super al

Our drummer's studio is our rehearsal room and he plays bass too...his amp is a little terror running through both an orange cab and a hartke cab, sounds amazing and I'm jealous but, hey ho, at least I get to play through it every fortnight. My old Ashdown Mag 210 combo is probably still in a rehearsal room somewhere in the south, I can't remember who bought it but they said it was for a rehearsal room (my back thanks me for selling it 😁).

There's a couple of appendages that fit either side of the eub body to simulate the acoustic's body. They're not much to look at but the Stagg eub was budget friendly at the time. The neck board isn't as round as an acoustic so playing with a bow is tricky but I only went 'arco' on the intro for Born on the Bayou to get the drone sound.

I would vouch for that @dmccombe7 , I bought a Stagg eub for an americana/country/blues band. Used to get some funny looks when playing live but it sounded pretty good. Nick on drums in the photo was definitely giving me a funny look, possible bum note moment. (Pic is from 2012 I think).

I didn't see this thread either until now 😎 Before January 1st I would've said the band should get the new songs recorded ASAP and released (as a 4 track EP) plus get started on the next bunch of tunes. Also try to get more gigs outside Salisbury, we played 2 gigs where we couldn't see the spire last year and both went down better than some of our Salisbury gigs. Now after last week our new year's resolution is - find a new guitarist 🙄 One of the band's founding members left. The band first got together around 40 years ago (I joined 2022) so it was a lil' bit of a shock. I think it'll be a good thing once the dust settles but it just knocks you back a bit.

I'm sure I've seen a photo of him playing 5 tracks

So many great albums with great bass on them and many I'll check out. If I go right back to the start of my bass journey, Level 42 got me interested in the bass guitar but from there I remember buying three albums quite close together around '87/'88, three albums with great bass playing from the '70s. I bought Heavy Weather and Black Market by Weather Report but the one album I would listen to the most was Stanley Clarke's School Days. It's not just the title track, the whole album grabbed me by the doo doo and I would listen to it over and over again. I was into Stanley's music for a while there, it was a bit hit n miss but School Days, for a mostly instrumental album, BOOM! Just gorgeous.

I play 5 string basses mainly and used all the strings when playing in a function band (I resisted 5 string basses until the keyboard player said "you wouldn't need to change bass mid set if you had a 5" lightbulb moment 😄). Now I'm in a rock band I think in 2 songs I use the B string and never use the G string at all. I could go back to a 4 string and occasionally do in rehearsals but I'm scared I'd have to sell my lovely 5s. Could you use the G string for your other passion @SteveXFR ? Are G strings any good as brake/gear cables? 😄

I was in a covers band, bit of a vanity project for the singer/guitarist. He liked a lot of the same music as myself and the drummer though...blues, early ZZ Top, Little Feat, Zappa, sometimes punk, reggae and country...a real mixed bag, gigs were few and far between. We'd usually rehearse in his shack/shed home in his parents meadow (they had a garden and beyond that was where he 'lived') Most rehearsal nights were accompanied by a spliff going round the 3 of us, our rehearsals were great! Everything sounded wonderful, we were tight...our actual gigs were proper ramshackle though, I guess we missed the spliff when performing 😄 I can't believe we played Salisbury Arts Centre and a similar size venue in Stroud with that band but probably the least organised band I've played with due to the smoke, I remember getting stuck in a loop playing American Idiot cos he couldn't remember the song structure (damn that Green Day for writing complex songs 😄) .. I think I miss a bit of that haziness sometimes Stay off drugs, kidz!

I think Tiger Feet might've been my first favourite tune as a very small kid. My older siblings had a bunch of 7" singles and the one I'd always play was Tiger Feet, quite partial to that David Dundas single too... must've had a thing about tigers (DD's song had a "tiger in my tank").

Pic of me (and part of Paul) underground in Southampton back in September. We played Music In The City, lots of artists playing in unusual venues...ours was in St Michael's vault

Started listening to his Rockonteurs interview just last night so hearing the sad news today after listening to him talking and in fine form was weird and unbelievable. Such sad news. That Stone Roses debut album was epic and those basslines were a thing of beauty... I'll admit I shed a few tears on the way home listening to Adored, Resurrection and Fool's Gold on 6 music. RIP Mani

When The King Is Half Undressed came out I was listening to a lot of Indie music and metal so it was strange that I loved Bellybutton at the time. A lot of the pubs we frequented had video jukeboxes, The King... came on and it just chimed with me. Listening to Senses Working Overtime on my run, beautifully strange instrumentation but catchy hooks all over. I liked the song as a kid (10 years old at the time) but listening now you'd think the record company would say "single?, you sure Andy?" 😂

Weirdly I am totally besotted with Jellyfish's Bellybutton, it's my favourite album of all time! Surely another reason to get beyond Skylarking 😁

