Bassfinger

After the gig donate your sweaty clothes to a charity shop. You can buy them back on Monday for 50p, all clean and crisply ironed. If you have a band member called Steven you can ssve time by calling him Steve. Take pork pies as a mid gig snack. The excess jelly can be used as a string lube. Wear a miners helmet. No only will you be able to see if there should be a power cut, but it will protect your head from items thrown at the stage.

Come Up And See Me, Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel. A nice little workout for an intermediate player, good exercise for your scale skills. And Dani California. Not quite as formally technical as Come Up And See Me, probably a bit more improv by Flea, but an interesting workout.

Its a purdy thing.

Fantastic! That looks a fairly clean break, an easy repair if you ever decided to.

Although that hypothesis is for sporting performance, so not terribly relevant to playing an instrument.

Yamaha Sessioncake?

£2300. Its not a minter but very tidy, all original patina. I don't normally drink but a schoolfriend had died and I cracked open the bottle of Laphroaig id bought him for his forthcoming birthday. It's not brilliant for someone my size and weight and struggles to top 55 as a result, but for unhurriedly pottering around locally it is quite pleasant. But the seller was great, laughed his behind off when I told him the story.

Sounds much like my time on the rigs with the rousatabouts and roughnecks, except you werent locked up with them for 2 weeks at a time!

I genuinely suffer very little anxiety. My pulse raises a little with excitement, but no anxiety. I've done/been through a lot scarier stuff over the years than playing to an audience. I love playing live, look forward to every gig with great relish. Each gig is 2 or 3 hours of being on a high, followed by hours of buzzing afterwards. Ive never played to an audience of more than 500 so imagine the buzz the likes of Freddie Mecury used to enjoy playing to stadia full of fans. But then something mundane like meeting new people at a party fills me with dread, leaves me clammy(er than normal) and makes me short of breath. Weird.

A Little Respect, the Wheatus version. Very simple to play, but strangely satisfying.

Drunken small hours ebay poker is how I ended up with a 1953 BSA B31 350. I not only honoured the purchase, but I nearly crippled myself riding it home from Lincoln.

And make sure you clearly label the boxes. Take it from me, you don't want to get them confused!

If you do imbibe ensure you alternate each alcoholic drink with a full fat soft drink. Unless you're diabetic, in which case its coffee or bovril all night for you young feller me lad.

Am I just weird, only ever playing in bands with nice guys who are decent musicians? The only slight friction I ever experience is minor grumbling over setlists and songs.

You could always try setting the bass, mid and high knobs on your amp to a different position if it worries you that much.

Band name - Monkey Steve and the Mediocre Drummer.

Have a wee before you start. Buy pink leads. Makes them easy for you to spot and no one will steal them. Often all a heavy bass needs to make it through a gig is a fat strap. Careful where you park. If you and the bandmates park together it minimises the chances of car park damage to big, expensive motors. Check your gear is present and correct before getting in the car. Then check again. An extra bass is easier than faffing about restringing...unless your play a Steinberger. You're not a wuss for wearing ear plugs. Gaffa tape is a useful addition to your gig kit. Always ensure you have on clean underwear and give your old chap a quick splash of cologne in case you get lucky with a groupie.

Eh? I thought Lex Luthor was a decent enough sort.

Ive only been fortunate enough tomplay a Rick-O on a couple of occasions, and it was pick all the way...if only because disability means Im a very poor fingerstyle player. Didn't seem any the worse for that.

At risk of starting a riot, don't believe all the guff about pickup magnets. The only difference from our pespective as bassists is the strength of the magnetic field, and thus the output for a given number of turns of wire. The idea that X magnets give a warm tone or Y magnets a classic 70's rock tone, etc, are hiliarious. A stronger or weaker magnetic field can only make the output higher or lower, and thus louder or quieter. It cannot colour the tone in any way, cannot give a warmer tone, or a harsher tone. More or less output, ie more or less volume - that is all magnets of different type can do.

Many ladies have said the same about me! 🤭

By nearly everyone, as I recall as recently as 20 years back. Of course, the real vintage instruments are suddenly put of reach of mere mortals to the unloved suddenly becomes the next in line. It was near on impossible to find anyone that had a nice word to say about them, be it buyer or seller. Thus it was with the Austin Allegro and the Morris Marina - both were laughing stocks while they were contemporary and for many years after, and now there are classic car clubs for them! The altered perspective that time and history bring changes everything, logic or previous opinion be damned.

Well over double what I paid for my '69 precision only two years ago. OK, I got mine on the cheaper side as it had a new neck - the old one was damaged, but was provided in the sale and a good luthier could likely repair it - but prices for CBS era instruments have gone nuts lately. Weird, as it wasn't that many years ago they were being slagged off for being a sheet. Oh what a difference a bit of time makes!

Same here. A lot of bad workers blaming their tools out there.

The off centre block markers and poorly aligned headstock decal set off my alarm bells.