Happy Jack

That was a pair of 735s and they were gorgeous. The trouble with them (as documented in many other places on Basschat) is that they are bloody heavy lumps to lift to shoulder height (twice) in a pub.

My account is correct, but perhaps it is not clear enough? The drummer suddenly announced that he expected the rest of the band to turn up the next day ready to prove - to him - that we were all 'clean'. I pointed out that, since he was the one with the problem (the other three of us were fine), it would make more sense for us to re-start rehearsals once he no longer had a problem. He was noticeably less fussed by my response that some Basschatters seem to be. Being vicariously offended is a wonderful stance, isn't it? So convenient, and so totally without responsibility. Anyway, there seems to be some confusion about this amongst my fellow Basschatters. The drummer in question is a really nice guy, I enjoy playing with him, and I hope to continue to do so. I don't think I have anywhere in this thread suggested that he should not be allowed to hold whatever views are most appropriate to him, and I recognize that - in his opinion - his views are reasonable and sensible. Still with me? Good. What the opinionated and entitled amongst us seem to forget is that there is a flip side to this, which is that I am equally entitled to hold whatever views are most appropriate to me, and they should recognize that - in my opinion - my views are reasonable and sensible. We've already had one arrogant clown accusing me of being an anti-vaxer - this from a silly billy I've never met, who knows the square root of bugger all about me - apparently for the heinous crimes of not holding the same opinions as him, and of not taking orders from other band members. Let's not go any further down that cess-pit, OK?

I've lost my favourite screen. It looked like this:

Asking is reasonable, as is refusing. Demanding is a little bit different.

Wild guesses will get you everywhere, as will conspiracy theory and jumping to conclusions. How many boxes do YOU tick?

Even quicker would be for me to ban all my bandmates from smoking. I'd save them all time and money, we'd all be much healthier, and - best of all - I'd be making other people do what I want. I'm sure they'd all thank me. No, really ...

But everything wrong with imposing one's views on others, especially just 24 hours before the rehearsal. Anyone who has reason to be worried about Covid should be avoiding unnecessary contact, not making extra rules for others to follow.

First proper, full-fat, indoor gig for many months tomorrow, real money and everything, so we set up the entire rig to check everything. My favourite instrument lead no longer works, after 10 straight years. No known reason, no warning. The Line 6 wireless keeps dropping signal. Half an hour of testing reveals that there's interference from the XR18 router. Moving to another channel cures it. The pub is a small one so I'll be playing my Kolstein Busetto with a Schaller mag pickup. The Line 6 won't work with it. Half an hour of testing reveals that I have two leads for the wireless transmitter. One works with all my basses. The other works with all my basses except the Kolstein. I experiment with my other wireless system on the electric bass I'll be using (it's a doubling gig), a bass with a piezo pickup. The room fills with the sound of the world's biggest, angriest mosquito. If I want to use both channels on my AI Clarus, I won't be using wireless then. Now in limp dishrag mode.

In one of my bands, the drummer announced (at the last minute) that he would only enter the rehearsal space if the other band members could show that they had a satisfactory, recent, lateral flow test. I said I had no interest in being told what to do, and he should contact us again when he was ready to rehearse. He was perfectly OK about my response and waited until he was double-jabbed before calling.

I can smell the old fag smoke and stale beer just from looking at the photos!

@Silvia Bluejay isn't just supportive, she's an active and essential member of the team. I quite literally couldn't do what I do without her ...

In fairness that's the "shipping weight" so may include a load of packaging.

... is just like Freaky Friday. You have to swop bodies for a whole day with your band's guitarist. 😨

Bass never sounds "sh1te". The worst that can happen is that you don't like the sound you're producing. Doesn't mean it's the wrong sound, or a bad sound, or that everyone else hates it too. The important thing is that, if you can hear that you don't like your sound, then you must be able to hear your bass. Job done. @Silvia Bluejay routinely mids the bejasus out of my bass, making my beautiful Mike Lulls sound like bloody Warwicks. 🤬 But hey ... if that's what the band needs, if that's what it takes to enable the audience to hear that there is an actual bass being played, best go with it. My solution has been to follow @Beedster's advice and buy a Rick. 🙄

Does not compute ... 😂

Tell you what, I'll take it all off your hands for a fiver ... 😉

Oh, you Brut!

To hell with what bass he's playing, I just can't wait to tell my band that we'll be doing synchronised dance steps while we play our next pub ...

Gutted ... at no point did the listing mention "oxygen-free" or "gold-plated" or "hand-soldered". How can they possibly justify such a high price for a product so bereft of buzzwords?

Tosh. When BS came out the music they played was what we later called Heavy Metal. I don't know of anybody who called it that at the time - it was heavy rock. Labels are things that go through a long journey over time. I'm old enough to remember the classrooom debates in the early 70s as to what was Heavy Rock and what was Hard Rock, like these were two completely different genres. Some of the albums I owned at 16 were later re-labelled as Heavy Metal (e.g. Budgie's Never Turn Your Back On A Friend), some were later re-labelled as Classic Rock (e.g. Deep Purple's Machine Head), but those terms are subsequent inventions. The situation hasn't been helped by deliberate revisionism, in many cases by people who should know better, not to mention the memories addled by Red Leb and Thai Sticks as to what we were calling things back then. 🙄

Well I'll not invite you round to try a Mike Lull P5 then ...

Mike Lull P5 - a perfect P-bass combined with the light weights that only Mike seemed to know how to achieve. Where are you based, @JPJ?

Lovely ... and I have the matching bass cabs too!