peteb

That might well be the name they give it. To be fair, it's not the nicest colour you will ever see on a 70s precision! But then again, its the same finish as Michael Anthony's P bass in the early days of Van Halen, which makes it pretty cool in my book...!

Tempus fugit indeed - I meant 33 years...!

Just picked up a 78 P bass and not just any old Precision, it’s my first decent bass, the one that I cut my teeth on and then sold about 33 years ago. I sold it back in the 80s when I started using active basses. I had two precisions and sold the good one as it was worth a few quid more! Always wished that I had sold the other one instead. It just came up for sale by a guy who's got a studio in Leeds. The only problem is that I paid five times what I sold it for all those years ago! I remember somebody here posting about buying back their old P bass. Like him, I’ve had a couple of precisions, but they never seemed to compare to ‘my’ old P bass. To me, Fender Precisions define what an electric bass is, despite me happily using many other basses over the years. I remember that when I originally bought this bass, I knew that I was now going to be a proper bass player! You have to remember that when I started playing, virtually all of our heroes played a precision! A few played Ricks and the odd one played a jazz bass, but me finally having my own P bass was a big thing! Quite emotional to get it back...

https://www.bigbasstabs.com/lynyrd_skynyrd_bass_tabs/sweet_home_alabama.html

Van Halen supporting Black Sabbath (in 78 I think) Living Colour in a small club in Leeds when the first album came out

I'm sure that I would have done it for free, maybe Rory could have bought me a pint!

Missing the point as ever. I am in awe of these guys in lab coats, whether they be British, American or German.

I can hear those blo*dy Spitfires again! Lets not get ahead of ourselves. There are a number of potential vaccines: American, German / American and Russian as well as the Oxford AZ one. All of these have been brought through in record time at a time of crisis. We don't know at this point which one will be the most effective, although I suspect it will be a combination of all of them. Lets not get caught up in some narrative about a 'plucky nation' saving the world - its not important. The fact there are a number of potential vaccines, all with good prospects, is something to be optimistic about. It is not an excuse to concentrate on one to further a nationalist agenda...

I'm afraid that you are! To be a working musician now (even at a semi-pro level), you need to have a social media presence, be able to receive files etc and preferably be able to record tracks at home. I speak as someone older than you and a bit of a semi-technophobe myself. The COVID situation has really brought this home to me. I've seen guys who are my peers appear on all sort of Facebook collaborations and keeping a visible profile, while I can't use a DAW properly and have been left behind a bit (not to mention missing out on recording an album and having to decline the offer of an internet session for a client of a guitar player that I used to play with). This is something I need to sort out as soon as I can. If I was you, I would get a mid level laptop, open a Facebook account (even if you only use it for musical purposes) and install Reaper, which seems to be the easiest DAW to learn. Good luck...

In a nutshell - as longs as its safe and it works

I dunno - everyone I know in his position can whinge about this at great length without any effort at all. It's not that I don't agree or don't have sympathy, but sometimes it helps if you can impart information in as a dispassionate manner as possible. Feel free to rant at length in a subsequent tweet if you want to!

Thanks for that - more of a twitter rant really, but some information in the form of a summary

That would be very helpful

I can't get the link to work

I just picked out a few songs this late in the night. Ffwd to Goldilox (last song) and the audience sang the whole song with just the guitar - the band only kicked in for the guitar solo and the last chord. Great stuff...! One of those bands I never get to see. I had tickets for September, which was obviously cancelled, and whenever they've played round here before I always seem to have just booked a holiday or something. Hopefully one day...

I think that the point that I (and later others) were making is that the situations in 2020 and 1940 were not comparable and that invoking the Battle of Britain was not helpful.

