All Activity

Thanks so much for your kind comments, HeadlessBassist! It was a fun time, indeed!😃

It's not just the postage you're paying for, though. It's the expertise of the person putting the pickups in the envelope. And then there's insurance, of course.

Wednesday night: another night of accompanying a couple of people, and doing two songs myself, while the guitarist who owns a bass insisted on crashing everybody else's sets with out of time and tune accompaniment. He's a very nice chap but utterly incapable of playing bass (which he has been trying to do for 15 years at this open mic) so I think my time there has come to an end as it's frustrating and musically painful. Thursday night: different kettle of fish. Due to there being no other bassist there, I'm house bassist. Normally Mrs Zero comes along and we had planned to do three songs with Mein Host and one of the drummers (there's always between one and three drummers there), but she'd had an ocular migraine and wasn't feeling well. As it turned out, a duo that I was backing were doing "One way or another" (one of the planned songs) so Mein Host also got recruited, along with one of the ladies who knew the song, and we did that and "Sex on fire" (another planned song). And at the end of the evening, Mein Host said that the following night he would be playing in a duo at a local Tamworth pub, and would I like to come along and play too? I said yes - the story will continue on the "How was your gig last night?" thread.

Done a bit more fiddling, it seems if from a restart I open the editor first, then plug in the midi adapter, then the FI it seems happy. Fingers crossed it keeps working! Done some more playing (as in actual bass playing) and it really does work and sound great.

I’ve only ever had a go on one single cut,and that was a Bernie Goodfellow Merlin when I was down his shop (great place, proper old school, nestled away) . While I’m not really a fan of SC basses his one blew me away how comfortable and ergonomically perfect it seemed to fit me! He ain’t too shabby at making basses that bloke! It was reasonably lightweight too I seem to recall. Definitely got me lusting, a lovely lovely bass indeed . 😊

These days unless your band is pretty well known and has record label or management financial backing, most "tours" are a series of weekend gigs spread out over a month or so. I did two conventional tour with The Terrortones organised by someone who wanted to be our manager. The weekend gigs were fine although we could have probably organised them all ourselves and got the same result. The mid-week gigs not so good. One of the tours was supporting a German Rockabilly band who despite being excellent were completely unknown in the UK. Apart from the last gig on a Saturday night where The Meteors also played and which was packed, the only people in the audience for the other gigs had come specifically to see us. For the other tour, we were supposed to have a decent local band in a compatible genre as support for each gig, however the support bands were either non-existent or had zero following which pretty much defeated the object of having them. Needless to say we told the organiser of the tours that we didn't required his management services. Also it was hardly a Rock 'n' Roll lifestyle. We drove home each night after playing apart from one weekend where we had three gigs in South Wales and stayed at Mr Venom's parents house.

Yesterday on the balcony before we went out we had: - Kick The Kangaroo poppy tunes from an album I found on eMusic years ago then some Electric Boys. Later on after wifey got quickly bored at the Neon party and we went back to the room I sat on the balcony, watched the stars and listened to Lifesigns - Altitude on headphones with a nightcap. I rather think that people walking past thought I’d been banished for forgetting to get a card or some such 🤣

This is a great video and a nostalgic jaunt into our collective past (for those of us who were teenagers in the 80s!) - I was chatting with Chris on the Brooksy's Bass Corner Live Chat a few weeks ago, and he's certainly a mind of information on bass world, having previously run the Bass Centre LA. Highly recommended viewing material!

Traveling up to Glasgow from Birmingham for a gig being the daft boys we were we had stopped and bought pea shooters and the dried peas to go with them, probably don't exist any more, but on the M6 we started shooting peas at lorries we passed only to get pulled by the police and charged with " discharging a missile on the queen's highway" got away with it but needless to say it didn't happen again.

I've been looking for these online- they are an American product I believe- I've not bought them for a few years but I can't find them anywhere. There are a couple of expired ads on Reverb, but nothing else. Anyone know if these are still available?

This was exactly my experience with Danny, who sourced and bought for me a Yamaha BB5000. Posted a vid etc. Albeit 2017. I also used Ishibashi a few times as around 10 years ago I went through a period of liking medium scale Precisions which were nigh on impossible to find here but popped up reasonably regularly in Japan - both Fender and Squier. Faultless service. Also the exchange rate at the time meant it was always a good deal, even including the shipping and taxes. No so much now, I don't think. Edit. Video is still on his website! Should have kept it but, of course, sold it for a massive loss.

Fast paced, fun video reviewing why the 80's were so special for bass players. The gear, the players, the innovations and SO MUCH more! This video provides a wide overview of the experience in the U.S. with LOTS of U.K. crossover - Mark King, Pino Palladino, Wal, Status, Trace Elliot, The Bass Centre, etc. Enjoy the memories!

No idea - it could be!

Sadowsky SBP-2 preamp pedal, a bargain at £50 in the classifieds. So good it almost makes my £200 bass sound like a Sadowsky.

I used Danny's bass hunter service to source a rare-ish MIJ bass. I found him to be a brilliant chap to deal with. Lots of transparent communication throughout with a couple of options to choose from in the end. He gives his honest opinion on instruments found which is refreshing. When he received my bass, he even made a youtube demo video to show me the bass, his thoughts, and the set up he'd given it The overall cost all in from him to me was less than I was expecting too. Plus he's a professional working bassist in Japan so he really does know his stuff. Recommended 👍

EHX bass soul food - £49 new when I bought it

Strangely good that...!!

My weekly practice with my originals band is most Thursdays. On the weeks we can’t all meet, me and the guitarist meet at home and work up song ideas. I record them as voice memos on my phone. Over the last few weeks we’ve been working thru the better ideas in there and turning out some great sounding songs that we’d more or less forgotten about but which are now coming together really quickly. Excellent!