Muzz

What is it with some singers and not being able to frickin stop? I was spoiled for years with a very pro outfit that had a strict 'Two encores and they're lucky to get that' policy, and it never did any harm, in fact it kept us in high regard, but the current band/BL drives me nuts: if there's a single drunk (who's invariably spent most of the evening talking through the set and only come up for the last two) asking for more, it happens...and keeps happening until there's literally no-one asking for more. I've called it at five encores before now. There's a perfectly good get-out clause to stop, too: we used to just tell the drunks we had to stop because of time/the landlord, and that always worked. Bah, humbug, and probably pfffttt... 🙂 Oh, and back OT, if there's a Maccy D's on the way back (and there usually is), the Wrap Of The Day happens in the car (most of my gigs are 20 miles+ away), before a sit at a quiet telly with a brew while my system slows down before bed... 🙂

A late report from last weekend, and another meh one: a last-minute agency fill-in gig, in a mostly-empty and largely indifferent pub - 'Ooooh, we were packed out last night, it's a shame' said the bar staff, which was no bloody consolation. Despite the enthusiasm of a few punters (most of whom only stayed for a couple of drinks here and there), it rapidly became a paid rehearsal sort of thing...there was some live Rugby League on several screens still rolling (they'd turned the big one behind us off, tho that might have been an added draw if we didn't notice people looking over our shoulders), so at least I got to watch some TV while we pretty much went through the motions... And while I'm wingeing, what sort of mentality makes people come into a pub with a band already set up, sit at the table next to one of the PA speakers (when there's plenty more tables everywhere) and then pull their faces when the band starts? Did they think the immediate proximity of a stonking great 15" speaker (and a drummer a few feet from that) would somehow be a quiet place for a chat? Pffffttt... I'm away to Northumberland for my birthday week next week, so I've a bit of time off, which will make a nice break. It'll rain, of course, but at least I can legitimately do Bugger All for a few days... 🙂

Late reply, but...yeah, her shift is supposed to be 13 hours, but it never, ever works out that way: nurses can't just down tools when the clock goes ping (especially not on the type of ward she works on, which is with the terminally elderly and befuddled), and yep, understaffing makes this very much worse - the NHS is being propped up by the goodwill of its workers... On a happier note, she started speaking to me the day after, so all's well... 🙂

Last gig wasn't a good one - Easter Sunday, 7pm start, 45 mile drive, there for half five. I'd arranged (given the early start/early finish) to pick the other half and the Boy up from her mother's on the way back (I'd come straight from the Sunday Lunch there), but the 7pm start morphed into a 10pm start, so it all kicked off. During the third encore after midnight (I'd made my position clear ('I need to go ASAP tonight') during the interminable wait to go on) I packed up (thankfully only Stomp and inears) and left - as I was leaving the car park the fifth encore was still going... Picked them up, had a row (the other half was on a 14 hour (Nurse) shift the next day starting at half seven, so I understandably didn't have a leg to stand on), raided the fridge, watched some telly, went to bed.

I'm loving my 414 so much it's actually perking some GAS, but I'm yet to be convinced that a more expensive BB would have a neck that I'd like; from my digging (fairly extensive, but not completely comprehensive) it appears the 414 has the slimmest neck of all of them (that weigh less than 8 1/2 - 9lbs)...I can't remember for the life of me what the neck on my BB3000A was like: I didn't have a problem with it at the time, but I've got fussier as I've got older (and I'm playing way more gigs)...

Yup, it's a Sumer Music Drive MDB-610F SRS...40 minutes from Unidentified Oddity to It's One Of These...such is the power of the Basschat Hive Mind... 😁

Fantastic - I was obviously going down the wrong internet rabbit hole with my given info (wrong) that it was a Tobias of some sort...I shall pass that along, thanks 👍

A pal of mine has just acquired this thing from a friend, and he's got no idea about it, so he asked me, aaaaannnnddd...neither have I 😐 It says Michael Tobias on it, but the headstock and pickups are Music Drive branded...even a Google Reverse Image search doesn't help, it's all Pedullas 🙂

The Bonnevilles (Sunday night) with Mudlow in Support. Tiny venue, fantastic sound. I should be morally opposed to the Bonnevilles, given they're a guitar/vocal and drummer two-piece, but I was struggling to think where a bass would really add to the sound, and in the end I gave up. Plus, of course, it ups their take-home by 50%...

