Barking Spiders

I get the bass porn angle but it gets frustrating as I know I'm not likely to own anything costing £1.5k plus. It's not the money per se, as I could go out and buy a Stingray today, but I cant justify it to myself I'm a hobbyist and there are too many other things competing for my hard earned.

I pretty much get lost in the zone when I get close to sussing a fave bassline that I lose track of time. Mind you I feel the same when drumming or playing my acoustic guitar. Total therapy for when I'm a bit stressed.

I agree with ead about the bass reviews. These are largely geared towards kit costing £1,500 plus. If BGM is meant to be targeted at the ordinary bloke/ette in the street it'd be more useful to have more reviews of sub £500 basses. I buy it for a read on the train/plane and on balance it's a decent mag IMO, except when there's any mention of Gene Simmons.

I usually buy BGM depending who's on the cover. If I see e.g. Mark King, Bernard Edwards, Andy Rourke - as in recent issues - I'll shell out the four quid plus without even a quick thumb through. If it's Gene Simmons or Nikki Sixx I might get a copy of Razzle or Simply Knitting instead. I've only been getting BGM over the last coupla years and there a few players I think deserve a main feature. Top noms for me - Rocco Prestia, Louis Johnson and Nate Watts fr'instance, unless they've been in earlier issues. I know LJ's no longer with us but then again 'Nard's been on the cover this year.

S'ok, I've survived nearly 30 years of bass life without ever even touching a P-bass and I'm still intact

I'm not a huge rock fan but I dunno why the Later producers seem to go out of their way to avoid having metal and hard rock bands on. In recent series Mastodon and Royal Blood managed to sneak in. Mind you they don't seem much to keen on electronica either. with one act every few series. As for Glasvegas, well they're gash anyway

One of the reasons I lost interest in playing in bands was that with compromise everything got watered down and no one ended up playing much of what they really liked. As I recall I don't think I ever lasted more than dozen gigs in any band before I quit. That's why I went down the samba band route instead. With a good size pool of players if you don't feel like gigging for a bit there's always someone else to take your place.

No Skybone, you're not alone. I don't know how JH can get so excited about the endless roster of identikit, dull as ditchwater indie bands and earnest singer-songwriterly types. About 20 series ago Later was interesting when it was more about bands like Tinariwen. There hasn't been owt like that for yonks.

You say that TimR, Blue but if you don't like or are indifferent about the music you're playing how can you infuse it with that most important of elements, feel!. I've been in this situation enough times and never stayed long. I'd rather be gigless than play stuff I don't like.

I agree that there are certain aspects of theory we should all know e.g. chord structures & inversions, scales and keys. With just those plus a good ear, solid technique and an innate sense of rhythm and good taste you can do just fine.

This bloke's old band were part of the first wave of the New Beige genre which includes brain numbing gash like Snow Patrol, Coldplay etc with current luminaries including Ed Sheeran and umpteen other dull, acoustic toting singer-songwriters. I don't remember mainstream / chart music being ever as tepid and vanilla as it has been over the last half dozen years.

Traditional Synthesizer Music -Venetian Snares No Hassle - Tosca Momentum - Monolake

Other than the odd bit of dep work in a function band I haven't played bass in a proper gigging band for about 10 years though I really used to enjoy it. My main outlet for performing is playing caixa and repinique in samba groups. Main problem is these days I only enjoy listening to drum n bass, trip hop, world fusion, glitch, downtempo, progressive house etc and I can't find anyone who wants to play this sorta stuff.

I only play stuff I like and so in terms of progression I'm limited by this and get a bit frustrated. I know I've a chance of improving if I listened to and studied jazz/fusion players like Wootten, Bailey, Berlin, Patitucci etc - which would involve more advanced theory - but just don't like this type of music. If I learnt their styles of chops and tried to fit them in with what I like to play it'd sound well out of place.

After skimming through a thread on creating basslines I'm left wondering about how much theory you really bother with if you're not playing jazz. As with guitar I know all the notes on the fretboard, can run through scales and can play most chords but there my knowledge about theory stops. When covering tunes I just listen, copy and sometimes adapt. End of. I'm not interested in improv when playing live largely cos it seems to bore the tits off most punters. Anyone else keen on learning theory or are you just happy knowing how to play setlists?

I think the Hawkwind t-shirt must've been an early warning signal to the punters. If I'm at a pub and there's some blokes that look like they're gonna be knocking out over-familiar rock numbers I quickly down my pint and I'm gone

I never been overawed with Marr's guitar work but without the bass lines Rourke came up with The Smiths would've been just another jangly indie band

I've signed it as I support saving live music but in Cheltenham I've seen the power that developers wield in cahoots with their corrupt poodles in the council. We've lost many good pubs and most our music venues now. The only buildings going up around here are high end housing and retirement homes and more shopping zones. When most of the public rather stay at home watching their plasma TVs, posting pics of kittens on Facebook and playing computer games I don't expect widespread support shame to say.

Bottom line is the average punter doesn't give a monkeys left tit how technically good players are as long as they sound good enough together and know how to entertain. Quite a long time ago I went to see G3 n Brum with Fripp joining Vai and Satriani, praps the most boring gig I've ever been to. In my row we were all stifling yawns and looking at our watches. A week late I went to an ageing Stiff Little Fingers gig and it was a blast but without fancy schmancy guitar heroics. It was a lesson well learned.

Too busy rushing away from mobs of fans in a limo back to my hotel ever to be able to find out . Other than that apart from my 9 year old daughter I don't recall anyone being that interested tbh

Directionless and all over the shop . Yup anything goes pretty much as long as I'm not doing a Bill Wyman stuck in some murky corner. As well all know, deep in their hearts punters know that without the bass, music generally sucks.

9. do you have Jack Daniels Honey Bourbon and chipotle chicken on the rider?

At age 11 if I saw a bass guitar I'd have thought it was a violin or summat. Had zero interest in music then and that would remain the case for the next five years! I was getting wayward then and would've probably been either nicking traffic cones, trying out cider or dousing Airfix planes, in paraffin, lighting them and then launching them out the bedroom window. Not my bag but that lad's very good though. Kudos.

Gotta say that having just read the reviews of the re-issued Area SB-1000RIB in Bass mag I'm sorely tempted to blow most of next month's salary on it. Kids might have to make do with beans on toast for a month

I recently went into a store in Stratford where normally they have blokes who know their stuff but on this day they had two young giggly girls behind the counter more interested in You Tube whatever. I asked for a pack of flatwound strings but one of the two looked at me as if I said summat in Hungarian. I could see they don't know their arses from their elbows and went elsewhere.