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When someone asks me to ‘play something’

I tried playing air guitar to a Jean-Michel Jarre album. It turned out to be a waste of oxygene.

Being able to do this last weekend, biggest gig I've done! and people came to watch . .

Always wanted to try a Gretsch Broadkaster (MIJ around 10 years ago) and have finally snaffled one. Short scale thumpy with flats on and should work well in my country/blues tinged bands.

I’d say Robbie Shakespeare was the biggest inspiration to me after seeing him play live in the early 80s , I was playing blues at the time but after hearing the rhythm and drive of heavy reggae I just knew it was for me , and I haven’t stopped playing reggae since 🙂

I fell in love with bass from an early age. When I was just starting to get into music it was the very late seventies, and there was a lot of bass in the charts! Sting, Colin Moulding, Norman Watt Roy, Paul Simonon and all the 2-Tone guys like Horace Panter, Mark Bedford, David Steele... I loved it all and would listen specifically to those bass lines. I used to have a beat up old nylon strung acoustic guitar and I’d tune the E and A strings down as low as they’d go before they became too floppy and try to play along. I was 10 in 1979. For a while I learned to play guitar properly and played drums for a few years too. The first band I joined was as a drummer, when I was sixteen. When I left school and started earning money I bought myself a Squier Silver Series Precision bass (how I wish I’d kept that!) and forgot about drums. That was 1990, I was twenty one and I’ve played bass pretty much ever since. Good thread, by the way.

To get laid.

Hard to pick an ultimate moment but one right up there of my proudest bass moments was when I recorded my band's version of "I shot the Sheriff" for our album. It was a one take live recording at a concert we did and only my take on the bass ended up on the finished album, everyone else re-dubbed their parts in the studio. Then the icing came on the cake when the producer showed me a letter from Marley's publishers stating how they loved the bass on the track! As this was my first ever reggae track playing bass on a commercial album and Aston Barrett was my inspiration for taking up music it meant a heck of a lot to me.

The bass has arrived, I’ll take better photos when possible. First impressions: Well built for sure. The splittable neck pickup is a great addition to the P. and sounds great on its own. I do not have any recording equipment to make decent sound files though. One issue : The two coils at the neck tend to (not sure this is the right way to put this) pull the E string and notes have a slight vibrato. I have lowered the pickup quickly and the tremolo is lighter, but still can be heard. The thinner A, D & G strings don’t seem to be affected. No time to get into more details now.

One riff, one moment in time. John Deacon under pressure live at Wembley. I had to ask my dad what instruement was doing the "Dum dum dum da da dum dum" Dad. " I think its a Bass guitar" That was it for me.

I fancied being in a band and reckoned bass would be the easiest instrument

Hearing both Benji Webb and Paul Di’Anno take to the stage with their respective bands at the time (Dub War and Killers) after we had supported them say something like “F***ing hell I thought we were heavy, what about that lot”. Then subsequently seeing both gentlemen weeks later (Benji with Dub War at a European Festival and Paul D in a Walthamstow chippie) wearing my band’s beanie hats, I was stupidly chuffed.

Well it was Tuesday actually. I had been fancying a P bass for a while now so popped into Gear4music to check out a Player series P. However they didn't have any on display so I checked on their fancy screen thingy & spotted the Vintera range,mmmm had to check it out. To me it looks beautiful,seems to be very well made,plays & sounds excellent too.(it was also substantially cheaper than the classic 50's P bass they have in stock) Over all I am very happy with it,although I've yet to play it with the band but I'm sure it will be mint 🤣🤣

Now that I come to think of it, it did work for me. Once. More than 40 years ago. Hope shines eternal, maybe in another 40 years some other teenage beauty will be overcome by my (bass) fingering prowess! Sadly, I'll need digging up by then, but still...

Well, that would explain it. Can't stand liquorice either and here's how much: As a child I would buy a Barratts' Sherbet Dab, throw away the hated liquorice tube and then commence to neck the sherbet straight from the packet. In the aftermath I would be covered from head to foot in white powder, resembling no one so much as Mr Tony Montana after a serious night on the Charlie. Tony discovers sherbet dabs

Mum and dad said no to drums.

Johann Sebastian Bach. He didn't play the bass guitar AFAIK, but he did write bass parts that defined the harmonic drive of the piece. I concluded that if you had a melody and a good bass part, then you essentially had all you needed. Then one Chris Squire appeared in my world...

Saw a monochrome pic on the front of an early Motörhead EP. Someone told me that one of the band members was playing a bass guitar. It had four fat strings, massive tuners and produced really low, deep notes. I just thought that looked like the coolest instrument ever and I just knew I had to have one. Still think that, too.

Let's give 'Turn the Page' a shout out too, eh? What a smasher of a tune.

