tauzero

Needs a bigger stairway, there's Keith Moon, John Entwhistle, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Amy Winecellar, half of Lynyrd Skynrd, John Lennon, George Harrison, Jeff and Tim Buckley to fit on it and that's just off the top of my head. Edit: And I forgot Phil Lynott and Dusty Hill.

My pet piamh is the pronunciation of Irish names.

FTFY

The ones with male names, eg HMS Prince of Wales, self-identify as female.

Grab stands are good but not always the answer.

Friday evening was my first gig as an official member of the Bonnevilles, rather than a dep, as efforts to communicate with the previous bassist have proved fruitless. A few days on from playing inside at the Anker Inn, this was an outdoor multi-band charity fundraiser. This was for a local charity, a Nuneaton hospice. Arrived a little after it started, the band on when I arrived featured a couple of the guys who were providing the PA. The bassist was playing a 5-string Ibanez BTB, which was nice to see and hear (I've grown bored of 4-string Fenders and Squiers, almost all one sees on open mic nights with bands). Next up was a country singer and guitarist with backing tracks. He revealed partway through his set that his father had died on Tuesday, and had been cared for in the hospice. Then it was us. We were using supplied backline which was OK but the guitarist's sound was a bit indistinct. I'll use that as an excuse for missing my cue back into the "Light my fire" intro after his solo. Then we got a pissed-up woman who told us it was her birthday and wanted us to play f*cking "Wonderwall" and said she could sing it. We ignored her and continued to the end. After doing an encore, the guitarist and I had got our gear off stage when our singer picked up his acoustic and started playing f*cking "Wonderwall", and the drunken woman sang, in a variety of keys, none of which were correct. As a bit of a postscript to that, the next act on were a duo - male lead vocals and lead guitar on an SG, female rhythm guitar on a slimline semi-acoustic Tele. They were very good and managed to survive the drunken birthday woman thinking that she could make a positive contribution to "Go your own way" (before someone removed her from the mic and the stage). Gear - Antoniotsai 5-string fretted dragon bass -> Lekato WS-50 -> Zoom MS-60B+ -> Ashdown combo as on-stage monitor, Caravelle memory foam trainers. Then it was Saturday afternoon. For several years, an open mic player called Rick has hosted an event known as Rickstock in his back garden. This stopped a little while back but he decided to revive it as a charity fundraiser for the charity "I'm homeless get me out of here". Rather than his back garden, it was held at the Shirley British Legion. I had a slot mid afternoon, which I did with my usual crap vocals (Mrs Zero having gone to Bloodstock), and as I finished, Rick said to me "the next act's bassist hasn't turned up, can you do it?". I foolishly said yes (I had played with the guitarist who was on next once before and it was freeform jazz, so I expected to have my boundaries further expanded). Then David the guitarist launched into "Sunshine of your love" and I felt safer. Three more songs - "La grange" which I don't know but bluffed through, and "All right now" and "Black magic woman" which I had no problem with. The personnel were guitarist David (pronounced in a German fashion as he's German), keyboard/vox David (pronounced in an English fashion as he's English), and Phil on drums. Plus me, of course. Gear - Hohner B2AV -> Lekato WS-50 -> Zoom MS-60B+ -> Red Sub combo, unbranded velcro-fastening trainers. So then I headed off to the Dirty Roses gig in Sutton Coldfield. We were at the Sutton Park Hotel (which I think is probably no longer a hotel). Car park was rather full and I got a space about as far away from the doors as was possible. After doing my cardio for the next couple of months I got loaded in. The usual chaos of setup ensued and we started up at 9. The applause was a bit more enthusiastic than "polite" but fell a bit short of "rapturous". Things did seem to shift up a gear for the second half though - one of the songs is Time Warp and that's a bit of a barometer. There were several dancers, and the guitarist and I went walkabout to check them. Another few crowd pleasers and the usual encores. Afterwards, the manageress said she was really pleased with us, wanted us back, and then as we were about to go, one of the bar staff (who had been videoing us all evening) told us she didn't like bands but we had been really entertaining. And some bloke in the toilet asked me if we were playing anywhere else locally. Which was all very nice. Ringing the changes, gear was Sei Flamboyant 5 -> Lekato WS-90 -> Zoom MS-60B+ -> Tecamp Puma 900 -> GR Bass AT212, and footwear the same unbranded velcro-fastening trainers.

I had one as it was the only stand that could cope with a Warwick Buzzard 5 height-wise. The grabber mechanism fell apart after not a lot of use. If you don't need the extra height of the Ultimate, a Hercules is (IME) a much better stand. But the Stagg is better than both.

Stagg SGA100BK. Cheap, stable, accommodates headless and asymmetrical basses, with a neck security thingie.

My basses all have names because the manufacturer/luthier was good enough to provide them with them. Oh, except for the 6-string headless made by the chap I bought it from, which I have called "the six-string headless".

My dislikes aren't totally irrational. Headstocks. Ugly heavy things that wreck the balance of a bass. Although that hasn't stopped me owning quite a lot of basses with headstocks. Painted bodies. I just know I'm going to chip it. Chipped painted basses. Deliberately chipped painted basses. Deliberately chipped painted basses with "Fender" on the massive ugly heavy headstock. Scratchplates. Calling scratchplates "pickguards". Calling plectrums "picks". Giving measurements in primitive. We've been a metric country for 60 years, just bloody catch up. Connecting basses with wires, unless it's to connect a 13-pin hex pickup. Wireless is the way.

Shat 69 Sax Pistols The Darned The Jar

Is this one of these basses being played?

What are pickup covers and bridge covers?

Complementary to Guy Pratt's book is Nick Mason's book Inside Out, if you happen to like Pink Floyd.

Dusted Tush Funny

Co-host and house band guitarist James Bartholomew was back from Glastonbury and assorted other places where he'd been gigging with his band Jayler, and house band drummer Luke was back from holidays, so Sunday night at Pitchers was a bit of a reunion. Kept me pretty busy too. I preferred it when it was on Fridays, with an 11pm close rather than 10:30 and with the day after not being a school day - not that that affects me any more, but audiences drift away a bit earlier. And I bravely risked arrest by wearing a "Free Palestine" T-shirt.

That's a bit odd, pages 864 and 865 are displaying identical content. Anyroadup, Saturday was another dep for the Bonnevilles, who are still trying to get an answer from their current bassist about his intentions. Back to the Anker Inn in Nuneaton, which was not exactly rammed but it was a pretty good audience. Usual gear and footwear.

Beep Purple

Could just have used a bolt, washer and nut for added security.

The "AI" generated text omits the most noticeable feature, which the seller doesn't seem to have thought to add to the description.

Considering the bass I was thinking of is about 5m from me, you'd have thought I would remember. Of course, the Variax doesn't have a conventional pickup so a thumbrest is necessary for the non-floating-thumb types (like me).

It's OK, it's already dead.

I can't think which bass, but there's one I've seen recently which had a long thin thumbrest running above the pickups. Something like that, possibly even with a lower edge like a mountain range to fit onto the pickups and ramp (if fitted) would be a solution - 3D printed perhaps.

At last night's open mic night, the guitarist who owns a bass did his slot solo and performed Changes as a tribute to Ozzy. It was f*cking dreadful. Ozzy will be rotating in his grave like a washing machine on spin cycle. I only knew what it was because I knew the lyrics.

11. Find something a hundred times better than the Precision, sell the Precision and never get another one.