Bassfinger

Fender - sort out the consistency of your QC. Its a joke that a top line MIA can have more flaws and gaps than some of the better MIMs, and even more unfathomable that the situation can be reversed for the next randomly selected example of each. Unless you go to a shop and eyeball each instrument individually you never know what you're getting, and in this long distance internet biying age thats a significant ballache. Sort it out!

Ive a bit of a history of cultivating strange facial hair for gigs. Foot long goatee, big droopy gunfighter moustage, and my current near near ZZTop look, but I have been forbidden on pain of divorce to even think about friendly mutton chops.

Just acquired one of these myself, albeit in the slightly-darker-than-surf-green-green. Just fell in love with the fell of the neck. Bought it in a Thursday, re-strung it in a Friday, gigged it Saturday. Love it.

I wonder what old farts like me who have no mobile phone are expected to do. Take my laptop with me, perhaps?

Dunno about bassists, but read a piece recently about Steve Hackett who got stranded abroad during covid. He had no gear available so his guitar tech went about bought 3 or 4 Squier strats. Hackett was apparently blown away with how nicely they played, even more so after a change of electrics, strings and setup. Mr Guitar Tech offered to remove the Squier logo and replace it with a more socially acceptable one but Hackett had him leave it. "Its nothing to be ashamed of!"

Well, just like me these days!

Amd the obligatory.. And...

Did someone say stickers?

Heres my lookalike. Although it must be said thqt he has more hair atop his head than I do.

Singerists, eh? We have a bit of fake drama where I pretend to argue with our singer, then - very carefully- throw my bass at him and tell him to be my guest if he thinks he can do better. I then belt out House of the Rising Sun to much cheering, adulation , and knicker throwing, while he covers the bass duties. If a gnarled old rock hound like me can do it then anyone can. It's pretty easy really. As a rule singerists are really nothing special, but most think they are, and truly exceptional ones are a rarity.

I went out with a lass who played the pink oboe.

Early sitrep - not as I expected! I clearly move in neanderthal circles, as virtually no bandmate I've ever had reads. For my own part I did (or was made to do) piano lessons at school and after a few years was able to parlay that into guitar lessons in my teens. My mastery was okish, nothing special, was far from fluent. However, with retirement and more time reacquanting myself with the stuff im not bad at all now. Cant do tab - just makes me go criss eyed!

A nice easy one this.

We could have a poll and see. I would contend that among non classical musicians us music readers are in a clear minority. Edit - what the hell, have started a poll to see.

Depends on the gig. If there's room to move around a bit ill show off - its difficult for someone my size to be a shrinking violet. We occasionally act a bit as well. We have a routine where I have a fake argument with our singer, and and up telling him "if you can do ant better then be my guest" before thrusting my bass at him - he'll then play bass while I screech out House of the Rising Sun.

No me rion of the '54 "transition" model?

Jet Harris was booted ott the Shadows for trying one too many times to play while pithed, and Tony Meehan couldn't be arsed to get out of bed and turn up for shows and eventually quit before being pushed. They then joined forces and had a couple of hits of their own before booze and epic lie-ins became a problem again. In both instances publishers, managers, random music industry figures, or the Illuminati had nothing to do with it.

Entwistle P pickups sound so sexy, and are so inexpensive, I'm sure they must be illegal in some way. One of the best rock or blues P pickups for any money IMHO.

Ah, I steer clear of jam nights and the like. While I'm a decent enough technical player, and have the rare skill of being able to read music, I have the zero imagination and even less spontaneous creativity skills, so jamming is out for me. Respect to anyone that can make it up as they go along, and sound good while doing so.

I mainly bend from my knuckles rather than the joint up at the hand proper. I also have the benefit of great big hands so can play comfortably anchored almost all the time, and only need to move my thumb onto E if the song requires extended time up on G. I do enjoy finger playing and practice it daily. Sadly all the pracrice in the world won't repair nerve damage, so when accuracy matters it's out with the Tortex triangle 1.0 mm.

And attck the string with the pick angled so its more the edge stroking the string than the side plucking it.

I play both, but mainly use a pick when live playing as I can't feel all the fingers on my right hand so Im more prone to mistakes playing finger style. For all the talk of tone and stuff that folk trot out, I find that when I listen to recordings of my playing I cant tell which method I was using at the time.

Our rhythm guitarist owns his own aircon compamy. Just before the heatwave hit he installed 2 x Mitsubishi aircon units at Chez Bassfinger for 2 gee. He pretty much covered his costs and worked for free, which was very generous for 8 hours work

Fear not, I've not forgotten, it's just that its been fearsomely hotmin the workshop this week so haven't done anything further. But the imminent arrival of the relatively cooler weather will bring some more progress, taking things perilously close to being finished.

You cant beat a mudbucker on a P.