New arrival and my god it’s lush! I know Fender Custom Shop sometimes gets bad press for their prices and stuff but this is a beauty. Same spec and build (bar head stock colour) to Scott Divine P Bass of Doom! 1959 heavy relic finish in Oly White over Candy Apple Red 😍 I know relic can be marmite but man, it’s a beaut! Even got Fender to send me the Shop Floor Traveler. Sounds bloody lush too! Welcome to come and try it if you’re local to me 😁 Bought on EBay but I believe it belonged to @Atomic dustbin on here. Lovely fella 🤘 Few sexy bass pics for you all.

Ye- ha! 🤠

Listening to Jah Wobble with PiL or Steve Harris with Iron Maiden. Two very different approaches, they both sounded like the most important and interesting sonic situations going on in their bands. And, obviously, Lemmy.

Been watching the daily reruns of The Sweeney have we?

When I was a young lad there was a song in the charts (Seasons in The Sun, by Terry Jacks) that had this sound that I liked, didn’t know what the sound was but listened out for it in other songs. Fast forward a few years I found out it was the bass, and at that time, when punk was at its height, the cooled - imo - people in the bands were the bassists. So the sound I liked was played by the cool people, good enough for me.

This thread is useless without 'that' Partridge clip...

Might that be because you're posting on your phone rather than playing?

Sitting in a guitar shop about to start trying out that nice bass and realising I have suddenly forgotten every single bassline I’ve learned in the last 30 years except for Money by Pink Floyd and The Chain by Fleetwood Mac. Every. Single. Time!

I once spent five minutes frantically faffing with my amp, bass etc (with the sound guy) to try and work out why I had no signal (having been fine in the sound check). It was at the start of a short set on a multi-band night. The rest of the guys had to wait for me, whilst offering the audience some terribly awkward banter (as you do when you’re 15). After the full five minutes someone in the audience politely enquired as to whether the absence of a cable between my bass and amp may be the issue... 😐 That was pretty embarrassing... 😐

Finally I finished the bass:

NBD is imminent at Black Towers. Continuing my apparant quest to replace every instrument I own with a P Bass of one sort or another I have jettisoned a P/J and am eagerly awaiting the bass stork. I'm calling her my Stealth Bass.

'A consummation devoutly to be wished' ... as my old pal and wing-man Billy Spokeshave was wont to remark.

I was in a band with friends from the age of 14 - however nobody could play anything. Over the next couple of years people learned instruments, and other musical kids joined. One day one of them asked "Why is Heathy in the band? He can't do anything." I was heavily into Iron Maiden at that time, and also thought Phil Lynott looked cool playing 'Out in the Fields'. I spotted that our band didn't have a bass player, so used my first few months YTS wages to buy a bass and amp. As well as securing my place in the band, it also enabled me to lever out the guy who wanted rid of me. And the rest is history...

I've heard the Live After Death album.

But now you're older and wiser, you realise you are (and were) actually the coolest 👍

I wanted to be a drummer until I was introduced to a gatefold Fragile featuring this pic. Awesome player, cool guy and a Revox B77. Game over.

Yep, we do it. 80s band, so we have an 80s playlist on the drummer's mp3 player that we play through the PA during the break and at the end. It's especially useful at the end of the night if the audience are baying for more encores and we want to give them a firm "no". Obviously we make sure that the playlist doesn't contain any songs that we are performing that night. S.P.

anyone with plug in 'air freshner' is not to be trusted 😉

I actually wanted to learn how to do the solos you hear in every rock song from the period but, in my ignorance (I was very young), thought the instrument playing them was called a bass. My guitar teacher proceeded to teach me bass and I soon realised I'd been VERY wrong. I loved the new REAL bass parts I was learning though and kept with it. Don't regret it in the slightest....

Being complimented on my playing by a bass player I had long admired - after we finished our set. He and his band had been on immediately before us so I was slightly uneasy about following in his footsteps.

I was a music loving teenager - all my spare cash spent on records and going to gigs. A fairly large chunk of my mates played guitar. I saw a gap in the market. Bought a bass and was immediately in a band

Superb! I loved it. Really tasteful improv IMO, plus great tone!

When I'm not getting a signal out of the amp, only to realise that I haven't switched the amp on or plugged a cable in! I've been playing over 30yrs!

I am embarrassed by the noise I make when I try singing. Apparently it's nearly as bad as my whistling! And, if I'm honest, my solos are to be endured.

I can understand the jukebox thing but if you don't expect the crowd to like your music choice what hope have you got when you start playing?

Being replaced on a track by Pino Palladino.

After a few years being inactive on Basschat; ive just come back to have a look through all your awesome pedalboards! I wish i had one to post.... but i now use a HX stomp 🙈🙈

I was once asked to turn down by a punter as the bass was affecting their pacemaker. They were sat about 3 feet away from the PA! I simply adjusted the 'producer switch', and they seemed happy. Fortunately they didn't die during the gig.

I was once told to turn down because my bass was causing feedback through the vocal PA. My bass was at 2 on the master, so utter and total bollocks. The amateur sound engineer was the husband of the singer and had not the faintest idea how to operate his very, expensive PA. I'm the end, in a huff, I turned my amp off completely and mimed. He still complained the bass was too loud.