FinnDave

I used a bar stool to sit on for gigs after my prostate op a few years ago, I only looked as if I was sitting if you looked at me from the waist down. I did the same a year later after my bike accident. No one complained.

I met Steve at a pre-arranged time and place at Beaconsfield services on the M40 today for the handover of my Barefaced Super Compact. There was a little delay due to roadworks (I think) around Watford, but the rest of the meet went very well. Steve was happy with the cab (as I have been for a few years) and no cash changed hands as Steve had, amazingly, trusted me sufficiently to have paid for the cab yesterday. What a decent and trustworthy chap he is - it is easy to see what people are like when they treat others as being as honest as they are themselves. Glad you like the cab, Steve, hope it gives you many years more gigging pleasure. Dave

Thanks Dougal, it was good to meet you today. Enjoy your new bass!

Happened to me about ten years ago. I had been playing with The Wirebirds for a year and a bit, getting plenty of gigs. My mother -in-law was living with us back then (no longer around) and had a carer come in a couple of times a week to take her to the shops, etc. One day, there was a new carer putting MiL's shopping into the fridge, and MiL mentioned that she (the carer) liked singing, so I naturally mentioned the band and she asked if she could come and sing with us sometime. Then she mentioned her previous band and the tours, hanging out with the guys from Led Zeppelin, etc, and I was sure she was a dreamer. Anyway, she came along to our rehearsal a week later, but then I had found out who she was and told the band, they basically said it was just a fantasy on her part. Then she came in to the rehearsal room, tiny, shy, no way a rock star. She asked if we knew 'Rock Me Baby' (well, we wouldn't have been much of a blues band if we didn't!), she asked if we could do in A, which was our usual key for that song. We played the intro, and I could see the rest of the band waiting for her squeak out a few words, then she grabbed the mic and our jaws dropped. She could sing the blues like Janis Joplin. We were getting better gigs on the back of her being with us, people were bringing her old records to our gigs to get them autographed. She was Jenny Hahn, front woman for Babe Ruth, and we played dozens of pub gigs and local festivals with her. Her she is singing Janis's 'Move Over'. I'll never equal the thrill of standing a few feet from that voice!

two or three years ago I was regularly playing 3 hours or more when playing in a Grateful Dead tribute band without any problems. My picking hand is already compromised with a damaged tendon on the second finger caused by a motorcycle accident. I'm running out of options, but I started playing bass when I was 14 or 15 and I'm 66 now.

I managed to play two gigs last year using a Mustang bass, but my finger have deteriorated further and I can't play 30" either now.

I have pretty much given up bass playing after 50 plus years because of osteoarthritis in the fingers of my fretting hand. I have been (still am) taking turmeric & black pepper capsules, and calcium with vitamin D, but it is impossible to know whether it's doing any good or not. I still can't play, but it's possible that the arthritis would be worse with the capsules or not - there is no way of cloning myself and not allowing the clone to take anything for it, and see what happens. I have resigned myself to selling up all the gear and fading into the background. I hope that your situation is better than mine, life is not the same without bandmates and gigs.