Happy Jack

I know exactly what you're talking about, Paul. I've had a number of complete lumbar collapses, necessitating an entire week each of lying flat on my back, caused by: Picking up an empty jerry can as I walked past, Swinging myself into the cab of a white van, Sneezing as I stepped into the shower in the morning, Reaching to hang a bass on a wall hanger. No amount of core strengthening exercise is any use if you haven't engaged your core at the critical moment!

I bet they go down a Bomb.

The BL does this at our pub gigs, along with swopping between his three guitars. Makes for a LOT of downtime between songs, and a depressing number of songs played badly out of tune. And he is, in fact, very talented and has a good ear. I don't know how he manages to play so out of tune - it must be really grating to him.

THREATS Unbelievably, the White Bear invited us back. Huh? Well, it was £250 and we needed more gigs so we accepted the gig. Bad mistake. The only punters were a large extended family of pikeys. I'm sure there are some really nice, friendly Travellers out there. Well these were the other sort. Most of them were adult but they had a kid with them, maybe 12 or 13. They started pestering us to let the lad get up and sing. With some trepidation we turned them down, but agreed to let him sing (unaccompanied) through the PA at the break. Hearing a 13-year-old pikey kid singing Coming Down Sunday Morning is an experience. We started the second set and within a few minutes they were again demanding that we let the boy take over as our lead singer for the night. Given the volume level this was not a conversation - more a matter of mouthed words and curt headshakes. Halfway through Let's Dance the pikey leader strode up on stage, got me in a bear hug (while I continued trying to play) and bellowed in my ear: "Youse had best come round to my way of thinking or the boots will come off!" So we did. We turned into a karaoke band for the rest of the evening, and the pikeys actually seemed to appreciate our efforts. It was only later that it occurred to us all that "the boots will come off" is about as meaningless a threat as any of us had ever heard. It remains a catchphrase in the the band to this day.

CROWD We've all played to "empty rooms", but I can actually improve on that. We were playing the White Bear in Ruislip (now a very nice restaurant); there were maybe half a dozen people in the band side of the pub and a few more in the snug round the corner. They'd all been there before we set up. As soon as we started playing these people started to drift away - we weren't why they were in the pub. Our two guitarists (one being MacDaddy of this parish) were both using wireless systems. After a while they got intrigued at the complete lack of activity - literally no sign of anyone - so they walked out into the pub. They came back a minute later to report that there were no punters at all in the pub, nor any in the beer garden, and seeing as the pub was empty both the bar staff had gone out for a smoke. We were playing, quite literally, to a completely empty building.

BLOOD The very first pub gig I ever played was at the Salmon & Ball in the East End, a corner pub with doors onto Cambridge Heath Rd and Bethnal Green Rd. Maybe the area has been gentrified since then ... it certainly wasn't bloody gentrified when I played there. We set up with our backs against the East wall of the pub, between the two doors, and started playing. Halfway through the first set a couple of black guys came in, bought their drinks, and sat peaceably at the back of the pub. Some of the white skinhead types at the bar were giving them the eye, and the atmosphere went thoroughly rank. It didn't help that our keyboard player was black. Sure enough, after a while a couple of these East End good ol' boys decided to start something and headed to the back of the pub. There were some verbals, and then one of these idiots decided to do it like they do on telly and knocked the end of his beer bottle on the edge of the table = instant lethal weapon, right? Erm ... no. I come from a family of coppers going back to Victorian times (believe it or not) and one thing I've heard plenty of is that when you smash a glass or a bottle like they do in the movies (with a prop made of sugar), the most likely outcome is that you end up with a handful of broken glass. So tough guy idiot #1 is now standing there with blood spurting out of his hand, tough guy idiot #2 looks like he's going to cry, the two black guys seem unimpressed, and the landlord takes over. This being the heart of the old East End, the guv'nor looks exactly (and I mean exactly) like Grant from Eastenders. He drags them behind the bar so that he can run the cold tap over the damaged hand, then produces a mass of that blue kitchen towel they use in pubs and gets tough guy idiot #1 to mash it up in his hands, finally escorts them to the Cambridge Heath Road exit and shows them the way to the nearest A&E. He's done this before, hasn't he? We're still playing. Next, the guv'nor starts taking tables and stools and builds a barricade (seriously, I'm not making this up) against the newly-bolted door onto Cambridge Heath Road. Then he goes to the door onto Bethnal Green Road, which is actually a pair of narrow doors. He closes and bolts one of the narrow doors and takes up position in the narrow doorway that he's left open. His white t-shirt has been liberally sprayed with the blood of tough guy idiot #1 which makes him look a lot like Bruce Willis in a Die Hard movie, and there he stays for the rest of the set. People in the pub are allowed to leave, people outside the pub are not allowed in. Unsurprisingly, by the end of our first set the pub is empty apart from us, the guv'nor, and a barmaid. He pays us off, apologises to us (!), and we very sheepishly break down and leave. The most astonishing thing about this story is that I ever played another gig.

Let's do the show right here!

Tom, did you try the SM57 at all?

Amidst all these tales of back woe (very familiar, bin there, dun that, bought the back support) don't forget that buying lighter and lighter basses is only one approach to the problem. Another approach, which works well in tandem, is to do something about your back ...

Yeh, well I found this:

If they plan to try you on more than one of their originals, don't be shy about asking them for charts. If they haven't even bothered to write out the chords ("oh, this one is really simple, you'll pick it up in no time"), then invite the guitarist(s) to play through the song while you quickly chart it for yourself on the pad you remembered to take with you to the audition. You'll probably need to borrow a pencil, mind.

Yup, that would be the general idea.

Fixed. When I closed my eyes (which happened very early) I could actually SEE Cher having a bad night. Bass line? Didn't notice. Sorry.

Serious question - can anyone other than the bass player actually tell that it's in Drop D? When asked to play this, I've just used a 5-string in standard tuning ... sounded OK to me.

At 20 = priorities. At 61 = life.

Not sure I understand the attraction. Are these particularly sought after? If so, why?

"It was a bass guitar a band called NEO TOKYO used, they were friends with BRING ME THE HORIZON." Is this the weakest-ever use of a celebrity connection?

Nope. Pretty sure that the piece I quoted says 5000 DM. I can tell. I'm good at this stuff.

Not heat, but humidity. If you've just switched on the central heating, for example, the level of humidity in your lounge may have changed drastically.

This whole thread has been a complete waste of time. Apparently the flavour of the month this week is Revelation. Job done.

Has there been a significant change in the weather? Or did you leave it close to a radiator or similar?

Is this a 'Sue Ryder bass' for our times? How many people here remember the brief but entertaining Sue Ryder feeding frenzy?

I thought the brooch he wore on his teddy boy jacket throughout that TV series was a bit of a giveaway ...