To be honest, I’m not sure that there is much to be gained discussing such a complex subject on a forum of people who play a bass guitar to varying standards. Such a discussion would inevitably talk about Brexit at length, as well as many other contentious issues and anyone wanting to contribute would really need a reasonable understanding of modern European history. It is still a fascinating subject and if anyone is interested then it is worth reading up on. As far as 'gloom, doom and other Cassandra predictions', people get on with their own lives and make the best of the opportunities that come their way, but we do live in ‘interesting’ times. But we don’t have militias outside the front door, which makes us more fortunate than many other people on this planet. Who knows, maybe events in America last week will be the start of a fightback against the forces of darkness (or maybe not – who knows right now)! If I remember correctly, this thread derail started when someone used an inappropriate ‘during the war’ comment when talking about dealing with a worldwide pandemic…

I’m afraid that I don’t share your optimism, these are potentially dark times. However, I should stress that I can’t imagine any way that there would be a conventional war between the major European countries in any of our, or our children’s lifetimes. All of this would need to be covered in a different thread looking at the changing nature of future warfare, proxy wars, growth of nationalism, what might happen if a minor European country was taken over and the consequences of the fall of the Soviet empire. All of this would make a fascinating thread, but I’m not sure that some people would be comfortable with it being discussed in detail on Basschat!

I would suggest that over the past 20 years or so, we actually have forgotten the reason why we need to have a Remembrance Day in this country. As the actual war is now beyond the memory of anyone not well into their eighties, a now middle-aged generation who have never experienced war have got so caught up in turning it into an exercise of national pride that they have lost an understanding of what caused their ancestors to have to live through such terrible times. If we are worrying that ‘History repeats itself’ (as we should) then we need to stop ‘banging on about the war’ at every opportunity and start looking at what we can do to make sure that the conditions that led to war are not repeated. Looking at what has happened in America and parts of Europe (especially the UK) recently, I wouldn’t say that we are doing such a great job at the moment.

You do know where the term 'rock and roll' came from??

I do wish that people would stop romanticising WW2 and pushing this dangerous view of British exceptionalism. While the RAF may have had less pilots in the Battle of Britain, they had massive technical and logistical advantages that were expertly utilised to ensure that there was never any real danger of losing that particular campaign. The narrative of ‘the few’ and the ‘plucky British underdog’ was very useful as wartime propaganda, but not 80 years after the event by a later generation who have never known a day’s conflict in their lives. If you're interested, see ‘The Battle of Britain’ by James Holland – you can even get an audio version narrated by Al Murray.

If you haven't already got it, I would get the Guy Pratt book. Genuinely laugh out loud funny with some great stories. If ever I'm feeling a little bit down or p*ssed off, I just re-read the section on Guy playing with the Womacks. Great stuff...

Have you thought about a Handbox R-400 (there a couple of threads on BC about them). It's a hybrid amp with valve preamp and a Class A/B power section, handmade in Poland. It is not ridiculously lightweight, but a very easy one hand carry that will sit neatly on a 1x12 cab. Pretty loud - great sound (the EQ section takes a bit of getting used to, but once you do it's fine). I still have my Mesa mpulse in a roadcase, which I still use live. But I found myself taking the Handbox out to more and more gigs (or at least I was when we were still gigging). My guitar player loves it...! My 810 cab is long gone, but these days there are plenty of pretty lightweight 410s around that sound good.

Neil was also on the 1987 album, but not the subsequent tours.

I have certainly slagged bands off before, undoubtedly. But if I go and see a band I might turn to a friend and say ‘what do you think of this lot, I don’t rate them’ or I might give an honest opinion if they ask me what I think of the performance. What I don’t do is walk around the venue tapping people on the shoulder saying ‘this lot are stinky poo’! it just seems unduly negative, even if that was not your intention. As far as the individual collaborators go, I’m not sure that they have the same expectations they would have if they had worked on a project in a more normal situation. These things either work or they don’t. And if they don’t, I would imagine that most people would just shrug their shoulders and think ‘well at least I had the chance to do something and work with some other musicians, even if it didn't turn out that great’. I don't think that our expectations of these types of collaborations are that high in the first place for, but at least we can appreciate that they are trying...