I have, in no particular order, either chronologically or in fame terms: Had a wee in a pub bogs next to Mick Hucknall when he was still in The Frantic Elevators. Been told to f*ck off by Lemmy - he was occupied at the one armed bandit in the club...I was delighted, went back to my friends and said 'Lemmy's just told me to f*ck off!' 'Brilliant!' Shared a rehearsal room with James. Never saw them. Played a terrible version of Sit Down to Tim Booth in a bar...his wife (very drunk) said if we did it again he'd get up and sing. I looked over her shoulder and he was shaking his head and waving his hands. I didn't blame him. Played a middling version of Not Nineteen Forever in a pub to 75% of the Courteeners. They looked amused, at least. Done the After You Claude Two-Step thing in a bar doorway with Roger McGough (poet, broadcaster, author, etc) in Manchester. Two weeks later I was coming out of a bar in Bruges and exactly the same thing happened. He looked shaken, and I don't blame him, either. Completely failed to strike up a conversation with Richie Sambora when our drummer brought him over to our table. He went 'Hey', we went 'Errrr..hey?'. Cue awkward silence, exit Sambora. Played with JP Cooper at his first pub gig. He's been signed to Island awhile, and was last on the telly doing a BBC2 thing about Bob Marley last year. Played with members of a Number One Album band at a lot of jam nights - The Lottery Winners, who supported Rick Astley at the Arena last week. They were back in the bar again the following day. Been to a solo gig (£8 ticket) in an audience of about 50 people to a new singer/acoustic guitarist lad, he was very good. Got chatting to him afterwards, he was very polite and quite posh. Driving home, I said 'He'll go far, that lad. What was his name again?' 'My other half said 'George Ezra'.

Funnily enough, that's very very close to what happened to us after the Mahooosive Kit Drummer Hoohah I mentioned earlier - a few days after the main auditions, we were running through some songs (without a drummer) on a Satdy afternoon, and three kids banged on the shutter doors of the rehearsal room, and one of them said 'My mate's a drummer, can he have a go?' Said kid was about 14 or 15, but by that point we'd try anything, and within 8 bars we knew he was fantastic. He joined and played with us for a while, but then left and had a career touring and recording around the world with the likes of Blaze Bailey, Kill II This, China Beach and all sorts. Sadly, his Wiki page doesn't mention the backstreet lockup...

Oh, I forgot about that lovely development: played a couple of gigs recently at pubs that have the ANPR 'Fill in your reg number and park for free or get a £60 fine' thing going on...the really, really annoying thing is neither place was in a town centre, or particularly busy parking-wise; it's clearly just a scam (I spoke to both landlords, and they said it's nothing to do with them, they don't get the money, the brewery has just sold the rights on) to trawl £60 off people who forget to register...

Either end of the scale on both counts...a good while ago when the band had to have a 6-wheel transit to carry it all, we played an RAF Regiment Do at Leeming...this being the Regiment and not the flyboys, it was in one of the hangars, rather than one of the rather plusher messes...we pull up to the hangar doors, the stage is the other end of the hangar, bloody miles away. As we're standing around, shoulders slumped and bracing ourselves for the Unending Hoicking, the Staff who'd booked us came over... 'You boys want a hand?' Oh, yes please, we do want a hand... He turned round to a group of squaddies chatting outside 'You! You! You three!' He points at the van. 'That lot! In there! Double!' about 90 seconds later the whole lot was on the stage...they were running with the PA cabs... Loadout was even easier; once they'd all gone, we drove the van up to the stage... Posh Gig at the Radission/Malmaison/one of those in Leeds for Xmas just gone; I'm driving over, smug in the knowledge I have my bass case and a rucksack, and that's it. Absolutely no onstreet parking, the only option is a multistorey 200 yards from the venue. That'll do. Twenty six bloody quid...

