chriswareham

Not so much an illness, more of a self inflicted injury when I did a gig following an afternoon being extensively tattooed over my upper arm and shoulder. Turned up to the gig with my arm smeared in vaseline and wrapped up in cling film, having ignored the tattoo artist's advice to not do anything that would cause me to sweat. The tattoo was hidden by a rolled up shirt sleeve, but half way through the set (on a stage with extremely hot lights) a mixture of sweat and blood started pouring down my arm and eventually over the body of my bass. Not sure what the audience made of that!

Peter Steele of Type O Negative. Was also the lead vocalist and main songwriter. Stuart Morrow of New Model Army. The other two band members subsequently became technically proficient musicians, but Morrow was something else.

[quote name='waynepunkdude' timestamp='1398373779' post='2433567'] That is awful. [/quote] They do a great dirge like version of everything they cover. Including "Emma" by Hot Chocolate.

Can't beat the Sisters of Mercy version: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdUHxFKCQBs[/media]

"Ideal for hipsteric styles" apparently.

[quote name='Davetbass' timestamp='1398171053' post='2431118'] Is that the bass from flight of the conchords? [/quote] Apparently so - see one of the links in the sixth post above.

[i]Active preamp can be harsh if your heavy handed but once you suss it out they are very good.[/i] I tame the EQ on my Stingray with a compressor pedal. That means I can leave everything flat EQ wise on shared backline or rehearsal room amps, then use the three band pre-amp EQ to tweak my sound. The compressor takes care of volume changes from the EQ twiddling and from my somewhat heavy picking.

Judging by those roots she's an aeroplane blond. Only in this case it might be more of a grey box below rather than a black one.

Had a Squier Jazz as a back up for a while, and they are incredible quality at a very low price. Doesn't feel as substantial as a Fender branded one, but I guess that's just a difference in the materials they're made from.

My local Cash Converter type of shop had an unexpected bargain a while back. It was a Logan String Melody that the staff thought was a broken home organ since it didn't make a very organ like sound. I guess it was obscure enough that they hadn't been able to find one on eBay to check it's true value. I walked away with it for under a ton. Got outside the shop and did a spontaneous jig with delight, turned and saw a bunch of people at a bus stop giving me a funny look ...

[quote name='HowieBass' timestamp='1397844781' post='2427951'] I'm now trying to think of totally unsuitable bassist with band combinations.... er Mark King with Count Basie supporting Frank Sinatra... [/quote] Pino Palladino with Nine Inch Nails

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1397727716' post='2426782'] Whats happening with the Bass Centre. I was there on Monday... and I seemed to be in an alternative world where they were attentive, wanted me to play everything and were genuinely being top guys. I was looking round for the ghost of Beadle. [/quote] Got taken over by Wunjos. I was in there a couple of weeks ago and found the new the staff are way, way better than the old crowd. Got asked politely if there was anything they could help with, and unlike the previous crew they didn't give me a sneering look when I said I was just browsing. Ended up chatting with the manager about the best way to sell my Stingray, and he strongly recommended Basschat!

Ooh, those white Vantages are nice.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1397574681' post='2425283'] @chriswareham - what did yours sound like? I thought the youtube video up above made it sound OK, but not at all like a bass. [/quote] I used mine as a bass for several rehearsals with my old band, but we split before I got a chance to use it live. With a bit of tweaking on the amp EQ, I got a suitably thumpy bass tone and with chorus engaged it made a great instrument for Peter Hook style lead lines. At the time I bought it, I also tried a Schecter Hellcat and to me at least they felt the same to play. I eventually chose the Gretsch based on aesthetics, and I now regret selling it even though it would only get home use at the moment since I currently play in a heavily detuned metal band. I'd say that the bridge conversion on the one in the eBay listing is actually a bonus, since I foud the Bigsby trem a bit pointless.

I had one of these for a couple of years. It arrived tuned E-E but the guy in the music shop I bought it from thought it was an ordinary baritone and tuned it *up* to B-B, trashing the strings. A set of La Bellas later, and it was back to being a Fender VI scale six string bass. Despite the Gretsch branding, they're made in China. Build quality on mine was great but it was exceptionally light. The tremelo was fitted as standard, but only really there for aesthetics as far as I could tell since the bass would go straight out of tune with anything but the mildest pressure on it.

[quote name='Meddle' timestamp='1397420532' post='2423797'] Oh, I have a Retrovibe RV5 I can contribute towards this thread at some point when I get the camera out. [/quote] Would you be willing to provide a review for my Rickenfaker website (http://www.rickenfaker.info)?

[quote name='HowieBass' timestamp='1397320654' post='2422813'] I thought the trouble was over Ric copies and not the real thing. There must be shops/dealers selling secondhand/vintage Rics and openly trading surely? Can't the BC rule be that real Rics are ok, sales of copies not allowed? [/quote] It's not just out an out fakers, if you can't categorically prove your instrument is a genuine Rickenbacker you run the risk of having the listing pulled on eBay or Gumtree. My suspicion is that RIC are trying to make it hard to trade real second hand Rickenbackers in order to restrict supply even further and push up the prices they can charge for new examples.

I wouldn't be happy to allow Rickenbacker sales on Basschat until RIC acknowledge that they are not legally entitled to block the private sale of other basses that bear a resemblance to theirs. Threatening legal action against the people who run Basschat really disgusted me, since RIC must know that their grounds for doing so are sketchy at best in the EU, and are therefore just using their greater financial resources to initimidate. That's my tuppence worth on the matter anyway.

I've got a set of black medical scrubs with the band name embroiderd across the chest where a hospital name would normally be. Thought they might make a change from the biker boots, leather trousers and black vest I normally wear. No conscious band uniform, but we wear black as a matter of routine and it does stand out amongst the surprisingly casual attire most bands seem to wear.

Headless basses aren't normally my cup of tea, but this is very nice: [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hohner-The-Jack-Bass-V-Active-Passive-Headless-4-String-Bass-Guitar-Black/331167976140"]http://www.ebay.co.u...ck/331167976140[/url] I probably like them because they resemble the Status headless basses that the late Paul Raven used with Killing Joke: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znjRf1zh2fA[/media]

Could it be a Korean made one that was built from a different wood to the earlier Japanese ones? Just a supposition on my part that they used different woods, but it could account for the difference in weight.

[quote name='dudewheresmybass' timestamp='1396216603' post='2411159'] Chriswareham- the ex toilet on the edge of the park is the tunbridge wells forum. Played there a few times too! [/quote] Just checked, and that's the one. Great little venue as well - those Victorians knew how to build a toilet! Rereading this thread reminds me of another nightmare venue, but only because of what was going on elsewhere in the same building. It was a club in Liverpool, which seems to be a cursed place for me, in some sort of converted red brick industrial or warehouse building near the city centre. There was a fetish club on the first floor, and the bands were playing on the second floor. The dressing room was on the first floor though, which meant negotiating the length of the fetish club for a quiet pee or to raid the rider. Every time I went down there someone (male judging by the figure) in a gimp suit that inhibited their movement would frantically stumble after me all the time mumbling through their mask. Then I knocked our sequencer off the stage during the actual gig, but thankfully no one noticed as the sound man hadn't mixed any of our electronic backing into the front of house sound. The night was completed when we got to our digs at the promoters house, to find that her ex-boyfriend had broken in to steal the washing machine and panicing her dogs that had proceeded to crap prodigously all over the place.

[quote name='Back to Bassics' timestamp='1396186328' post='2410715'] What a great thread. And BTW, the Dew Drop in New Cross was a friendly little local. And chriswareham, was the Brighton gig upstairs at the Quadrant (RIP now, I believe)? [/quote] The Dew Drop was quite intimidating when I lived in New Cross in 1992-4 - the regulars included a bunch of crusty squatter types with a taste for heroin, hence the drug raid. Got threatened in there on one occasion by some dreadlocked cretin for wearing eye liner. Loved the New Cross Venue just across the way from it though, saw some great gigs there featuring goth and crusty bands like Alien Sex Fiend and Creaming Jesus. Brighton was a pub opposite the main railway station in 1998. I was in a band called Killing Miranda who had generated a bit of a buzz, which is probably why we had to play to two audiences in succession. I remember having blood running down the body on my prized Stingray bass by the end of the second set because I used to have an appalling playing technique with my wrist rubbing against the bridge until it blistered and bled.