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…. So after buying a superb secondhand Vigier Excess 5 from Mattbass6 on this forum, I realised I’m not such an intuitive 5 string player and sold it on vowing that I would get another Vigier. Being simply blown away by the craftsmanship I had to get a 4 string. One pilgrimage to Bass Direct in Warwick (thanks Ashley and Mark) later, I am the proud owner of this beauty… My goodness it’s fast, punchy, modern and I love it! 😊

I'm currently waiting on my 30" Marusczcyk Jake P with Koa top to arrive here in Las Vegas from Germany. I received the finished pic of my build a week ago. Equipped with a passive Nordstrand NP4A pickup and Hipshot hardware. Really looking forward to getting my hands on it in a week hopefully. 😎

My twopence worth!

Always liked what he brought to U2. A perfect fit for them IMO. My fav song New Years Day. Great bassline and the song that made me sit up and listen to them.

I ended up taking the DIY option. The lining was a dog blanket 🙂

We played a very short notice wedding gig on Saturday as a last minute replacement for another band who had to cancel due to covid. The landlady of the pub we'd played the previous Saturday recommended us and we got the call on Thursday evening. We had to get a dep drummer we'd never used before who turned out to be excellent. In the end we had a really good gig, plenty of guests up and dancing, free drink and buffet and the venue was amazing. The Old Palace at Hatfield House, Herts, built in 1485, this must be the oldest venue I've ever played at.

Just been to mum and dads. Found the pic!

I used a lot of Trace gear back in the day, but I don't ever remember seeing a combo in this configuration before. Built like a tank, and weighing like one too, no doubt!

Matte guard fitted and looks the part!

7.00pm tonight - My Planet Rocks with JJ Burnel A one hour long interview, plus him picking some of his favourite tunes.

Adam Clayton was one of the reasons I picked up the bass in the first place. The Joshua Tree came out when I was in my early teens and I thought his playing on it was what kept everything together and really brought the whole album alive. I'd give my right arm to be as inept, talentless and successful as him

Ever noticed how few successful bassists play million notes a second slap? There are many more who have sold millions of records with nothing more than simple, solid lines with solid timing.

The Old Cold Store in Nottingham on Thursday night supporting UK Subs. Great gig despite terrible on stage sound, just a positive attitude from everyone and super tight Our bassist and front man both tested positive for Covid the next morning so our final gig of the year on Saturday was cancelled. The guitarist and I are both fine (negative PCR tests), it's just such a shame to miss the big tour finale I do have one more gig this year, this time on guitar for Julia Mosely, hopefully that'll be good

This one made my credit card sweat...

Higham Ferrers Town square, Sparkle ...Christmas lights...cold but great fun ...huge sound ..over 500 people ...

What's better than learning bass with your metronome, drinking coffee and watching your toddler get up to mischief? Not much! Thought I'd post a positive post, sure why not.

McDonalds! The Harley Benton of take-out coffees.

It is a strange thing and I can’t get in to any other bass than a Fender or a Squier either. I’ve had Yamaha, Ibanez, Westone, LTD, Epiphone, OLP and a Danelectro since the ‘70s but for some reason just can’t ‘become one’ with any of them. They all (mostly) sounded good and played just fine but Leo’s stuff always feels and sounds just right. I have a theory it’s a lot to do with subconsciously hearing a P or J on nearly every track on the radio for years and it’s such a comfortable tone that simply ‘sits right’ our heads and nothing else will do. Believe it or not, right now I’m gigging with a 2000 Squier Standard PJ with all original pups (turns out the split jobbies are actually Alnico which they fitted at one time) and it’s honestly like and extension of me and feels so damn right in my hands and ears. The mind is a weird thing but once you can get around brand snobbery life’s a sunny day.

Any excuse to post these again!! The two tone sunburst finish and gold pickguard look absolutely tremendous together!

Yes I have done. No one really notices. If you want to try it tune a 34" scale bass a whole tone down to DGCF. Put a capo at fret two and you have a 30" scale EADG bass. Nice!

