Leaderboard

I played Steel Paws at the weekend in Sheffield. I'm over 3wks into a bug that is not shifting and my desire to drive up from Wiltshire and back in a day wasn't great. I brought my trusty Hofner Verythin bass and Blackstar U700 head. I was delighted that the festival cab was a Blackstar 4x10. From the second I plugged in, it sounded great. I'd not met the drummer before but our three piece sounded great. The stage manager afterwards told us we were the most professional band of the night. There were loads of pro photographers there but I am still waiting on the photos. This image is from the previous show but I figured worthy of a share. Pic courtesy of Nick Ashton Photography.

4th time lucky, got a used bass courtesy of @MNY who was working just a 15 minute drive from me. Very happy with it, now just have to get some work done instead of sitting in my office playing bass all day. Excuse the awful pictures.

This gig was fun! Band called "Delorean" who I depend for a short while back - flat out rock. The drummer's a friend and invited me in, and we all had a total blast. Great players and the vocalist has a hell of a range! att.t04Yv-Fv5ALPUeaMd6s6QN5IXCiigh5fRZp7Hv42vNw.mp4

I knew someone who, immediately prior to leaving their local, would pop 50p into the jukebox and select 1. Kylie Minogue - The Loco-motion 2. Kylie Minogue - The Loco-motion 3. Kylie Minogue - The Loco-motion 4. Kylie Minogue - The Loco-motion 5. Kylie Minogue - The Loco-motion 6. Kylie Minogue - The Loco-motion 7. Kylie Minogue - The Loco-motion

Finally joined the club! ………….and very happy with the result. It took the best part of three years to finish, regrettably. Immediate post-Covid supply issues of some parts slowed down the start and, as well as other projects, this meant I could only get round to the build this past summer.

MAJOR UPDATE!!!! Just got an email from Ashley at Bass Direct, they've got a free slot coming up now so I could be getting the bass within two months. COULD BE NBD BEFORE CHRISTMAS!!!!

Full Maple Road band at The Baaree this Sunday 3-7. I would have preferred a Friday or Saturday night but Sunday afternoons can be good . Cool venue; https://www.facebook.com/share/r/UCMsAEB5T855roHb/

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!

Proof that bass players can indeed count to 4.

Punchline is a little large 😂 but fits on the XPND nicely.

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:

So me and the wife popped in to the local Farmfoods for a few bit's and bobs. As these wee jaunts go 5 minutes becomes 15 minutes. The music in the back ground was Sweet Surrender by Wet Wet Wet. After I while I noticed that the song was still playing....then it came on again!! I spoke to the guy on the till and he said,yes it's been that way for over an hour and we can't turn it off. Seems it's a remote playout system somewhere and they could only turn it down! Could have been worse I suppose it could have been in B and M where the music is blasted out at disco levels regardless of what cack they have on a loop.....Bing Crosby anyone?? Anyway yes.....I did surrender and we left the shop (well we had to go home at some point! Anyone else been trapped with not so great music ( muzac) playing?

About twenty five years ago myself (on guitar) and a friend who played keyboards were asked to play backing music during the meal of a wedding that the bride and groom were doing as cheaply as possible, along with the first dance which was "Can't buy me Love" by the Beatles. I think we did it in exchange for a room and food (we were students). As it was a bit last minute we had only improvised to random chord sequences during the meal, and then had just that one song rehearsed. But following the first dance suddenly everyone wanted to dance and they had no DJ booked so they asked us to play it again... and then people seemed to think we would play other things but that wasn't what we had agreed, so we played it again... and again... must have gone on for half an hour over and over! Still can't play that song all these years later!

Keeping the thread alive with a live shot from last year. Always great when the gig photographer focuses on the bass

I should add, Ms. S. not only comes to some of my gigs, she never complains if I do one far away and don't get in until 3am. But she was specially chosen for being as obsessed with live music as me, in the last ten days we have seen five gigs and been to one open mic...

Looks like GG have been Cort out! 🙂

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

If hitting the "Submit Reply" button doesn't appear to have done anything, don't hit it again. Select and copy the contents of your post - although you shouldn't even need to do this as the forum software should have automatically saved your post as you type it - and then select "Go to topic listing". Nearly every time you'll see that your post has been added to the end of the thread, and on the rare occasion that it hasn't, if on trying to reply again doesn't bring up the contents of your post you'll be able to paste it back in from your copy.

I used to work with Chas's daughter Juliet many years ago and she became the keyboard player in my band at the time. We rehearsed at the barn/studio in the garden of their farmhouse in Essex most weeks. Every now and again we would get kicked out so Chas and Dave could do some recording in there. They would randomly turn up with a crate of brandy and loads of cigars, boot us out and stay in there for days at a time putting tracks down. And another memory was sitting in the cottage after rehearsals at 1am with Chas's wife bringing tea and toast out, everyone having a bash on the old piano and a 60's PBass leaned up in the inglenook fireplace! Just the warmest and kindest people you could possibly meet. Juliet is playing keyboards with Eddie Tenpole at the moment...

