super al

Back rehearsing after the Christmas break and picking up where we left off. Last year ended with the new drummer bedding in nicely, we're rehearsing in his studio which is within walking distance 👍🏻 We went through our originals set plus the Christmas song we wrote back in November. Just before the last song there was a pause so I just started noodling on me bass to keep the fingers warm and one by one everyone joined in...low and behold we have our first song nugget of '25. I thought afterwards that I've been listening to the Word Up album (Cameo) recently and that must be where the sparse, staccato sound came from. With Jon rapping and singing on top it sounds a bit Chili Peppersish 🫣 early days, early days 😄 Those are some of my favourite rehearsal moments, when a song idea comes to life. I'm playing through a similar amp/cab set up to @mikebass456 in the pic back up the thread, sounds ace... I now have rig envy as it's the drummer's

One of my clients played bass on the holiday camp circuit and jazz gigs around the South years ago, his son, Sam is a bassist up London way. He was/is in the Ronnie Scott's house band and I think he knows Gary Husband as he did some session work for John McLaughlin. He also went on tour with Strictly's Anton Du Beke. He's done some other sessions that I can't remember but last time I asked his dad about him he said he was in Van Morrison's band...that all looks pretty good on the ol' CV. He's not a young 'un ...like his dad says "he's at an age where he gets to fill a dead man's shoes" (lovely turn of phrase 😄)

Lovely Simple but effective one shot video too. ✌🏻🎅🏻

Bit of brass on a Christmas song? Can't wait to hear it. Jonah Lewie's Stop the Cavalry is another fave of mine, that brass band refrain just reeks of Christmas ☃️

£30! @BigRedX ...bargain. Our singer was a cameraman in Germany for many years (our song Summer Jiving is a true story from that part of his life) so you'd think we'd be all over the visual side of things but no. Shame about your singer packing it in, I pretty much judge bands on the vocal sound and style...both songs have vocals that I enjoyed. The Wombles have come up a lot recently, I listen to Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt's Rockonteurs podcast. Apparently there was a lot of musical talent inside those Womble costumes on TOTPs.

December Snow is a proper earworm, that's going to be stuck in my head all day now! Cool video too (I wish we had the time to do a video).

Great cover of I Believe In Father Christmas @BigRedX , one of my favourite Christmas songs.

My band have had a pretty lean time this year. We've played 4 gigs, had 2 drummers and recorded 1 song...a Christmas song 🎅🏻 A little while ago a local radio DJ asked if any local bands had recorded a Christmas song, an original song or a cover, to play on his show in December. It kind of felt right to ask the lads to do this. Luckily our new drummer (the 4th I've played with since joining the band 2 1/2 yrs ago!) has his own studio of which we have been using for rehearsals. Jon the singer came up with some words and our two guitarists thrashed out some riffage for me to pedal along to 😁 Over two evenings we wrote and recorded this little beauty...ok, you can really tell it was knocked together in a few hours but I kinda love that low fi thing and you just can't help but feel all christmassy when you hear Chris' solo. Anyone else got something original in a Christmas vibe? Maybe we could do a BassChat Xmas compilation tape 😁 Even any Scrooges with an anti Christmas song are welcome!

It's a shame it wasn't vinyl, worth an absolute fortune 😊

I took a photo at the time, I think it's about 2ft in CDs. I had some FZ CDs from the early 90s and the sound quality in the 2012 versions is noticeably better 👍🏻

Grand Funk Railroad have never been on my radar for some reason but I'm listening to the Gail Ann Dorsey podcast from another basschatter here and she says the first bassist she listened to was the GFR bassist...thought I'd check em out and here they are with my favourite guitarist (bassists have favourites! 😲) Frank Zappa. My missus entered a competition to win the entire catalogue of FZ's 2012 remastered reissues and won! That was 2013, I'm still working my way through them 11 years later 😄

A rare outing for Felis Leo last night at the Avon Brewery, Salisbury. We were supporting another local lot, Punkture. First outing for our new drummer Darrell and my 6th gig since joining in April '22. It all went really well if not a little on the fast side at times. Managed to fit all our set in, I thought it would be a squeeze but maybe the faster pace shaded a few seconds here and there off the tunes 😆 Loads of great feedback, we might be getting somewhere now and gigs might be more forthcoming... might've picked up 2 from last night. A couple of Punkture's band used to play with Paul Di'anno so they paid tribute to him during their set. He lived round these parts for many a year. VID-20241027-WA0001.mp4 Gear. I plugged my Lakland 55-02 into my TC Electronic BH550 connected to the Ashdown 2x10 cab of Punkture's bassist (who I noticed had a Shuker black P bass, couldn't see the signature on it though, forgot me glasses🤓).

Mr Lego foot 😄

When I joined a soul band and realised Take Me To The River was in the set I was very happy. I'm a big Talking Heads fan but prefer Rev Al's version and got the tingles and 'wow' moments in rehearsals and the first few gigs (helps if you're playing alongside a great drummer too!). Don't think I'd had as much of an endorphin rush as I had with that song. I Wish and Superstition sounded great when playing with a cookin' horn section, I feel blessed to have bathed in the funky lake of Wonderland. I'm in an originals band now that dabbles with covers when required although recent consensus is that we avoid them altogether. That's a shame as this band have been my baptism into AC/DC and they only seem to play songs from Powerage! Riff Raff started off as a PITA but I've grown to love it. I think a couple of times we started the set with Rock n Roll Damnation and encore with Riff Raff! Another originals band I was in would encore with Del Shannon's Runaway which was just sublime and other times I've had the joy of playing obscure songs like Whiskey in my Whiskey or Hobo Heaven on an upright bass.