Shamelessly copied and pasted from a post of mine years ago, but, I hope, worth a revisit: Manchester...erm, mid-80s... Our drummer (in an originals-with-the-odd-cover 80s Rock Band) was about to become a Dad, and had reluctantly decided he'd have to shelve the rehearsals and gigging for a good while, so he'd stepped down, and we were on the urgent look-out for a replacement. As a thoroughly nice chap, and knowing we had gigs booked we needed to fulfil, he had even left his kit at the rehearsal rooms for new drummers to use, in part or whole, for the auditions. We organised a Sunday afternoon, with an hour slot for each drummer we'd contacted, and it started unremarkably, but then, second to last, was the standout. And not in a good way. He turned up in a six-wheel Transit, immediately earning about a thousand bonus points, but it became terribly clear that all this thing held was his kit...and there was little room for anything else. After refusing to use of any of the already-set-up kit, he began ferrying kit in. And more kit. And more kit. After ten minutes of watching boxes piling up, and with his end of the rehearsal room beginning to look like the dockside of the Queen Mary before a round the world jaunt, we volunteered to help, and then we all spent the next 45 minutes setting up a furry tigerskin-covered double-kick kit, with six raised toms, three floor toms, eight rototoms and so many cymbals we couldn't see him any more. As he tightened up the third china cymbal, I said "No gong, then?", and he froze, looking concerned. "I didn't bring it...should I have done?" I assured him it wouldn't count against him, and eventually, with about five minutes left of his allotted hour, he was ready. The singist had been forced to nip outside to intercept the last auditionee, apologise and ask him to bear with and go for a pint in the local for twenty minutes, and then our hero launched into the first intro, to a then-bog-standard Bon Jovi tune we'd decided would make a good starter audition song. Now, in 40+ years of bands, I've never played in a freeform jazz ensemble, and I certainly hadn't back then, so I was unfamiliar with the five-count intro, and the thirteen-bar drum fill*, but this chap was clearly a master. We couldn't possibly fault him for brio, enthusiasm, and certainly energy...it was his counting which left quite a lot to be desired**. In addition, having taken so long to set up his mahoooosive kit, he was determined to hit every single drum and cymbal as often as he could, with scant regard for the song, or indeed the befuddlement he was creating amongst his prospective fellow band-members. I shall leave to your imagination the meal he made of the drawn-out ending, suffice to say Richard Wagner, had he been hanging around the rehearsal rooms (unlikely) and not dead for about a century (for once, fortunate), would probably have shaken his head and said something unflattering about bombast. In German. He finished by standing, his arms aloft and his eyes shining. Had that thing Usain Bolt does (not the running, the archery-arms thing) been around, he would have been doing that. We shuffled our feet, unable to maintain eye contact with him or each other, for fear of collapsing into hysterics. Eventually the singer thanked him for his time, and we all heaved-to loading his van again, while the singer went to buy the other auditionee another pint. He didn't get the job. * I'm probably doing an enormous disservice to freeform jazz ensembles around the globe here, so apologies if so, but I'm at a loss as to where else to place it musically. Perhaps amongst those gangs of glassy-eyed, saffron-robed enthusiasts one encounters on the city streets, each banging a drum in a random manner with a blissful expression and no regard for hard-pressed shoppers... ** I note that 'dyscalcula' is the numerical equivalent of dyselxia, and apparently A Real Medical Thing. It may have been that he was a secret sufferer; that would explain an awful lot. Edit: I've just spotted that I've spelt 'dyslexia' wrong in the footnote above. Oh, the irony...

