peteb

Was that Terry Sless' Kossof tribute?

Very much so. I saw them with Paul Chapman many times and they just dripped attitude and a down at heel coolness, but were very musical at the same time! When they were on, they were a great live band...

Maybe, but not necessarily in a good way! They were imploding at the time and were struggling to keep it together live, leading to Sheehan leaving halfway through the tour.

Funnily enough, I know the guy who replaced him in WA (Mark Abrahams, who's from these parts).

Pino and Jimmy Copley - great rhythm section...

I've just looked at some of Shaun's old posts and see that he was the guy who's family took in the girl who was a refugee from the war in the Ukraine. He seemed like one of the good guys - a great shame he has gone at such a young age.

I've just put a band together to play the blues circuit and got my 68 year old mate in on vocals. A great rock singer in his day and has been around the block many times. Unfortunately, he got nodes on his vocal chords about 12 years ago and hasn't really gigged since. He's just getting his confidence back, but good to hear him singing properly again. He's never going to hit the notes that he used to, but still sounds great singing blues stuff.

Unless you're the ghost of Phillip Lynott, every black P bass should have a tort scratchplate...!

As they do to virtually every producer and band leader out in the real world...

I think that Bass Direct just have made a bigger impact on the type of people who visit BC. I remember there was a guy who worked at the Bass Gallery years ago, who some people had an issue with (although I certainly didn't). Funnily enough, I've always found the Gallery to be helpful and enjoyed talking to them. However, their website is terrible - far worse than the Bass Direct one!

In terms of customer service, a couple of months ago I rang Bass Direct as I had somehow managed to lose one of the feet off a Bergantino cab on a gig. Note that I bought the cab s/h from someone on here, not from BD. Marcus asked me to email him the serial no of the cab so that he could look into it. Thirty minutes later I was copied into an email from Mark asking Marcus to look in a drawer in the storeroom where they might have some spares. The next morning there was an email from Marcus saying they couldn't find any spares but he had emailed Jim Bergantino. A few hours later there was a message from JB saying that it wasn't cost-effective to mail a replacement over, but saying exactly what the replacement was. At this point I bought the right feet from eBay and they arrived in time for the gig on the next weekend. So, all sorted in less than 24 hours. I know it was only a few emails, but I thought they genuinely made an effort and that was pretty good service, seeing as I didn't even buy the cab from them.

Thinking about it I had a similar thing with the Bass Gallery. I was interested in a cab on their website, got in touch for them to say 'sorry, we sold that months ago'!

I must admit I would never buy a bass directly from the site, I would ring the shop up everytime. They can take the card details over the phone and arrange shipping there and then, rather than wait for the notification from the website. I recently bought a pair of shorts in a sale from an online retailer, only to get an email a couple of days later saying they had sold out and cancelled the credit card transaction. For a high value purchase, I will speak to a human every time.

Of course, but maybe worth a chat. Chris is a very helpful chap and talking to him might help him to gauge demand. Personally, I prefer this shape to the usual ones they produce!

I would think that Chris could probably make you a short scale version if you wanted one!

Yes, they're out in the countryside near Cross Hills. I've been out there a couple of times - lovely spot...

Great news hopefully - best of luck mate

I must admit that I formed an opinion on Bruford when I read his autobiography where he came across as a whiny, entitled public schoolboy, with petty gripes against his former colleagues and that he seemed amazed that the band didn’t fall over themselves to throw money at him when he left them in the lurch when they were about to go out on tour promoting Close to the Edge. It’s the entitlement rather than the schooling or his background that I took against. Chris Squire was a funny one as his dad was a taxi driver, but he went to a minor public school and sang in a choir that performed at St Paul’s, etc. A massive personality and a very influential musician.

Just come across this - a TV programme from 71/72 of early YES (the Fragile period when Wakeman had just joined), following a British small hall tour before they went off to conquer the States. Bruford comes across as a bit of an entitled posh boy and Anderson is surprisingly down to earth, but fascinating stuff...

Funnily enough, I never really thought of the bass player with the Undertones as being a top session player...

I've got one of the earlier Gigblade bags and there is a bit of an issue when carrying over one shoulder for any period of time, although the later versions have supposed to have sorted that problem out. I use a Mono Vertigo and it's great (5'10" here). Having said that, it's quite rare that I carry on my back for any length of time. I used to use an iGig double bag, which was brilliant for protection and storage - a bit of a nightmare when I had to carry two basses from one side of a Butlins site to the other though. To be fair, that was one of the things that I liked about it - no one is going to try and do a runner with a bag with two bases in it...!

I've got a story about meeting Mr Schenker at a party in the early 80s - not sure that it's suitable for Basschat though...!

'm not sure that I would necessarily include King Billy! Sure, he plays lots of sessions but he gets called to be 'Billy Sheehan' rather than to do whatever is needed to create a track ala Sean Hurley or a Guy Pratt, etc. I would add Alan Spenner to the above list, along with Michael Rhodes, Clive Chaman, Stanley Sheldon, Carmine Rojas and possibly a pre Zep John Paul Jones...

Definitely agree about Come Taste The Band - I still play that regularly to this day! It doesn't really sound like a DP album (more like the best Bad Company album ever, but featuring Jon Lord playing keys and with a big hint of a Tommy Bolin solo album), but certainly my favourite Purple album.

Just to note, that is Thomann who have done that. The same may not apply to anyone else in Europe you buy something from.