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Gig last night at Whittles - Tokyo in Oldham with Sons of Nirvana. It was mighty!!!! The RD Artist is an amazing beast, even managed the 2 hours no bother with the incredible Pinegrove strap. The Ripper was a standby and is equally awesome, I do own 4! The Hiwatt and Barefaced 610 combination is just sublime!

We played a charity night for a good cause I'm Cullercoats on Friday. Sarah's Stars are a little charity that help people with terminal diagnoses. The singer and I are both NHS so we were happy to help. It was nice to have another good gig under our belts, this project has been struggling to find its feet since we started. Our guitarist's son recorded the medley of songs at the end of our set and edited it into a nice little video, shame there's no bass on the phone mic but rest assured it was sufficiently pumping in the room. Hey, I'm the soundman. Bass all round. Sorry about the song choice, the medley is specifically for songs that were kind of feel obliged to play as a party band, but that we don't want to do full renditions of.

Greetings to my fellow short-scale bass players! New to this forum - OK, I have been lurking occasionally - but not new to bass (45 years and counting) or the concept of short scales... My current crop From left to right: '69 Gibson EB-0 (modded), '76 Guild JS-2, '69 Gibson EB-3, '70 Gibson Les Paul Bass, '72 Gibson Les Paul Triumph Bass. Yes, they all sport Hipshot Supertone bridges and no, I'm NOT a paid endorser...

Some of you may have been following Lemmywinks's struggle to get a Cort GB Modern 5 that's been ongoing for the last few weeks. Well, I've decided that the first one he bought (With the binding issues) wasn't a big enough issue for me to say no to it. That, and it discounted the price a little more. So, I got it transferred over to the Birmingham GuitarGuitar store, took the train over, spent a good hour playing it, checking it over visually for anything else I could try and get a discount for (Didn't find anything) and then traded in a couple of old pedals before I paid my money and left with my new bass. Despite Lemmywink's issues with it (And they are issues, don't think I'm downplaying them, these are issues that really should have been caught at QC, or when GuitarGuitar got it in and should have inspected it) I'm loving it. The fit and finish, the feel, the tone, it's all very lovely, though, compared to my two other basses, it's probably not much of a surprise that I think it's very nice, given how badly I've treated the others over the years I've owned them. I even went and bought myself an expensive Pinegrove Leather strap for it too, which is very nice and definitely worth the money for some high quality leather. You might notice the biggest change I've made so far, which is removing the clear pickguard. It might have just been my own eyes, since Lemmy said he couldn't see it, but I noticed that to me, it seemed like the guard had this almost purple tint to it? I've taken it off either way, and filled the screw holes with caphead allen screws, just to hide the holes.

Local pub that is a tiny venue where you get no room at all, but on the plus side, you get 20 people in and it feels like its crowded. Easy setup, unusual as normally you have to persuade a load of people to move out of the way, so we have loads of space (of a small space!). Our keyboard player didn't realise we had the gig and went away, so we had to remove the keyboard songs from the list and bring back some of the old ones - however, it did give us more space. Kick off a bit late, I thought it was a 9 start and it is 8:30l, but it is hard getting things setup in such a small area without people getting out of the way. From pretty well the start, people were joining in, and very up for it, and when I said you get 20 people in it feels crowded, if you get 50 people in it feels like a stadium, except much more up close and personal. But they were singing and dancing along, I never heard a crowd singing the words of baker street before, and even some people doing harmonies of things. So notible interesting things, because the keyboard player was away, baker street has some keyboard trills that I always used to do with a loopman pedal. I brought that back, tested it before the gig, all good. Because I was going into the PA from the XLR on the Boss ME90B, and using a small amp for backline from the jack, I plugged into the send/return that Ihad never used before, it worked. But before the song, I tried it and it was making no volume, maybe dodgy jack or something. I turned the volumes up (I never remember which volume it is), still wasn't loud but oh well, whatever, no time, going into the song. Got to the first trill, kick the pedal and BLING!!!!! - massively loud. But the band thought it was fine! I had reset the effects on my boss before I went, and near the end I thought that it seemed there was too much distortion, then went back to my normal clean patch for one song, and sure enough, distortion, then play that funky music, switched the autowah patch, nope, distortion, I realised this is my new bass I bought a few weeks back, hadn't even checked the battery, active only, it was running out! During the single note parts of the song I unzipped the bass bag that was next to me for my spare, then at the end quickly swapped bass, ready for surfin USA with no distortion at all! Schoolboy error. But don't know what it was about it, but it was the most enjoyable gig I have done in months, maybe just that noone was complaining about the sound.

