the finish is pretty clean and it sounds good, all the electrics work and it’s very playable!! The hardware is a bit lightweight… but for £279… it’s a lot of bass!

I’ve been drunk many times in my life, but never Ali Express Dingwall with a Tesco logo drunk

Only one gig for me this week, last night at Burnley Mechanics. A great theatre built in the mid 19th century as a mechanics institute, and then converted into a theatre in the late 1970’s. Access not easy, gear in via a lift and then onto the stage using a converted truck tail lift! ( see below ). Friendly crew and good backstage facilities too. We had a full house of around 450, and they were brilliant. Always a lively crowd at this venue, and the band played spot on. Well worth the 3 hour journey over the Pennines, which had some snow and icy conditions which slowed us down a bit. Home by 1a.m., knackered today though so glad I have a quiet weekend.

I don't want a thread de-rail or a big discussion here but I'm just a little uncomfortable about the direction this might be headed. BassChat thrives because of the generally good natured ethos of debate here. We don't discuss politics or religion and I've had my knuckles rapped for the former Maybe would be better steering away from discussing national stereotypes? I love getting comments from @agedhorse who is a person of great knowledge and experience. He frequently helps out with individual advice to owners of gear he has designed or had an association with. His insights into what Gibson are attempting or indeed any information about how things look from his part of the industry are always fascinating and worth reading. I would love it if more industry insiders engage with us in this way. Often in the past this has been from bassists who happen to work in the industry and their insights are always interesting and add to our general knowledge of all things bass. Obviously they are a little constrained in what they can say and they are unlikely to criticise their own products or employers My own nationalism is pretty limited, I feel shame about quite a lot of England's past and pride about other bits but I'm really happy to see increasing numbers of people from around the world joining BassChat and I'm proud that we make them welcome. Let's all be friends here.

Somewhere out on the internet there's a drum forum, a singers forum, a keyboard forum... Where every single one of us is getting a virtual kicking...

Just had a very friendly chap from UPS delivery my 'new' ACG... Struck a deal with @eude to relieve him of his ACG Mikro bass. It's an absolute beaut. Its currently strung E to F so I'll be restringing it Bb to B as we play half a step down and I prefer a top B. It's in absolutely immaculate condition, standard outstanding build quality from @skelf. This makes 5 ACGs currently in the collection... many more have been owned and passed on, mostly to afford another ACG! Looking forward to giving this little super short scale beast a proper run at band practice next week.

Back around '78, we auditioned a singer as our geetarist at the time was going through a 'strong, silent' phase and decided to give up singing to practise his playing more (whatever!) At the time, we were playing standard pub-rock fare from The Stones, Eric C, Roxy Music, blah, blah. One local hero was a big noise in the cabaret and working men's club circuit and thought he was the next Tony Christie/Elvis. So, we rent a rehearsal space, send out a set list with half a dozen well-know 'standards (for that time) and await the arrival of the great man himself. We, in the band, all resembled drop-outs from Lynyrd Skynyrd at that time, and he rocks up looking like John Revolta (shirt collar outside wide-lapelled jacket, etc.). He firstly needed to spray something into his throat, as this allowed him to 'expand his range', and then he went through a vocal warm up of about ten minutes of scales. By the time all this had been accomplished, the guitarist was giving me looks to let me know he was going to crumple with restricted laughter, and to say not a word. Meanwhile, Mr Fabulous is now bu**ering about with the PA amp, attempting to find echo, reverb, treble and lord knows what else. This 'search' for settings unleashed feedback, rumbles, parping whoops, and sounds Ron Grainer would have been proud of. Perhaps, 25 minutes into the audition, Perry Combover was ready to rock and first up was Brown Sugar by the Stones. 1,2,3,4. Intro goes well. He proceeds to hit the wrong note as he joins in. Not only was he in the wrong key; he was singing the chorus. You simply must accept at this point, that he was approaching the number very much in the style of Harry Secombe, as 'Mr Bumble' in 'Oliver'. It was akin to Leonard Cohen auditioning for Greenday. Possible because he was unable to breathe, our guitarist was on his knees, pretending to be doing something with his amp-controls. Seeing this, I decided to face the wall, but to plough-on regardless. Suffice to say, I planted the top of my head flat against the wall, to provide some measure of pain, in the hope it might stop me having convulsions of mirth - I swear I couldn't see, for tears of laughter running down my face, and daren't breathe in case I atrophied. After what seemed like the 'director's cut'/'festival version' of the song -which passed for me in slow-motion, allowing me to re-live my entire life to that point - we road-crashed to a halt. The drummer looked like he had been tasered, and all blink-reflexes were gone; the guitarist was a sort of crimson-peuce colour and probably now boasted a new world record in holding breath, long enough to impress a south-seas pearl diver. I was, as I recall, almost managing to stand with a ninety degree bend from the waist, being held up olny by the pressure of my head on the supporting wall. "Well guys," quoth the great man,"that sounded pretty good to me, but I don't think you've got the solo quite right somehow!"

