Dr.Dave

Practising in the early days without an amp so as not to annoy the neighbours was a mistake - it left me too heavy handed in my plucking hand and I can't play any other way now. At home I tend to plug into my Boss multi effects straight through to headphones and if required my phone into the aux in jack. If I was famous or at least played in environments where I had a dressing room - which isn't often - I'd have a warm up before going on stage but it's a luxury I've learned to live without , including having something easy to play at the start of the set AND wearing gloves (even inside sometimes) so my fingers don't get cold. I note the following things that have been said to me by those I have some respect for...... Practise - because you only get better or get worse , you don't stay the same. If you practise too much what you actually get good at is practising. Rehearse what you know but never practise what you know. Practise stuff you don't know. If you're going to play standing up - why sit down to practise ?

Nobody in the sense you mean. I taught myself to play by copying people like Jim Lea and Geddy Lee but I knew I was just using them as teachers. I only ever wanted to roll my own.

No , it's beer. The moustache is mine but my goatee had to go to glue the long false beard on. The gum wouldn't come off and I used to look like a burns victim for days afterwards !

Here's a pic

I've often wondered about the neck coming on and off constantly. I've probably done it more than most , particularly on the rare occasions I've taken a bass on a plane. I've always used tooth picks stuffed in the screw holes when it's been off a few times but I still wonder about it. Then you see folk selling vintage stuff who have the neck off just to photograph the heel stamps . Dunno. Jury's still out for me.

It's a Fender. The whole ethos was - and still is - that you can get hold of spares anywhere and do the installation quickly yourself without needing pro help. Plus if you buy another neck you have , effectively , two basses. One fretted , one fretless. Absolute no brainer to me.

Worst I ever had was a 68 jazz that was basically vandalized. Burned in places , terribly hacked and in one place the words ' your Mabel's Pie*s M*rg*n box' had been scratched down to the wood. I managed to make £900 on it in a few weeks which is why I bought it but I'd love to meet the tosser who did it and tell him what I think. I was told he backed Tom Jones and humperdinck in Las Vegas and one evening frank Sinatra at an event - plus the bass is to be heard on several Gilbert o Sullivan hits. You'd think it was some extreme punk guy , not a cabaret artist.

Aldi were flogging a kids mini backpack for £3.99 and I got one to put my TC amp in. The leads go in the separate pocket. It's a bit...well...pink but who cares ! I also bought a mini tool kit there that fits in my gig bag and reflector sunglasses to play it. Aldi - the musicians friend !

Wakefield's hardly the big city and I walked across it with a bass on my back in the early hours for 25 years. The last few of those with increasingly less confidence , and if you saw what Wakefield's become , you would too. That's why I moved to the sticks. Anyway - point is I think everywhere urban is getting increasingly less safe so I'd be very wary , possibly because age has made me less able to deck scrotes. One bit of fun. I had to go to Wakefield's CCTV offices once for work. Bloke sat there and looked me up and down then said ' Saturday nights , get out of a silver 4x4 on Peterson road , walk through the underpass with a guitar on your back , finish a bottle of brown ale at the top of the steps and drop the bottle in the bin end of George street ' Spot on. Even the brand of beer !

Yep. I used to wind them up by telling them I was a benefit fraud investigator !!

Nobody anywhere near me - which oddly enough is how most folk like it ! I'm the one between Bawtry and Retford

There was some toe rag in Brighouse a few years back kept wobbling the mic stand base so it was banging into my mouth and teeth as I sang. Thought it was hilarious when I stopped the song and told him I'm not someone with whom to ****.. He was back again doing it again a few songs later so I decked him. I've played at Jock's Cavern too. I put my hand on the stair rail to help me carry something up the stairs and when I looked to see why my hand felt sticky it was covered in phlegm !!

