Japhet

At a functions gig Irish Woman; Play Brown Eyed Girl. Singer; Sorry, it's not on our set list. 2 minutes later Irish Woman; Play Brown Eyed Girl!! Singer; Sorry, we'd need to learn it. 2 minutes later; Irish Woman yelling; Play Brown Eyed Girl fof f**ks sake!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Singer; F**k off you headcase!

I think if you get into all that TonePrint malarky you can dig yourself into a deeper hole than another pedal with all sorts of knobs and stuff on it. I used a Nova Dynamics pedal for years which was fantastic and had everything on it, but it needed a 12v power supply which was a bit of a pain, and it also took up a fair bit of space.

Probably this

I've been through a fair few compressors, some with all the whistles and bells and have now ended up with the ultra simple TC Spectracomp, and am very happy with it. To fatten or shape the tone I use a Valeton FET preamp pedal which I just love. Have never heard of anyone else using one but it's a cracking pedal for peanuts. I got mine off Ebay for £25 and it's a keeper. There's a simple and cheap solution for ya!

Slapping has gone a bit too far in recent years in my opinion. All the Victor Wooten type machine gun fills don't do it for me, but, a small amount in the right context is fine. Playing wise, I've always used the addage that you're better off leaving the audience wishing they'd heard a bit more rather than wishing they'd heard a bit less. I doubt I ever played more than 10 seconds of slap in any gig but it always seemed to get a good response.

I'm playing a lot more guitar now during the lock down. I discovered Tone City pedals which are quite fab (check 'em out) and have had a steady stream of them arriving from Ebay ever since! Costing me a fortune too (well. not really 'cos they're silly cheap for what they are).

Thanks BC for turning me into a rabid, frothing gear freak. I'm thinking of building a house out of my surplus amps and pedals, but I have nobody to leave it to since I sold the kids ages ago and the wife has run off with a bearded, pipe smoking mandolin player who's had the same gear since 1968.

Another Boneshakers track with Sweet Pea on fine form;

RIP Sweet Pea. Wasn't much into Was Not Was but loved the stuff he did with The Boneshakers. We used to cover this. Great version of a James Brown song.

Lockdown boredome has done for my abstinance at long last. Have been playing 6 string guitar much more than usual and bought a couple of lovely (and cheap) pedals. I use a Roland Cube amp which has input for MP3 etc and headphones out so I can make a God awful racket without upsetting the neighbourhood. My new acquisitions are by Tone City and are a Dry Martini which is an OCD clone and a Bad Horse which is a Klon Centaur clone. On the lookout for a Tape Machine analogue delay pedal too. These are great sounding pedals which I picked up off Ebay for under £30 each.

My approach has always been that I play the gig for free because I enjoy it but I get paid £50 or whatever for lugging the gear in and out and putting up with the odd pi55head. I've seen 10x more aggro at functions than I've ever seen in pubs too.

Filter Twin was my favorite envelope filter pedal by a distance.

Joyo American Sound is a cracking pedal. To push to awesome levels of lush tone goodness, I have mine behind a Valeton FET preamp pedal which is (in my opinion) an absolute belter. The Valeton pedal is also lovely for bass.

They weren't around for long but this band should have been massive in my opinion. Audley Freed is a monster guitarist.

Don't know what happened to these guys but this was a cracking album;

6. Run for Cover - Marcus Miller. 20. If I was with a Woman - Ian Dury (?)

I'm intrigued by the 'relic' market, so I think I'm going to chuck my Precision in the ditch down the end of the garden for a while. I might then leave it in the road outside for a few days.

Another one for passive speakers. You can pick up a decent power amp for peanuts but a failed active PA speaker can often end up in the bin. I'd also add that one of the best PA acquisitions in my band was a Behringer graphic equaliser which enables you to take out narrow frequencies that cause problems rather than losing a whole lump of sound around the problem area. Behringer stuff gets quite a bad press but we've never had a single problem.

Stratus is one of my favorite bass grooves. Apparently Lee Sklar only played it a couple of times in the studio and then never played it again, which quite ridiculously means that I've played it dozens more times than he did ( and nowhere near as well).

It's like the Bermuda triangle around there! My Dad used to live in Crishall and I don't think he really knew what county it was in.

Quite mind boggling stuff on Leslie Johnson's Youtube links.

I fancy a short scale. Interested in these and the Gretsch Junior Jets.

Squier Tele, Aerodyne Strat, Gretsch and a Danelectro.

There's a lot of choices out there apart from the usual Fender Precision and Jazz types. I'd also consider the Gretsch Junior Jet basses for a well made and easy to handle guitar. A lot of bang for your buck with them.

If you want to learn to read you'll need to learn Bass clef which is different to Treble clef as used by flute and violin. I found learning the modes of the major scales helpful but, like all scales, it's only useful if you learn what chords they apply to and how chord progressions work. Good luck and have fun.