Leaderboard

Three months ago, I set about "re-doing" our lounge. We've lived here for four and a half years, and it's the last room to tackle. Ok, I haven't rushed it, but I've been steadily working on it when I can. Rewiring, re-plastering, new floor etc, quite a big job. When I started drawing up the plans for the room, and details of shelving etc, I went into detail what my wife wanted, where things would go etc, and she suggested that I should include guitar wall hangers. Now, it may not seem like a big deal, but when your wife wants you to hang guitars in the lounge, then I think you have to admit that you have chosen wisely in the relationship game. Today I finally finished the shelving and the guitar hangers, and it really has started to come together. Just a TV and sound system to go now. She is admittedly my biggest musical fan, and she does often want to come to my gigs. Sitting here, with it all approaching the finish line, I still have to pinch myself when I think about the absolute gem of a woman who has chosen to share her life with me. Just sayin. Rob

OK, bit of a catchup one...last two weekends were double-headers, starting on a Friday with the Orrible Monthly Residency pub, where as I arrived at about nine (we don't start till tennish - it's a late bar place) the place was festooned with the merry blue lights of the 5-0: two cars and two vans, all there to remove a resident (the landlord rents rooms above the pub: if you want to pay £21 a night including breakfast for a very exciting and possibly unpleasant evening, I'll pass you the details) who wouldn't go. Usual routine in there, tho: total indifference from the dozen or so regulars, and a late finish. Bah, but I'm used to it. The Satdy was a much livelier place, the only downside of which is it's a good 80 minute drive ooop into Lancashire proper, again another late bar (we were asked to start at 11, and sure enough at 10:45 it was like a switch had been flipped that said Add Crowd To Maximum), but much dancing and singing from the punters made up for the previous evening, the lateness and the drive home. Trio format meant a bit more money, too. Then to last Thursday, a corporate gig at the posh Midland Hotel in Manchester with the old trio...usual corporate/wedding hoohah, though: there for 5pm, set up and done for half six (in-house PA and (very good) engineer), then hang around for the speeches/videos/charity auction, etc, etc, which inevitably overran till 10:45pm. At that point (exactly as last year) the organiser said 'Just go on and do an hour, it'll be fine', so it wasn't too late. We'd all dressed up for the gig (and by dressed up I mean black shirt & trousers, not proper dressing up like Dave's Glamtastic outfits), but this year's theme was Rock Night, so we needn't have bothered. It was ironic, though, that the portly balding CFOs dressed as Slash and Axl actually looked pretty accurate these days, and the more two more elderly (and thinner) blokes who came as Keef and Mick were pretty much indistinguishable from the real thing at 20 feet... Lots of bubbly-fuelled enthusiasm from the crowd, though (and at £200 a ticket they were clearly getting their money's worth), which is always nice. A super-light load-in and out (we all just carried our stuff in one go), too. Friday was back down to the hoi polloi with a bump, tho; a regular gig in Burnley at a place that has bands on (on one end of the dance floor) before it turns into a club night (bands do 11-12:30 or so), then you pack up in between the ever-encroaching dancers and leg it. It's a banging gig, but for mostly the wrong reasons; the place has been on the slide for a good while (the amount of Weasel Dust circulating was ridiculous; the urinals were full of small suspicious plastic bags, you could smell it in there), and we had some mither from some lads who thought it was hilarious to turn one of the PA tops round on the stand repeatedly until I went to stand next to it; I played two songs with hammer-ons while I held the speaker with the other hand. I had my cheapo P with me, and was ready to ping someone in the grill with the business end, but thankfully it eventually sank into their tiny befuddled minds that moving away from the band might be a good idea. They need more and better security in there these days; as an example, about midnight a bloke fell down the stairs (bogs upstairs), and smashed his face badly, and a very drunk girl came up to us first to tell us mid-song aand demand action...like we could do anything about it - the security were all outside chatting. The paramedics turned up and were tending to him while people stepped over his unconscious form to get to the bogs. Lovely place. Hoping for a nice quiet early-start (well, nine would be nice) pub one this weekend...we're in poshish Timperley, what could possibly go wrong? Cheapo P, Stomp, inears...

Not last night but last week. We played at a festival in Spain on the same bill and stage as The Mission and The Charlatans. We had an early slot (19.00-20.30) and the sun set during our set. The festival was still filling up while we played. A few hundred punters at the start of our set to a couple of thousand by the end. We had a great time. The youtube has made me realise just how imperative it is that I attempt to lose some girth pronto. Here is our final song....

Well I bought this as my next project. The description on the ad included that the neck had been glued on, probably because the neck screws had stripped the holes in the neck wood. So I expected to find a clumsy looking botch job, but for the price it was worth the risk. Check out the original Lake Placid Blue colour where the pick guard was! Anyway, it turns out the glue was a very nice clean job, the screws are fine, the neck is absolutely solid. You’d never know there was any issue previously. Hated the black aftermarket guard, so off that came. Electrics are all perfect, so just a clean and an inspection, no problems. Absolutely beautiful fretboard, but the frets needed a bit of crowning/filing/polishing…. Next an absolutely fabulous white pearl pick guard from Tim at Scratch It, perfect fit, beautifully made and highly recommended. Brand new EB Slinkys and a full set up, and honestly, this is an absolute stunner of a bass. It looks amazing, plays beautifully and sounds absolutely killer. Sire…… how do they do it?

Played again at The Lookout ( on the pier in Scarborough) tonight with the acoustic duo. Full house all dining when we arrived at 5pm, the food here is really good, with the seafood being a speciality - it arrives by the boats moored along the venue so couldn’t be more fresh! Our usual requests led set list with some more Kris Kristofferson stuff asked for, as well as some we haven’t done for a long time - ‘Son of a preacher man’, ‘Wishing well’, ‘Dancing in the dark’ and ‘5 o’clock somewhere’. During the second set one of the house PA speakers gave up the ghost - an Alto column type - but we managed with the others that were still okay. That’s two gigs this week with PA issues , strange. Anyway, the evening went well, happy punters and lots of nice comments. We have a few more gigs booked here before the end of the year, and they are always great to do. Home by 9.30pm for a nice glass of red with some cheese with crackers and chilli olives, marvellous.

American bassist, singer, songwriter, ballet dancer, classical composer and all round top bloke Kip WInger (Winger, Alice Cooper etc) has always been a personal fave of mine. A much underrated all-round musician, he has been using a custom one-off Spector for the last few years that featured a Ricky shaped body, specially created for him by Stuart Spector and PJ Rubal just before they sold to Korg. It has never been put into public production for obvious reasons... I absolutely loved the look of that bass and was lucky enough to hang with him a few months ago and to play it during Winger's soundcheck at London Islington Assembly Hall (see pic below). Anyway, to cut a long story short, I found a Chinese faker company who would make me a copy cheaply so I took the plunge! What did I have to lose? Well, it turned up last week and was, for the money, better than I expected! It needed some work and attention (new nut, fret end filing, new pickups/preamp and heavier duty bridge) but a quick visit to my local tech got it sorted and I debuted it on Saturday night! Visually, the control diamond layout is unequal but it's no biggie to me as it now looks, plays AND sounds great! Total cost for build, shipping...... and my updates/improvements...... approx £450 all in. Can't complain at that and VERY pleased with the result. Here she is:

Played The Beehive, Bow, London for the second time this year. There was a slight 'command performance' vibe as the singer's folks very visiting from Mexico and were in attendance. Bit of a strange vibe between the drummer and guitarist before the gig, but they've just started to share a house so maybe there's been some domestic strife going on behind the scenes Good gig, we all played well and more there than we expected, which was nice as the place was empty when we arrived. Slight gripe that our drummer needs to speed up his setting up as both in soundcheck and just before we started as he was fiddling for ages...slightly embarrassingly slow when we took the stage tbh. Hey ho. I got a couple of nice bass props from punters which was very nice as it's not often that happens. Yay ! Had a lovely time chatting to the singer's parents (via Mrs. Singer as shared language was an issue) after the gig before taking a slightly piddly Mrs. Pook home who brought a work buddy along and got quite into her cups over the evening No pics to hand, sadly.

I played a weekend of deps with local covers band 'The Lee Aaron Band' (NOT the Canadian rock goddess Lee Aaron 😉) in the NE Hants area..... Great nights, lots of compliments from punters.... and the landlord on Friday was a bassist too (and owner of a few Goodfellow basses)! He told me my bass sound was the best he's ever heard in his pub, which was nice! I was using my Spector Euro Classic with GK Legacy head/Genz Neo212 cab. Saturday's gig saw me debut my new 'oddity' (see pic below). See thread here: https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/502803-nbd-spectorbacker-or-is-it-a-rickenspector-or-maybe-a-kipenspector/

Loved these - they were a bit out of my price range in the late 90’s…a Washburn XB100 was my “posh bass” (how little I knew). Anyhow. 10 years ago - had a black one. Sold it because it wasn’t a silver sparkly one. And after missing out on 2 over the last decade… In need of a new pickguard really…but it’s functional…for now

Saturday night we played at the RBL (Royal British Legion) Club in Gillingham for the town’s annual Carnival night. As usual for these carnival-type gigs we had to be there by 6pm at which time all the roads were closed, for the procession to muster safely and the crowds to get cidered-up and ready to cheer along the narrow streets! I left home at 16:45 and just squeaked in before the border was shut. Still, looking on the plus side, I then had plenty of time to recover from the field hockey match I’d just finished umpiring at 15:40 and the 45 mile drive – our start time wasn’t until 20:30! Dep guitarist (#2 this time) had had a similar journey from the Dorset coast, but the dead time after setting-up and sound checking passed fairly quickly as we traded covers-band war stories and had a few bevies until 20:25, when the parade outside ended and the punters flocked in to refuel and get warm. We did a couple of good sets, our dep added a third harmony to those numbers that needed it and cranked out a great 2-4-6-8 Motorway as lead singer. We chanted “No More Songs!” back at the crowd after three encores, I was packed up faster than a fast thing, gone by 23:30 and home at 00:45. Our cat was waiting as usual for a food refill after leaving me the obligatory present in his litter-box – it’s all part of my enviable Rock’n’Roll lifestyle!

Crauford Arms in Milton Keynes supporting The Men They Couldn't Hang on Friday night. I can't find any photos! It's a great venue we've played before. No kit share this time as TMTCH were recording for a live DVD (does anyone buy DVDs any more?) and didn't want to move anything. No problem for me as my bass drum is only 10" deep! Great set, super tight, and we were staying over so we all had a few beers and watched TMTCH on their last gig of the year. Hopefully we'll get some support slots with them again! Dogfest at Boston Gliderdrome in Saturday. We were scheduled for 6:15 but a band pulled out and they moved us back to 7:30. Terrible house drum kit. Terrible monitors. Terrible sound. Great crowd who sang along to every word. Must have been 800 at least but again I can't find any photos! This is a great old venue and hopefully we'll get to play there with a decent sound some time Only 4 left this year now. I'll try to remember to take some pics at those

Great gig on Saturday night at The Chadwell arms, which is become a regular haunt of ours, now. The small crowd were singing and dancing from the off. I knew we’d cracked it when one older chap who’d been nodding along throughout the first set gradually edged closer, and by the mid point of set 2 was belting along with us and full-on dancing! 4 encore songs(!) was a first as well. Absolutely over the moon!

Been doing a lot of buying/selling and trading of basses and musical equipment over the last few months! These are 3 of the 4 basses that have come in. See separate thread for Rickenspector goodness 😎😁 Spector Euro Classic in White Spector Coda 4 Pro Fender Classic 70's Precision I'm VERY happy with all of them!

