peteb

I would say that the old iGig is as good as the Mono Vertigo (I've got both). The thing about the iGig bag is that it has more storage, which is very useful. I don't think that you can get hold of them new these days, but someone is selling one in the classifieds on here. As I said before, a GruvGear GigBlade is up there as well.

So, a 63 body with a 82 neck and a Fralin pickup! It might even be a decent player's instrument, who knows, but ridiculous to be putting it up as a vintage bass with a vintage price tag!

The Stones are up there wearing Converse or whatever, and they're about 105...! I'm sure punters think that your Vans are perfectly fine...

There are plenty of options out there. A GruvGear GigBlade bag stands up to a Mono bag. Get one secondhand if you want to keep costs down.

Yep, I tend to go for Vans myself, except that I tie the shoelaces! I used to wear Converse but, even though they are undoubtedly the coolest option for urban footwear, unfortunately they are too narrow for my feet...!

I must admit that I have succumbed to wearing slip-on Sketchers trainers, but I still can't bring myself to wear them on a gig! A couple of the guys in a band last night were not so fussy, proudly rocking the Sketchers onstage...!

An interesting one last night, the 'occasional' blues band playing as the opener in a three band bill in a pub! The headliner was a goth band, with an original indy type band in the middle. Essentially the gig was everything we would normally avoid - too many bands with nothing in common, playing in a pub with not enough space for not much money. Originally we thought that we were being offered a normal pub gig to cover another band pulling out, but it transpired that we were part of a multi band bank holiday event. Anyway, the blues band doesn't play enough gigs (due to a couple of members being very busy with other bands), so it was nice to play live together again - Facebook had just informed us that our last gig was a year ago! The gig was pretty good, we sounded as if the last show was a week ago and went down really well. All the people involved were great, even if there was a bit of a clash of genres. Every band used my cab, which wasn't what I originally intended. In another thread, some people were saying that they never let anyone else touch their bass. I'm usually pretty relaxed about that (to a point), as you have to be a bit of a d1ck to damage a FSO type bass. I'm more bothered about other people using amps, as you can do damage if you don't know what you're doing with absolutely no ill intent, as the girl playing bass for the goth band nearly did at the soundcheck when she plugged her amp into my Berg cab while my amp was already running and then wondered why it wasn't working! I quickly unplugged my amp (a MB LM3) and then adjusted the gain on her TE Elf so that everything was OK. I took my amp off after our slot and let the middle band use the Elf, just in case!

One of my bass playing heroes and by all accounts, a bit of a character...!

I saw Zak with Moody, Boz and a great singer who's name I can't remember (who went onto tour with some 60s heritage band) at the Royal Standard in Walthamstow in the early 80s. Zak would have been a teenager at the time (I wasn't that much older). Great band to see in a pub! Edit - just looked him up, the singer was Spencer James who later joined The Searchers

You might not care, but if someone turned up to the jam night I used to do had a bit of a decent CV, then we wanted to play with them. Quite often (especially the jams at the blues festivals), pretty much everybody on the stage had done more than I had, which was great because I got the opportunity to play with some excellent players that I otherwise wouldn't have done. My point was that if someone like @chris_b had turned up to one of those jams, we would have asked him to get up rather than him having to ask us and we would have been happy for him to use my bass. All I expect is the same respect that I would show to you, semi-professional courtesy if you will. I would always take a decent enough bass to these sessions and always let other people use it (assuming that they seemed OK) and never had the slightest issue with them treating it with respect. As far as expensive basses go, the first of these jam sessions that I went to (which was kinda like an informal audition for the BL's own blues band), I was called up as soon as I walked in (I was onstage before I had chance to pay for my drinks at the bar) and handed a Fodera that was being used as a house bass for the night! It didn't even belong to the guy playing in the house band, a friend of the BL had just got it and asked the other guy if he wanted to try it out. It's a guitar, not a woman! The other guy who used to do it when I wasn't around used to bring a Mexican Jazz bass rather than his American P bass, which was perfectly fine. I generally used to bring an American Jazz bass or, sometimes a Stingray - no harm at all ever came to any bass that I let others play.

Fair enough, but completely different to any event that I've done. If you were to turn up at the jam nights that I used to do a few years ago and we knew about you, the BL would be making a point of asking you to get up. If I had said 'he's not using my bass', then I wouldn't have been asked back as part of the house band!

So, here's a scenario. I'm visiting someone in your town and they get me to come to your jam night. They come and say to you, we've got someone new in the audience tonight who's happy to get up and who's played loads of festivals, played with people who you may have heard of and been on a couple of albums. Are you going to say we're not going to invite him up because he doesn't carry a bass when he travels? I've done loads of these events, some (especially the ones at festivals) where there are some pretty decent players getting up. I would never take a £5k bass to a jam night, I generally just used to take out a bog standard four string Fender Jazz. We never used to allow drunks or idiots to get up (you can always tell) and even if they weren't the greatest players, we never had any issues. Some of the jam nights were great, but the regular ones used to run out of steam after a bit because you just get the same guys coming week after week. Insisting that you only play with guys who bring their own bass is only going to make that worse. It seems a bit pointless to me.

My view has always been that if you are not prepared to let someone else play your bass, then you shouldn't take a gig as the bass player in the house band at a jam session.

I'm always a little bit surprised about this. A ew years ago, I used to be the bass player for a few jam nights, either at a pub in the next town or a couple of blues festivals that a guy I played for was involved in. A few people would bring their own instrument, but the expectation was that you would provide a house bass that most people who got up would use. I generally would bring something decent, but usually not my main gigging bass (for the pub jams at least). To be fair, I would feel a bit stupid dragging a bass to a jam night where I didn't know any of the guys and might not get called up. I suppose, different jams have different ways of doing things.