josie

A lovely man, and still a great, and very generous and supportive, musician. Still gigging regularly at 70+, and can still rattle the windows and raise the hairs on the back of your neck.

The Thrill is Gone. Probably because I've played it with Victor Brox, who played it with BB KIng. In B-flat minor for Victor's trumpet, which he plays right-handed while playing keys with his left. I play a walking minor 7th line with a lot of sustain, love the sound, but also the memory it always brings back of being so close to true greatness.

Welcome! I also started late - yes play with tracks to get started, but play with other musicians as much as you can! It's scary at first, but bass is all about being the backbone of a band. Plenty of support here, thank you for joining us :-)

Welcome Gillian! Nice basses :-)

Welcome! Nice part of the world :-)

Let's distinguish second hand bargains from list prices. My cheapest bass is an old Encore P (£79) that lives in my office and gets played through a c**p guitar amp at drunken after-work jams now and then. It feels pretty good to play, but I put it through a decent bass amp for the first time recently and was shocked at how dull and flat it sounded. Ok, it does what I bought it for, and I wouldn't leave anything better at work. My cheapest "real" bass is my GMR fretless, bought here, which has build and tone quality which should cost at least three times what I paid for it (£350). The only change I've made is to re-string it with chrome flats.

Younger son - a good drummer, who took up bass seriously after I did - subtly arm-twisted me into buying him a new MIA Fender P and then lost interest in playing bass in favour of re-building and riding bikes. Needless to say I'm not completely happy. If I wanted a P I could at least take it off him, but I don't :-(

Right, it can grow on you gradually and then snowball. When I bought my first bass, all I knew was that I wanted more of a Jazz than a Precision sound (although I didn't know at the time that those were the names of bass guitars!) Developed more understanding, bought a slightly better amp, ... rolled on, gradually. I've just reached a breakthrough point, thanks to upgrading my amp to a Markbass 121 combo (from Trueno of this parish :-) which has so much better sound quality and control than anything I've played through before, that I can hear subtleties of tone, and work with them, for the first time. I've just changed the strings on my main squeeze and I can hear the difference :-) Unlikely to get to the point of switching electronics, but it does feel good to have a bit more understanding and control :-)

I would definitely go for an occasion rather than an object. A really good tutorial or workshop - if possible with one of his heroes - or tickets to a stand-out gig. http://vixcamps.com/ I go twice a year to Aynsley Lister's blues guitar weekends - this link is well out of date: http://www.aynsleylister.co.uk/index.php/about/the-gear/guitar-weekends Usually two or three bass players working with the excellent Steve Amadeo while 20+ guitar players sit and listen to Aynsley. Great atmosphere, high standards, and a lot of fun. Let me know if you want more details.

We agreed from the start that we're more of a collective than a band. (Six core members and occasional guests.) We all have other commitments, and if we could only gig (or practice) when we can all be there, we wouldn't play many gigs. Some songs we won't do if a key member for that song isn't there, others we adapt. Nobody ever feels offended if a gig goes ahead without them. We enjoy playing a fairly relaxed improv style. Blues classics which we do try hard to make interesting and "ours" in some way, but flexible. As said above, if we were playing tightly arranged originals, that wouldn't work.

Yes. I was planning to go and see my ex-band (indie-pop originals) play their first proper gig after I left, but they split up before it happened. (I did want to support them, and to hear what the music sounded like in a venue with a decent sound system, but tbh I also wanted to see if the new bass player was using any of my basslines!) Current (blues) band is mostly playing cheerful relaxed Sunday afternoon pub gigs - I'd be more than happy sitting in a garden with a good beer listening to us, except that I'd be wishing it was me playing bass :-)

Straight-up walking blues at the moment. I was in an indie-pop originals band for 6 months, and got away with some crazy basslines, switching between broody prog and dance-pop mid-song, two-octave jumps, lots of high stuff (on a 5 strung E-C). Unfortunately the personalities didn't work out, and they completely self-destructed soon after I left. The current stuff is nowhere near as interesting musically, but we all so much enjoy playing together that it's worth it. I'd love to play in a dub or prog band though. Or maybe even funk - not my favourite to listen to, but sounds like a lot of fun to play. And I'm increasingly tempted by the thought of a 6 (B-C) but need to get a lot better on my 5s first! :-)