At risk of a thread derailment @Chadu25... And to bring things back on track, here's the A rig. Unchanged for quite a while, possibly the upgrade from TX to TX-P and the return of the T-47 are the only changes since last time, although underneath a shift to Cioks power and a complete rewire this summer. And for the sake of completeness, here's the upright rig:

My wife’s main hobby makes mine look very small beer.

Just started a month of Sunday Bandeoke gigs at a new venue in Bristol. Quiet start which picked up as soon as the punters began to join in the fun. Hopefully it will continue to grow and become a residency.

My Wife is a fellow musician (singer, clarinet, piano, guitar) and her day job is as a Senior Music Therapist so music and instruments are around us all the time. My Son is also an accomplished young drummer. If she didn't like it, told me what I was 'allowed' to buy or told me to leave a band we wouldn't be together in the first place... Music isn't just what we do for fun, it is who we are...

My partner learned to play drums and joined the band! ❤️

New small board alert... had a few things I was really enjoying but didn't want to mess with my main setup. So here's board 2!

it's so nice to hear that I'm not the only one We are a team, best freinds etc. She also plays bass and we've done two bands together. Our house is full of gear too. The support she gave me when I slipped a disc was heroic She was also right by my side when I was learning the Bucks Fizz stuff for my audition. Helping me with dance moves etc Lockdown was fabulous

Mrs Zero is quite tolerant. I do generally forewarn her of purchases (I forgot to mention that I was buying a motorcycle though). The view from my end of the settee in our lounge:

Oh wow! The Brooks DDB (aka Double Duane Bird) is Bass Of The Week over @ NoTreble Such an honor to see my creation featured on their site! https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2024/10/07/bass-of-the-week-brooks-duane-double-bird/ Check it out (and maybe leave a comment at the bottom of the page 🤩 )

I'm sorted for instruments now (well sort of, I'm still waiting on the Dubreq Theremin) but my wife was always totally fine with whatever I bought. Music was (and still is) my sole earner, so buying new gear was never an issue. She played piano, cello and acoustic guitar and dulcimer, and she loved having a play on my Fender Rhodes or the Philicorda. She still has a little guitarlele now but sadly is too weak most of the time to play it. But she's always asking me to play. I was lucky finding her 👍

Also, F U very much Fender...

Here's your cab being finished off right now, @eude.

This! The whole "She Who Must Be Obeyed" thing in some of these musican's boards over the past 20+ years is so common that it's become a trope. No idea how serious the people writing it are. I don't see it on the socials - perhaps that's because they have a younger demographic. I think I would be out of any relationship where something like this was happening pretty quickly 💥

Interesting one last night. Tiny pub, a dep drummer, and I was strapped into ‘the appliance’ I have depped with the drummer before in other bands and knew he would be fine. The others were a little unsure beforehand going in with no rehearsal but all was fine. He lays into his kit a lot more than our normal drummer but knows what he’s doing and has feel so he and I had a talk through funnies for stops, tops & tails in the set and with that and me talking through cues during the set (while playing bass, singing bv’s and trying to stay upright much to the huge amusement of the WAGs) we made it through ok. It is a tiny pub and originally we were going to be one guitarist down, but he made it in the end. It would have been very difficult with our usual drummer’s rack system but the dep has a more compact kit so we squeezed in just about. I am three weeks into six weeks non weight bearing on my left ankle after an operation. It has been a bit of a trial, not painful just a PITA. Been living at my late mother’s house as there’s a Stannah and a wet room there which makes life easier. Been getting around the house on a Strideon kneeler scooter hired for the six weeks suggested by the physio at hospital before I was discharged. About a week to ten days ago I found an advert for an iWalk 3.0 and ordered one which is great. Took very little time to get walking on it once it was put together and adjusted for height and I can heartily recommend it for anyone that may be in the same boat - in November it’ll be largely surplus to requirements and up for sale 😁 So with the new appliance strapped on I was able to do most of the gig standing. Only issue was towards the end of each set when my right leg started to go to sleep 😴 aeb46226-2d87-4db8-b804-6b24d34e0d16.mp4

It's alive! The Brooks DDB (DoubleDuaneBird). A double-neck Thunderbird with a traditional Thunderbird 4-string neck. And a 30 1/2" scale 12-string bass neck. I can finally share another completed build with you guys. The idea had been brewing for a while but the actual build started out early july 2024. I'll share the pics of the build proces in separate posts below this opening post. Specifications: - Korina body - Korina 12-string neck 30 1/2" scale - Korina 4-string neck 34" scale - Candy Apple Red Nitrocellulose finish - Ebony fretboards - Circle position dots - Jumbo frets - Buffalo horn nuts - Three ply (vintage) white/black/white pickguard - Custom made ETS twelve string brass bridge set. Chrome - Wide travel Thunderbrid style bridge. Chrome - Spokewheel double action trussrods - Carbon reinforcement strip in 12-string neck - Gemini Dominator pickup for 4-string - Gemini Devastator pickup for 12-string - Bourns pots (volume/tone volume/tone) - Mullard capacitors - Toggle switch to choose 12- or 4-string - Gotoh GB 350 lightweight bass tuners - Gotoh ST-31 Stealth tuners - 1 x Pure Tone Multi Contact jack output - d'Addario custom set strings (12 string) - Rotosound RB 50 (4 string) - Weight: 7.9 kg

Guitars on the wall … then the other end are more axes and a bit of the wife’s artistic handiwork 😁

My partner politely requests that I keep the gear encroachment to one guitar in the living room and the rest stays in the studio downstairs, arguing correctly that as we have an entire room dedicated to music kit it seems a bit unfair to then start slowly moving it into the rest of the house... We also have an arrangement where she comes to one (1) gig per new band at which point her supportive duties are considered fulfilled unless something particularly interesting comes up. She once took a train across three countries by herself to see me play in Amsterdam so it's not like she's not interested, but if she came to every gig I did she wouldn't have time for a job. I was also away on that particular tour for two full months leaving her to look after the homestead solo - support goes both ways and unfortunately there have been times when I've not been great at it in the past. Hopefully doing better these days!

Likewise Mrs Bassbiscuits is very cool about my various basses, acoustic guitars, amps etc. I also cringe when I read those “have to hide it from my wife” type For Sale threads. She doesn’t regularly come to my gigs unless they are really cool ones like Alexandra Palace or some special occasion. But she’s 100% supportive of my gigging, and I just make sure that I’m useful when I am around the house to pay back her kindness.

In the mid 90's, I was working for the main turn on a show through the summer months down in Torquay. Chas, Dave and Mickey (The Drummer) were on the bill as well. I had a fantastic time socialising with them all after the shows, but lordy, they could drink for England. Dave was a very fine musician, a real gentleman and a proper laugh. I also got to play his Precision Bass a few times. On top of that, we also had first hand tuition on how to sing that tongue twisting 'Rabbit' song. Especially the yapping bit at the end...lol.

I am also in a fortunate position. It boggles my mind when some people report that they have to sneak basses into the house, or hide them under beds, or pretend that they've owned them for a while. I hear stories of pressure applied by partners to give up gigging. All this stuff makes me sad, but glad that I do not experience any of this myself. When I bought my most recent bass, I told my wife about it and her response was "good price"

I used my spare PSU that I repaired last time and it worked fine - hooray, it's not the pedal, phew! I decided to buy another as it's only about £30 from Anderton's, not worth faffing about. So I logged into my account on Anderton's and... double bonus... I had £20 of loyalty points sitting there from when I bought my Sire. DEFINITELY not worth faffing with the broken PSU when I can get a replacement for a tenner! Anyway the gig went really well, lots of larking about musically, chasing each other around the stage. Also a lot of people dancing and having fun for a Sunday afternoon gig I'm still loving the Sire + Fender Rumble v3 500

Maybe a take on the one from the old Fender Performers?

