All Activity

Yes - I do the same 👍

Red Rain - Peter Gabriel

If anyone's jonesing for a brick of bi-amped big iron a la mid-90's flea, I stumbled across this beast while insomniac browsing the other night. It's at Crack Converters in Milton Keynes. Looks to be in decent nick.

Putin on The Dog — Tom Waits

Mother Russia - Renaissance

I liked it so went and got a proper one! I’m sure it’ll not come as too much of a surprise to hear that it’s significantly better 😂

Through last summer I was giving 'getting a gigging band again' a real serious go. 've been a guitarist for 50 plus years, but the pressure of my (music industry) business had pretty much forced me out of playing live. When I finally popped my head out of my shell and decided I fancied climbing back on the horse ... I discovered that nobody much seems to want a guitarist - however experienced - in his sixties. No matter that apparently I can pass ten years younger - it appeared the boat had sailed on being able to form or get into a worthwhile band ... and I wasn't counting dead end blues jammers etc. I'd already made the move away from rock and metal that I'd played for so much of my gigging life - opting to blay rock and roll and rockabilly on my Gretsch - but still I couldn't seem to get anything off the ground. Then in a fit of absolute madness ... I simply went and bought a double bass. Well to be fair I had a couple of beers and put a bid in on one on eBay - and shocked myself rigid by winning it (a blonde Stentor 1950 for 600 quid on super good nick). When we finally collected it the enormity of what I'd done sunk in ... it was fecking enormous, and fitted with steel orchestral strings - or finger destroyers as I prefer to call them. But it was beautiful and I was smitten. In the picture you see my first attempt to find better strings for the rockabilly I wanted to play ... green Weedwhackers. The G, sounded quiet but great, the D sounded quiet but great, the A sounded a bit muddy but largely good ... and the E ... oh dear. I could play a scale up the E string and hardly tell any of the notes apart until I got up as far as A. Awful ... just an amorphous 'bloop'. Anyway I could take some of my 'guitarist plays bass' patterns and scales and make them sound halfway okay (to my untutored ear at the time). So I advertised for a rockabilly band who needed a doghouse player. In the meantime I bought a Shadow Rockabilly Pro preamp and made a switch to Rotosound 4000 strings ... and instantly 'hello E' I'd missed you! My next shock was getting an audition with a well established rockabilly band who were without a 'slapper of the wardrobe of doom'. They gave me a half dozen numbers to learn in advance - and to my shock I was in! Then came learning around 40 numbers (standards and originals ... and actually being able to both slap properly and consistently ... and be able to improvise. On the way I 'bumped' my Rotosounds for an even more supple feel and actually started to feel like a bass player rather than an imposter. So fast forward eight months ... I'm now the bass player in a very tight rockabilly outfit ... I strive to be better, but I can cope with pretty much all that's thrown at me - including the odd bass solo. I own two double basses (one that I'm rebuilding in another thread here) and a halfway reasonable amp rig. This isn't through being some hyper gifted musician - it's through me being stubborn and never giving up even when I'm well in over my head. I hope others who maybe don't feel like anyone wants a muso over 60 might take a bit of heart from this ... it's pushed me on so hard that now I've also started an 'originals' punk band as a guitarist and songwriter (and oldest member) as well as being the 'bottom end for the rockabilly outfit. When you get older ... just work smarter.

In a Big Country - Big Country

I did that, too, but not the entire Kreuzer thingy. I´ve been using the three transistor frontend without EQ and added a 3 band swinging input EQ based on the API553 circuit. It serves me well up to today. I´ve tailored the EQ frequencies to match with my Wal fretless.

Take me Back, Sack and Crack - Bonnie Tyler

The Runway - Del Shannon

The Brazilian - Genesis

Second gig of the Katy Hurt album release tour (we’ve taken to calling it “Gimme A Tour” after the album’s “Gimme A Break” title). Bath Chapel Arts Centre this time - what a great venue. Ed the soundman was ace, we even had a lighting engineer who was making sure we all had a spotlight on us. Great crowd, one of Katy’s biggest fans in the front row singing along to every word - I spoke to her afterwards and she has been cramming the album all week in preparation. I reckon she knows the songs better than me 🤣 I didn’t play as well as the week before but it was still a great fun gig. Next up for Katy is Chelmsford on Thursday; next up for me is my pop/punk band Youths tonight in Cambridge. Yesterday’s choice of footwear was some black leather Chelsea boots which made my feet hurt 😆

Well, only the social media we don't like.🤔 I use Facebook and have bought & sold things there, met people, chatted with distant friends & family, got local info, etc., and it's beneficial. I'm about to go out for a jam with some folks from another site. I can't be doing with the daily diary, influenzas, stupid reels, and suchlike, though. I've used Twitter for trains info and that's about it. I don't know if I have accounts on the other mainstream ones.

Jamiroquai - The Return of The Space Cowboy. Stuart Zender is magical on this, easily my favourite Jamiroquai album. All killer, no filler.

Smooth - Santana

Shave Me - Queen

Takin’ Care of Bushiness ~ BTO

I dealt with Andy recently - sold two basses through him and bought one. I have no complaints - communication was good, payment was prompt with no chasing required (he actually had to chase me for my bank details) and his place really is a treasure trove of great basses. He does have some expensive items - people say if you're going there to be prepared to spend a lot of money , but that is down to a lot of his stock being very rare/valuable. His prices, in my opinion, are fair for a vintage dealer and more or less comparable with Bass Bros and Bass Direct - it's the Gallery, ATB and Vintage Bass Room who tend to price their items a tad more unrealistically.

My experience, over the years, is that you can go cheap on a head but you can't really go cheap on cabs, if you don't want the cab to fart out. If you could find a ancient, 1990s, Peavey TNT combo that would do the trick. Ashdown heads are cheap as chips. I had an Ashdown combo which served me well but needed an extension speaker to get the best out of it. Good luck with the search.