knirirr

My first bass (an Encore unlined fretless P) and amp (Trace Elliot BLX-130 combo) came from ABC in Oxford. I must have bought them in 1993. The Encore was sold to by an EUB a few years later but I kept the combo until Covid (sold via this forum).

The jam earlier this week was interesting. - Bass and drums. - 2x horn players. - 2x acoustic guitarists. The guitarists wanted to call gypsy jazz tunes and the horn players were more into modal hard bop stuff, which the guitarists struggled to play as chugging chords doesn't really work on that sort of thing.

By what means were you able to send the bow? I suspect that Royal Mail/Parcelforce won't be keen given that mine would cost £800 to replace if they break it. If there's reasonably cheap and insured postage this sounds like a good service. I'm finding it difficult to track down coarse black hair.

My other half claims to be unable to visualise anything (a shame, as it's a useful ability), yet to constantly have music playing in her head. I am able to enjoy both the internal music and also to visualise things.

This one may perhaps be entertaining (I enjoyed the lyrics):

FWIW I've gigged with two different pianists who also happen to be physicists and are notable enough to have Wikipedia pages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hopkins_(musician) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Marshall_(academic)

It definitely needs to coordinate. I spent a while choosing this for a new instrument (apologies for it being a guitar).

This one: It's got a neck and body by WD Music with Villex pickups. The strings are currently Labella gold tapewounds. It sounds awsome and I even have a T-shirt with it on (a gift)... It rarely gets out these days because, inevitably, everyone wants double bass instead.

That middle one could also be a rootless Em9 with the b3 at the bottom, IIRC. A favourite of mine. There's lots of fun to be had with jazz chords!

Samsung. Years ago I bought a Galaxy Nexus. After a couple of weeks it stopped connecting to 5GHz wifi, and other owners found the same thing. Samsung's customer services were slow and incompetent, simply reinstalling the operating system (a task I could easily do myself) and returning the still-broken item to me - three times. More recently, my parents mistakenly purchased an oven/grill from them. It was so bad it could barely even make toast, and never worked well even after several visits from a technician. Also, their "smart" televisions are a bit dodgy when it comes to privacy.

Personally, I have never liked the B string, not even on a bass I had with a 38" scale (it did make playing some tunes easier, though). I ordered a set of custom strings from Pyramid (E-C) for the other half's 5-string (23.5" scale) Bee and took these to a good tech. When he handed it back he said something along the lines of "amazing tone from the B string on that bass. I'd never have guessed it would work on such a short scale." A look at the packets (which I'd never bothered to open) confirmed that Pyramid had ignored my instructions and sent a B-G set instead. IMO the B string is unimpressive on this small bass guitar, but at least that tech liked it.

There was a jazz jam on last night; IIRC there were 5 bassists in the room and 2 guitarists, with neither of the guitarists wanting to play. So, I ended up on guitar instead, but I think I just about got away with it. Video here, should anyone be interested (dodgy guitar solo at approx 2:15).

To my embarrassment, I haven't got around to clearing out the garage, so these are still available for now.

In an ideal world I could retire from the day job and earn a bit of money on the side from gigs. But, as I only play jazz this is probably a fantasy. Full time pro work would probably take the fun out of it.

Lending out backline seems fair enough to me. If it's jazz then the expectation seems to be that the house bassist will let others use their upright for a tune or two (same for keyboard and drums), given that all these instruments are a pain to transport and cause a great deal of clutter. Having said that, I went to a jazz jam recently where two keyboard players set up because one refused to use anyone else's keyboard (and then noodled on everything). I'd expect anyone wanting to play guitar or bass guitar to bring their own, and to accept without complaint or argument if they are told they may not borrow one. Not everyone I meet at jams shares this opinion.

AFAICT that's the default for jazz jams, at least, though there's some variation. There's one I usually don't attend as I'll be lucky to get one go in the first set and one in the second, then get back to bed near midnight for an 06:00 alarm and 90+ minute commute the next day. Another, where I am the house player, it's extremely rare for another bassist to appear. When they have they have brought their own bass guitar and amp and we have then alternated two tunes on and two off between us. If they wanted to use my upright I would be reluctant to let them play more than a couple of tunes during the night. My least favourite jam (> 20 years ago now) involved turning up early to set up, then helping the drummer and keyboard player, and playing for the first 30-40 mins or so. At that point other bassists would turn up and demand to use my bass and/or amp, supported by the MC because "you've already played for a while", and this would go on until the end of the night when I would get out last and struggle to find a taxi.

Interesting. As a British scientist myself, I'm pleased that this meme didn't exist when I last had to visit Russia.

I've used my Orange Terror with 1x12 cab for a jazz jam on guitar before (G&L ASAT). The tone wasn't bad at all and nicely clean.

That is an interesting question, which has caused me to pause and reflect. I do have a bass with such a fake decal on it, though where the serial number should be is instead a small-print admission that it's made up out of WD music's licensed spare parts. Why I put it on is due to conversations along these lines: "Why haven't you got a proper bass?" "This bass is completely proper." "I mean an upright, they sound so much better." "I have got one, but I fancied playing this electric tonight." "Oh well, at least it's fretless, and a Fender." After putting that on I saw that someone (probably here) had a logo made which said "Offender Imprecision Bass". That's much better and I should have done that instead.

Earlier today I was discussing the pickups on one of my basses, and thought I'd look up the website to send to the person with whom I was talking. But, it had disappeared and the domain was listed as for sale. The Wayback Machine turned up a version of the site from the 5th of April with the text: So, presumably, these pickups are no longer available.

T&G Martin sell one with their name on which looks pretty much identical to that (I'd guess that it is the same one). I have got one, and it has been very reliable; the many handles are useful .

I think it went something like this: Before leaving school I discovered The Shadows, and thought that this electric guitar music sounded awesome, much better than what my peers at school were listening to (this was the 80s) and more exciting than the classical music pushed via school music lessons. Listening only is never enough, so I saved money from holiday jobs to get a cheap electric guitar (Hohner flying V). But, good as it was, there was something lacking, so I tried listening to blues, rock & roll, funk etc. to see if I could find what I was after. Eventually, I discovered that it was jazz I wanted to listen to and play. As an undergraduate, I learned how to do big band style rhythm guitar and joined the university band. When in this band, I realised that bass sounded rather cool. There wasn't any opportunity to play bass at the time, but when I graduated I bought an unlined fretless electric and switched over (here's an example from a year later).

I think that this is the chap they ought to be looking for to fill that vacancy: