KingBollock

Some kind of delivery person (I don't know if it was the postie or a parcel delivery bloke) actually barked at our dog today, in lieu of knocking on the door or ringing the bell. Normally parcels just get dropped in through the side door, but with my wife being away, and the fact that when the sun is out like it was today the utility room gets really warm, so the dog was sleeping by the door... I really don't blame him for not knocking, she was making a fierce racket so not much point anyway. I can't even blame him for barking, she can be very loud and annoying. The problem is that he left the parcel leaning against the outside of the door, to cook in the heat. I went down to see if there was anything but saw no parcel and no card so thought nothing of it, until a couple of hours later when I though to check outside. I know the thinking would be that we would see the parcel when we got home (no car in the drive) but as a rule I don't leave the house and my wife is away until Sunday. Fortunately the electronics in the parcel weren't damaged. But I'm [i]really[/i] glad I decided not to order the paints that I had planned to, that would have been expensive and very messy (though not quite as bad as the time a box with £300 of soap in it was left hidden behind our wheelie bin for a fortnight, in the rain!).

I don't have a hugely low action because I hate any fret buzz at all. But I do play very softly, with a pick. I feel like playing softly helps to increase my speed and accuracy because I feel I have more control with less pick travel. If that makes sense? It also gives me somewhere to go if I need a different feel for any reason. Depending on what I am playing, I will also change pick for a different feel and/or sound. Anything from a .69 to a 3mm. Playing softly with a 3mm pick, I can do a pretty convincing digging in with fingers like sound.

Shouldn't this thread be locked??

[quote name='Cato' timestamp='1492442333' post='3280265'] Off topic, there's a Morris side in the town in Henley in Arden. For reasons best known to themselves they go full blackface in tophats and multicoloured jackets and waistcoats and prowl round the town every boxing day. Scared the Bejeezus out of me the first time I bumped into them, I thought I'd walked into an episode of 'The League of Gentlemen'. Edit:these are the bastards, in full boxing day get up. http://silhillmorris.weebly.com/who-are-we.html So, in conclusion if you see a Morris troupe coming towards you, run. [/quote] I was trying to remember where I'd seen them before. Then I realised I was thinking of last week when we took the car through a car wash...

[quote name='dmccombe7' timestamp='1488289714' post='3247558'] make up brush (courtesy of my wife i might add) Gibson guitar polish and soft polishing cloth on the painted or lacquered basses. Briwax on my Warwick Thumb. Dave [/quote] I bought a cheap set of makeup brushes recently, for adding dust to things (weathering powders for models) and my wife has asked me to get her some because they're actually quite good.

A can of compressed air is brilliant for getting the dust out of bridges, tuners and from under the strings.

[quote name='operative451' timestamp='1487442468' post='3239875'] Ladytron - saw them supporting Goldfrapp at the Eden Project in 2006. Sort of a female petshop boys with kind of Vulcan barely withheld cold rage... [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTTwlAT_AwU[/media] [/quote] I love Ladytron! Destroy Everything You Touch and International Dateline are on one of my favourite playlists that I listen to most days.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1487331426' post='3239004'] [URL=http://s997.photobucket.com/user/stingraypete/media/stock-photo-beautiful-woman-repair-soldering-a-printed-circuit-board-204001492_zpsy46ovk4q.jpg.html][IMG]http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/af100/stingraypete/stock-photo-beautiful-woman-repair-soldering-a-printed-circuit-board-204001492_zpsy46ovk4q.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [/quote] That reminds me of when I was in college doing electronics. They were doing some publicity thing with a local news paper and they chose me for the photos to go in the paper. I can't remember what I was working on, but I was using a soldering iron. The photographer didn't like the iron and had me hold a pair of pliers, as though they were a soldering iron, instead.

I don't really know how well known they are, but if they were better known then perhaps they would do more than a single London gig when they do a UK tour... If you were to squeeze the Hammer House of Horror movie catalogue into a juicer and set it to music (I got my juicer from the owner of a dusty little magic shop that closed down the very next day), you'd get The Vision Bleak. https://youtu.be/wl_qWJ0v3Bw https://youtu.be/KgOtB9XksgI

Cradle of Filth or Rammstein (simple stuff, but what a show to be a part of!). Early WASP would have been fun. The Pogues. If it was just for one specific gig, it would be Guns & Roses at the LA Ritz in 1988.

I have only bought from them once, and that went fine. I would have bought from them a second time, but the site page for the speaker cab I wanted said to phone them. My wife called them and the chap on the phone, rather snottily, told her that it meant they didn't have any left, and then he hung up.

I'd like to suggest the Digitech Bass Driver, but they're discontinued so you'd have to go second hand, which means you couldn't return it under distance selling regulations if you didn't like it. I have one and I love it. It is very, very versatile with a knob that goes from light dirt through heavy crunch all the way to fuzz. It has a blend, too. They weren't expensive when they were new, so should be cheap used. Another option would be a multi-effects pedal. They're useful to have anyway, but it might give you an idea of exactly what kind of dirt would work with your bass tone. My Zoom B1on cost about £40 new.

The one I could barely get a note out of was the clarinet. Which is a shame because they sound lovely. When I very first picked up a violin (twenty four years and nine stone ago) it seemed that I was a natural. I could get lovely sounds with no squeaks or screeching, and found notes on it easily. I actually own a violin now but I can't play it because my fingers are too chunky. I'd love to have a go with a cello, to see how I'd get on. I have owned skinny string guitars for over twenty years, but I still play them like a bass player. The thing I really struggle with is chords. If it's not G, Ab, C, Db, D7, E or Em, then I'm stumped. I find banjo chords much easier. I had a friend when I was a kid who was an incredibly talented musician from a family of professional musicians. They had a house full of instruments, including a little fife, similar to a plastic headed penny whistle but played like a flute, and they once challenged me to get a note out of it because, it turned out, none of them could. I don't know if it was a dodgy one, I didn't struggle with a proper flute when I tried many years later. The one thing I always wanted to be able to do, from way before I took up any instruments, is to sing. I simply cannot do it. I have a naturally dull, ugly voice and I can't hold a tune to save my life. If a genie popped up and offered to swap all the "talent" I have built playing bass and other instruments over the years, for being able to sing, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Meatloaf - I would do anything for lOhMYGODSHUTTHEHELLUPYOUANNOYINGBRAYINGDONKEY!!

Back in 1989 I was asked what my perfect bass would be. But the bass I described didn't exist at the time, not as I had described it. I believe BC Rich started making them in 1999 and stopped in 2009. I finally got mine in 2013.

I personally don't like it but I could see how someone could. The whole bass is quite dark, except for the headstock, and the cream pickup cover offers some balance. If you just want to see what a black one would look like, make a simple cover from some black card. Take a photo of it from a similar distance to the photo you posted and you can compare them side by side. Or even just photoshop that photo.

Diamanda Galas - Gloomy Sunday https://youtu.be/avXG4AVIZP8 Within Temptation - Jillian https://youtu.be/5vKyojR1LEI Sabaton - Wolfpack https://youtu.be/ZV-QF7VeSSA Cradle of Filth - Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids https://youtu.be/ltwJWQX9AVs

Steve Harris signature Fender P. http://basschat.co.uk/topic/296228-fender-steve-harris-signature-2012-stockholm-sweden/ I've been gassing for one of those for a few months now. I'm not sure why now, though. I was a huge Iron Maiden fan when I was a kid, and Steve Harris was one of the main reasons I took up bass, but I had never wanted to own his signature bass. I haven't been able to get into anything by Iron Maiden since Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, but now, after all these years, I want one.

All of them... A recent thread on BassChat got me to pick up the Penny Whistle again and the time of year demands that I go through Christmas songs. It could be said that I am a little rusty, well, I sound like an old rusty hinge... my wife looks like I have set about her fillings with some tin foil and a car battery. I think she'll be glad when it's all over for another year.

[quote name='Number6' timestamp='1481579768' post='3193506'] Aah the Torrington. Saw the Hamsters there a few times. Dumpys Rusty Nuts aswell i seem to remember. [/quote] I was trying to remember some of the bands that used to get mentioned a lot, and the only one I could remember as being particularly notorious was Dumpys Rusty Nuts.

I worked in a guitar shop in the (very) late eighties that had a very varied customer base, and there was always talk of support bands being stitched up by the headliners. It was just taken as being normal. Normally if a customer had been talking bollocks and was just bitter about something, someone in the shop would have piped up once the customer had left, but with the stitching up, everyone had experienced it themselves.

[quote name='ROConnell' timestamp='1481280203' post='3191125'] I've tried making a house track out of samples of kitchen drawers and cutlery noises, if that counts... [/quote] That reminds me! I started playing the spoons a couple of years ago, which is actually a lot of fun. For me anyway, not sure about people listening.

I got massively into Irish folk music going on twenty years ago, so I started learning a few things and still dabble with a couple of them. Five string banjo and the penny whistle I still love playing. I could never get the hang of the blues harp or the ocarina (I know it's not Irish, but I was intrigued after it was mentioned in a Robert Rankin novel). I wish I had kept up with the bodhran, but I worry too much about the amount of noise it makes. Actually I don't play any of the acoustic stuff nearly as much as I would like, simply because of the volume issue. One instrument I have always wanted to play is the glockenspiel or the xylophone, I loved playing them at school, but they're so bloomin' expensive. I've got a small bamboo one, but it's rubbish. I don't suppose any of them are particularly unusual.

My first proper amp, in around 1987/88, was a Laney Klipp, too. I blew it up, but that was just pure ignorance about tube amps on my part. My current guitar amp is an old Laney Linebacker 100R. I've had it for donkey's years, even used it for practising bass at home for a while. Other than having to have a lead between the effects loop out and the effects loop in, otherwise it tends to cut out, it works fine and I use it most days.

What? No Jo Bench? Obviously not a true fan of women bassists! And I'm sure you must have missed at least one other...