Erm, it’s shorter. I gig all the time with a shortie, easier to get around the board, I just put a gauge up on the strings to tighten things up to more comparable to my long scales. Sound wise, I actually prefer my jmj Mustang to previous Fender Jazz/P basses I’ve gigged in the past.

I've seen people play amazing sets using Squiers and a rag tag assortment of amps and cabs. I would gig a £200 Squier Affinity without batting an eyelid and feel nothing but pity for anyone who looks down on me for it. Honi soit qui mal y pense, and all that. Some may point out that I have a USA G&L but as it's an L-1000 (a bass I had admired for some time) I didn't have much of a choice. There is no Tribute model - hell, for the longest time there wasn't even an option to buy one new. But if there had been a Tribute L-1000, I'd have saved myself the best part of a grand and got that instead, Tributes are fine* basses. Tangent alert! *Fine as in wine, not fine as in "acceptable". Also see use of the word fine in NE Scotland - pronounced a certain way means "very good indeed" instead of merely acceptable, often prefixed with "fit" (what) - the delightfully alliterative interjection "fit fine!" (often heard after telling someone you're having mince and tatties for tea) can be loosely translated into "very good!", "Aw man, you lucky so-and-so, I wish I was having mince and tatties for tea" or the rhetorical "how good is that?". Want another bonus NE Scotland thing? The word "rare" can be used in a similar way. Very confusing when applied to commonly occurring items. "I played a rare Squier Affinity P bass the other day" ... Also it is theoretically possible up here to have a RARE well done steak - although you should be having it medium at the very most, you heathen

All valve goodness!! 90’s SLM cab 🚕

A friend of mine in France is selling his original very very very rare Vigier Arpège 5 series I : https://www.zikinf.com/annonces/annonce-1996126

Looking for a Bassline to work on today I came across this version of Babylon Bridge, I know Dillinger did it but I’m liking this

For context, haha… love this guy. last time we played together was his wedding. That was 4 years ago.

My plan was to get a Bergantino Forté HP or a Quad Cortex as my third amp. I have a Genzler Magellan 350, a Vanderkley Spartan and a Jule Amps Monique preamp with a GSS Sumo power amp already. Ooops! Did that make three...? Well, I was out shopping for a fourth amp - not a third. All of a sudden I got the chance to get a super nice Aguilar DB 359 at a more than reasonable price, so I changed my mind. No DSP amp for me! No programmable stuff! Just plain analog old school stuff. I was a bit concerned how the Aggie would work with the Genzler Bass Array cabs; my old Super Bassman and the Bassman 100T sounded crap through them. No problems with this baby brute! Wooly, fat, juicy! The DB 359 is a BIG amp. Really big! But - it sits well on top of the Bass Array 12-3 SLT cabs: no risk sliding off the top cab. A tiny bit of T-factor can be seen... I kind of like it...

Someone will be along very soon to tell us that he is not going slappityy-tapitty-300bpmityy-shredityy. But they are probably not in a full time succesful band in the music business who could retire on the proceeds tomorrow. And fund their children for the rest of their lives.

Inspiration Initially tried to do some thing free-form and moony sounding, but scrapped it and wrote something song-based on the acoustic with moon based lyrics. But even that ended up sounding completely different when transferred to electric guitar etc. Tech: all the usual: Daw: Studio One , Drums: Red Zep programmed via piano roll, Bass: Vantage, Guitar: Squier Tele, Vox :Shure SM58

Like you I've started making all my basses and guitars out of reclaimed timber or furniture that I've managed to salvage out of a skip or free on facebook, my next project is going to be made from mahogany snooker table sides and my little boys old bed, I've been trying to keep my eye out for old pianos but I can't seem to find them anywhere? Where do you get yours from and do you get yours free or do you buy them? 👍🏻

I like the way the bloke in the painting is copying your drummer's stance. First class trolling. Lovely venue, btw.

Bought a Status S2 5 string from Mike, it was exactly as described (in fact better imho). He really looks after his stuff, very knowledgeable, reccommend 100%. We spent time chatting playing bass drinking coffee and cracking jokes what a great dude to deal with.

We'll never know. That 2nd review on Amazon has to be himself!

I think I've only just now realised where the Alpher name came from......

Origin Effects Cali 76 bass. I tried a few compressors and this one just blows away the others.

I've never had the money to be loyal to a particular brand 🙂 I tend to buy the gear, at a certain price point, that will give me what I need in terms of playability, sound and to some degree aesthetic if possible. I do though, try to buy brands that hopefully have a good reputation and/or decent after sales network if something goes wrong. There are brands that if they go wrong you may as well bin as the parts or repair options are non-existent. That said, I do own a Sire v7 and I'm not sure how you get the onboard preamp sorted if it goes belly up. If I had the budget for higher end gear I'd have to try it first, I think. I don't know where I'd start to be honest.

It’s a fair point though. Post-Syd Floyd for instance isn’t that much like Syd-era Floyd. Rather than gaining fans, they could have lost them all and disappeared forever. The fact that the reverse is true I’m sure was more by accident than design. Genesis could be argued as another example, PG and post-PG. They lost some fans, retained some fans, gained some fans, but they could just have died a death. And when gigging at pub/club level, unless you have a fan base that follows you round or are familiar with what you do, every gig is a completely clean slate in terms of audience reaction/expectation and each individual in the audience is an Individual clean slate. How can you possibly predict how each individual in a completely new audience is going to react to what you do (this obviously applies to their reaction to recordings too)? The more I’ve thought about this discussion - and I’ve thought about it a lot over the last few days - the more it has disturbed me. I started drawing & painting for my own enjoyment pretty much as soon as I could hold a pencil/pen/brush and was always encouraged to do so. As soon as I was able I wrote stories for my own enjoyment, created characters and comic strips for my own enjoyment. Pre-teen and pre-superhero/fantasy action figures, I made models first out of plasticine and later all sorts of materials, so I could play with them and act out stories and adventures, for my own enjoyment. My friends did the same (my best friend eventually went on to work for Cosgrove Hall and Tim Burton). It was the most natural thing in the world for me (and them) and I never thought twice about it, just assumed anyone else who was so inclined would do the same. When I got into music and subsequently started playing I immediately started writing my own songs as it was simply a continuation of my natural mindset - although by this time I had like-minded friends who were also writing for their own enjoyment. We started a band because we liked making music together, no other reason. Making music was enjoyable and exciting. At the same time I went to foundation course and then Uni studying fine art. Everyone there in my experience was there because they felt the urge to create, nothing more. They just wanted to further their art, learn more about it, perfect it. The odd one was thinking consciously about a career in art but most weren’t. Hardly any of them ever thought about an audience, it just wasn’t a consideration. So the majority of people I’ve ever mixed with have created art of some sort primarily for their own enjoyment. I’ve obviously been aware that there are people who do it for other reasons but that has never concerned me - that’s their choice and they’re perfectly entitled to do it for any reason they see fit and to find enjoyment in it any way they can - and I’ll admit I haven’t had much contact with people who do it for other reasons. What has terrified me about this discussion is that there have been comments that have suggested that creating something primarily for your own enjoyment is wrong, selfish, pretentious, inconsiderate, dismissive, something to be ridiculed. That has absolutely shocked me to the core. Especially coming from musicians, as I’d always assumed the majority of musicians were likewise creative-minded (and open-minded) people. At this stage, creating my own music, for my own reasons, is the only thing I have left in life. I spent most of 2019 considering whether or not to take my own life, and luckily (?) made it through, although it remains a daily battle. However if anyone tried to take away my final reason for living, that is what I would do. The great irony of course is that those who perceive they’re being looked down on by ‘selfish, pretentious creative types’ and object to that are guilty of exactly the same thing in reverse.

20th Anniversary Stingray 5 in action during our recent 24 night Hallowe’en residency at Shocktoberfest.

I'm beginning to wonder if there's any aspect of life that does not have a forum ...