Gasman

They wouldn’t be looking for a bass bargain in a porn shop, but maybe an @ss bargain?

I fancy Lot 23, the Wings double deck tour bus... in Essex, fully restored with a drop down stage upstairs, currently just $70k!

One additional factor to consider is gig fees in comparison with the national minimum hourly wage. As self-employed contractors (not actually entitled to NMW but bear with me) we should however be able to charge for travelling expenses and set-up/teardown time. My average time away from home for a gig is 6 hours of which I reckon 4 are chargeable although it's arguable that they all should be; my average mileage is about 80 per round trip @45ppm, say £36 while my cut of a £300 gig fee is £60. Hourly rate (for 4 hours) is therefore £15 less £9 (reduction per paid hour for notional mileage allowance that I don't get for fuel and wear on my car) means my hourly rate is effectively a staggering £6! Of course YMMV and this is a slightly artificial construct, but it's indicative of the financial truths behind what I do for fun and social intercourse (careful!) to occasionally get out into the world away from the four walls of home - it's not really a paying business proposition unless you discount everything but the actual time spanking the plank. It would be interesting to compare earned value by substituting pre-Covid and 1970/80/90 figures for historic comparison...

£300 for 2x1 hour sets in a pub or club, £4-500 for one off special events such as birthday parties. Our NYE gig has just evaporated because the pub has gone broke, but it would have been £650.

Quite often one is enough!

Halloween night at the Two Brewers pub in Shaftesbury, also it was the farewell event for the landlords who have been forced out by unaffordable increases in rental and utility costs - so far no-one is prepared to take it on, which is sad. It's a venue for alternative types (LBGTQ+) as well as music enthusiasts so somewhere we've always looked forward to playing - as it was Halloween there were some amazing costumes and makeup... and that was just the band It's a pretty cramped stage area there for a 6-piece but as usual we crammed ourselves in somehow or other- it was another milestone being the last gig for the six-piece as it was the end of the handover period between our departing rhythm guitar/vox and incoming keys/vox. So how did it go? The place was rammed all evening! We played from 9-midnight+10 with a short break, and it was crowd-pleaser time all night. I know Mr Balderdash metaphorically spits on us low-lives who want to, and are paid to, keep the crowds happy, but I get a real buzz from a positive audience reaction, even if it's to see them going mental to Sweet Caroline! I used the passive HB shorty with the Aguilar booster, but its PSU started glitching near midnight (overheating?) so it was time to crank up the AG700. Our new Bose PA system really does the business, but I must get some iems sorted for my sax set - so hard to pick up what I'm playing out of the general mix. A couple of pix mainly featuring our lead guitarist dressed for the occasion, with our singiste Georgie!

True for just about every musical sound I guess... brings us back neatly to Madonna's show - 95% prepacked.

Interesting that some of the most regular and opinionated posters on Basschat don’t actually seem to see themselves as jobbing bass players but as composers, drummers, and maybe other types of musician. Would they perhaps benefit from a composers forum (TippetChat?), or a percussion forum (TympaniTalk?). Just wonderin’!

Yeah, for me it's Red House...

Despite its name, the Hohner Marine Band range of harps are very good, I used them extensively when playing everything but bass in a previous band. Only downside was the price, about £40 each back in 2017, I ended up with 7 of them for different keys...

My vintage Selmer baritone sax was owned and played by Woolf Byrne on David Bowie’s first band’s (The Manish Boys) recording ‘I Pity The Fool’ in 1965. Is that too close a relationship?

Although primarily a sax and bass player I worked hard on my flauting some years back and still love it as an instrument, but in my band at the time the only opportunity to use it was for 16 bars of Nights in White Satin and some riffs and a chorus on Moondance, so it gradually fell out of use - I’ve not used it in any of my following three bands for seven years. I need to get off my a*se and start playing it again (even if just in private); what a waste of a sweet sound otherwise...

...but not for long...his GAS will soon be bubbling again

Another Saturday night gig, another North Dorset Carnival at Gillingham this time, so another early start (5.15) for me to get into the town before the roads closed at 6.30 for the procession at 7.15. Set up in the Royal British Legion, again a bit squashed with our temporary 6-piece line-up, but all neatly done - sat around swapping stories until we were on at 9pm - 10pm, then 10.30 to 11.40. Very good post-carnival crowd, some a little bit wobbly after too much cider, but no aggro and an invite back to play back at the club again in December. Our dep singiste did extremely well to cover all the material our regular lady does (she's away on a cruise somewhere), nice to know that there's essential backup in case of future emergencies. Back home to West Bay at 1.10 am, head still buzzing; nice that our Persian Cat Nunu was so glad to see me that he immediately deposited an epic present for me in his litter-box before I could even grab a cuppa... a sign of real love or an adverse comment on my absence perhaps? No pix of the gig unfortunately, but here's the glare I got when staggering in!

