ezbass

Alice's Restaurant Massacre - Arlo Guthrie

That's What Friends Are For (The Vulture Song) - The Jungle Book soundtrack

Can't say that it's a particularly big issue for me. I have a 33", a 35" and my 42" EUB. My muscle memory seems to be connected to which bass I'm playing rather than the actual scale. Weird for sure, but that seems to be the end product.

Stop it! Stop it right now! 😍

Indeed, he is quite the craftsman.

Next month might see me slip off the wagon. I’m going on a trip and taking a bass with me as a potential trade in for something I have my eye on.

The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill - The Beatles

Outside of the home, my parents’ friends had a son, who was a fair bit older than me. He had long hair and played guitar and I thought he was the coolest person ever, the fact that their neighbour was Larry Wallace of, at the time, UFO and later Motörhead and The Pink Fairies did nothing to lessen this impression, even though I didn’t know who UFO were (they used to practise next door too, you could hear them through the walls). It wasn’t UFO that I remember, however, it was the records in the aforementioned sons’ collection, notably Four Way Street by CSN&Y and Hot August Night by Neil Diamond. It was these records and their owner that inspired me to pick up the guitar; I’ll still often bash out Teach Your Children for posterity’s sake (it was the first song I ever learnt, albeit incorrectly).

E=MC2 - BAD

I recognise the hearing new things comment, it was like my record collection almost doubled overnight, without buying any new recordings, when I started playing bass.

Yeah, that was always going to be a tough one to land, he hardly does magazine interviews, let alone something like this. However, given his recent jazz release, who knows? I won’t be holding my breath though, as much as he, along with Tony Levin, would be my top picks.

My dad was a big band fan and I particularly remember hearing The Ted Heath Orchestra a lot. He was also big on organs (stop it) and The Fantastic Peddlers were another staple. Tom Jones live at Caesar’s Palace sticks in my memory too. There was other stuff, which wasn't as good and I found a bit cheesy by comparison. In later years, he borrow some of my albums, he was very keen on Eric Clapton.

I was in a Pink Floyd tribute once and there were members of another Floyd tribute in the audience. Their bass player came up to me afterwards and asked how I got a particular tone on Mother, I had to tell him it was a fretless. I'd been playing the same bass all evening.

To go all pantomime season... It's behind you!

Tony Levin - make it so @devinebass. 🙏

Nah!

One of the few companies to do a fretless P type, let alone a fiver. Shame that the pictures on the Anderton’s site are fretted basses, despite the description. Doesn’t fill you with confidence. However, I can’t answer your question as I’ve never played one, although I’ve come very close to buying one of those P types on a number of occasions.

No, it’s a bona fide pedal, the lesser known @martthebass banana boost, starts driven and tapers away to clean or vice versa, dependent on the ‘bend’ control.

All four of those are great calls, especially JMJ. When you think of the eclectic host of artists he’s played with, much like Guy Pratt, there has to be some great stories and, again much like Guy, he has a well regarded signature bass.

I’ve read GP’s book, seen him live and know the stories, but I still found that entertaining. String change challenge is a bit of good fun.

My first gig with a new band and my first gig since an outdoor, Covid restricted, livestream gig in the summer of 2020. It was at a social club and was OK. Not as tight as I'm used to, but it was a bit of a rush as I only joined the band mid last month and we had to add more numbers at short notice. A new genre for me too, a Mod band. Given that I'm not a massive fan of '60s music (despite growing up at that time) and positively dislike a lot of that ilk, this was an odd choice for me. However, it's the first opportunity I've had to get back into a band, so I didn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Played my first gig on a short scale and it was a lot of fun, my JMJ Mustang certainly rising to the occasion and being bang on sonically and visually. Another gig at a Mod bash next month, part of a 4 band line up. We'll see how that goes. Great to out playing again.

Please let us know how you find them.

Duh, this is BC.

That looks like a solid result, Si. Good work.

I’m currently out of love with fretless, after it being my go to for decades. Even with that state of mind, I still say do it. You’re used to a 5, so stick with that if possible (1 less variable). It depends on what your definition of cheap is and I’d be wary of acquiring something cheap for cheap’s sake as this may put you off if it’s not much good (I’m not casting aspersions on the HB BTW). If you can find an Ibanez GWB35 2nd hand, I definitely recommend one of those.