bassace

I suppose I’m getting on a bit but still enjoying getting gigs coming in. But due to my advancing decrepitude there are a few compromises. I don’t travel so far these days, used to do Leeds and back from Oxfordshire quite regularly, Keswick in one day once. Ive fitted rollers on the DB cover. My amp and cab are lightweight. Ive got a high stool I can perch on if I need to. When I get home the wife stays fast asleep and, more worryingly, so do the dogs. Otherwise a three hour gig is quite doable.

I bought my Solo from Paul a few years ago. He said to take it away on a week’s trial. On the way out I suggested he make a note of my name and address and he said yes I suppose so. I loved the bass for its singing qualities and nice easy action on Spiro Mitts but I could never get it to amp properly - there was something wrong which I couldn’t pinpoint. After trying all sorts of pickups amps and cabs I just gave up and went to see George Martin who sold me a top of range Solo in px for my Martin Concert, still for a lot of dosh. And it played and amped beautifully. But my Bryant was still unfinished business, a stone in my shoe if you will. I took it in the opposite direction to you, BB, to Laurence Dixon in South London. He did virtually the same work as you had Martin Penning do and at a similar cost. The result, I now have a very nice bass that I do all my gigs with and a very expensive Martin that stays at home and hardly ever gets played. Enjoy your bass.

What is it with dear Paul Bryant? There have been countless basses of his which have needed a wider bridge to cover the bass bar, mine included. Mind you, once this mod is completed the bass becomes a great instrument. I love mine and I’m looking forward to a host of gigs in the New Year. Is this a recent purchase, BB?

And a hamster for the tweeter?

Our 18” Cab was so big we put a door in the back and hung the band jackets inside when we were between gigs.

Me, I’m just a lawnmower. You can tell by the way I walk.

Some examples? You can see them quite clearly on the dB for sale section. Surely not that busy, Ped.

What’s going on? Several clearly db items have been moved to other sections. Surely not ‘by choice’.

And Max Bygraves on vocals?

Although I’ve been playing for more than fifty years I’ve never played in a pit. But I greatly admire those who do. So well done bab65 for some well thought advice. You’re obviously well organised - as most pit musicians have been in my experience.

The Count Basie Orch, any of ‘em after The Atomic. No question.

Jon Did you get the clip I sent you? An acknowledgement or even a small thanks would have been appreciated.

In fifty plus years of playing there have, naturally, been a few hitches/glitches, before I played bass I was a trombone player and, following an intensive slide overhaul, I left that part on the draining board. So I turned up at the gig with only half a trombone. Which was interesting. And although I may have broken the odd DB string in the early days it was tail wires letting go (three) that caused the most hassle. But back in the sixties I played in a great jazz/rock five piece that was resident at a lakeside country club - not that one - outside Reading. It was in a wooden clubhouse, so damp that I would stand on a rubber car mat to protect myself from the odd jolt. Leccy was provided by a generator powered by a massive single cylinder Perkins diesel detonating at once per second, or so it seemed. We knew we were a bit down on power from the PA distortion but it wasn’t until a dep guitarist put a meter across the socket that we found that we were running on 120 volts. I remember going up to Tottenham Court Road to buy a 1:2 step up transformer and that immediately cured everything. Fast forward a bit and we had a big gig for the Army in a big complex of marquees. They were using one of those massive generators that you see at fairgrounds, but bigger. The gig started well but soon I was getting a smell of a newly decorated room and getting stronger all the time. Suddenly the the dance marquee was filled with dense white acrid smoke and the place was evacuated for the rest of the evening. The guy who set our gear up was not the brightest and thought ‘Ah, generator. I’ll wire in the step up tranny.’ And it was the insulation round the windings that broke down under twice its rated voltage and went up in smoke. Very embarrassing. Jusr as a PS, and sorry to keep going on, I used to occasionally leave my double bass in a store room at the club. One Saturday I turned up for the gig and found that the damp had got to every joint, reducing the bass to a kit of parts. I repaired it with resin glue but it was never any good after that. I can’t even remember doing anything with the soundpost. But that was a long time ago.

Hi Jon I’ve found a clip in my odds ‘n sods drawer. If you’d care to PM me your address I’ll put it in the post to you.

Excellent! I only got one correct and that was the DB player. But I’m not meant to know about landscape players.

Bill Evans’s chords in the intro to So What are sublime. BTW, the intro was penned by Gil Evans - no relation.

Always dangerous to have a ‘favourite’ anything because there is a danger that you shut out all sorts of nice things. But Marvin’s Grapevine takes a hell of a lot of beating.

The drums make you tap your feet. But the bass makes you swing your hips.

I got a couple of clip on tuners from Amazon this morning. Go back to 1960 and it would have been WTF’s a tuner? In fact almost anything was hard to come by/afford. We played at an RAF base and coveted a length of black mains cable coiled up back stage. When we got back to the flat and unloaded all the gear one of the guys who was looking unnaturally plump asked us to ‘unwind me’. Yup, it was the cable all coiled round his torso. A great prize indeed. My dad liberated a whole stack of ‘music while you work’ 4”x9” elliptical speakers from the biscuit factory that my brother and I built into PA columns. Reslo mics going into a 50watt hifi amp. When his band played support to the Stones at Reading Town Hall, they were so impressed with the PA that they used it. Probably sound like crap today.