Midlands bass (and guitar) bash 4/5/19

[Stub Mandrel]

39 minutes ago, Bassman Sam said:

Just about everything.

He had to get a freebie MarkBass bag to take his winnings home in!

[LukeFRC]

Lots of good stuff but My top basses I tried...

@Frank Blank‘s Rob Allen Mouse

@owen‘s headless MPU thing with the graphite neck

@MoJoKe‘s JV Squier (And that Casa head just sounded decent) 

 

 

[Stub Mandrel]

A really enjoyable event.

Great to meet so many people of like mind! Thanks to Jamie for organising it.

Also - seeing lots of handmade basses, including tiny ones by Jabba's and by Manton. These are incredibly BIG, rich sounding and very playable - more like playing a mandolin with sensible tuning! They don't want you to go dum-de-dum! the only thing I noticed was they are prone to high-frequency clanking when hammering on. Lots of custom short scale basses (I suppose we need to call them 'medium scale' now) - perhaps the era of 34" bases dominating is coming to an end?

A very colourful and well finished display of Chowny basses - some interesting 'remixing' of styles to create some interesting new looks. The two I played felt and sounded very nice (once I figured out the D string was tuned to D# and it wasn't just me being crap...) I also won the Chowny Elephant Strap in the raffle - that can replace a plain black one 🙂

Some very nice sounding amps and cabs, but a bit difficult to really assess any with so much going on and so many different basses.

Tried out Jamie's bass - my first time with fan-frets. I couldn't cope with it being in drop-D but once I tuned it up it wasn't TOO difficult to get my head around it. Seemed a bit of a stretch on the E-string though.

Nice to compare a Steinberger and a Hohner B2A side by side. When got my B2 back in the 80s the word was they were nicer to play than 'bergers and I finally saw it proved. Forgot to take many photos - I had a 'proper' camera too!

Thanks for all the positive comments on my performer, although I can only take credit for being lucky enough to own it!

Alan's Andy's (mostly) lightweight guitars and basses:

And how's this for an EUB?

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2019 by Stub Mandrel

[Andyjr1515]

15 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

 

Alan's (mostly) lightweight guitars and basses:

 

 

Was there another one doing lightweights?  The blighter!!!!

Andy

 

By the way, your Fender Performer was simply divine...

[Richard R]

It's amazing what you find written inside raffle prizes! 😂😂

 

[Stub Mandrel]

55 minutes ago, Richard R said:

p.s. For the avoidance of confusion or accidently upsetiing anyone:Markbass amps and cabs are fabulous too! That bass isn't mine, it's a silent bass on loan to me. Designed to have headphones plugged in directly it is very, very, very, bright. 

I should have put my proper bass though the Markbass stack as well.... 

😆

As we noticed when it went through my little Orange Crush - like breaking glass until I turned the treble down!

I couldn't believe it when you told me to pull the foamy bits off!

[Stub Mandrel]

5 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Was there another one doing lightweights?  The blighter!!!!

Andy



😮 Sorry!

[Andyjr1515]

Great, great bash.

Many thanks to @jebroad for taking this on and sorting it all out

And thanks to @jebroad 's delightful mum for all the hard work too!

Great to catch up with folks I've met before and folks I met for the first time.  What a pleasant, friendly, talented bunch you are

[Bassman Sam]

26 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I fell in love with this upright and the owner was a fine player too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jabba_the_gut]

28 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

And how's this for an EUB?

 

@jazzyvee This is what I like about bass bashes, there's always something completely different to see.  

[Andyjr1515]

4 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

😮 Sorry!

No problem - only pulling your leg.

A few years ago, in front of my wife and two daughters, I walked up to someone I was meeting for the first time and said, "Hi.  My name's Alan...er...no it's not, it's Andy."

Wife and daughters have never let me forget it... 

[jebroad]

6 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

No problem - only pulling your leg.

A few years ago, in front of my wife and two daughters, I walked up to someone I was meeting for the first time and said, "Hi.  My name's Alan...er...no it's not, it's Andy."

Wife and daughters have never let me forget it... 

My mum has a brother who's the same height as me and has the same hair as me. She calls me graham more than she calls me my actual name

[Geek99]

2 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

My mum was raised a Methodist so I also was taught when growing up not to gamble ... so that might have been the first or second raffle I’ve entered in my life... 

jammy begger I am 

 

I won a bottle of sherry in my first raffle. As a seven year old I thought this was fantastic 

[Frank Blank]

16 minutes ago, Geek99 said:

I won a bottle of sherry in my first raffle. As a seven year old I thought this was fantastic 

I’ve never won anything in a raffle, not once, I am untouched by the hand of raffle you might say.

[Geek99]

27 minutes ago, Geek99 said:

I won a bottle of sherry in my first raffle. As a seven year old I thought this was fantastic 

Sadly it was confiscated after a brief taste 

absolutely f u c K I n g vile stuff 

[SpondonBassed]

4 hours ago, Jimothey said:

Sounds like I missed a good day!! just out of interest who won @Andyjr1515 jag bass in the raffle?? 

 

4 hours ago, jebroad said:

As I remember- @SpondonBassed

As a matter of fact, JE, it was my housemate Jack's ticket that won the prize.

Two of his tickets were drawn and none of mine!  He was delighted to have won it.  We've known Andy for a couple of years now and we've both been impressed by his builds and mods.

Jack's more of a uke player though and he's gifted it to me.  As we share a house, he's still going to hear it... quite a lot probably.

