Happy Jack

Well it's hardly "current", is it?

Incidentally, the eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that my bass has a mis-matched body and neck ... the scratchplate is sparkly red and the headstock is sparkly orange.

Basschat of course!

Incredibly, Mick, it's telescopic! The other examples show it with the pin slid into the body.

I'm in NW London and I'm always struck by how many bands are looking for bass players in SE London ...

Why is Jonathan Creek reviewing a Markbass stack? Is it magic?

Now Roger, I thought I told you about this.

What none of you seem to understand is that those are valve memories ...

So when is this much-anticipated audition actually happening?

I'm well impressed with the idea of using a marquee as a brothel. [Insert 'loitering within tent' joke here.]

Never heard of Suhr before, and a quick Google suggests that their range sits around the £2k - £2.5k mark new, so looking for over £3k for a pre-owned example with a pathetic sob-story is pretty optimistic.

Yup, £28 for a really good set-up is hardly a rip-off.

Whereabouts inside the cajon would you attach that?

Acuna tellya how nice that sounds ...

Well the 'audience' is pretty sparse, actually ...

Yup, you're absolutely right. That's not a cheap option. I don't know where it is you do your cajon mic'ing Matt, but you're using £250 of mics to amplify a device that rarely costs more than £150 and usually less than £50. No law against it, but just seems a little OTT to me.

Years done = many. Jacks broken = none. YMMV

I lick them clean ...

The reverse twist method is obviously the best solution BUT it's an absolute bugger to teach to your bandmates at 1am after three hours on stage, and they really don't want to know, and are you really going to stand there (hands on hips) supervising their coiling skills? Keep It Simple, Stupid. Using the standard rope-coiling method is a great deal easier, and the fact that the cable then wants to spiral outwards when released is easily dealt with by tossing the free end of the cable away from you and allowing it to de-spiral.

That's because guitarists ALWAYS stand on their bloody cables.

Have you washed it since? It matters ...

A number of suggestions here about learning to coil the cable properly, which is the second most important thing (IMHO) in cable care. If you can't find a YouTube specifically on instrument cables, then look for stuff on coiling rope ... coiling a hemp rope or similar is exactly the same technique. Above all, NEVER grab one end of a cable and then start wrapping it tightly between your hand and the elbow of the same arm. I can think of few things more likely to destroy a cable in minimal time. Which leads me on to the first most important thing. Never stand on your cable, and don't let your guitarists do so either. I don't care how rock'n'roll it makes you feel ... just don't do it. The insulation layer was never designed to have 90Kg of musician focus his weight on one part of the cable pressing down on another part of the cable.

Actually it was about 15 minutes ...