First outing for our new punk band, 'last gang in town', last night. Actually just a warm up gig at the guitarist house warming but quite a good audience. First proper outing this Thursday with my new 'Hendrix' band Purple Haze in support. Thursdays gig should be fun as it's at the Canadian dip bar and lots of oldies like us who feel like teenagers again when we play the punk stuff. Will post pics from that one. Punk not normally my thing but I can't believe how much fun it was to play!

We completely set up in the big room as we have previously last night, it was a bit cold. One of the then committee asks if we can set up again in the small bar! A quick reconnaissance of the area by the singer/guitarist gets a rapid negative (apparently it’s tiny, with probably room for just 20 people, without the band). That decided, the heating comes on in the big room and it even becomes a little too warm, very quickly. I can see why they wanted to move us, the audience is sparse, never more than 40 and mostly hovering in the 20-30 slot. That said, we give it our best, even with our drummer feeling under the weather. We try to keep it down, which is achieved, with only one request to come down a bit in the 2nd set, where I pretend to fiddle with my amp, but we don’t alter any levels and the drummer tries to play lighter, nothing more was said. 3 hour or so sets, interspersed with the ever present bingo. Some dancing (some very energetically, sadly they left after a while), lots of singing along and general grooving in their chairs. We had a great sound, confirmed by the keyboard player, who was set up at right angles, slightly in front of the PA. Really digging my sound with the VTDI engaged, very Geddy, Squire, Entwistle, JJB, but only use this where appropriate. Next gig in 2 weeks, without our keyboard player sadly.

I did the gig last night as a duo that I had thought we would have to cancel due to my impending surgery, but that has changed to next week. So a nice bar down by the sea we’ve played before. Good crowd singing along which is always encouraging, proves we picked a good set. I got to drive the HX Stomp live, recently bought from @maidens97 of this parish. It works a treat, makes me play a lot better. Well probably only in my head so thanks again. My wife acted as my roady as I’m not supposed to lift anything over the weight of a bag sugar. Ridiculous as I spent the two and half hour gig, without a break, with a 10 pound Stingray round my neck. Anyway a member of the bar staff helped her load out and even insisted on loading up the car, under my supervision. Nice people. Next gig is mid November when I should have recovered

A familiar venue for us in Crawley on Friday. One new experience, one regular. New - drunk woman wanted to sing one her songs with us and had a chord chart ready! It didn't happen. Regular - drummer messes up anything with a rall at the end, just doesn't listen or watch 😡

I'm up there in age and not in the best of health, so I rarely play out but it's usually the modded EB-0 which is my #1 and will be going to grave with me, or Les Paul Triumph if I don't know what kind of amp is waiting for me.

Good point, maybe someone should hack his account and write “I like Winston Churchill”, he’ll soon be doing five.

Talk to us, plenty of old farts here to sympathise with you

Yeah she sure is pretty! Has a swapped out pot but I have the original in the case. 12yr old TI Flats on it so just about worn in 🤣

They won't do anything. You can get locked up for writing something on facebook, but not for using it as a platform to rob people. Makes sense.