Thanks, I'll do that. After posting I was working on the house whilst listening to someone's XTC playlist on YouTube...first 7 or 8 tracks, not one from Skylarking 😄

The Dukes was my introduction to XTC, I was in a band and the BL/songwriter taped some stuff for me. Only many years later did I get Skylarking which I love. I'm going to listen to more of their albums but I'm worried that after Skylarking the rest might be disappointing. I used to know a Nigel who claimed to be from the same school as Colin but I'm sure any Nigel from that era of Swindon has laid claim to having that song written about them. There is a recent ish interview with Andy P on the Rockonteurs podcast, he goes through the whole Colin v Andy songwriting thing (he sounded a little bitter) Any suggestions as to what album to listen to after Skylarking will be much appreciated 😁

Last gig this year! 🙁 Booked back in May for a mate's 50th so a gig with a guaranteed crowd, two sets of mostly originals. Our few covers are from Tom Petty, Whitesnake, AC/DC (of course 😄), JJ Cale, Rory McLeod and T Rex. Chris, our guitarist, found the backdrop from the band's pre @super al era so I pinned it up on the pub window curtain rail 👍🏻 Could probably do with an iron. Great crowd, mostly people I've known for 20-30 years so there was definitely a good vibe. Great comments after, love the word to describe our sound from one mate - seventiesness 😂 (he was drunk). Airwalk trainers on my feet, they are wearing thin on the sole so may have to retire them and just go with the various colours of converse I have in the future. Have been using the ibanez 1205 lately but as this was an end of term gig I went with my PPI bass, the Lakland 55-02 (the swiss army knife of basses 😄). It's a shame there's no more gigs in the diary but we haven't recorded any new songs in almost a year so we'll use this time productively...I hope 🙂

Don't forget Al James from Felis Leo (who? 😂). And Jimmy James from My Morning Jacket. @Mykesbass did you know there was a soul band called Rufus Stone?

Next Saturday we'll be playing the Duck Inn, Duck Ln, Laverstock. A little out of town but a nice pub to play. It's a mate's 50th and his missus sorted it out with the pub...they don't usually have bands playing originals 😬. I've played there twice before with the soul band who seemed to know the local musicians, there was a quiet bloke who shook my hand after the first gig and apparently he was a bassist with the Troggs (so I was told! 🤷🏻‍♂️) and Titch from Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky Mick & Titch (try getting that right when you're drunk 😂) came along for the 2nd gig. We'll be lucky if anyone from any band turns up to watch us! Sorry for the poster quality, it's all I can post on here 😐

That's sad news, I love Danny's bass on those John Martyn records. I spoke to him briefly in the bar of the Winchester Theatre Royal after a sparsely attended gig there. I think at the start of the gig he acknowledged and spoke about the lack of an audience but the performance he and his band gave was excellent, that was around '92/'93 I reckon. The only other time I saw him live was with Martyn at Salisbury City Hall, I think he did Blue Monk. There was a fair bit of banter between them, probably the main draw for the tour 😄.

@Stub Mandrel when you say "the other guys were less lucky" don't you mean less fortunate son 😂 I'll get me coat 😐

I've been listening to a lot of reggae over the summer, it seems like my whole family agrees to like only one genre of music. There was one album that captured the rest of my family's imagination, Benjamin Zephaniah's 'Rasta' ('82/'83 ish). A fantastic album with some great instrumentation. Apparently the ol poet himself was fond of picking up the bass, I've seen pics of him holding one but I'm unsure if he played live or on his own recordings. Rasta was my introduction to Benjamin Zephaniah back in the early 90s, I taped it off a mate and wore that tape out in the car stereo, I've listened to subsequent albums of his and, although good, none match the impact of that first album. Anyway, can anyone shed any light on Benjamin's bass playing out there please?

YouCut_20250920_002834235.mp4 Bit of a late report but I can do that can't I? We played (Felis Leo) a gig in Southampton on Sunday afternoon. The band's first gig there and my first there in 11 years! I miss playing Southampton, I have fond memories of many, many venues there 😍😄 Ages ago a mate said try Music In The City, a weekend festival in various strange venues around Southampton. We got booked as the last act on in a place called St Michael's Vault. Turns out it's like an old wine cellar/jail/bomb shelter type place in the car park behind the Titanic pub! We got there early enough to watch a couple of the bands before us, turns out this festival is quite popular and well organised so we had a chilled time enjoying the bands. The sound in the place was terrible though and the volunteers were supplying free earplugs to punters 😂 When we got on stage we didn't have the crowd the other bands did but there was a few so we were happy. Those that weren't fam n friends actually were there for the duration, unbelievable with the noise we were making! Hopefully we'll get more gigs down that way, I've always enjoyed gigging in Southampton more than Salisbury (sorry Salisbury, you need to embrace your inner rocker self more 🤔). I wore me converse and the sound guy liked my ibanez sdgr 1205 bass.