I'm very lucky.  I've just had a good hour playing with it and it's lovely.  To be honest, I've always liked the notion of one day owning an AJR modified or built bass.  It was a great climax to the day.

Full marks to you JE and your Mum. You both made us feel very welcome.  You made this year's East Midlands Bass Bash a great follow up to @Sibob's excellent events.  Cheers matey!  Well done.

This isn't the first time that Andy's put up such a nice prize either.  He put up a decent acoustic bass a couple of years back too. 

It's been a great day out for the two of us after a rough six months or so.

Looking forward to the next one.

[SpondonBassed]

3 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

My mum was raised a Methodist so I also was taught when growing up not to gamble ... so that might have been the first or second raffle I’ve entered in my life... 

jammy begger I am 

 

As the first to have a ticket drawn, I was surprised you didn't go for the AJR Jag yourself.  I'm not complaining you understand.

I was in a bit of a bind having gone up with Jack's ticket and then realising that I was making a choice on his behalf.  In my defence... there wasn't a lot of ukulele related stuff on the table to choose from.

[Owen]

Good times!

It is great just to play stuff we all read about but certainly does not exist where I live. 

Sadowsky, G&L L1000 (Wowzers, whatever is driving that tone is bonkers), Alembic EUB, Mouse, Enfield, Manton, Letts and Shuker. And the Jabbass mini basses. I will be having one of those!

Also just putting faces to names. And cakes. 

Mant thanks to everyone involved in the organising. 

Did I mention good times?

[josie]

Excellent occasion, my thanks also to @jebroad and Mum for organising! Good venue, plenty of space and light. A welcome chance to put faces and voices to so many names that I won't pick any out - except @SpondonBassed and Jack, and @seashell. Ridiculous amounts of cake, with @Teebs 's chocolate cake the standout. 

Favourite bass of the day: @jazzyvee 's beautiful EUB as seen above. Very impressed by the build and sound quality of the many short-scales - not for me, I'm completely into light-weight long-scales, but an eye-opener. Also @Andyjr1515 's talk, which has led me to start reading the build threads. 

Final thanks to @Teebs for the lift from Manchester, I couldn't have got there otherwise, well worth the journey 🙂 

[Sibob]

53 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

 

As a matter of fact, JE, it was my housemate Jack's ticket that won the prize.

Two of his tickets were drawn and none of mine!  He was delighted to have won it.  We've known Andy for a couple of years now and we've both been impressed by his builds and mods.

Jack's more of a uke player though and he's gifted it to me.  As we share a house, he's still going to hear it... quite a lot probably.

I'm very lucky.  I've just had a good hour playing with it and it's lovely.  To be honest, I've always liked the notion of one day owning an AJR modified or built bass.  It was a great climax to the day.

Full marks to you JE and your Mum. You both made us feel very welcome.  You made this year's East Midlands Bass Bash a great follow up to @Sibob's excellent events.  Cheers matey!  Well done.

This isn't the first time that Andy's put up such a nice prize either.  He put up a decent acoustic bass a couple of years back too. 

It's been a great day out for the two of us after a rough six months or so.

Looking forward to the next one.

Not sure I can take credit for whatever you’re referring to.....it almost certainly wasn’t me

Si

[Geek99]

7 hours ago, SpondonBassed said:

 

As a matter of fact, JE, it was my housemate Jack's ticket that won the prize.

Two of his tickets were drawn and none of mine!  He was delighted to have won it.  We've known Andy for a couple of years now and we've both been impressed by his builds and mods.

Jack's more of a uke player though and he's gifted it to me.  As we share a house, he's still going to hear it... quite a lot probably.

I'm very lucky.  I've just had a good hour playing with it and it's lovely.  To be honest, I've always liked the notion of one day owning an AJR modified or built bass.  It was a great climax to the day.

Full marks to you JE and your Mum. You both made us feel very welcome.  You made this year's East Midlands Bass Bash a great follow up to @Sibob's excellent events.  Cheers matey!  Well done.

This isn't the first time that Andy's put up such a nice prize either.  He put up a decent acoustic bass a couple of years back too. 

It's been a great day out for the two of us after a rough six months or so.

Looking forward to the next one.

I think you richly deserve this 

[jazzyvee]

Well yesterdays experience was a good one. Whilst a few players came over and tried out two of my basses, the Classico and Stanley Clarke signature, I played only one which was one off the really short headless basses that sounded really good and the strings were not floppy like i expected.

Its a bit of a long standing joke with my musician friends that I have never ever really been good at allowing others to play my instruments or playing instruments that are not my own,  so i hope my reluctance to try more of your basses yesterday was not taken as a personal slight in any way. After yesterday experience i’m feeling a bit more comfortable in allowing others to play mine. 

Moving on, there were a lot of nice sounding basses i could hear during the day but I think the bass that stood out for me sound wise was the Enfield. No idea who was playing it or whose they were or what model. 

My thanks to the organisers for a well run event. Maybe you can branch out into putting gigs on there at some point too. ✔️👍🏿🎶🎵

Edited May 5, 2019 by jazzyvee

[Len_derby]

Well, another great Bass Bash. @jebroad and his amazing mum did us all proud with the venue.

Lovely to catch up with old friends and make new ones too.

Thank you @Andyjr1515 for your fascinating presentation - and the lift too!

After enjoying playing @grandad's Mustang and Hofner Beatle bass I won a short-scale gigbag in the raffle. I think the Fates are telling me what my next purchase might be...

[jazzyvee]

[BCH]

Thank you to all the team...great basses & good to meet fellow BC's