Happy Jack

Crossbeam's gone askew on't treddle ...

So it's not so much "good buy" as "au revoir"?

If he paid me $12,500 I'd be up for it ...

Any unusual basses in the collection, or are they all 'normal' 3/4 and 4/4 basses?

What sort of music do you play? What sort of venues do you play? What type of bass do you play?

That would be enough to have me move to Yorkshire that same night ...

Is 'Age South West' a Care Home? 😉

Very nice-looking bass, that, but I have ABSOLUTELY NO NEED for another bass, OK?

18 years ago we wanted to call ourselves The Junkyard Dogs but careful searches revealed that there was already a Junkyard Dogs playing in the NorthEast so we ditched the idea. Two years later following some changes in personnel we wanted a new name and - to my complete astonishment - the Junkyard Dogs near Newcastle at that moment posted that the band was folding, it had been a great xxx years, thanks to everybody who had come to their shows, blah blah blah. Righty-ho then, we'll have that thank you very much and The Junkyard Dogs we immediately became. Around the same time a band in the West Country started calling themselves Hobo Jones & The Junkyard Dogs but we never noticed a problem. On a couple of occasions pubs in Devizes and Marlborough tried to book us, presumably Hobo Jones received enquiries from pubs in Ealing, who knows? Fast forward 12 years and - lo and behold - the original band near Newcastle decided to reform, still using the same name. By this time of course we were so well established on social media that we were the first hit on any search for a band called The Junkyard Dogs in Britain, so within a year or so they changed their name to The Junkyard Dogz. But still we weren't in the clear, because quite recently Hobo Jones has presumably decided his band's name is too much of a mouthful, and they seem to have started calling themselves ... wait for it ... wait for it ... The Junkyard Dogs. So where's all this going, I pretend to hear you ask? Well, we were booked (by phone, through someone I've met face to face) for a West London gig at a new venue last week. The booker said he'd do his own poster, which was nice. Then he sent us the poster. The band details were all for Hobo Jones' band down in the West Country while the photo of the band showed the original Newcastle band. I'm still trying to work out if this is wind-up or just an example of Irish humour.

Can't be AI ... it has the same number of strings, tuners and pegs. 😉

Agreed, but it does make each note sound way more expensive. 😉

And as you can see, AI has managed to capture the very essence of Duck there. Oh no ... wait ...

I do find it puzzling that the AI is capable of doing so much in these images, but then hits a brick wall when it comes to things like the number of strings / tuners / pegs etc.

Did a designer somewhere win an award for photographing a silver bass against a distressed off-white background? Yet another triumph of arty-farty nonsense over common sense.

As far as I'm concerned this is a complete no-brainer. That's not a real band, walk away now and find some decent bandmates.

I'm now intrigued ... why do you want a 1/4 DB? Obviously they're intended for young people and - I suppose - very small adults, which may be the explanation, but a 5-string DB with a 90cm scale length? Hmmmmmm.

That's because the French are bad losers. In fairness, they don't call it The French Channel or something, they just call it La Manche ("the sleeve", because it's shaped like that). Growing up on Guernsey, I got used to telling people that I lived in Les Isles De La Manche rather than The Channel Islands.

I thought it was going to be The Gulf Of Fentanyl? Oh well, now waiting for Trump to annexe the Sudetenland.

Is there any piece of kit that you don't have lying around, Chris?

When playing pub gigs on bass I always prefer a 3-piece. There's more room for expression in the music, more room for the band in whatever space we've been given by the door to the Gents' Toilet, and there's no need to discuss who's going to set up where - it's blindingly obvious where each of us is going to go. That's less of an issue at club gigs of course, since there's usually some sort of stage. When playing keys it's pretty much inevitable that I'll be playing in a 4- or 5-piece, but then my role is entirely different, plus I set up at the back alongside the drummer. I always assumed that it would be easier to get gigs for a 3-piece but in fact my 5-piece soul band seems to have no trouble bringing them in ... it's just that there's less money for each of us. Luckily enough, I don't do this for the money.

Similar to this is the units made by Steve Whitehouse (originally of The Sharks) - you can find him on Facebook if you want to know about his stuff. His magnetic Pbass-alike sounds very similar to the Schaller, whilst looking wildly different.

Keyboards. It's never too late to learn keyboards. Buy yourself something like a Yamaha CK61 or a first-version Korg Kross (pre-loved, natch) and you'll be in a world of fun, sitting down to play with your instrument resting on its own stand, and nobody saying "it's not very rock'n'roll, is it?".