Oh yes, time to join in I think! First off, A deArmond Pilot Pro fiver bought as a first venture into B-string territory actually sounded nice with a set of new Swing Bass on, but it was a thing clearly meant for real men, not a mere stripling like me; it weighed in at well over ten pounds and had a fretboard so wide you’d need hands like a Yeti to cover it. So I moved from the cor-blimey to the sublime (I thought). I bought a Jazz fiver 60th anniversary model from a well known purveyor of bass stuff. Looked lovely, a fretboard as svelte as Ms Willets, but sounded just...meh, whatever I played it through. Now have a Bongo, ‘nuff said. i really regretted trying to roll back time by taking on a Bassman 4x12 cab (Memory lane, I’d bought one new back in 1980 but scrapped it in 1990, keeping its matching silver face amp that I’ve still got). I paid £150 for this dream replacement, spent another £100 on new hardware and a more for a Roqsolid cover so it looked nice, but never played a gig on it. Too big, too heavy. Sold it on here for £1 as I’d run out of storage space. And as for that Ricky 4004 Cheyenne 2, it looked superb in Trans Blue, but I could never get the action or sound I’d hoped for, so off it went, at a loss of about £500. Do you see a pattern emerging here, a chap dazzled by form over functionality? Could be said about other aspects of my life too...

As my old man used to say, I’m a fool to myself and my own worst enemy when it comes to resisting temptation, so of course I’m out in a big way. Bought this year - a Bongo 4H, a 5HH, a Harley Benton short scale, a compressor and a boost pedal and a mighty heavy old flight case just in case (!) I get that call to go on a world tour... So, over £3.5K happily spent at the time but the remorse is kicking in hard now; I need counselling before I see that early Tele bass I want but don’t need that will finally destroy my bank account!

Had to have a rehearsal last night because our singiste had mistakenly booked a gig in for this Saturday which she can’t make cos she’d forgotten that she’s going on a cruise on Friday ... ho hum. So one of her pals is depping instead. Bit of a PITA for the rest of us as we had to run through a load of our normal stuff that we can play in our sleep, only to find that instead of her adapting to our arrangements, it was her way or no way. Just for one gig. And key changes. All accomplished with fairly good grace and minimal eye-rolling between the rest of us. Oh well, it’ll all be ok on the night and I don’t suppose the punters will know even if it isn’t...

Mustang Sally gigged at a new venue (to us) last night - Milborne Port Social Club on the A30 Dorset/Somerset border. - not a big place, either the town or the club! Managed to cram all six of us in down one end of the bar, nice people (a free round of drinks to start with) and a constant 50 or so over the 9-11:30 playing time. Still in hand-over period getting the new KB guy up to speed before our rhythm guitarist leaves so still a few rough edges on the more involved numbers (eg Echo Beach, Geno, Sweet Child) - still, we're getting there. We all agreed that we seemed very LOUD on stage but the punters were happy with the levels out front - it's usually the other way around... I was amused to find myself staring at myself while having a pre-match slash, the first time I've seen a band poster in this kind of men-only location!

Index and middle finger mostly, although I find that I can play 16ths more easily just using the index finger - weird...

New band to me, but amazing - the bass player on 'Research Chemicals' live at Glasto certainly earned his $$! From what I've just listened to I'd say a mixture of Marilyn Manson, Captain Beefheart and the Blockheads with great vids. Thanks for posting!

This time of year we’re busy, so we use the gigs as rehearsals...

Ive been asked for set lists precisely twice in 50 years. It is indeed the venues that have the responsibility to pay, but very few do. Our guitarist has recorded a lot of music, gets royalty cheques from PPL, Phonographic Performance Limited, another organisation that monitors the use of original recordings on radio and Tv, issues licenses and sends cheques to musicians. It’s not covers bands that are ripping off original composers. Incidentally, performing third party numbers in rehearsal is apparently not chargeable, only public performance.

Do you need to remove them from the bass first?

Maybe those who consider covers bands a lesser breed might instead take aim at a lower level of parasite if that’s their fun; DJs for instance, although even they can be graded by their input to what the public hear. Watching a classic House music DJ mix live on real turntables, matching music, speeds and beats to the mood on the floor, is awesome, full respect. Guys who just plug in a thumb drive of premixed material, well, we’re getting down to virus level of parasite to a purist. However, it’s all entertainment to the punters, we’re all purveyors of music who stand or fall by whether those punters and of course event promoters want to pay to have us at a gig, whatever we play and however we play it. Why do we do it? So many reasons, from ego-stroking to just getting away from the TV once in a while, all valid. Now, a question that must be resolved; in a battle of the bands, would the Big Ticks prevail against a single @BigRedX?

They do Stiff Little Fingers covers...