lozkerr

Heh, Country's easy. Here's a starter kit: DO-IT-YOURSELF COUNTRY & WESTERN SONG KIT I met her [1] [2]. I can still recall [3] she wore. 1. 2. 3. on the highway in September that purple dress in Sheboygan at McDonald's that little hat outside Fresno ridin' shotgun that burlap bra at a truck stop wrestlin' gators those training pants on probation all hunched over the stolen goods in a jail cell poppin' uppers that plastic nose in a nightmare sort of pregnant the Stassin pin incognito with joggers the neon sign in the Stone Age stoned on oatmeal that creepy smile in a treehouse with Merv Griffin the hearing aid in a gay bar dead all over the boxer shorts She was [4] [5]. 4. 5 sobbin' at the toll booth in the twilight drinkin' Dr. Pepper but I loved her weighted down with Twinkies by the off-ramp breakin' out with acne near Poughkeepsie crawlin' through the prairie with her cobra smellin' kind of funny when she shot me crashin' through the guardrail on her elbows chewin' on a hangnail with Led-Zeppelin talkin' in Swahili with Miss Piggy drownin' in the quicksand with a wetback slurpin' up linguini in her muu-muu and I knew [6]; [7] I'd [8] forever; 6. 7. 8. no guy would ever love her more I promised her stay with her that she would be an easy score I knew deep down warp her mind she'd bought her dentures in a store She asked me if swear off booze that she would be a crashing bore I told her shrink change my sex I'd never rate her more than "4" The judge declared punch her out they'd hate her guts in Baltimore My Pooh Bear said live off her it was a raven, nothing more I shrieked in pain have my rash we really lost the last World War The painters knew stay a dwarf I'd have to scrape her off the floor A Klingon said hate her dog what strong deodorants were for My hamster thought pick my nose that she was rotten to the core The blood test showed play "Go Fish" that I would upchuck on the floor Her rabbi said salivate She said to me [9]; But who'd have thought she'd [10] [11]; 9. 10. 11. our love would never die run off with my best friend there was no other guy wind up in my Edsel man wasn't meant to fly boogie on a surfboard that Nixon didn't lie yodel on "The Gong Show" her basset hound was shy sky dive with her dentist that Rolaids made her high turn green on her "WorkMate" she'd have a swiss on rye freak out with a robot she loved my one blue eye blast off with no clothes on her brother's name was Hy make it at her health club she liked "Spy vs. Spy" black out in a Maytag that birthdays made her cry bobsled with her guru she couldn't stand my tie grovel while in labour [12] goodbye. 12. You'd think at least that she'd have said I never had the chance to say She told her fat friend Grace to say I now can kiss my credit cards I guess I was too smashed to say I watched her melt away and sobbed She fell beneath the wheels and cried She sent a hired thug to say She freaked out on the lawn and screamed I pushed her off the bridge and waved But that's the way that pygmies say She sealed me in the vault and smirked

Or do some people watching: I stand alone on a silent street in a town so far away While they picture me as I post a letter saying where I went today Did this, did that, got drunk, bought tartan tat As the rows of blank-faced windows glared and told me to go away ... etc 🙂

Sound advice. Also, try free writing - you just write and write. Doesn't have to rhyme, look like lyrics or even make sense. It can be doggerel, obscenities, anything you like, but if you try to keep a theme or idea in your head while you're doing it, things can pop out of nowhere. It might be something alliterative or onomatopoeic or a play on words - anything. But even a short sentence can be enough to get you going. I'm working on a TV series at the moment, and free writing is a godsend when I hit a wall. I just put my characters into mundane situations and type away. Most of it goes into the bit bucket, but I've come up with some gems that I'm very pleased with. You do have to be ruthless and self-critical to a fault, though. It's quite normal to write ten thousand words and chuck almost everything away; and what's left may need a lot of changes before it works. But when it does work, it's immensely rewarding.

Same here. When I first learned it, I did try fretting the E on the B string but my fingers got tangled up, just like they normally do 🙂 I mute the open string with my thumb, which seems to work OK.

Aye, I picked up on that too. I'm no Suzi Quatro, but I'm definitely a wee bit ahead of that. The first thing I thought was 'HTH do you play Living On A Prayer on a four-string without the open E?' Unless you detune, of course.

Shrunk it? They've bloody decimated it! I nipped in there on my lunch break today and they had seven basses for sale. Plus all of four (I counted 'em) Orange combos in the noise department. That's right. Seven. In a shop smack bang in the centre of the capital. I was quite taken aback, although I'd just gone in to see if they had any interesting sheet music. They didn't, but they did have a lot of tutorial books - Rockschool, Hal Leonard method and so on. That, plus their not having any high-end kit at all seems to suggest they're aiming at the entry-level bass market to the exclusion of just about everything else. A shame.

No bull, that was seriously chilled. Friesian, in fact.

