neepheid

Yes, we do it, we do it semi-willingly in December and it goes down well. We do Slade and Shaky. Pre COVID we did The Darkness too but people didn't seem to like that one so much so we dropped it. Weird, because they love I Believe In A Thing Called Love. Lighten up, it's only one month out of twelve, you damn Scrooges

Is that Pink Floyd, post Roger Waters, according to Roger Waters?

Last night was odd. First time gigging in a new town (Montrose) and a new venue (the Black Abbot). Early start at 8pm - when we arrived in the room folk were still eating their dinner. The area we were asked to set up in was made unnecessarily cosy because of various bric-a-brac left and right but we squeezed in there. Started playing and got moaned at for being too loud. We did our best to back it off a little and eventually they stopped moaning. I was barely brushing the strings! Got some folk up dancing. After the folks who were moaning left the bar staff told us just to do our thing and the second half was a lot more business as usual. After an annoying start it ended up being a pretty good gig. Got asked for one more tune at the end. Nice early finish too (11pm).

Aff it, otherwise I'd have been on it.

Simple answer is no. You do you. You're the bass player. Take anything anyone has to say about that with as many or as few pinches of salt as you deem necessary.

FWIW I use a Yamaha Sessioncake SC-02 as my headphone amp. Can take an aux in and has aux out for things like a tuner app on your phone etc.

Why do you pay yearly? We use emubands and it's a one time payment per release.

@cheddatom - I've got your back, fellow IT person.

"I thought you were attractive, but you're a just an ar$e!"

I've got Merry Christmas Everybody AND Merry Christmas Everyone ready for Saturday. Bring on the cheese!

We are at that crossroads at the moment - there is disagreement in the band as to whether or not to bother making CDs any more. I could take it or leave it, one is really keen to make CDs, one is dead set against it and the other two's opinions are undefined at this time. It looks like we'll do a minimum run of CDs (and accept that the unit cost of them makes it minimally profitable at the unit cost level) just so that they exist. We save costs by doing all our own artwork (which means it won't suck, but it won't be amazing either). The album is already up digitally - not that anyone cares - just another voice whispering into the cacophony of music out there. It just feels so grubby and makes my skin crawl to go all HEY, YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO OUR MUSIC BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME, so it's hardly going to light up the charts, is it?

It was a serious reply - there's absolutely no money in it. We're far too old and far too ugly to "make it" so we just make some tunes, record them and send them out into the ether to absolutely zero plaudits because we must suffer for our art - and we're terrible at convincing other people to suffer our art...

We don't do it for the money, it's all about the posterity.

Jazz basses can do one.

Eh, I've had various Fenders and Squiers (a Squier Jazz with Barts, a Squier P bitsa with Badass II and SD QP, Fender Cabronita P, Fender Starcaster spring to mind) but I currently don't have any Fender products right now. I'm not averse to them, but right now my G&L Tribute LB-100 is my sop to owning a P bass. Nothing Fender are doing just now blows my hair back enough to consider buying anything. The black and gold Squier P they put out recently is very pretty but what's the point in having it when I have an LB-100?

Must be nice to have space to have monitors in front of you to demark the stage a bit @Bluewine (sounding great btw!). Second gig of the weekend was at Cheers in Fraserburgh on Sat night. First half went pretty well, but the singer was beleagured with ladies cavorting in front of him (drunk, so thinking that they're being sexy when really, it's all a bit ridiculous), wanting to grab the mic and sing, getting pouty when that doesn't work etc. Just got rid of one pest because thankfully she didn't like the song we were playing, only for her to be replaced by another pest the next song! Ladies bouncing around in front of you when you're trying to do a job, some people might say it's a nice problem to have but it's really just an annoyance of the highest order - we're all spoken for men at the end of the day. Some other lady tried to start a conversation with me while I'm playing. I just act dumb - I cannot multitask worth a damn. She complained later that we were too loud/heavy. D'oh, we're a rock band - awa' hame and listen to some Ed Sheeran if it bothers you that much! Oh, the joys of performing at floor level. Towards the end of the second set the bar emptied quite noticeably, but a table of three attentive and appreciative ladies stayed until the end so that made up for it. During Highway to Hell, I went and sat down with them at their table - I've got naff all to do for half the song anyway. It's a bit I sometimes do - pretend to sleep, grab a chair and sit down, that sort of thing, usually gets a chuckle. I usually get back in position when I need to play but Saturday night I just stayed at the table and played my bits there, only standing up for the end of the song. All in all, an OK night, Friday was better though. New venue for us this coming Saturday - the Black Abbot in ... Montrose! Maybe we should play Smoke on the Water and modify the lyrics to "We all came out to Montrose / On the North Sea coastline..." but that's probably too cheesy. I suggested learning "I Got the Fire" by Montrose (the band) but we figured folk might not get the reference... Oh, and seeing as it'll be December, I guess it's time to dust off the Christmas songs again...

Did two gigs in one day with bruised ribs. Took the Jack Casady to try and lessen the weight. It was still a tough shift though!

Well that was bloody great. First gig in a few months due to folk on holiday etc. I'm always a little nervous after that much downtime - will I remember the songs? Turns out the human memory is a little more resilient than I gave it credit for. Had an amazing gig at the Butchers Arms in Inverurie last night. Slow start but crowd streadily built up during the first half and thankfully didn't bog off during the break. This may have had something to do with after the last song of the first half. After we finished the last song of the first half, the singer was telling everyone we were going to have a break and I absent mindedly started noodling the riff to "Groove is in the Heart"/"Bring Down the Birds". The crowd cottoned on to what I was doing, the drummer joined in and then we had someone rapping to it - they were really good! I have no idea what she was saying, but she was in time and had good rhythm! Second half went fantastic, lots of dancers, and only one minus when a pished wifie came in, tried to steal the mic from the singer a few times, got into a fight with a bloke who came across to stop her and finally she got kicked out by the door staff. Some annoying other pished wifie was indignant that we didn't know any Fleetwood Mac. Here's 40-odd other songs you seemed to enjoy, but no, the whole thing's effed because we don't know Fleetwood Mac. OK then, off you pop Cobwebs well and truly blasted out. What a great night!

Interesting - thanks for the info. In the new year (once I get to the end of my gear-free 2022), I will be looking to make my Epiphone Les Paul Standard passive once more. For this, I need guitar humbucker (PAF) sized pickups. Warman are on my radar - the Drivetrain quad coil is interesting to me ("but its equally at home in a bass") but any of their guitar humbuckers if they're beefy enough might do a job.

Who are they for? Who are they aimed at? They'll get eaten alive at that price range.

That's the spirit!

Buy both? They can't be that expensive...

Because they're Jazz basses?

I forgot to mention, as it seems to be becoming relevant, that I got my mostly excellent Tribute LB-100 from GuitarGuitar - in Dec 2021. If you can't be bothered scrolling back, the only "issues" I had with it were furry nut slots (easily sorted with a fingernail to remove the swarf), and the less than stellar shielding "attempt" (which I sighed and fixed myself). Everything else about the bass pleases me greatly - great fit and finish, good fretwork, tuners feel smooth, pots feel ok for the price point.

These things are an aberration even if properly made - who signed off on this? People who know G&L wouldn't touch these with a barge pole. People who don't know G&L and get one in the state Lobster received his will never buy G&L ever again. Maybe they're trying to cement their cult status by making newcomers think their instruments are awful?