Same with anything. Try an Aldi mars bar or a twix and you'll never pay full whack for the brand name again. Let's be fair - we live in a world where folk will pay 60 quid to see a trib band ! Couple of things to note , though. Pay £1200 for a used US Fender and what's it worth the day after ?? I'll tell you. £1200. Buy a cheaper instrument without the magic name on it and you're likely chucking tenners away as you leave the shop. Also a lot of pros are being sponsored. Give me a bunch of cheapo freebies and I'll use them. Pay me to do it and I'll tell folk they're brilliant ! In any case - what's a budget instrument ?? I'm 60 , you should have seen the state of the copy stuff when I was 16 !! Nowadays you can find a decent quality , playable instrument for nuts. I've a Squier Dimension ( though it's Fender badged for show) . Great instrument and cost me about a weeks shopping bill. Why would I take my 73 Precision into some right Mary Whitehouse full of scrota when the Dimension will do the job ?

like a previous poster I bought my Sunburst/Rosewood 73 Precision ( I refuse to call it a P bass , even a bone idle ex council worker like me can be bothered to make the effort) as my first bass second hand in 1978. Still use it unless I'm in a real toilet full of scrota in which case I take my 1997 Japanese 54 blue flower Precision. Thing is - when I bought the 73 it was supposed to be a pile of old toss because it isn't pre-CBS. Now folk would pay thousands for it. Not worth it I promise you. It's dear to me but if it got nicked I'd just get another Japanese one and spend the insurance money on painted hussies. The most precious bit is the brass nut. My Dad made it for me out of an old lock from a building site bog door. He's not around any more to make me another.

I only flicked through the five pages quick but I didn't see The Nightfly. Why not ?

1971 - I can do that. 1977 - told you I could do that. 1978 - this looks like a right toilet full of scrota but it's a start and they're paying me half a weeks wage. 2022 - how come I'm in the same toilet full of scrota for a tenth of a weeks wage ??

I don't think there's such a thing as too old , although if you want to do originals and have success with them it'll be far , far harder than it is for a younger person. If you find it frustrating - pack it in. Life's too short. It may be that after a break you find different ways to make music that make you happy. If that doesn't happen - fine. Other interests will take it's place. I stopped trying to 'make it' at an early age. All I ever wanted to do was write songs and make a living at it. I had enough knock backs to change my mind. I took to playing bass in rock covers and blues bands because it's dead easy , makes a bit of beer money and there's always lots of gags and laughter. I don't even consider the two things linked. I gave up trying to be a songwriter and became a covers bass player. I could just as easily have become a mountain biker or restored an old car or whatever it is people do. That's how I see it. I'm retired now. As a volunteer I drive trip narrowboats , steward at a WW2 Bomber base visitor centre , survey headstones for the commonwealth war graves commission , check and maintain a bunch of defibs in nearby villages , stand outside covid jab centres in the pouring rain telling people where to park while trying not to punch those who abuse me and I'm on the Parish Council. I enjoy all of those things. I'm also in a reforming rock covers band. It's just part of my life , not a definitive. Do what makes you happy even if that means putting the bass up in the loft.

I'm quite happy with the My Generation type solo - more of a musical break I suppose - but all this barclay's banking twaddle leaves me cold. Exactly who do you think is entertained by it ?? Not me - I'm away to the bar , let me know when you're done. For a long time I used to start the encore early and go through a verse of Ilkley Moor bah tat before the band kicked in on the last note but that was more a few seconds of fun than a solo. I stopped it because Williams would come up and say 'Yer effing great you are chief yer can play ilkley moor an that that were brilliant that ' etc etc. I'd look at them and know they hadn't a clue what else I'd done for the past hour and a half. Nowadays the tricks and gags are in the songs. If audience are too thick to pick them up , and most of them are , tough.

Mrs Doc does love to sip a tasty cocktail in an exotic location from time to time so she knows better than to give me grief for buying the tools that earn me the money to provide her with such luxury.

I step onto a stage and I can actually feel my self relax. Like being out working all day then sitting back in your chair with a brew. I wasn't born to perform - that stuff's all cobblers , bit I've done it so often and for so long that being on stage feels like my domain. Just as the Williams don't belong on my stage , I just don't belong in the audience with them. You ever want to see a bloke feeling uncomfortable - just come and watch me in an audience. Up on stage I never worry about the mistakes I know I'll make - I just deal with them. That's what experience brings. Playing a gig takes more than musicianship. My attitude is 'Im good at this and anybody who thinks otherwise is plain wrong'. The odd heckler - who cares. They want to share my adulation for a moment but they can't , it's just jealousy. As I always ask them over the mic - ' do I come to where you work and tell you how to flip burgers?'.

Funny - I worked out 2112 note for note and thought that meant I was as good as Geddy. By the time I bought Moving Pictures I'd figured out that I wasn't because he thought of it.