Funnily enough, that's how Franz Liszt became (arguably!) the first rock star! And what about Ravel's left handed piano concerto? Folks have always liked spectacle, which is what Mr Berthoud is providing. And as for his music, I find that far more entertaining than the usual average stuff (me included!) I see at most gigs! Though I rarely sided with those who thought Mozart's music had "too many notes"...

As I mentioned on one of the companies that posted that picture, I am guessing the innovation is the same guitars in a slightly different colour, and with another confusing label that people will have to explain where it fits in the range.

Quadruple post Daryl Are you playing there 4 times!

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

Because it's a good song that the audiences love. It is still popular after 50 yesrs so can't be all bad. Proof that being a perennial favourite does not mean that a song is bad (Contrary to what some here would have you believe)

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

This is an industry where we don't even have battery power indicators despite 35 years of active instruments. Let's not get giddy about any promised "innovation"

My two Ibanez Musician basses.

Myself and some friends once called in for a pint in a village pub near us. It was one of those that immediately sapped the energy from all who entered. Total silence, a few punters nursing their beer - none speaking to each other. We pooled some change and put Crazy, Crazy Nights by Kiss on the jukebox and left after the third repeat... it might still be going... Also used to like to put the last track on Nirvana's Nevermind album on when CD jukeboxes came out. The song finished then there's about 10 minutes of silence, suddenly interrupted by a particularly mad and loud song/blast (Endless/Nameless). We used to countdown and then watch the pub jump.

Here's dedication... I just got offered a gig on Sunday and turned it down in favour of the bash!

I had a wedding gig well over 15 years ago in a more rural part of Wales, no phone signal and this was before wifi was commonplace. The DJ turned up (late) with just his laptop expecting to be able to remotely stream or download his set from his home server over our PA, then started panicking when he realised the hotel had no wifi and you could just about get enough signal to send/receive a text if you stood in a precise area of the car park about 1.5m square. He was asking around for CDs, surprisingly none of the wedding guests had any and our old LDV van still only had a tape deck so he ended up just playing the new (at the time) Madonna album on repeat as that's all he had in his car. Wasn't a cheap do either, they'd paid to put the band up for two nights in the hotel and it was a good money gig to begin with. I'm lazy and complacent but there's levels to this game and this guy was the pound for pound champion.

In our shop I made the playlist - we're currently at 1600 songs (my Mrs took some off!). And now playing is Requiem off the Killing Joke in Dub album, next up is Brother Jack by Jack McDuff... Eclectic and no Wetwetwet...

Won't lie, just teeny tiny bit annoyed that you managed to snag it at 500, but since you're about to chuck that whole lot onto the Uni Pre, I'll let it slide

It’s arrived!! It’s properly great, super happy! Headroom and tone in a light package. Switching to light stuff a few years ago meant a loss in perceivable headroom. The Bullhead has retrieved this. Seems to take anything it’s given and makes it sound epic. So far have tried it with an F bass, Sadowsky and vintage precision. They all sound great through this amp and it’s maintained their character. @j.wolf is right, so much head room that you get the heft and weight back in to your sound that I’ve missed since having a db750. It sounds clearer and more focussed than the DB750, but has the same weight to each note. Taking it with me tonight, will report back.

I won the lottery with Mrs BlueMoon……… enough said! Nice topic to post about……thank you @ossyrocks

He has extraordinary dexterity, musicality and poise and does 'things' on the bass we havent seen before. But how about if he'd studied say the Cello?... Would the cello world be drooling and fawning over him.... I doubt it. In the world of classical music he would be just another schooled accomplished musician ready to join any top orchestra on the planet. Thing is where will this all end? We have all grown up understanding, lead, support and rythmn. Maybe Im too old and funky (in a good way..haha) but I simply cannot see how bass will ever be taken seriously as a lead instrument after all isnt it simply ..... to bassy?

Pfft, showoff!

The Fender ACB 50 is highly innovative. None would bet on a tube bass combo nowadays

The videos are for entertainment, and they demonstrate what it is possible to do with a bass. It is exactly because it's not the ideal instrument that it provides entertainment. You could stick all the notes into a sequencer and press play and it would produce the same tune, but it wouldn't be in the slightest impressive. As John F Kennedy said, "We choose to play bass on Youtube and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too."

Congrats, @Basvarken , for your No Treble 'Bass of the Week ' Very, very well deserved. And, as a 5 times winner of Bass of the Week...your build STILL blows my socks off!!!

Ms. S. is incredibly supportive. Because I care for my dad in the week we don't live together, but she tolerates me keeping a bass and amp in her very nice lounge. Asxwell as keeping lots of gear there on gig weekends. Mind you thus us my home office (I also have basses hung up in my bedroom butanaged to limit the living room to one on the wall and, ahem, six in cases... But I am sensible, I keep my 2x12 in the hall.

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...

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

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.