peteb

Is he the guy who used to be Johnny Mars tech (among others) / tour manager for the Buzzcocks? He used to run a rehearsal studio in Stockport that I used a few years ago. Confusingly, the other guy he ran it with was also called Richard! Both were good guys and the guy who used to work for Mars was always working on / selling some cool guitars, not to mention had some interesting stories to tell...!

You give us way too much credit - I read all that in an interview with someone who actually worked on the album! We have been asked about playing it, so we just listened to it and thought, 'what's going on there with the guitar, no chance'. However, I thought it was kind of interesting, in a Zeppelin nerd kinda way.

The thing is that the main guitar part is a slide played on an electric 12 string in open tuning, but with one of the courses tuned to a 5th rather than an octave. Then there is a capo on the first fret, which means that the slide keeps banging against the frets. This gives an unusual effect on the record, but would be horrible to try and play live. And that's before the speeding up of the tape and all the studio effects.

Speaking as someone who plays in a Zep tribute, unfortunately that song (with the original Zeppelin arrangement) is virtually impossible to play live! All sorts of jiggery, and indeed pokery, went on in the recording - one of the reasons I believe that even LZ never attempted to play it live.

Is that Black or Black Cherry? I've got one of the earlier 4 string jazzes (with Fralin pickups but the switches on the body) in Black Cherry, as well as a newer 5 string with the new logo, in natural.

That's a good find. I thought that the earlier Xotic jazzes with the Lindy Fralin pickups were great basses, even better than the later models and at least on a par with the Sadowsky Japanese basses of the period. I always like that orange colour on Xotics as well...

It's pretty much the same over here. I've just been asked to do a dep in July, for a band playing at one of the bigger blues clubs around. It's a decent payer (about the lower end of what you would expect playing the tribute circuit), an established venue with a good crowd and apparently they look after you. But it's a two hour drive away and there are less and less of these venues still going (certainly compared to ten / fifteen years ago). My own 'occasional' blues band is playing a biker rally in June, again a reasonable payer to a decent crowd, but we only play a few gigs a year. There are pubs around here that book blues bands, but they don't pay much and it tends to be Sunday afternoon slots rather than a Saturday night. There certainly tends to be more of a market for blues music in Germany / Northern Europe and even a fair bit in Central / Southern Europe. The British Invasion heyday was a very long time ago (although there have been a few resurgences since).

There is still an audience, but it is something of a niche these days. Blues bands are far more popular in various parts of mainland Europe...!

I would also suggest doing exercises to improve core strength, especially to build up the muscles supporting the spine. The best way of doing this is to go to a gym and start doing weights (get advice on what exercises to do). I used to have back problems (displaced disk), but have had no issues for many years, not since I started going to the gym!

To be fair, I don't think that Gazza was purely motivated by money when he started down the blues route (at least initially). Some of his best stuff came from working in that genre (at least to me), although he did start to sound that he was going through the motions later on. To me, his big problem was that he was overly mercurial and consequently changing to the extent that he was neither one thing or the other. I liked many things he did throughout his career, but when I bought one album of his, then the chances always were that I wouldn't like the next one enough to buy it. At least his vocals kinda worked with the blues material. I used to have the Wardance album on vinyl many years ago. I will have to listen to it again on YouTube or whatever at some point. The trouble with a song like that is, as nice as the playing is, it really exposes the weaknesses in his voice - Steve Perry he was not...!

Essentially what they are doing is checking that your vocals or bass or whatever is coming through the monitor OK and not causing any issues. Once they know that, all they need to do is turn it up or down as needed by you. With bit of experience, you can often get it somewhere close with just the odd tweak needed, which you sort out by playing a verse of a song. The experience of both the sound engineer and the guys in the band is key.

The plan is that I will be living there in three or four years time!

I love Walter, but it's a completely different type of music! It's great fun to play music like that and great to see live, although the studio albums often don't live up to the live experience. It's not about songs, but the performance and the feel. It is pretty simple music to play, but difficult to do it well. As you say, there is a sense of being generous to those sharing the stage rather than being competitive - it as different to the social media shredders as it is to mega-productions like a Beyonce show!

But they are unlikely to do so. They won't appreciate having got caught up in this and pursuing him through the courts is likely to be embarrassing and won't do any good to the brand. Far better to cut ties with him and draw a line under the whole affair.

That rarely happens for white collar crimes, especially in finance and related fields.

I've used this offer a few times before. The only issue with the 34" scale is that if you string through the body, then the E string might not be quite long enough for some basses. No problems if you string through the bridge, or if you get the XL set.

I've got a single iGig, which I bought secondhand and have had for years. It's great when you are just taking a bass to a gig and don't want to carry an extra bag. You can get virtually everything that you need into the gigbag (even many small amps). I've also got a iGig double bag that did a lot of gigs and is still OK, with a little bit of visible wear. That can get heavy with two basses, but that is something I quite liked at the time - more difficult for an opportunistic thief to nick! These days, I'm generally using a Mono Vertigo for my main bass and a Mono Sleeve for the spare. They have a lot slimmer profile and therefore take up less space / easier to jam into a car with loads of other gear. The storage on the Vertigo isn't bad and I can get everything that I need onstage into the pocket, but I do miss the top storage pocket for car keys & phone, etc that the iGig bags have. You have to weigh that up against having to carry less bags. Pretty much every time I use a gigbag, it's to carry from the car to the venue. The one time I had to walk any distance to the stage (across a Butlins camp in Skegness), it was with the double iGig bag carrying two basses, which was a bit of a nightmare!

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...!