I have the blue Perri's strap on my Pelham blue Jack Casady. The blue against blue, and sheepskin against cream plastics couldn't match better if it had been designed for this bass. Even the tan suede rear is a nod to the browns of the knobs and natural woods.

Blimey. I'm the opposite of that really, I don't think I could be in a band with people I didn't think of as friends. A big part of the reason my soul band has lasted for nearly 30 years is that we're all mates.

This is truly a classic thread… Stop me if I have told this one before… In 1980 I had a band modelled on the Pretenders, whom I had seen and fallen in love with. Our Chrissie was an Australian girl who ended up being deported I believe - anyway she left us looking for a replacement. We auditioned four girls at Alaska Studios in Waterloo, London. Among them was a lass fresh down from Scotland who was so shy she wouldn’t emerge from the corner of the room at first. Also she had a rather obnoxious boyfriend, as I recall. So we passed. Months later I saw Eddi Reader on TV backing the Gang of Four, and later still duetting with Annie Lennox in Eurythmics. Bloomin ‘eck! Bet she has had many a sleepless night regretting my decision😂

It's odd how you get thinking about auditions. I'd completely forgot about this east European guitarist we tried out; he was younger than us and was temping in the warehouse where I worked. We decided to not go the route of booking a room, so we tried him out in the extension of my house; stripped down session. He arrived on foot just carrying a guitar (no bag) and a little practice amp. He'd clearly made zero effort to learn any of the material I'd given him and I believe his expectation was that we'd become his backing band. He was also a terrible player and quite terrifying in equal parts. You remember Alexei Sayle's character in The Young Ones? That's what he sounded like when he talked and well, that started the drummer laughing. Every statement ended in 'yes'. He'd go, 'We do one of mine songs now, it's about the Russian Mafia in Stalingrad, yes?' and he'd play a breakneck fast two chord thing with him shouting out sweary vocals about gang members killing each other and disposing of the bodies in furnaces. That was one of the more happy songs. Drummer is laughing. Singer is laughing. I'm trying not to laugh and offer encouragement. He knows exactly where I live. I'm trying to formulate an exit strategy. We stop for coffee. He asks whether I have anything stronger. I watched him down about 1/4 pint of bourbon like it was orange squash on a hot day and then ask if we have vodka. Before long, it was thankfully over. He's going, 'This was great. We must do this again soon, yes? You on the drums, play faster next time, yes?'. Drummer says he's going to be working away for a bit (phew), but singer does not play along however and says it was great and we should do it again soon. B*stard. Thankfully the guy got fired and I never saw him again.

Update! Despite still having flu symptoms as well as hot and cold flushes I managed to play ok in the church practice session yesterday. We did Salvation is Here and Mighty to Save. The reason for the practice was to try and get that particular band to try and think more about their arrangements and how to build a song. I was an “extra” bassist. Using the IEMs was surprisingly ok, I borrowed my wife’s Soundmagic headphones she uses as monitors (she is a backing soprano) and my bass sounded great. So many wires around though!! it was hard to play along when I didn’t have anyone singing - when you are listening to the original song it’s easier to know where you are going but apart from a few missed notes I think I did ok. When we did mighty to save we were all asked to play a solo sort of thing so I went full Mike Dirnt (respectfully and in keeping with the song) but I nodded to the drummer and he went for it as well. I was praised for communicating with him to go with me! Really enjoyed playing with the team and they said I did ok. The guy I’m in a separate band (just started not performed live yet) was there too trying out and he said I sounded great. No one else had any issues with what I did. It was so great and I got a glimpse of what it would be like to lead a whole congregation into worship - what a blessing it would be!! I did ask and we do get ambient sounds through the IEMs too which will help me loads. I was shaking like a leaf at some points - combination of nerves and illness, but overall it was wonderful. I must have been doing ok for someone who is self taught and only picked up a bass 14 months ago. Hopefully doing it again in a few weeks. I’ll keep you all posted.

Decided to create some more space and make the whole tuning thing a bit easier by shrinking back my wah. There's a small piece of me that still wants to mess with an alternative reverb option, but actually I use three different settings on the h9 and I love the blackhole algo. Probably need to tidy the underside at some point....it's a right mess now 😂✌️

This is more why we haven't broken up. Still going strong since 2007. The right members, the right gigs, the right money and the right attitudes. Very rare. I think we remain intact because we're not friends. Very little if any communication . We have a husband and wife team that do all the booking and make all of the major band decisions. Daryl

During my time in Glasgow, I once had an initial audition with the guitarist who was so high that he brought an old Boss 8 track recorder as his 'pedal board' and proceeded to try and run the 8 track recorder through a Marshall AVT head and cab so he could access the onboard effects on the recorder. He assured us that he knew what he was doing and that these effects were 'the bees knees man'. He gave up after 20 minutes then just plugged in his guitar in to the amp only to notice that it only had four strings, which was unfortunate as 'those two strings were the ones I really needed.' Another session involved a guitarist who hailed from Yemen, who was actually technically pretty competent. However we really couldn't play in a band with him out of the awkwardness of him insisting to check that none of the other band members were Jewish before we started playing, although in his defence he did also state 'I have no issues with Protestants or Catholics, so I am still more tolerant than many Glaswegians', which admittedly did get a laugh. I mean, when you try to start a stoner rock band, it comes with the territory that sometimes people will turn up entirely stoned or slightly unhinged. It is only now, about 15 years later that I realise just how weird some of those sessions were.

Please excuse this post if I ramble a bit. I've have a little more Merlot than I intended and if I'm not here I'd be looking at things I don't need on ebay. Does anyone else agonise over getting the perfect strap for each bass (or guitar) they own? ...or is it possibly an ASD thing? I own more straps than I own instruments as I have in the past upgraded when I find one better suited for a specific instrument. As an example my main gigging basses — the trio of JMJ mustangs use these Perris suede straps with a sheepskin comfort pad — I have two blue and one black to match the JMJs. Several of my other instuments have leathergraft 'comfy' suede straps in various colours to match. These are my go-to if the instrument's colour matches an available strap colour, but I also have other brands. In the absense of availability of orange suede straps I've settled with red comfy straps for my competition orange squier mustang bass & guitar as the competition stripes on these are red. The colours I have most trouble matching are lake placid blue and Pelham blue so I haven't found anything I'm really happy with for my LPB Squier bass IV or Gibson thunderbird non-reverse in faded pelham blue. I'm currently using a black stretchy comfort strapp with the thunderbird.

PLAYBOY: Mistake or not, what made you decide to go the rock 'n' roll route? DYLAN: Carelessness. I lost my one true love. I started drinking. The first thing I know, I'm in a card game. Then I'm in a crap game. I wake up in a pool hall. Then this big Mexican lady drags me off the table, takes me to Philadelphia. She leaves me alone in her house, and it burns down. I wind up in Phoenix. I get a job as a Chinaman. I start working in a dime store, and move in with a 13- year-old girl. Then this big Mexican lady from Philadelphia comes in and burns the house down. I go down to Dallas. I get a job as a "before" in a Charles Atlas "before and after" ad. I move in with a delivery boy who can cook fantastic chili and hot dogs. Then this 13-year-old girl from Phoenix comes and burns the house down. The delivery boy - he ain't so mild: He gives her the knife, and the next thing I know I'm in Omaha. It's so cold there, by this time I'm robbing my own bicycles and frying my own fish. I stumble onto some luck and get a job as a carburetor out at the hot-rod races every Thursday night. I move in with a high school teacher who also does a little plumbing on the side, who ain't much to look at, but who's built a special kind of refrigerator that can turn newspaper into lettuce. Everything's going good until that delivery boy shows up and tries to knife me. Needless to say, he burned the house down, and I hit the road. The first guy that picked me up asked me if I wanted to be a star. What could I say? PLAYBOY: And that's how you became a rock 'n' roll singer? DYLAN: No, that's how I got tuberculosis. From the Bob Dylan 1966 Playboy interview

I think @admiralchew has won. Can we close this thread now.

