Leaderboard

Been playing for decades now. Big stages and small, theatrical to rock and roll and every point in between. 2017 the wheels fell off, lost marriage, home, mental health, work, just about all of it. Was lucky to have a family member willing to put me up so had a roof. Got a small pay off from the ex so she could keep everything and help ease my way into whatever awaited. Decided to embrace my 'freedom'. Buy decent gear, keep a vehicle on the road and get out there and call myself a musician. Took lessons, joined bands, started bands, depped in bands, placed ads answered ads. Gave it my all. This week the money ran out. I'm not earning anything apart from the occasional dep slot in a function band and the odd £50 here and there which gets eaten by petrol and rehearsal money. So I finally lived the dream, for a whole 13 months. Got pretty good at the bass by playing for hours every day. Learned I can improvise live to a good enough standard to get paid and asked back. Made some friends. But that's it. I'm going to have to get a job and go back to being a hobby bassist. Unfortunately at my age and with my checkered employment history, the economy about to collapse, and enjoying very unstable mental health, my prospects are not great. Perhaps I just left it too late. I did enjoy saying 'musician' when people asked what I do for a living, that was the first and only time since entering the workplace in 1980 that I've derived any pleasure from answering that question. But it was a sham.

Just got new bass into family and needed to share it with dear basschaters

...And I'm fecking loving learning the bass. I didn't want to be one of those guitarists that would pick up a bass and think by default that they can play the instrument. No. And whilst the guitar actually feels quite alien in my hands now (I must factor in enough practice time) actively learning the Bass has been the best decision I have made in many a year. Thanks for your support ✊

I nearly put this in the Gigs section but as it is a bit more of an event figured it was better housed in General Discussion. Just before Christmas I went up to Camden in the rain and did an audition for what was initially a dep gig. It's kind of grown and I am now doing 2 tours of the UK and going over to Italy, Denmark and Sweden. I appreciate we've all got different tastes but if Glam tinged Power Pop is your thing come and see me at one of the shows. Last Great Dreamers are the band and I have known them through mutual friends since '94 (small world but I gigged with the new drummer back then too). I'll be firing up my new Orange rig and I'm just deciding on which basses to take. It's going to be a lot of fun. Wed 13th February - EDINBURGH Bannermans (w/Enuff Znuff) Thu 14th February - LONDON Lounge666 (w/Enuff Znuff) Fri 15th February - NUNEATON Queens Hall (w/Enuff Znuff) Sat 16th February - BRADFORD Trash (w/Enuff Znuff) Sun 17th February - BUCKLEY Tivoli (w/Enuff Znuff) Mon 18th February - STOKE ON TRENT Eleven (w/Enuff Znuff) Thu 21 February - (TBC) (ITALY) (w/Enuff Znuff) Fri 22nd February - VERCELLI Sonore (ITALY) (w/Enuff Znuff) Sat 23rd February - SAN DONA DI PIAVE Revolver (ITALY) (w/Enuff Znuff) Sun 24th February - BERGAMO UFO (TALY) (w/Enuff Znuff) Wed 27th February - VARBURG Backstage (SWEDEN) (w/Enuff Znuff) Thu 28th February - GOTHENBURG Tregaarden (SWEDEN) (w/Enuff Znuff) Fri 1st March - OSLO Olsen (NORWAY) (w/Enuff Znuff) - TICKETS Fri 15th March - BRADFORD The Underground (w/Electric Boys) Sat 16th March - HRHAOR Festival (Prestatyn, Wales) Sun 17th March - BLACKPOOL Waterloo (w/Electric Boys) Mon 18th March - EDINBURGH Bannermans (w/Electric Boys) Tue 19th March - NEWCASTLE Think Tank (w/Electric Boys) Wed 20th March - LONDON Underworld (w/Electric Boys) Thu 21st March - MILTON KEYNES Crauford Arms (w/Electric Boys) Fri 22nd March - BUCKLEY Tivoli (w/Electric Boys) Thu 18th April - LONDON – Hope & Anchor (Rockaway Beach Club)

This isn't going to end well - I have a beard and a lot of tools. Only today, I was assembling my nice new pillar drill!

I had a Ford Escort that was like that.

Spare a thought for the poor little so-n-so that eagerly opened his tenth birthday present of... Cork sheets. ...

Yes (shortened from the classic "Yes, we have no bananas").

Listened to this earlier after a while of hearing it, apart from being such a fantastic record, the bass playing is so great. Fits the feel of Eltons song so well. Holds the groove perfectly and and plays such great passing notes between the roots, as well as the subtle 16th notes now and again.

And I get to keep my DAY JOB!!!!!

You realise when you post one of these threads that’s me gone for the evening listening to music for hours!!

I think we're talking about 2 different issues. I'm talking about those not willing to put the effort and work into learning a song. That's lazy in my book. Blue

Was that bog standard music you were playing

You're scaring me. 😥

Until they start paying there due tax bill I will not use them for anything. They have destroyed competition and high street retailers by avoiding paying taxes and screwing warehouse staff. Awfull company. I dont care how "legal" their tax avoidance is, its morally wrong and unfair to competition.

...yeah! And his beard-oil & 'craft lager' made by a US megabrewery! (To be drunk out of a jam-jar when he gets back to his urban collective)

where else is he gonna put his artisan cheese, handcrafted sourdough bread and jar of stuffed olives?

I think amazon get bad press because they don't pay enough tax, I blame Governments for that, nobody pays more tax than they've got to, but their business model and customer service is spot on in my experience, which is why they're so successful

-

Well I have caved and now have the Club Cab on its way and have just ordered the Lo Cab too. I even tried to barter on the price haha... didn't work. haha

Fixed. No need to thank me.

That's f**kin obvious...

Dude, who knows?? I suspect that cetera may be a bit old to be part of my potential offspring, but the thing is that I have been around a bit and I've just got a clue how it works...

Contrary to common belief learning and covering songs is not easy. It takes committment, drive, ability and time to do it properly. This is just my theory , I think people with strong backgrounds in originals resist learning covers because they feel it's beneath them. I'm sorry but in actuality it's because they probably don't have what it takes to learn a cover properly. What's so frustrating is there are tons of good bass and guitar YouTube tutorials showing you exactly how to play a song from start to end. I have first hand experience with folks that absolutely refuse to learn covers properly. And they all have a million poor excuses. The real reason is, they don't want to put in the work required. Sorry for the rant, but this is a " hot button" topic for me. Blue

I know Amazon gets a lot of bad press but I would like to praise them for their excellent customer service. Over the past few years I have purchased a variety of items from them and if I ever want to return something for whatever reason, I always find them most helpful and they usually either replace the item or offer a full refund. This morning I removed the Seymor Duncan Quarter Pounder pickup from my precision bass which I purchased from Amazon last June 2018, I was going to replace it with a Fender CS 62 pickup which is more suitable for the genre I play, but in doing so, one of the wires detached itself from the pickup, before removing it, my original intention was to sell it on through our marketplace, but after discovering the detached wire, I thought that if I re-soldered the wire back, it might put people off buying it. I then thought that it should still covered by the warranty, so I called Amazon to see how I go about returning it for a repair, I explained what had happened and straight away the person asked if I want a replacement or a full refund, obviously I went for a full refund seeing that I was going to sell it anyway. When I look back at some of the problems I've had with some of the so called reputable music stores where they deny all responsibility, and usually say you should return the item to the manufacturer, it makes me think that I might be better off buying most of my musical items from Amazon in future.

Think it was just a fancy paint job, no special pickups or circuit.

Thanks for clearing that up😂

Yeah, like Finland to England, pootle around the country and then back again. 6000 miles in a few weeks. That kind of long ride.

I take my hand off the neck for various reasons. Thumb cramps up sometimes, ease the arthritic pain in the finger joints, a few times to use a Yo-yo in a particularly long and pointless guitar solo and once, to actually go for a pee whilst continuing to play Let's work together (in A) we were playing in front of the loos and the gents door was right behind me😂

Absolutely no reason to be forking out for a US fender with these on the market. I’ve owned a few us one in the past , these are nicer

ha ha beard oil, yes indeed. Now I only have a perma stubbly face (more out of laziness than design) - but was amused by all these beard care kits now available in Boots. Beard comb, beard brush, beard shampoo and wait for it ..beard glitter! Before I go any further I've not insulted any proud beard stylists here have I?😁

Revisiting this, I've just ordered a Gruv Gear Gigblade Edge guitar bag. The internal dimensions state a length of 43.5", which would fit the Mustang perfectly. It's not a full-on top-of-the-line bag like their Gigblade 2 or the Mono M80 cases, but it's a big step-up from the disappointment of the Fender FS610 that came out a couple of months ago: https://gruvgear.com/products/gigblade-edge Should arrive on Thurs, so I'll report back then. Si

Not sure marriage will get you a free bass, but you never know! Si

Well lookie what landed today! So... this is a Limelight Precision, with a '67 spec in a light-relic LPB finish. I ordered it last year, and had a good chat with the - extremely pleasant - Mark at Limelight to discuss the spec and the level of relic'ing. I wanted the finish to be a little more muted, so it glows a bit more, and he's obliged. It's a nice weight, less than 9lbs, helped by the Gotoh Res-o-Lites, which bumped the cost up a little more. I've just put proper strings on it (it came with fairly light rounds), and it sounds just like I'd hoped. A really nice P... and it cost significantly less than a Fender Roadworn MIM. I'm about to start a solid week of rehearsals, so lots of time to give it a run out. Happy days!

I am seriously thinking about the V2 M900. I have the V1 and I really like it - but an IR loader and on-board compression would be very useful to me. Apparently the fan is now multi-speed so it's v.slow or off when playing at low levels. That alone has me moist.

Motorhead... the song was written while Lemmy was still in Hawkwind.

Go in a different direction.Put the money into a hire/rent/lease arrangement for a decent double bass and some lessons.You will have a lot of fun and will be a few steps along the winding path that leads to the dark side! 😊

I asked about teaching for a reason, I know very few ‘professional musicians’ who are JUST musicians. Most teach, write, make gear, produce for other people etc etc. I think you can continue, but simply expand upon the things you do already. But also, as above, it’s not unusual for amazing musicians to have a job. Mike Bendy works for Apple, Bryan Beller was a VP whilst still playing, Juan Alderete worked in data before he got the Mars Volta gig (I think). There’s a romanticism about being a ‘professional musician’ that sometimes forgets that music is about life, not really the other way around. Si

Only in certain areas: if it's all virtuoso noodly stuff then no, the returns in punter appreciation are likely to be sparse outside of the odd muso in the audience, but if the work has gone into making the band very very tight and gets the punters up and dancing/singing/engaged, then they'll appreciate it. IMHO, IME, etc, etc...

This - this - is the attitude to have. You have to pay the bills, but that doesn't mean that the thing you love doing automatically has to take a back seat just because you're a wage-slave. It depends on how you see yourself and your place in the world - are you Employee Number 12345678 or Stew the bassist who's putting some hours in to pay the bills?

Streamer Pro M (1998). For someone who loves both Streamers and Stingrays, this feels like the perfect bass. It’s possibly my all-time favourite. The first of them had wenge necks and only one preamp, which were soon replaced by the ovangkol/ twin preamp models. The controls on this are stacked Bass/ Treble, Pickup Blend, and Volume (with push/ pull Passive Switch). When in passive mode, tone is controlled via the pickup blend. The tonal range of the Pro M is deceptively broad. It’s very versatile, given how closely the twin J pickups sit together within that single housing. There’s a hum-cancelling dummy coil between the pickups too, so it’s very clean sounding when on one pickup or the other. This bass is the very definition of ‘punchy’ 🙂

Absolutely no shame and, to me, you are what your heart tells you. This dawned on me several years ago when I was playing in an excellent band on the south coast. We had the chance to turn pro but the singer didn't want to. He was a huge fish in that small pond but ................ he was a builder by trade. The rest of us concluded that there is an important difference. He was a singing builder and not a building singer. You should not think any less of yourself for doing what you have done and where it is led you. There are bound to be a whole bunch of us here who have done the full time thing and then had to get a 'real' job to pay the bills. As has been said, there are any number of acts that have real jobs to make sure the bills are paid. That's just a fact of like and it doesn't define you. It took me a while to realise that.

Lovely grain texture showing through.

Death Cab for Cutie (Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band)

Most Jazz musicians are employed as teachers and get the bulk of their income from that rather than performing and recording. The relationship that each of us has with our music is very much our own. We define it as we see fit.

Now that would be the ultimate Rock pose. But you still replied showing you have a stronger opinion on one handed playing than you lead us to believe. Perhaps you are a secret one handed bass player but too ashamed to come clean on the forum. Take some comfort knowing that its not a death sentence, its an illness that can be cured by proper training, coaching and understanding of why people do this. Always remember you are never alone on BC. Humourous and light-hearted threads or posts are what makes life worth living. Enjoy them for what they are. Dave

And he has a basket on his bike - What a W ⚓. ☹️

Stewblack, I feel for you. Sometimes life can be a s##t. But, reread what you wrote above, and pick out the good bits. You worked hard and clearly enjoyed, and are still enjoying, the status of being a respected muso. You don't have to stop, just because you have to get some sort of dayjob for a while. It's very common amongst actors as I expect you know - they call it 'resting' (!) And you've made good friends and contacts, and this is maybe the most valuable thing of all. So, keep on keeping on, as they say... 🙂