Beat me to it. I was 51 before I first picked up a bass and I wish to hell I'd done it decades earlier.

Spot on. Whenever I'm asked my age and don't want to admit that I can remember the moon landings, I usually say 'old enough to know better, young enough not to care'. Usually works 🙂

That's worth knowing 😉

Generally I feel the same, but sometimes there's no choice. I'd been keeping an eye out for a Steinberger Spirit headless bass for a while but never seen one in a shop, not even in Denmark Street. I eventually bought one online from Bass Direct, as carting the Fender around on weekend trips to see my kids was becoming a PITA. It's a nice little bass, but the natural playing position's very different to my Fender. It's good for basic practice and learning new songs, though.

Which one? The two I know of are Herts Music Centre and the Music Dept. The first one's good for sheet music and not much else, and the other seems a bit low on stock. I was looking for a decent padded gig bag a while back and neither of them had anything suitable for protecting an expensive bass. I went to the Bass Gallery in the end.

I can't see any, but that might be due to my being an old hoe with entrenched views.

Thanks! 🙂 Yes, sadly I will miss the Festival this year but we should be done and dusted for Christmas and Hogmanay. My flat's let for holidays at the moment, and it's booked solid until the 28th August. In the meantime, we're picking furniture, packing stuff up and sorting out mundane things like parking permits. It's a good time to be moving; the council's starting to clamp down on holiday lets. Although the headlines are still mostly noise rather than action, I've had a couple of snotty letters about the proliferation of key boxes at the street door, and from talking to neighbours it looks like there's a blitz on. The justification they're using is that most of the Old Town is a conservation area and UNESCO World Heritage site (which is true), and a lot of the tenements are listed buildings (which is also true), so the threat of the planning contravention ban hammer is being used. It won't affect me, as I only have one key box and I've got the OK from the council to leave it in place until the end of the month, but some people have loads of short-term lets, so they're in for some bother. We have some big jobs to do, and after that we'll be living in the flat while we get the smaller things done. Most of my gear will have to go into store, but I have treated myself to a Steinberger travelling bass so I can keep my hand in. I don't want to be too rusty when I start looking for a band!

Fabulous, thanks very much everyone! I'll try to get round as many as I can.

Thanks! I'll do that. It'll be nice to meet a fellow BCer if you'll have time to say hello!

Hi everyone, Next month, I'll be upping sticks and moving back to Edinburgh. There's a wee bit to do on my flat, so it'll be a while before I'll be heading over to JMB again. But in the meantime, I was wondering if anyone could pass on some insights into the live music scene in Auld Reekie? My local there does have live music, but it tends to be finger-in-the-ear folky stuff about auld reiver Tam and his twa grey dugs, accompanied by traditional Scottish instruments like the, er, banjo. Not really my thing. Whistle Binkies is just down the road from me, so doubtless I'll be in there a lot, but I'd like to know of any other good venues easily reached from the city centre. Ideally I'd like to take the Goat in Berkhamsted with me, but I suspect the owners might complain, even if it would fit under all the motorway bridges. If there's anywhere similar to there in Edinburgh though, I'd love to hear about it. And any recommendations for bass teachers in or around Edinburgh would be very welcome, too! Many thanks, Laura

Yup. Band T-shirts come in three sizes - skeleton, footy fan beer gut and tent 😊

Burn it. Burn it with FIRE.

Showing my age here, but as Vindaloo has already been mentioned, let's cringe along to: White Hart Lane is the ground For the best team around And to see them just fills you with wonder So we'll sing them along With a Spurs football song Tottenham Hotspur, The pride of North London Nice one Cyril Nice one son Nice one Cyril Let's have another one

Go on then...

Heh, sometimes you have to keep the guitards in time 😉 That's interesting about the signal split; the studio we rehearse at has a Hartke backline that includes a 410 and 115 cab, both of which are 8 ohms. I hooked the 115 up to the Metro last night and couldn't hear any difference at all; the Metro's 210 completely swamped the 115. There was signal going to it though - I could hear it when I knelt in front of it - but it wasn't anything to write home about. I'm wondering if an 8 ohm Eden 115 would be better... how do you find the split between your Metro and the Ampeg?

After a quick Google, I think that's one for the shopping list. Top tip, thanks 🙂 I might think about the castors, too; at the moment, I wheel it around on a trolley. I can lift it in and out of the Defender OK, but it's a struggle to carry it any distance.

I have an Eden Metro and I'm dead chuffed with it. It's basically a WT300 amp sitting atop a 210 cab. Lovely warm tone, although perhaps not as rich as a valve power amp, but the EQ is fantastic. Doesn't need much more than a wee bit of enhance and a touch of extra bass. I'm thinking of adding a 115 cab to get a bit more low end, but overall it's a fantastic bit of kit. Its only downside is the weight - it's a big beast.