Threads like this one absolutely make my day. This stuff is comedy gold. Thanks everyone.

Auditioning a guitarist for an original death metal band, guy turns up - seems friendly, have decent gear and plenty of confidence. I realise we're about to waste the entire session when his opening gambit is "what tuning do you guys play in?" His face fell, but not as much as his strings, when I said "drop B" and he had to slacken them right off. Not really knowing what to do as the guy had clearly not learned any of these fairly technical songs, we ran through a couple and said join in when you can, so he strummed along with his valve amp on standby........

I must be slipping. I try Fender, and despite 75% of the denizens of BC being Fender fanbois (and goils), no response whatsoever. Someone else goes for Gibson, and despite the fact that only @neepheid loves them, there are pages and pages of responses. Bah.

Practicing for a project, got some old fav’s back and some new toys that I’m really enjoying.

As I showed in the earlier calculations, the cost in the UK and EU are exactly the same as the cost in the US, when adjusted for exchange rate and VAT versus our sales tax. As it turns out, it appears that Gibson is picking up all of the additional costs of shipping, import duty, import processing fees, etc. The authorized dealers are in fact beginning to advertise, the earlier posts about Andertons is one. We will have authorized service centers in the UK and EU as well. In the UK, I believe Surrey Amps is one, Stan Lawrence is a very good, qualified tech and has worked on Mesa (and other brands I have been involved with over the years) for a long time. You can go to our website and search for dealers and service centers by international region. We may also set up our own in-house factory service center as well, but I don't know the details or which country at this time. If you don't like the thought of buying Mesa products, for whatever reason, that's fine but it would be helpful to everyone on BassChat if you kept your comments factual and accurate. Your concept of "regular, down to earth American" is extremely skewed. No little league game I have ever been to (when my kids were in Little League) has played our national anthem, nor does anyone that I have ever seen have a flag hanging from their porch or elsewhere. There may be small pockets of such behavior which gets blown WAY out of proportion by the media, but that's just sensationalism. It's no different than the inaccurate portrayal of Europeans (and others) by the media. There's a difference between acknowledging a country's past bad behaviors and national pride. I can think of plenty of examples of poor national behavior in the past by all countries, why shouldn't those countries that acknowledge and correct these behaviors be allowed to express national pride? If not, the entire world would remain in perpetual shame.

