BrunoBass

Doesn’t matter if you leave them on!

‘No Man’s Land’, the new album by Frank Turner. I rate him highly as a songwriter and a live performer. This album is patchy, as his albums usually are, but when it’s good it’s excellent.

Looks great. I’ve just nabbed one of these, picking it up on Tuesday next week. Can’t wait.

Thanks for the heads up, I’ll certainly check it out.

Yes it is. I’m seeing funny cat videos.

Brilliant. The ‘Talking to the band’ bit is spot on. I get asked (usually mid song) to say ‘happy birthday’ to someone at nearly every gig. It’s always me, never our singer....

I vaguely recall Dave gave away one of his Precision basses as a prize on Swap Shop when I was a kid, early eighties I guess. I even entered the competition. I wonder where that ended up?

I own five, but only really use two. Two of those are self builds that hang around the house for messing around on. I have my main gig bass, and I take one of the other two as a spare. I’ve thought about thinning the herd, but I don’t want to sell my self builds, and the two ‘spares’ are cheap basses with little or no second hand value. I don’t need or want to add any more.

I’m close to acquiring one of these, a pretty tidy 2017 model in black. Does anyone own one? Thoughts please? Thanks in advance. https://shop.fender.com/en-GB/electric-basses/american-original-70s-jazz-bass/0190142806.html?rl=en_US

I bought a brand new EBMM Stingray from PMT in 2016. When I checked the serial number on the EBMM website it said the bass had been finished and shipped to UK distributor Strings n Things in 2011. Five years sitting in a warehouse somewhere. Half of me didn’t give a flying one, half of me was amazed.

Congratulations - that sounds like my kind of gig!

Great all star band soundtrack too.

Yes. An extremely moving film.

One of my favourite music/musician films is ‘Slade in Flame’. It’s a gritty and cynical tale and if you haven’t seen it I wholeheartedly recommend it. Slade are surprisingly good as the titular Flame. (Incidentally one of my early bands was called Flame, in reference to the film).

I love Almost Famous, one of my favourites. I watched it again recently on a flight back from the US. Interestingly the Delta Airlines ‘cut’ had edited out the turbulence scene...

We headlined a local festival called Vaultstock in Banbury last night. A late show for us, we started at 11pm for 90 minute set. FOH was good, from what we were told and from videos I saw, but the stage sound was poor; not enough bass in the monitors and no kick drum at all, despite many requests from us to turn it up. I like to move around a bit on stage but last night I spent most of the gig standing by our drummer watching his right foot, which killed the vibe a bit. Good event though, big crowd, all outside and of course it was a lovely warm night. We played well, my 4003 sounded great (what I could hear of it...) and I was home with a cold beer in time for the Indycar race on the TV.

Well, wouldn’t you know it. We had an email today from someone we’re doing a wedding for next month, asking if we can supply music before, between and after our set. We’d already agreed a price, they’ve paid a deposit, but it was for 2 x 45 minute sets, nothing more. Now it’s no skin off my nose to whack on a Spotify playlist and call it quits, but curating a playlist based on their tastes (which is what they want) plus hanging around for three hours after we’ve finished wasn't in the script. We’ve offered them a revised quote, and await their response!

I’d never heard of Express Music in Coventry until this week, despite only living forty minutes away. They appear to have a decent selection of basses, including some pre-owned items. Does anybody have any experience of shopping there?

On rotation this week has been Frank Turner’s new album No Man’s Land, XTC’s English Settlement, a Soft Cell singles compilation and Mabel’s album High Expectations.

Frank Turner on his upcoming UK tour. I’m a big fan and have seen him many times. I play him a lot in the car, particularly on the school run and my seven year old son has become a fan too. So I’m taking him - all ages show, seated venue, can’t wait to give him his first experience of seeing a live band. (Apart from seeing my band, but that doesn’t count!)

Entertaining thread... I love gigging. It’s the only reason I’m in a band. Everything else I can do without. If the band didn’t gig, I’d leave. And as I only play bass when gigging or rehearsing I’d probably not play bass either, other than for home recording. If the hassle ever starts to outweigh the joy, I’ll stop.

Our frontman once suggested that he and I stencil paint the band logo on our cabinet grilles to mirror our logo on the kick drum. It was a no from me... In a similar vein, we recently played at a pub festival. The pub were selling festival t-shirts in the run up to the event. Our frontman bought one for each of us, which was kind of him. The shirts were quite cool and nice to wear out and about, but he intended that we all wear them during our festival slot. I unfortunately ‘forgot’ mine on the day.

That’s a very smart idea.

Thanks all, I’ll dip into one of the compilations and see how I get on 😊

I don’t think we’ve ever played a venue (pub, party, festival) that hasn’t had its own music playing, wherever it’s a bar staff Spotify playlist, jukebox, whatever; it just gets turned off when we start, and turned back on again when we’ve finished.