It was a long drive. We were way out in the country. It was very dark when I left and almost got hit by a car I didn't see when turning onto the highway. The car was moving at approximately 70 miles an hour. We have a nighttime gig coming up in the city of Milwaukee in a neighborhood I don't care to be in late at night at my age. I'm going to tell the band leader that I won't be able to drive to that gig. As for the gig,our dep drummer struggled a bit. At times the timing just wasn'tthere..Very nice guy, great attitude. Hopefully it was a confidence thing. We depend on our 2 dep drummers a lot. As it is with many private parties the pay was generous. I haven't discussed what happened with the dep drummer with our band leader and I probably won't. It's not really my place. Daryl

All the best for a speedy recovery from surgery. My wife also helps both bands i'm in with loading and unloading gear more so at the end of the night. She doesn't drink and is able to take over the driving on longer hauls. She loves winding up cables at the end of the night and that is seriously a godsend for me. Wives are definitely a good thing. Cheers Dave

Sandy Anderson's Bass line on this 1982 Odyssey track has always intrigued me. He seems to use a lot of variation while keeping the general vibe going.

...once I give first refusal I will ask the chap if he minds me passing his details on. Thus said it's not hard to spot a car carrying Trace Elliot gear:

Yup my '63 is 3.55kg

Back in the '70s, I was simply the drummer for the pro touring bands; the BL handled all the gear, tour bus, dates, hire'n'fire etc. I turn up with my drums and play, and help the roadies at tear-down. Since playing in cover bands with buddies, or doing the roadying, desk and lights for an originals band, I've always been the one supplying the gear etc. As these were/are always buddies, chums, friends and family (two sons...), and I had the funds to do it (from my day-time career...), it was, and still is, my own gear and transport, so no split-up, and no arguments. I worked week-ends at times with a buddy's events outfit, so had a source for s/h gear when he upgraded stuff. Now retired, I have easily enough for the few gigs we now do, but no more tour-bus (too old for MOT, so scrapped...), so I 'borrow' a van from our local garage, for a tankful of diesel when I return it. Just lucky, I guess, but no issues with any split, as it's all mine (my Precioussss; all mine..! Mine..!)

Thanks for the good wishes. I’ve had all the take it easy stuff from the cardiac nurses at Brighton, as well as the surgeon. And my wife polices me incessantly so I am doing my best to behave. I suspect that will be even more intense after the surgery and I’m actually looking forward to a relaxing build up to Christmas. Although I suspect I will get very bored.

Take it very gently - heart surgery can leave you very weak & should not be stressed by heavy lifting, it can cause an internal rupture. On that happy note, good luck, hope it all goes well ! 😎

Here it is, featuring a fancy Pinegrove Leather strap (Great strap, thoroughly recommend, etc.) and a closeup of the little caphead screws I used to fill the pickguard holes with.

Or you could chose to play in an originals band, where unless you deliberately decide to play venues that don't normally put on live music almost everywhere you will want to play will have an in-house PA and lights complete with someone to work them for you.

Didn't realise rounders was so big in the USA...

Tonight's effort

lots of great bass lines. ‘Nard special on this

Get together and bring a private prosecution. Mate of mine was assaulted in a bar in Brisbane. The cops weren't interested so he engaged a private investigator. The PI put it all together and gave it to the cops to prosecute, or he would.

Seriously, when are the authorities going to do something about him? How many more people need to be scammed and ripped off by Mick the Pond Life before they take action? He needs locking up for the good of other people. I wish nothing but the worst for that low life.

One of those epic songs. Supernatural fans will be very familiar with this one Straight -> shuffle -> straight -> shuffle Kansas - Carry On Wayward Son | Dave Hope

This is my 64 which shows a decent amount of wear, but I do wonder what on earth has happened to some of these ultra worn instruments?

I have purple ones. Also means no one can nick them too easily

Another cracker from ‘82, this time from Shalamar (Leon Silvers III on bass/producer duties?):

The problem with a lot of lead singists that they are arrogant cnuts who think the band (and world) owe them a living (well a mic & PA at least) Not that I'm bitter, understand.

Also worth checking out:

Fed shelter.

I can only dio 5. Don 'Felts' Felton: Northumberland's finest Andres Terciopelo: specialist Mexican cartel tunnel felter, but he cut his teeth on the sheds of Monterrey - all three of them) Shedrack: Biblical felter, thrown into the fire for refusing to see to Nebuchadnezzar's garden man cave. Vanessa Feltz Mark 'Shedders' Shedford: did all the sheds for his Madness bandmates. I heard Suggs had a particularly tricky multi-storey one.