Shamelessly copied and pasted from a post of mine years ago, but, I hope, worth a revisit: Manchester...erm, mid-80s... Our drummer (in an originals-with-the-odd-cover 80s Rock Band) was about to become a Dad, and had reluctantly decided he'd have to shelve the rehearsals and gigging for a good while, so he'd stepped down, and we were on the urgent look-out for a replacement. As a thoroughly nice chap, and knowing we had gigs booked we needed to fulfil, he had even left his kit at the rehearsal rooms for new drummers to use, in part or whole, for the auditions. We organised a Sunday afternoon, with an hour slot for each drummer we'd contacted, and it started unremarkably, but then, second to last, was the standout. And not in a good way. He turned up in a six-wheel Transit, immediately earning about a thousand bonus points, but it became terribly clear that all this thing held was his kit...and there was little room for anything else. After refusing to use of any of the already-set-up kit, he began ferrying kit in. And more kit. And more kit. After ten minutes of watching boxes piling up, and with his end of the rehearsal room beginning to look like the dockside of the Queen Mary before a round the world jaunt, we volunteered to help, and then we all spent the next 45 minutes setting up a furry tigerskin-covered double-kick kit, with six raised toms, three floor toms, eight rototoms and so many cymbals we couldn't see him any more. As he tightened up the third china cymbal, I said "No gong, then?", and he froze, looking concerned. "I didn't bring it...should I have done?" I assured him it wouldn't count against him, and eventually, with about five minutes left of his allotted hour, he was ready. The singist had been forced to nip outside to intercept the last auditionee, apologise and ask him to bear with and go for a pint in the local for twenty minutes, and then our hero launched into the first intro, to a then-bog-standard Bon Jovi tune we'd decided would make a good starter audition song. Now, in 40+ years of bands, I've never played in a freeform jazz ensemble, and I certainly hadn't back then, so I was unfamiliar with the five-count intro, and the thirteen-bar drum fill*, but this chap was clearly a master. We couldn't possibly fault him for brio, enthusiasm, and certainly energy...it was his counting which left quite a lot to be desired**. In addition, having taken so long to set up his mahoooosive kit, he was determined to hit every single drum and cymbal as often as he could, with scant regard for the song, or indeed the befuddlement he was creating amongst his prospective fellow band-members. I shall leave to your imagination the meal he made of the drawn-out ending, suffice to say Richard Wagner, had he been hanging around the rehearsal rooms (unlikely) and not dead for about a century (for once, fortunate), would probably have shaken his head and said something unflattering about bombast. In German. He finished by standing, his arms aloft and his eyes shining. Had that thing Usain Bolt does (not the running, the archery-arms thing) been around, he would have been doing that. We shuffled our feet, unable to maintain eye contact with him or each other, for fear of collapsing into hysterics. Eventually the singer thanked him for his time, and we all heaved-to loading his van again, while the singer went to buy the other auditionee another pint. He didn't get the job. * I'm probably doing an enormous disservice to freeform jazz ensembles around the globe here, so apologies if so, but I'm at a loss as to where else to place it musically. Perhaps amongst those gangs of glassy-eyed, saffron-robed enthusiasts one encounters on the city streets, each banging a drum in a random manner with a blissful expression and no regard for hard-pressed shoppers... ** I note that 'dyscalcula' is the numerical equivalent of dyselxia, and apparently A Real Medical Thing. It may have been that he was a secret sufferer; that would explain an awful lot. Edit: I've just spotted that I've spelt 'dyslexia' wrong in the footnote above. Oh, the irony...

Keyboards Dave was almost as weird as the drummer.... So eight years ago I got together with a guitarist and singer to do 80s indie I guess you'd call it. I liked the two of them and we clicked so we got some songs together as bass, two guitars and vox and looked for a drummer. Drummer answers ad saying all the right things. Except he wants to rehearse a long way away, being the only one with a car out of the three of us I'm happy to drive us there. We get there and the drummer, I think also a Dave, is flapping around with the studio staff because the kit isn't right and he needs something really specific and can't believe they haven't got it... Etc. We play one or two songs and he's ok. He can't stop talking though. He keeps telling us how it would be great if we did Crazy Horses by the Osmonds, Robbie Williams Let Me Entertain You... We are fixed on Talking Heads, Camper Van Beethoven, the Waterboys so we don't think this will fit. The guy just doesn't stop talking about how his last bands were so great playing the Osmonds. We have a drinks break and we can't get a word in edgeways. Drummer keeps saying how some people don't like him because he has all these ideas but surely we should just talk about it and agree or disagree. This is a valid point though his actions are suggesting he will talk until you agree with him. He gave us a set list he thinks we should do... Having not met us before, not registered that we've already been working on something, and not registered that we aren't doing karaoke in a flat-roof pub type songs. We play some more. He tells us how on stage he wants us to set up with his drums at the front because nobody else does that. He tells us he has a headset mic and wants to lead vox on some songs. When we are leaving with all our gear packed up he runs over, slams the door shut, turns off the lights and then starts playing with glow in the dark drum sticks. We leave confused, slightly scared. And never contact him again.

I see your singers and raise you a keyboardist. This is where my lifelong distrust and aversion for keyboardists comes from... Once upon a time I answered an ad for a funk band with female singers. It was like an X factor style audition being run by the guitarist who was a decent enough chap but the songs were more indie rock. There were loads of other guitarists and drummers there but only me as a bassist so I was kept. A week later and we audition a keys player. Dave shows up, long hair, looks like he wants a job in IT support but isn't bright enough, spends forever setting up his scaffolding for all his keyboards while talking about all these festivals he's played where the soundman didn't even have x, y z but of kit we've never heard of. Eventually he's ready to play a song. He hasn't listened to the audition songs or come prepared in any way. Stereophonics song? "Oh..... Errrr, Welsh band aren't they? I think I might have heard them on a cassette. My girlfriend is Welsh." Ummm thanks Dave. He plink plonks a couple of notes while we play. He doesn't even try to overwhelm us with weird sound effects, he just stands there looking confused the whole night, even when we tell him the chords. Guitarist invites him back the next week if he can learn some of the songs. Next week. Dave has clearly not learned anything and I doubt if he could achieve Grade 1 piano. After bashing through some songs hoping he will catch up guitarists says "let's pack away and when he goes get all our gear back out". I've packed away and Dave is still dismantling his huge keys rig so I get bored and say F this I'm off home. Half an hour later I get a call from the guitarist through gritted teeth: "I know you haven't got them, but can you check all your pockets and cases for Dave's car keys? We've turned the place upside down and just can't find them." I didn't have them. A long while later I get a text. Dave's car keys were eventually found after checking everywhere including in the till of the pub. They were in the pocket of his hoodie all along. I never saw Dave again. I've never played with a keys player since.

Thanks. I’ve often considered myself fortunate to be able to play in some amazing buildings over the last few years, and their history always fascinates me. Theatres have been my main places of work, and although new ones are often impressive it’s the older ones that are the most interesting. Since handing in my notice with the band last year, I’ve played at many of my ‘old favourites’ whilst thinking I won’t be returning to them. 😕 Still, all good things etc…..

With @walshy hope this is ok @Kyndainverse

A good few years a go a band I was in (all early twenties at the time) were looking for a new drummer. Popped an advert out saying rock band playing originals. Stating location, age etc. got a lovely message back from someone who was very interested named all the band we liked (lots of grunge bands). Owns own studio and has all the equipment so don’t worry about bringing a thing. we think brilliant we’ll bring just guitars and bass get all of us in our diddy hatchback. so we turn up to this fellas house in the middle of nowhere, knock on the door. The door is opened by an elderly gentlemen (70s ish) in his slippers, we ask if the lads in, he then tells us that is him. We all look at each other and you can see us all thinking well if he’s brilliant is age a deal breaker? He shows us through to this studio.. which is his conservatory. With a drum kit, a 10 watt guitar amp and no bass amp. Nothin more nothing less. He proceeds to let us hear a some of his previous records he’s played on with some big artists. turns out these records he’s played on are acoustic versions of songs he has recorded himself drumming to but he is adamant he was there in the studio with Clapton, Gilmour etc. needless to say we scarpered at the first opportunity.

A couple of incidents spring to mind, none in the same league as the above tales, but this one always makes me grin. One going back a while, my first 'proper' band. After about a year of trouble brewing I'd eventually fallen out with the singer. We had a bit of a nose to nose just before the start of one gig, in fact, whereupon I'd threatened to throw him off the fire escape. Unsurprisingly I got sacked as the singer got all the gigs. A few bass player less months later the singer decided to quit so I was back in and we were auditioning. In my early 50s at the time, I was the youngster in the band (!) and we played pretty pedestrian dad rock in a pretty pedestrian kind of way to pedestrian crowds in pedestrian pubs. We kissed a lot of frogs, never really found our prince but the guy who stood out was like the 'drummer at the wrong gig' video. He strode in and immediately dominated the room - he was in his late 20s and HUGE - 6'5? Quite overweight dressed entirely in black leather - trousers, biker boots, frock coat, bush hat. Some kind of jagged death metal logo T shirt. For sure he could sing and was a totally lovely guy but clearly our expectations didn't match. He'd have terrified our usual crowds

You are going to miss it, Pete.

I'm the one hiding under the bed 🙃

Back in the early 90s I was playing geetar in a band doing primarily originals but going through that difficult period of realising that our original material wasn't going down well with the venues we played. We decided to add more appropriate covers (which meant the more accessible proggy stuff) and to find a dedicated singer, as out keyboard player was currently singing. The drummer and I were in a night club (a rare event but it played mainly the rock end of pop music) and I got talking to this young girl who, when she found out I was in a band looking for a singer, proclaimed that she could sing and wanted to be out new front person. Her first audition was outside the nightclub, where she performed 'Wuthering Heights', complete with rather enticing dance moves. She wasn't bad and both the drummer and I thought she deserved a decent audition with the rest of the band. A couple of weeks later we picked her up from the corner of her street in the band van and headed off to the rehearsal studio where we went through a few covers and while she could keep a tune, her voice wasn't versatile enough. Had we been a Kate Bush tribute act, she may just have scraped through with some work but as it was her voice was quite thin and she didn't seem to have the self confidence needed for a front person. We dropped her back off on the corner of her street with the intention of having a second go with some originals. Imagine my surprise when, on the way to work a couple of days later, I saw our potential singer in her school uniform looking every bit the 14 or 15 year old she actually was. Many things went through my head, mostly involving irate parents, irate policemen and relief that nothing ungentlemanly had happened. Needless to say, we didn't keep in contact.