That's gorgeous! I've never seen one in other than black before.. Mind you I do love the lines of the pickguard on mine :-)

Welcome! I've once seen a bass player really play a 7 well - and then there's this: http://www.jsbach.net/bass/instruments.html What sort of music do you play? Possibly not JSB :-)

We're serious about playing - together - as well as we can, but we're not po-faced about it and we don't pretend to be better than we are. We're a cheerful good-time blues band, peeps can see that we're having fun and not above poking fun at ourselves, and they like it. Depends what you mean by "serious" I guess...

My (drummer) son's first band were "The Trolls of Fortune" (20+ years ago, long before "troll" meant what it does now), which I still love, but wouldn't work now. (Btw they evolved - without him - into The Cadillac Three.) My ex-band took most of the 6 months i was with them to agree a name, which was a good indication of the lack of community. They settled on "The Late Bus", which prompted me to write a song called "When the Wheels Come Off the Late Bus" (I actually think it's a good song, a blues/gospel take-off from "This Train".) Prophetic, as they collapsed completely soon after I left, without ever playing a gig. I'm now playing in the Plastic Mojo Band, a name which I suggested just as an in-joke to poke fun at ourselves as a blues band, but the others share my slightly warped sense of humour and insisted on going public with it :-)

Our second Sunday afternoon at the Old Abbey Taphouse in south/central Mcr. We're on a stage at one end of a big beer garden - landlady loves us acoustic, but we brought very small amps for singer and my acoustic bass, but were told atm their license doesn't allow any sort of amplification outside, so no chance anyone more than 6 feet away from the stage could hear us. Which didn't matter, because there was literally nobody there apart from the staff and a few friends and a sausage dog. It's a funky community center as well as a very good pub, and for a while a couple of attractive scantily clad young people (one male one female) were practicing circus skills with hoops and scarves in front of the stage - an interesting contrast to the usual "punters getting up to dance"! We just enjoyed playing together without pressure, and it was perfect for our excellent lead singer who's trying hard to build up confidence. And we were given good food and beer and told we can come back any Sunday we want to. Happy landlady, happy band, happy bass player :-)

Welcome! Nice to see you play an acoustic, completely agree it's good to have something you can just pick up and play. Small Peavey amp works for me too :-) Whereabouts in South Africa? I'm lucky enough to have been there twice but it's a big country...

Welcome and thank you for joining!

A 1990s? MIA Fender P in craddock's House of Music in Nashville, a couple of years ago, with a very fair price tag of over $3,000, which was three times my budget. I've no GAS for a P, doesn't suit the music I play, but this one somehow had a richness of tone and subtlety of intonation totally beyond what I expected. No regrets, and taught me to keep my ears open and not go by stereotypes. My cherished 2002 Jazz Aerodyne bit me in the leg on the same visit to craddock's and is in arm's reach as I type, wouldn't trade them for any money, but I do respect that the P was - quite apart from age - the objectively "better" bass.

Very happy with my purchase of Markbass combo from Trueno. Accurate description, fair price, quick shipping, good packaging and excellent communication. Thank you!

I've just started gigging at 63. My local grand-sprogs' (4yo & 2yo) first gig will be my band this Sunday. The joy and fun of live music is a gift you can share with them. Nice basses :-) Welcome!

Welcome! I'm Mcr-ish-based too, so let me know if you fancy meeting up in the bass corner of Johnny Roadhouse sometime for a bit of shared gear appreciation :-)

Welcome! and don't sell yourself short! Nice basses :-)

My band are mostly 20 years younger than me, so it might help that I look 20 years younger than I am :-) Although not exactly glam rock princess! :-) To their credit they don't stereotype on age, many others do :-(