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No reply from my WhatsApp group message to the band, which suits me just fine. I banged out a "bassist available" ad on one of the Facebook musos groups and I got this reply: "Hi there, Firstly it’s great to know that there is a Soul, Funk & Groove style bassist in the area, Most are Rock or blues influenced. I, and many of my musician friends have been looking to get a really good funky soul Band together for a while, without much success as decent bass players are very rare, And finding a soul/funk/groove influenced bassist has been like searching for the holy Grail. We are all knocking on a bit (60-63), and have had lots of experience in various bands Playing various types of music, but we all like soul, funk, jazz, groove influenced music Where bass and drums are the driving force, the engine room of the band, so to speak And everything else fits in around that groove! I hope that this could be something that you might find interesting, and maybe consider getting involved in." We're going to meet up for a chat. One door shuts and.....

Just got back from a Spacewasters gig at The Water Rats, Kings Cross - 2nd gig we’ve done there in 6 days. Was a 2 band bill tonight, making the logistics of the evening much easier, us opening up with an hours set. The headliners allowed us to use their kit & cabs so we only needed to bring guitars, cymbals, snare, pedals & amps, the bass cab was a rather nice Markbass 410 which sounded great with my Fender JMJ Mustang and Ashdown RM500. We played very well, it was our guitarist Joeys last gig with us and it was a nice end to his tenure in the band. Home by midnight with a McDs, and lesson learned from last week, black New Balance trainers this time, much better.

Just got in from a Knock Off gig (my old band which I’m standing in for) at The O2 Academy, Islington. Was a Vive Le Rock event with a load of great bands, being headlined by Cocksparrer. Load in was 5pm, had our own dressing room and refreshments, then on at 6pm for a short sharp shock set of 30mins. We played well, no errors, backline was provided and it was Blackstar amps - for bass was a Unity 700H & Unity 410C that my trusty JMJ Mustang & Behringer BDI21 went through, with both DI and miked cab. Was quite touched to hear a good few people calling my name out when we were setting up, and afterwards caught up with some people I’ve not seen since I left in 2019. Again the black New Balance trainers got the job, might not be particularly punk but neither is having sore feet!

Not a last night, an afternoon, multi band event. House FOH and backline. On stage volume absolutely, way too loud, painful at times. I wore the same hearing protection as last week, which was fine then, but felt like it was doing nothing today 😖. Couldn’t go anywhere near my mic, because of the monitor volume coming back and the guitarist’s amp behind me (he turned it down twice, but was battling with the monitors). I hid adjacent to the guitar amp, just in front of the bass rig, which I had already turned down, but sadly right I. The firing line for the snare and crash cymbal. Lots of compliments from other bands, which was really nice. Best thing was I only needed my bass and pedalboard.

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 😆

This weekend saw the Midas neck sanded up to 400 grit and the fret board to 1000 grit, evo gold frets cut and prepped and pressed into the fretboard, ends trimmed and left for the glue to set, next weekend will see the frets leveled, crowned and polished 💪

Generally, our audience is people who happen to be at the pub, some people that go to the pub because they see a band (any band) is going to be on, friends/family, or they've heard us play at their local before....but last night was the first time there were a notable amount of people that had heard us before and specifically travelled to hear us - which felt like a bit of a 'next step'.

Well that's it.... the final gig in Pakistan for me and a big farewell to all my musician buddies here. Played with three of my bands tonight (singer away in the fourth unfortunately), a bit of bass and a bit of drums. Punk, 80s cover and Hendrix/blues. All my gear packed away so hired a drum kit and borrowed basses. It was a great jam and very emotional. Fly out of here tomorrow. Hopefully will find some equally amazing musicians in Riga but will miss these guys.

I did an acoustic open mic with a band I’ve said I’ll dep for. I’ve practiced with them 3 or 4 times, but last night was the 1st performance. As it was an acoustic night, I took the fretless - still electric but maybe more the vibe than the Rick, G&L L2000, or headless would have been. It went pretty well. The BL (Matt Guntrip) has several albums out. We did a couple of his newest songs. I couldn’t hear myself singing so have no idea if I was in tune , but I could hear the bass (it was in tune 😁). I’ve another gig with them in June at a local festival.

Hello! Here’s my pedalboard. I play in a lot of festivals with multiple bands per stage and normally, musicians have to be ready to play in zero time. Since I was always struggling with monitoring, I made a box that goes under the pedalboard that feeds my in ear monitoring system (X Vive PX System) and for the DI out. Works great and I just have to unplug 4 cables and I’m fliyng out of the stage. In the next weeks will be added an Arkham Oracle Bass Preamp

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.

Took my 15 year old daughter to a gig at rock city Nottingham last weekend. She suffers from Cystic Fibrosis so as a treat id arranges with their manager for her to go to soundcheck and meet the band. they were great. Friendly and chatty with her. She’s made each of them a bracelet and they wore them for the actual gig. Then after they were meeting fans, signing stuff, and recognised and said hi to my daughter. I find it rare that bands are that accessible to fans. It really made her day.

Quite good! Of the three bands I play in, this is the least disciplined and we rehearse in the worst space so I always go into rehearsals with low expectations. A new (better) drummer has the rest of the band on their best behaviour so: the guitarists didn’t drink too much, we only took one smoke break (I don’t smoke so these drive me crazy) and we focused on the songs and got work done instead of hashing about and wasting time. Hooray! In addition, the tiny, messy, shared rehearsal space doesn’t have a working bass amp so I usually plug into the anemic P.A. Last night I decided to try plugging through a Sansamp BDDI (I am playing sans amp, after all) and it was a huge improvement. That little pedal, which I seldom use, did exactly as advertised and I’ll be using it for rehearsals from here on out. It sounded really nice, even through that lame P.A.

Bit early in the day to be hitting up the shrooms?

A lady friend interested in dating a bass player? You need to at least make it feasible bait.

Here i am - Yamaha TRB 5pII bubinga.

Back from my gig already, even after a cheeky post-gig burger with the boys. We did 7:30 to 9:30 - the landlady prefers the Saturday revellers to go elsewhere to get rat-arsed and cause trouble. That was fine by us, especially as we do this gig "acoustically". I love playing the EUB. It just makes me want to put in comical fills and slides. We had a whale of a time. I forgot to take any photos though. Stagg EUB direct into my Rumble 500. Vans footwear. Funnily enough due to a slight mix up in the diaries we are back there in 2 weeks time. That will be a Sunday afternoon outside if possible, so I hope the weather is good.

Not if you’ve already sinned it’s like having a quickie with someone else’s wife and congratulating yourself when no pregnancy results yourself, and “the point” are headed off in different directions

Surprising myself in that I haven't put my own Ric in this forum. So here is a picture of it, on the event of getting a new strap after my birthday (most of my basses have their own strap) I have just redone the nut, which was too high and fitted lighter strings, which meant I didn't have to adjust the neck as it has brought the action down. I probably do need to do the intonation, but this will be coming with me for a gig tomorrow. Am toying with the idea of putting a dual gang pot in place of the volume to give me a mix of the two pickups.

Splitter 😁

Tim Commerford from RATM likes Jazz basses with Precision necks. He winds his own pickups for them too. Respec'!

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 😂

Nothing worse than doing a few rehearsals with a new band, things trundling along quite nicely, and then out of nowhere comes the racist comment/joke and you're the only one not agreeing/laughing......

Hello BCers, I’m approaching 73, and it’s time for me to retire from gigging. This is partly due to minor health issues, but also a lot to do with having no desire to continue driving around the South East at midnight after a gig. It’s become a bit of an issue, especially in winter. After 57 years in bands I think I deserve a long service medal, but I’m not sure who awards these. I’ve been lucky and have worked with some seriously talented musicians over the years. But I’m also not forgetting those bandmates who maybe weren’t the greatest players but always did their best and were genuinely nice people to be around. I’ve written plenty of anecdotes on this forum about my various adventures and misfortunes over the years, and that’s just the stories I can remember. For the last few years I’ve been doing mainly dep work and have worked with all sorts of bands, from elite function bands to local pub rockers. Band politics never change - some bands have been super friendly and obviously really enjoyed gigging together, whereas some bands hardly spoke to each other all night. But I always tried to turn up on time, smile at everyone, and play the right notes, and that’s usually the successful formula for a dep player. I’ll still be a regular on this forum, which must be one of the most polite and friendly forums ever. But that’s what you’d expect from bass players, isn’t it? Sensible comments, witty comments, bit of banter – what’s not to like? Peace and love to you all.

In my quest for an ever more thuddy sound from my Harley Benton violin bass, I have just invented (maybe!) the Patent McCartneyizer mute: Both halves of a strip of velcro, sandwiching the strings at the bridge, superglued together at one end to prevent the two halves from fully separating. Adjust muting strength for each string by trimming the width with scissors. Works really well Total cost: about 20p-worth of velcro?

No. I’m on a pure ban now. Just awaiting the legal team at the bank signing some documents and the builders move in…

We could start a "July-Dec" challenge in parallel. Of course means that @AndyTravis is absolutely guaranteed to buy a bass on 2nd July.

Maybe the guilty ones should have a sweep. Fiver a ticket and winner takes all. They can use it to buy some gear and immediately get binned from the 2026 event.

I got an SR305E in part exchange to have as a relatively light/small/cheap backup. Gotta say though, after doing a thorough setup (which it really needed) there now isn't much difference between this and basses I've owned worth £1k extra. 16.5mm spacing is a bit tight for me, can live with it though. The only thing I'm really not a fan of is no passive mode, feels risky potentially doing a gig and finding out half way through that the battery has died.

Courtesy of FB marketplace I picked this up locally last week. I gig a fair bit with either an old Crafter DE7 or an equally old Yamaha FG512SJ but always have an eye for another good acoustic in my life. So this is a 1998 Simon and Patrick, made in Canada by the same group of makers responsible for Godin, Seagull, Art & Lutherie et al. Solid cedar top, laminated cherry sides and back. It was filthy and dusty, so I immediately gave it a clean, some lemon oil and a new set of Martin 12-54 strings. What can I say - it’s really really loud! Perfectly placed between bright and warm with solid punchy low end (similar to my Crafter, which is also cedar). Really articulate. Dropped D tunings work a treat too. Feels like it hasn’t been played very much at all (apart from some strumming marks on the body’s ultra-thin finish) so for the next few weeks I’m just gonna play and play it and see how it settles. But so far so good.

Ha, almost twins..... This had Warmoth Precision neck, beautiful 👍

Wow. Morning already? Time really flies when I stare at the tendons in my forearms.

It's the way to go for fretless IMO

I think you should make it more clear in the topic subject that this supersale isn't real... 🙃

I made myself accessible but nobody wanted to talk to me. 😮‍💨 Daryl

I had something similar - recruited to a band, after a few gigs they said no rehearsal this week, then next week the same, then the rhythm guitarist messaged me and told me that the lead guitarist and drummer (brothers) had a mate who wanted to play bass in the band as it was getting some work in, so they'd been rehearsing with him. Rhythm guitarist and singer weren't entirely pleased that it was being kept from me, hence him contacting me. In the end I finished up in another more successful band, which was nice, and put it far enough behind me that I depped for them a few years ago. More recently they asked me to do a dep and to rejoin, but over the intervening period I'd realised that they were a bunch of racist bastards and that would have been a bit problematic for a woke leftie like me, so I turned them down gracefully.

You know when you're stripping wallpaper and you find some funky 60s/70s wallpaper behind the stuff you're stripping?

Not everyday you see a Jaydee MK Supernatural in a charity shop 🙂 A very generous donation from someone. https://tinyurl.com/2pn7mwza

Damn it!! But they are fine on the Ali Express one 🤣

Pay 1400 for a Nate Mendel signature? No thanks. Early 90s Squier neck, Red over Silver base coat later Squier body (looks like CAR in the flesh - not sure what the Squier colour is), Omega Badass clone, SD Quarter Pounders and the usual CTS/Switchcraft/Sprague electronics with a B/W/B pick guard. Noice.

I don’t know about the Bugeras but the Ashdowns & Peaveys will be fine. Of the two brands Peavey are virtually indestructible, Ashdown are UK based with great customer service so any problems they can sort so that’s where I would be looking to put my money.

is it a 1980 4001? If so, you can hear it here! Intrepid bass.. sorry behs goblin Danny Sapko did a vid recently featuring a bunch of basses at Andy Baxter's

This. once you reach pension age, the mortgage is paid off and the kids are off your hands, you can just play what you enjoy and not worry about whether it will go anywhere or pay the bills. A job keeps some money rolling in and helps you stay in touch with the human race. It's a good place to be.

Corner shop?