Unexpected bass playing injuries

[Leonard Smalls]

I've got a strap on at the moment due to peroneal tendonitis... (no sniggering! and it's per-O-neal, not per-I-neal). It's a nasty ankle pain, which appears to be a repetitive strain injury caused by over-enthusiastic foot tapping to keep time - a legacy from our old drummer who didn't seem to be able to do that. 

Any more unexpected bass injuries?

[Grimalkin]

The onset of arthritis across the left shoulder, which is slightly lower than the right, where basses that are too heavy have been sat for over 30 years.

[casapete]

Dupuytren's contracture in my fretting hand. Only stage 1 at the moment, so hoping it doesn't progress too fast to become a problem.

[NancyJohnson]

1 hour ago, Leonard Smalls said:

I've got a strap on at the moment...

 

Gadzooks.

[NancyJohnson]

I have a bass player mate who fell offstage while ducking to avoid being hit by a bottle.  Sprained ankle and bruised ego.

 

Does this count?

[Grimalkin]

A guitarist/singer I've worked with a lot over the years was nearly electrocuted playing a small bar. The strings actually melted, he still has fine lines where they burned into the edge of his right hand where he was muting across the strings. He was in hospital for a few days, heart rhythm up and down. If there wasn't another musician friend there who realised what was happening while the unfortunate singer was writhing on the floor, he would have been a goner. His saviour got up off his chair, walked over and switched the wall socket off.

[Nail Soup]

Saw this in the TV schedule this week - one of those gross-out medical shows on channel 5

Edited January 14, 2022 by Nail Soup

[Graham]

This photo is from a big gig at a racecourse, as you can see I was leaping around like I was in The Dillinger Escape Plan.

 

That all came a cropper when a poorly planned jump lead to a badly sprained ankle and I couldn't drive for a couple of days.

 

My heavily pregnant fiancé was thrilled

 

[Nail Soup]

Bruce Foxton cancelled some gigs a couple of years ago due to injury sustained doing one of these trademark jumps in his later years:

 

(good on him IMO...... don't grow old too gracefully!)

Edited January 14, 2022 by Nail Soup

[Old Horse Murphy]

Our drummer knocked out one of his front teeth when a drumstick twirl went wrong. Oh how we laughed...

Edited January 14, 2022 by Old Horse Murphy

[Old Horse Murphy]

2 hours ago, Graham said:

This photo is from a big gig at a racecourse, as you can see I was leaping around like I was in The Dillinger Escape Plan.

 

That all came a cropper when a poorly planned jump lead to a badly sprained ankle and I couldn't drive for a couple of days.

 

My heavily pregnant fiancé was thrilled

 

Let me guess. We're you playing Just The Way You Are by Billy Joel when this was taken?

Edited January 14, 2022 by Old Horse Murphy

[Osiris]

Not an injury as such but I'm prone to get occasional unexpected nosebleeds, it's a genetic thing on one side of the family. At a gig around 20 years ago my nose started bleeding mid set on a gig. A girl who I knew in the audience, rushed up to me and stuck a tampon up the offending nostril which I proudly left there, plus the blood down the front of my bass, until the end of the gig. Oh to be young and stupid again 

[scalpy]

The top hat on my tele’s pickup selector fell off on a gig without me noticing. I gave it the ol’ Townsend twirl on the last chord of a number and promptly skewered my thumb on the metal shaft. Blood everywhere for the whole of the second set, it would not stop bleeding. 
 

Learnt my lesson, haven’t played electric guitar in public since!

[Old Horse Murphy]

I once attempted to make Hash Browns for breakfast before a gig that evening. Unfortunately they turned in to Hash Murphys and I had to superglue the fingertip on my left hand forefinger so I could play that evening. It sort of worked. 

[uk_lefty]

Jeez the previous two posts have made me try to find a vomit and crying reaction thingy...

[Downunderwonder]

6 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

(no sniggering! and it's per-O-neal,

Too slow. I was already imagining how you must have got over excited by nubile dancers gyrating to your rhythms...cue adult film music...injury story.

[4000]

I once tore a muscle in the front of my neck putting on my extremely neck-heavy Alembic Stanley Clarke while I was very, very cold. I sold it soon after and I still have problems with that muscle to this day; that was probably 20 years ago.
 

Not an injury to me, but to one of the guys in my band many years ago when we were in a funk band together. We were both leaping about the stage, him going one way, me another, until - in slow motion - we both realised his nose was just in range of the headstock of my Jaydee and connection was unavoidable. I saw his eyes go wide just before impact. There certainly was blood. 😂  

[Doddy]

I was playing a panto a few years ago, and about half way through the 4 week run I had an infection in my middle finger causing it to swell up a lot. After it was drained, it turned out that a couple of tiny pieces of the coating from the Elixir strings I was trying had come off and gone down the side of my nail. Looking at the string you could see where the coating had peeled off where I play.

[tauzero]

At home, I put away the various bits and pieces I'd had out into the bagpipes box that my guitarist had given me, bent over to close it, and stuck like it. I was in my early 20s then.

 

A day or two later I managed to get up to the pub, still bent over. Had a couple of drinks, and somebody passed a joint round. That was some relaxation that worked.

[bassbiscuits]

Was playing guitar on one occasion and went for a heroic downstroke and smacked the corner of the neck pickup right under the nail of my right index finger. It was beyond painful. 
 

Been smacked in the mouth (by my mic) many times by drunk punters dancing into my mic stand.

And got a load of broken glass in my hand at the end of a gig once from the shards stuck to the gaffer tape i’d used to tape down some cables. 

 

[christhammer666]

De Quervain's tenosynovitis in both wrists, right wrist operated on. its where the tendon doesnt pass through properly and can cause a painful click where it pops through. bloody horrible

[WinterMute]

On 14/01/2022 at 19:58, 4000 said:

I once tore a muscle in the front of my neck putting on my extremely neck-heavy Alembic Stanley Clarke while I was very, very cold. I sold it soon after and I still have problems with that muscle to this day; that was probably 20 years ago.
 

Not an injury to me, but to one of the guys in my band many years ago when we were in a funk band together. We were both leaping about the stage, him going one way, me another, until - in slow motion - we both realised his nose was just in range of the headstock of my Jaydee and connection was unavoidable. I saw his eyes go wide just before impact. There certainly was blood. 😂  

Didn't Rhino Edwards smack Judy Tzuke in the nose with the headstock of his bass? 

 

I imagine his particular style of dancing could produce any number of bass-related injuries.... in other people.

[Mickeyboro]

1 hour ago, WinterMute said:

Didn't Rhino Edwards smack Judy Tzuke in the nose with the headstock of his bass? 

 

I imagine his particular style of dancing could produce any number of bass-related injuries.... in other people.

I wondered why he now plays a headless Status!😂👏

[rushbo]

A few years ago, I was putting up the bands backdrop prior to a show, while perched precariously on a bar stool in my Cuban heels. Inevitably, I fell off, fracturing a bone in my right arm. Thanks to adrenaline and stupidity, I managed to get through the gig, but I spent the next week in a cast. Rock and Roll?

[chyc]

I once got a bad back....... from carrying the rest of the band.

 

Aandathankyou I'm here all week.