FinnDave

If any Dead Heads find themselves in or around the capital on the weekend of the 7th/8th December, then you might want to kick yourselves if you miss the Grateful Dudes last gig of the year. We're back at the Fiddler's Elbow in Camden, and confidently expect another good night, lot's of our followers live in or around London, the last gig there was a real blast. Worth coming just to watch the audience, some great characters there! If you do come along, do remember to say hello to the long-haired bearded nutter on bass. I won't bite (unless we're playing at the time!).

Forgot to get back to you on this, and obviously you've found out by now! It was a bit of a squeeze with two drummers, but we managed. Good crowd in, been given a string of re-bookings there.

Cheers, Dave, I'll have a chat with the rest of the band when we next meet up (gig in Camden in about 10 days) and see what they want to do. I know we've talked about Scotland, but that's as far as it's got, I think. Thanks for the tips. Dave

Thanks, I'll copy that and pas it around th band, some of them must have played Edinburgh or Glasgow before!

People (audience) have asked us several times when are we going to play Scotland, any 100-200 capacity venues with own PA and big enough stage for a six piece with two drummers you can suggest?

I have two Jazz basses (one active, one passive), both strung with LaBella flats and played with a pick - it's a very 60s sort of sound, fits well with what I play.

A friend of mine swears by Peek. He uses it to polish all the brightwork on his steam roller (really!).

Maybe one short set, doubt that I played for more than an hour. I've been getting accustomed to active basses with the pair of Ibanez sixes I've used as my main gigging basses for the past year - but the Fender pre-amp is a little different - not worse, just different, take a bit of time to discover how to use it. I'll probably change it for an East pre-amp, as i find their sweepable mids very useful, and he's local to me! No problem with pedal boards for me, I don't have one.

Simply because it came up in 'unread topics' and when I saw it ran to hundreds of pages I realised how lucky I have been to avoid FX GAS - leaving me free to spend more money on basses!

I love threads like this - it makes me feel so virtuous that I have never bought an fx pedal in my 45 years of playing bass! I did once try my bass through a (guitarist) friend's flanger to see if it would reproduce the sound Mike Howlett got on Nik Turner's 'Xit into Day' album. It didn't. That was at least 40 years ago and I've never tried one since.

I didn't have a gig yesterday, but I did go to watch an old band mate act as host band for a local open blues session. Soon after I arrived, there was a mild panic as their bass player was, shall we say, unwell, after eating something he later regretted . So with under three minutes notice I was press ganged into the job, with a bass I've only had a few days. Ended up playing the 4 (might have been more) song opening for the jam, then playing 3 songs with another old band mate, and finishing the session with a few more songs with the host band. Their regular bass player recovered just in time to come and pack away his gear - I really did feel sorry for him - turned up, set up, passed out, came round, packed up and went home! The new bass acquitted itself well, despite me not yet having got to grips with the active tone controls and it having a gash set of old strings I put on just to be able to try it out.

I've never seen hat kind of money for a gig, but have driven longer than 6 hours many times!

I prefer the feel of flats (no I don't, I prefer the feel of round wounds!!), I like to feel the texture of the string against my fingers, but prefer the sound of the flats. Damn post made no sense, I meant to type that I prefer the feel of rounds, but the sound of flats. I'll give my fingers a damn good talking to.

I have a bass-related tattoo on my left arm - it's two bass clefs back to back with a celtic/anglo saxon treatment to match the rest of the arm.

They are special guitars, 34" scale and tuned B to C A set of LaBella flats for them aren't cheap - I've got one set unopened in a drawer!

All three of my four string basses have LaBella flats - the Precision has lights and the jazzes have extra lights. Strangely, I didn't get on with them so well on my six strings, though.

Brave man - hard to make such an Independent decision!

Would we all need to stand next to the pole to prove our height?

It most definitely hasn't got any better!

Of course you might have meant this.

I refuse to play in Reading these days - impossible to park and 'bus lanes' everywhere with cameras all over the place. Whatever you make on the gig is likely to be taken away by traffic infringement fines.

I'm just on 6ft. I reckon taller people chose bass as it is in scale with them, a six foot plus bloke with a guitar makes it look like a ukulele! Long arms also help with 34" scale - anyone can reach the bottom frets on a strat!

I just googled her (not having heard of her before) - she's older than I am!

That don't look like no Ric to me