That, in part, is what the Basschat Bashes are for 👍

After a few years of multi-fx I've discovered (mostly) what f/x I like to use and decided to have a go using physical pedals. Took it along to a jam evening on Thursday to have a play and it does produce some really nice sounds. I'm using 9v batteries for power (button batteries for the tuner) to save the weight of a PSU. It could do with a volume pedal and perhaps a chorus & reverb ... tho at that point it outgrows the pedalboard I've got and also starts to come in quite heavy. Sam x

May I just say that 'bollards' is a wonderful word and a perfect description of the parts in question.

Decades ago i was in a band that was looking for a guitarist. Our drummer was in to Killing Joke etc, and singer was in to alternative stuff. I preferred new wave and pop. We auditioned a few that were good players but the other two thought more about image over ability so kept looking. In walks a punk. Full on 70’s Kings road stuff. He was quite young but seemed nice enough. He had one of those strange angular shaped guitars (when asked where he got it, he said he did a ‘Jonesy’ at a gig 🙄). He had it for a few years but never really got around to playing it. This actually turned out to mean never got around to learning to play it, although for him, whacking all the strings whilst deadening them with his left hand gave him the sound he wanted. He had two distortion boxes to get him his signature ‘dog bark’. Anyway, even the drummer got frustrated at this and tried to get him to play a few chords. The guitar was hopelessly out of tune, and the strings were quite rusty. He offered to tune it up for him and one by one, the strings broke 😂. This left it totally unplayable so the punk said he would come back for the next audition with another guitar, and just walked out, leaving his guitar on the floor. We never saw him again but apparently the drummer took the guitar home and ended up selling it for around £1000. This was back in the very late 70’s.

Think we should lock the thread now - that’s unbeatable

Should have just bitten your lip and closed your eyes… 😉

I don't know if it's strictly an audition, if a guitarist has cobbled together a bunch of mates to hurriedly form his own band, but it was certainly a tedious experience. To be fair, many of us will have joined various "bands" at school which had no plan, and didn't survive beyond a couple of rehearsals, but this one stood out as interesting. Mostly because I'd never realised that the guitarist forming the band could even play the guitar. The singer, I already knew as competent. The drummer was new to me, but he seemed pretty adept, if frighteningly hyperactive. But the guitarist...could only play one song. Given he'd asked me whether I wanted to join his indie/pop-punk group, I think we were all a little surprised to find that the only song he could play was Summer Days. Yep: the song from Grease. I wish I'd been a bit less diplomatic, and suggested we knock it on the head after twenty minutes. But instead, I somehow agreed to come back the next week, by which time he'd managed to learn a Green Day song. Just the one. Made for a less tedious hour than the first session, but it was a long time before I could bring myself to listen to Longview again...

NBD!! After much deliberation, finally decided to take the plunge on this drop-dead-gorgeous (IMHO) Sandberg Cali ll TM SL 2-band active that Thomann had in stock. Only just unpacked it but I can report that the build quality and playability are spot on - as I expected, having owned a Lionel. Thanks to its paulownia body and lightweight machine-heads, this one weighs next to nowt and still balances perfectly on the strap. I'll post more feedback when I've got to know it properly.

I think of them as " good people ". And keep in mind we're friendly towards each other but not friends. Daryl

Etsy! https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/734628135/the-classic-pillow?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=synthesizer+pillow&etp=1 They have quite a few designs. Ridiculous amount to spend on a cushion but still

Definitely a theme going on. Guitarists, drummers and singers mostly to blame with occasional keys player but never the bass players at fault. I guess that's because bass players are always the nice people in a band. Dave