Well, I guess Fender *not* doing a P bass is innovative.

I stumbled across this short oh-so-true sock-puppet video that explains the above - well worth a look!

It was just sitting there on a guitar stand during our soundcheck - The Mission soundchecked earlier in the day but all their gear was still in the wings.....I was so tempted to pick it up and have a play but I resisted. Imagine how much trouble I might have got into. I didn't speak to Mr Adams at all but briefly met Mr Hussey just before their set. A memorable night.

You lot are quite bougee down south. Come north man, we have hob nobs!

Update. Deposit paid. Now I've got a year to cobble the rest together!!!!

This all makes TOTAL sense. I'm looking for an ABZ because I've been so impressed with the Combustion but want better. I actually don't like the flamed top, I love the pickup selection, I love the tone, I would like better hardware and a preamp with passive tone control. It's also that I've played my bass most days since I got it and have met and really liked Sheldon so. I understand why you didn't go with them in the end but this is something I've thought long and hard about. This is the build I've agreed with Bass Direct Model: AZ - ABZ Pickup Configuration: 3 - 3x pickups Number of Strings: 5 £2950 Body Wood: S - Swamp Ash Contrast Layer: O - No (Standard) Top Wood: O - No (Standard) Pre Bleach: O - No (Standard) Top Color: NAN - Natural Back Colour: NAN - Natural Finish: Hardcoat Satin Pickguard: OO - None Pickup Type: FDV (Alnico - Standard) Electronics: RND - Neve - £455 Neck: RA - Roasted Ash - £510 Fingerboard: M - Maple - £190 Inlay Style: D12 - Dots with 12 Fret D - £75 Inlay Material: K - Black Pearloid Side Dots: K - Black Pearloid Headstock: O - Non Matching Tuning: O - Standard Hardware: K - Black (AB, Z, Super J and P) Total: £4180

As a single guy, I'm hardly qualified to comment in some respects, but my observations of others over the years is that the successful relationships seem to be the ones where people carry on with the hobbies and interests, perhaps shared to some extent.

I suppose 'Rescue & Restore' would also be an appropriate name for a thread where old Trace Elliot stuff is concerned. Kudos for keeping some quality old school TE stuff gigging. I've had some similar TE kit pass through my hands over the last five years in particular, and the thing about old TE stuff, apart from the weight, is that it was built to last. That being said, the 'old TE classics' do now have plenty years under their belts and it's more or less a given that a good proportion of it will need repairs and servicing of some sort. So buying cheap, especially with amps can be a gamble. The J112 fet that was failed on your SM head is quite a common thing on these amps, and an inexpensive fix. The older Trace stuff with output sections using Hitachi Mosfets can lead to more costly repairs if they go wrong. Cabs though are usually bomb proof and it takes a lot of abuse to break them. I've just bought an AH250 GP11 MKV for the princely sum of £30. It lights up beautifully, but the output is suspect. I know whats wrong with it, and it will need a bit of TLC. However, these amps are legendary, and well worth a little repair work to keep them going. Also rather nice to see a heavyweight thread where lightweight amps and cabs won't be mentioned😁

The covers band, Top Deck, did a 5pm-7pm slot today at The Pear Tree in Ripley Derbyshire. We picked the gig up yesterday after the pub had been let down by the band who were booked and then put a help message on Facebook. Anyone who knows Ripley won’t be surprised to hear that there was a mixed sex ward-full of lairy drunks at 5pm on a Sunday ready for dancing and singing along. Less fun was the torrential rain that started to seep into our playing area. Some quick improvisation with the log pile.

They all have P pickups, even the Telecaster. That's ground zero of the last 40 years of Fender innovation. The world ends on the 16th.

A couple of photos of the Oxjam gig: