Happy Jack

What's the line-up for the trio?

Which particular red, red wine was being oppressed? Or did they mean that the red, red wine had been oppressed from grapes? I think we should be told ...

Well now, maybe this is true (or at least partially true) for all the wannabee multi-millionaire rock stars out there, but are there many such delusional people here on Basschat? I make 100% of my music-related income from touring, and I will tour anywhere so long as I get to sleep in my own bed that night. I tour all the way from Wendover to Woking, from Winnersh to Ware. I have no endorsements or sponsorships, and I hardly ever get called upon to open supermarkets. When we sell our next three Damo & The Dynamites CDs our total sales will have at last covered the production costs of that CD. I don't find myself lying awake at night, fuming over how 'unfair' it all is ... I'm too busy enjoying the ride.

I suspect that your expectations are WAY too high. I've only been at this game for 15 years (plenty of Basschatters can say much more than that!) but something I learned pretty early is that the vast majority of "musicians" - please note the carefully-placed inverted commas - are either flakes, or fantasists, or both. That's NOT a comment on any particular band-hunting portal, it's a comment on the several hundred people I've met and tried to play with over that 15-year period. Having had a reasonably successful business career working with serious, professional people, I have been absolutely staggered at just how feckless, amateurish and deluded have been most of the people I've met in bands. Fair enough, ain't no law says everyone I meet has to reach the standards I set 😂 and I'm obviously far too arrogant anyway. Instead, I go into things with my eyes open. I know the sort of people I usually end up dealing with, and I keep hoping that the next muso I try to play with will turn out to be one of the exceptional few (apologies to John Fogarty). I've met some very good people through both Bandmix and JMB, as also through Gumtree and Facebook. The only problem is that for every very good person I have met I have had to wade through dozens of complete clowns.

This might give you an idea of how it could look ...

I now use the EvoStraps Spider twin-shoulder design quite extensively. https://www.facebook.com/Evostraps I use them on my three heaviest basses (4kg and over). For lighter basses, I still use a more trad design - https://comfortstrapp.com/

I'm about as far from Sunny Ob'n as you can get but trust me ... it's exactly the same Darn Sarf.

Around 15 years ago one of the best-loved jam sessions in West London was at the King's Head in Acton. By 2007 it had moved to the Drayton Court in West Ealing where it ran every Tuesday for several years. It finally moved one last time to the ghastly Tune Inn in Acton, but the period at the Drayton was such a clear peak and a favourite that the regulars still refer to the jam as "The Drayton Jam". Over 10 years later, I'm helping to organise and run a one-off Xmas Special ... the Drayton Jam Revisited, on Tuesday 28th December in that nice little lull between Xmas and New Year when nobody has any gigs. 😉 By sheer coincidence, that also happens to be the last day of my life before I become a pensioner. 😂😂😂 This is very much an OPEN EVENT for anyone to attend, whether as jammer or listener. These sessions were always a heap of fun, and it was always a very friendly crowd. Blues Jam sessions like this have also always been a great way to hook up with other musicians if you were looking to join/form/complete a band. Above all, a well-run Blues Jam is always entertaining. Whether the crew on stage are sublime, or a complete train wreck, it's always entertaining. Do come if you can.

So, elk then?

If budget isn't an issue, take a look at Acoustic Image and their Clarus range. Anything aimed at people who double on DB tends to allow for the sort of possibilities you're after. If you choose a 2-channel amp, then you can 'reserve' one channel for your clean sound when sharing. AI kit is pretty dear, but their aftersales service tends to be excellent and no-quibble.

I usually end up walking through the tables ...

Good idea, but not sure where to start. I did start a conversation with a certain well-known and highly-recommended English luthier but it petered out quite quickly ... IME yer average high-quality luthier is not great at communication, and besides I'd rather like this neck to be finished this side of the next Millennium. I'll happily listen to recommendations though.

I have a 35" scale Mike Lull P5 (i.e. a 5-string Precision) with a fretted neck. I want to experiment with a fretless neck on this bass, but 35" scale fretless necks seem to be very hard to come by. [Potential silly question alert] What is to stop me from buying a standard 34" unlined fretless neck from Mighty Mite or Allparts, and fitting it with a 1" spacer at the heel to make it 35"? [/Potential silly question alert] If I mark the dots where I want them with a black Sharpie or similar, then I'm guessing that so long as 12th fret position is at 17.5" then the intonation will be fine. What am I missing?

Long, shiny ones ... mmmmmmmmmm

Alternatively, buy this from Amazon and get free delivery. £7 for delivery on a non-fragile £39 item is simply extracting the urine.

Elvis came down in a flying saucer and took all the forums. Wow man! I'm really enjoying this home-made mushroom soup. Turned out way different than I expected.

Not liking the break angle on the through-body stringing.

Good to have you back, David. 🙂

20091523278 - 7lb 9oz I wonder if that means that this particular bass (that looks like a S/No to me) has been individually weighed for the listing. If so, then credit is due for supplying a key spec that most manufacturers/retailers gloss over. Unfortunately I must then deduct that very same credit for failure to mention the scale length! 🙄

No no no! Those woods clash! And as that for that red bucket chair, darling, well really ... 😂😂😂

Wow! That is a shedload of money ... what use will you actually get from all those stems? Are you planning to issue your cover of Yessongs anytime soon?

I'm loving the idea of the band leader announcing to a bunch of half-cut office workers on a Friday night in Huddersfield, "and now it's time for our Captain Beefheart medley".

Your start point shouldn't be "what materials are available" ... try starting with "what do I want to use this EUB for?". Simandl and similar is wonderful stuff if you're going down a particular route but if what you really want to do is to play simple 12-bar blues or 2-feel country lines, then I suspect you'll find Simandl horribly OTT and off-putting. That is just my opinion and several much more competent upright players will be along any moment now to tell you why I'm wrong. And yes, you can combine the Simandl method with playing blues, country, rock'n'roll, rockabilly ... it's a method after all, you can apply it to anything. All I will say is, the best investment I ever made when learning upright was to get an introductory lesson from a good teacher. Literally on Day One, get someone to show you how to stand, how to hold the bass, how to pluck, how to finger the strings. Get the really basic stuff sorted from the start, and you won't have to spend years unlearning things later.

This sounds to me like a covers band playing pubs to punters who get steadily drunker as the evening wears on ... pretty much like my band The Junkyard Dogs then. Much as I love the blues, and much as I admire the work of John Martyn, very few of these recommendations could possibly be considered 'crowd pleasers'. I spent YEARS trying to get through to the Dogs that "we play what we want to play and if you don't like it, well tough titty" is a rather soggy sales pitch. A few years ago we finally reached the stage where we could play three straight sets of crowd-pleasers which the band ALSO wanted to play. Guess what? We are fully-booked every year, turning down gigs by mid-Summer, and pretty much all those gigs are at £300 - a decent rate around here for a pub band.