Gasman

Phew, that was hard work...

I’ve bought from and sold to Andy, he’s a fair guy running a bassists’ wet dream emporium, highly recommended!

...with ‘any money’ following close behind...

Another North Dorset gig for Mustang Sally, this time at Rocky’s bar in Gillingham. It’s a very well updated sports pub, but at first sight not an obvious venue for our melange of classic rock, country, soul and pop - but why? Well, the age profile was 18-35 for a start, and the hoooge flat-screen TVs stayed on all night showing (without sound, TG) Man-U losing to Newcastle. Add to this the arrival of an already-merry rugby team, rather ‘happy’ after a win, and this could have gone one of two ways... fortunately, after a slow start it got better and better, with table dancing, singalongs and many encores. Ok, it was a near midnight finish instead of 11:30 but no-one minded, it’s what good gigs are made of! Back home at 1:30am to a censorious glare from our cat. He was bought off with two very early breakfasts...

Duplicate post, sorry!

Times have changed re cash vs card or Paypal. Some years back Mrs G owned a cafe business which was 90% cash takings. She needed a new (to her) car so we swapped £9k cash in £10 notes (thus avoiding bank paying-in charges) from the business for her annual dividend and presented an M&S bag to the dealer full of tenners. He was shell-shocked but carefully counted the first £4k then said OK, awarding himself the CBA (Can't Be A*rsed medal) of the day. I think he thought we were suburban drug-dealers... well, coffee, innit? More recently we had a conservatory added to the place, amazingly the builders wanted card not cash - 3 x £9.9k payments over 3 days accepted without any problem by the card company, who nonetheless still hassle me for phone verification over £5 buys on eBay. Paypal? Biggest musical payment to a total stranger was for a King tenor sax (£5.5k) bought from a guy in the States, who said he could deliver it in Europe while on business. I met him in the arrivals lounge at Gatwick, we found a corner with seat, I played the thing with a mouthpiece I'd brought along to check it out, to the alarm and despondency of the security folk who thought I was setting up to busk, shook hands and did a Paypal transfer on the iPad I'd also brought along. I did have to answer one security question, but luckily I could remember my mother's maiden name... So all methods are available - least bothersome was the sale of my Fender Bassman 135 cab to a fellow basschatter - price was paid exactly in cash in a local carpark - £1.00!

What would be your 'normal' set-up to compare with this?

Buy a Fender Jazz Plus, the fourth click on the pickup selector is ‘None’ and kills any output, allowing wanton jack ripping without ear-busting noises. But then, I think the OP has left the room...

Any bass you caught could be stored in there with your bass too...

A bit late reporting on Mustang Sally's weekend, due to me being a bit cream-crackered yesterday! Friday was a private party in Beaminster in the Fleet Club, a few miles up the road from me - it's the only upstairs load-in we play at the moment, but with our roadie and some punters we got the gear in and set up, squeezed into a diagonal on the route to the loos and opposite a long table ominously placarded with various curry names! First gig with the 2-Notes bass boost pedal, worked very well with the HB shorty (no room for the Bongo without braining the drummer anyway). No crowd surfing but a very happy crowd, good pay, table-dancing from our singiste and a fairly early finish and a lovely 20 minute drive home instead of the hour-plus from our more usual North Dorset venues. Saturday morning I couldn't find any of the band clothes that I'd left hung-up on the floor - Mrs G pointed to the washing machine: "They stunk of curry, and so do you!" she trilled gaily "so get under that shower or you can go in the next wash too..." Yes, the half-time free food had been a Smorgasbord of nothing but curries, and the jeep and instruments inside it were well-Madrassed too. Saturday's gig was at the Coronation club in Gillingham - it's been recently refurbished quite nicely but there are now 'banquettes' around all the walls, so the amps and speakers had to be sat on top of them in the corner next to the bar through lack of floor-space. Using the same setup as Friday, I soon realised something was very wrong with the bass sound - hardly audible, very woolly. Changed everything I could between numbers, eventually mostly solved it by removing the 2-Notes booster from the signal chain, taking the cab off the padded seat and squeezing it onto the floor, and changing to the Bongo. A forensic investigation today revealed that I'd used the wrong AC adapter in the 2-Notes (9v 0.25amp) instead of the 12v 1.0amp that came with it. Stupid mistake, but in the semi darkness of the corner of the room when setting up and a bagful of cables and adapters to choose from, I'd f**ked up - lesson learned! Not proud of my performance that night, too much self-induced stress, but the punters all loved the band and most importantly everyone but me had a good evening!

"Final price drop!" (Bet it isn't!)

Just listened to it - nothing very hard here, Georgia, probably not worth the trouble of tabbing for anyone who really wants to play it. Pick up your bass and play along!

That fits the bill nicely, 😊 thank you! It’s on its way from Uncle Thomann, will report its arrival on NBD

I’ve been toting a long scale Bongo (for me) and a shortie HB (for our guitarist) to gigs for the past few months, ‘cos when I play sax he plays bass, but he finds that the shortie is kinder to his fretting hand. So at the rehearsal last night we tried out H&O’s ‘Maneater’ finding that in the key our singer wanted the HB ran out of notes low down. This may well happen again for either of us, so the search is on for a reasonably (say under £500) priced 5 string shortie. What would you recommend please?

Original NYE gig seemed too good to be true from the word go, 180 mile round trip to the north Devon coast, but a four figure fee, cabins to sleep over in, food & drink free. Over a month or two the offer of goodies faded away, the fee went down, then our gig was cancelled in favour of a disco - c’est la vie... Desperate to avoid a gigless NYE watching Jules do his boogie piano thing on TV we tapped up every pub and club In the area, doing a Dutch auction until we eventually got a local pub on the hook for our normal fee plus food and drink. Pathetic? Letting the muso side down? Maybe, but it’s a sign of the times, and we do love playing!

Not working harder on my lead vocals, just being content with doing BVs...

It was 1969. Lovely to see a lot of bands performing there that featured regularly in the Melody Maker ‘What’s on’ listings in that era of happy memory. The inclusion of jazz polar opposites of Chris Barber and John Surman is wonderful! btw, 15/- = 75p

Please Santa, I’d like a mega-pack of Duracell PP3s....

Yes indeed it is much better than TV, but my cat also gets the grumps about my unexplained absences, especially when I roll in past midnight without any shopping bags full of fresh cat food!

Our guitarist goes for the full Mark Knopfler look including headband - I favour black boots, jeans and one of my many logo-ed up black T shirts from Red Molotov - amazing range from this supplier! I fantasise that dressing in black makes me look slimmer...

Quite often it’s out of my control - the acoustics of the venue, what the sound engineer’s been taking to get him through the event, whether there’s a big crowd or not, these factors all contribute.

Yes, that sounds about right...

Great idea @Burns-bass but for us that train has left the station...

The zombie thread awakes... inevitably, one of the five original members of my band who contributed an equal £600 to the PA purchase gave notice two months ago. He immediately raised the question of getting his money back. I had previously (see above pages) tried to get the band to agree to a fair formula to cover this situation but herding cats would have been a lot easier, so the upshot was a pub meeting last night of the four originals plus the new guy to sort it out. Opinions covered the the entire spectrum of options, from ‘he’s gone, he gets nothing’ to ‘buy him out 100%’ . The new guy was embarrassed as nothing had been mentioned about funding the PA when he was recruited nor about buying in. After an hour we got fed up with discussing it and reached a compromise, with the new guy offering to put in £300 and the rest of us subbing up another £75 each to pay the leaver off completely. It wasn't elegant or even logical and depended on the new guy’s goodwill (and bank balance, I guess), but it was a lesson learned - or was it? We still don’t have a proper template for dealing with this next time, so it’ll require more goodwill and muddling through, usual British style...

Two years later and the worms are now crawling in my lugs - no wonder I can’t stand up quickly without falling down, the doc said it’s labyrinthitis but actually I know now that Coldplay is to blame for getting in my head with Viva la Vida resulting in two night’s insomnia! My 9 year old grandson is also partly to blame, because he’s learning drums and wanted me to come round and play sax with him on his latest tune, yes that was the one, oh those Roman Cavalry choirs! Some relief can be gained by singing it loudly in the garden or in extremis by strumming the chords to ‘Girl from Ipanema’ in my head to block it. Whats your latest brain frazzler and remedy?