@Frank Blank - Jabba short scales, fretted and fretless, Ibanez SRC6, QSC K12.2, Grace Design preamp. @rwillett - Ibanez short scale, Fender Jazz bass, Fender Mustang bass, Telecaster, Westone six string, 3d printed guitar, small practise bass amp, small practise guitar amp, Mod Dwarf, various guitar/USB interfaces and quite a lot of software and a fair few laptops as required. I live next door Probably cake as well. @ossyrocks- '73 P bass, '73 J bass, '78 P bass, '87 MIJ P Bass, Fender Bassman 50 (rebuilt from the ground up by Gartone), Bergantino Forte D, TE Elf, Barefaced Super Compact and One10, Fender Rumble 100. @sifi2112 Vigier Excess 4, Mas26 (x2) sfx D3 preamp Koch ATR4502 poweramp @neepheid - Some and hopefully all of Epiphone Jack Casady, G&L L-1000, Epiphone Les Paul Standard, G&L Tribute LB-100, Sire D5, Reverend Triad, Yamaha BB1200, Harley Benton HB-50, Soloking MJ-1, Epiphone Explorer, Markbass Mini CMD 121P IV, Markbass NY 121 cab @ead - ACG SLG 32" 4-string; "Lee Sklar bass"; Ibanez Grooveline GS104; Yamaha Attitude Special; SBMM Pete Wentz Stingray sig bass; practice amp (with headphones) @Muzz Three or four various Shukers, Dingwall ABZ4, modded BB414, modded Rumble 100, modded Westone Quantum, Helix Stomp, possibly Walkabout and BF cabs if I've got enough room in the car...

No gig last weekend, and the other proto-band collapsed due to lethargy/inertia on the part of two of the members, but the good news is I'm starting Satdy on a run of 8 March gigs with the 'busy' band...

Looks great Rob, and a very very interesting exercise in using new technology...I'm sitting on a sofa scattered with popcorn awaiting the results under, erm, tension... 🙂 The design aesthetic would to me suit a headless based around a certain carbon-fibe/graphite-centred design from the UK but hey, that's just me. And now the inevitable Basschat question: what sort of weight is the body (I know there's more to add) at the moment? PS When I'm putting strings on a bass with a bridge slot that's reluctant to hold the string in place when slack, I follow JohnH's method for the first turn on the peg/post, then put the ball end in the slot and use my right hand to lift the string for some tension under winding (near the nut, using my right thumb to keep the string low around the tuning peg/post) and wind until there's enough tension to keep the ball end in the tuner slot. Sounds awkward, but it's pretty simple.

I'm gigging all the time now (8 gigs in March coming up) with inears/P2, but fortunately the BL's desk has individual Monitor mixes, otherwise I'd be miserable: my mix has a smidge of/guide vocal and guitar, plenty of kit (snare, kick, toms) and me, and no percussion whatsoever (it's an oddish lineup with singing guitarist, me, drummer and percussionist). Works a treat for me, but I'm sure the BL's mix wouldn't.

Dirty Honey at the Academy 2 (the best of the 4) in Manchester...quality band, tho I've seen them three times in the last 18 months, so I'll wait a little before seeing them again. Of note, though, was the rarity of a well-engineered bottom end to the sound: in fact, I went to the desk at the end to congratulate the SE on NOT making the kick sound like a cannon and the bass like rumbly mush...

A quick phone call to a Mr Shuker in Derbyshire: 'Hi Jon' 'Hi' 'Can you make me a 6lb P-Bass? In black, my normal spec neck, Hipshot hardware and something like the old East P-Retro?' 'Yeah, sure' 'Smashing. I'm going on holiday with a grand I suddenly have spare, I'll ring you when I'm back'

Friday night was a bar gig in Burnley, late start (first set start 10:40), late finish, and as you play on the dance floor in a corner, the second the band finishes and the club music comes on (after 1am) you're breaking down kit surrounded by pisht dancers...an hour home, too, was late night. I played a Paddy's Day afternoon/early evening gig in a pub in Manchester town centre once (an, erm, 'authentically organic' place (aka 'murky dive'); there was a bloke selling meat from a shopping bag at half time) where the band was split (drummer and me one side, singist the other) because the place was corridor-shaped with bench seating and the bogs were at the back...very disconcerting to have people just walk past backwards and forwards between us during the set. One older bloke went seven times in the first set, and was eventually rewarded with his own dedication to Should I Stay Or Should I Go...

This is exactly what my (slightly modded; just tuners and bridge) 414 is: it's my most-gigged bass, ahead of half a dozen basses that cost several times as much, and it just does the job. If it were a pound lighter (I'm getting very fussy about weight these days) it'd be perfect...I love the sound of a P, and the 414 does that a treat...

I'm here for this one, but especially for an even lighter (overall) v.3 Headless...