Deep Thought

[quote name='D.I. Joe' timestamp='1347985801' post='1807713'] Btw, anyone heading to Looe festival this weekend? [/quote] Yeah me-I plan on getting there to catch you guys. No prizes for guessing who I'm there to see though-Kernow King! (joke!) Weather doesn't look too promising though.

Strikes me that for metal these days you need it down by your knees, with the headstock somewhere around your left ear! Playing with a shorter strap a few years ago played merry Hell with my tennis elbow (I still blame learning 'Hit me with your Rhythm Stick' for giving it to me in the first place!), as playing with a flexed elbow made it worse, so mine resides just below belt level these days for a straighter arm.

I'm aware of both, and I like some examples of both styles-but am I into them? No.

Suite XVI-like it! Wouldn't go for the mirror plate myself, but love the black headstock and rosewood board! You'll love it! (surely he's made more than 16 by now? Mine is no.6 and dates from 2005).

[quote name='Spike Vincent' timestamp='1346355507' post='1788323'] Twas Stiff Little Fingers,so it would have been Ali McMordie. [/quote] Likewise-about 1979 I think, Cornwall Coliseum. Next gig was UK Subs and after that the Stranglers.

The time is now-Moloko African and White-China Crisis

We frequently get filming going on round here. Just down the road from me is Charlestown, where they've filmed everything from The Eagle has Landed (had a school trip there when I was a kid whilst they were filming-got Michael Caine's autograph, since lost. Had never heard of Donald Sutherland or Robert Duvall) to the Three Musketeers-my mate took Charlie Sheen and Keifer Sutherland out in his boat for a day's fishing during the filming. We have a lot of clay pits which have been used for Dr.Who, Blake's 7, the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy-every time they need a bleak, barren alien landscape they come to St.Austell! There's the Eden Project which they filmed one of the Bond films at, there's Roche Rock where they filmed a bit of the last Omen film. It's a regular Hollywood down here-oh and of course every year they're back in Port Isaac to film another series of Doc Martin. Also they filmed the video to Alison Moyet's 'Is this Love?' at the now derelict Cornwall Coliseum, where I saw many a band during my formative years.

I have one thing to say on this subject-AC/DC. They might sound like one-finger bass lines, and most of them are, but they do the job, and they're often not as easy to play as they seem.

I had Schallers on both basses for a while-I got fed up with having to keep retightening or reglueing the strap button screws into place-plus all the clanking and rattling got on my nerves as well. When I got my Shuker it didn't have them-Jon fits them as standard nowadays, but didn't when mine was made, and I didn't get it new. Jon even offered to send me a set for free, but I wasn't about to start messing with the screws on my JJ, so I went for bottle washers (I got some nice blue ones from posh water) which I'm still using on both my basses with no problems whatsoever.

Still my favourite;- Stranger from another planet, welcome to our hole Just strap on your guitar, and we'll play some rock'n'roll (Stranglers, (Get a) Grip (on yourself) I also like:- Adam Chance and Zorro, take them with a pinch of salt, Sad about tomorrow, sorry, but it's not my fault (The Damned, History of the World part 1) In similar vein:- You want me to beg forgiveness, tender an apology It's not my fault and you're not getting one from me (Husker Du, Sorry Somehow) and also:- Black Shuck-that dog don't give a f***! (The Darkness, Black Shuck)

I used to soldier on in the original key a song was written in (I'm our lead vocalist), but eventually we learned that we all sounded better if I wasn't straining to hit notes. Thus we'll do it as written if it works, and if we can we'll change the key if it doesn't. Several songs got the boot from the set because I couldn't sing them and it wasn't practical to change the key-although having recently started downtuning a semitone, I'm finding some can be reintroduced.

[quote name='GarethFlatlands' timestamp='1344284605' post='1762329'] I vaguely remember an interview where he said he karate chopped it into pieces by accident, although I might have made that up. [/quote] I believe it was broken when the band's equipment was attacked by the Raggare (Rockabilly types who didn't like punk) in Sweden. It was repaired-his Shuker is based on the best bits of that one and his black Precision, I'm fairly sure it still exists. He broke his Yamaha when he thumped it, as he still does with his Shuker, but that was built to take it!

I have been known to play bass and harmonica at the same time.

I also have the Line 6 G30 and am well pleased with it-although if honest, if I had the cash I probably would go for the G50-I believe the transmitter unit is metal not plastic, and the G30 unit has a minor issue with the battery compartment door, which can be a bit of a sod to close with a set of batteries in. This is a known fault which has come up several times on the Line 6 support forums, I get the impression Line 6 deny the problem exists. It's only a minor niggle, it closes eventually with a bit of fiddling, and in use I have no complaints with the unit. One thing I will say is use decent batteries-when I first got mine it would eat a set of pound shop cheapo batteries in an hour-plus I was using a normal length lead between receiver and amp. Switched to Duracells (also available at our local pound shop!) and bought a short patch lead, and battery life has improved enormously. I understand the transmitter unit clip is more robust on the G50 too.

I'm sure we've all had this scenario-punter wants you to play his/her favourite song, despite the fact that you don't know it, and can't get their head around the concept that a band can't just play a song at will. I had it at our last gig, from the chap organising it, in all seriousness 'that chap over there thinks you have a good voice for Joy Division, any chance you could play some?'. Well I don't know about everyone else's band, but we certainly can't just bash out a song on demand with no rehearsal. I really like Joy Division, but I doubt, with the possible exception of 'Love will tear us apart', the other two have even heard anything by them. I had to explain that a band is not a juke box and cannot just pluck a song out of a hat. I still don't think he got it!

+1 for Walk on By, but this is one of my faves. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU1VfYYKMDk[/media] as is this [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOuSxal8pf4"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOuSxal8pf4[/url]

Yeah but it'll never sound as good as an Ampeg SVT through an 8X10. Well played, enjoy it!

All of our band are in the ambulance service, we started it for a laugh and a bit of an escape from the day job. For many years we've been of the opinion that a gig was a gig and as we were doing it for fun, we didn't really care about the money. Thus we did several ambulance service retirement do's and charity events for nothing. Pub gigs on the other hand, we always felt we should be paid for-plenty of other bands rely on the income, and we didn't want to start undercutting them, so we've never gone down the route of doing one for free in the hope of getting paid thereafter. So those we get paid for, not a lot but it comes in handy. Lately we've become a lot more rigid with the charity stuff, it's bloody hard getting three of us off work at the same time, childcare issues are involved, and we basically are no longer doing anything for nothing-we at least want expenses paid, unless it's very much to our advantage for whatever reason to do the gig for free.

Yeah he's had the rosewood Shuker for quite a while-I noticed it in the rack at the side of the stage back in 2008. That's the one Baz was using when they did 'Dead Loss Angeles' last year on the tour. I believe JJ had nos. 1, 2 and 3 that Jon made-mine is no.6! The Yamaha apparently broke when he thumped it as he tends to do, after which he went back to the Precision. He used a Steinberger for a while, and has even been seen, briefly, with a WAL.

I've tried most of the strings going, and have now setteld on D'Addario XL nickels as they seem to keep their 'zing' longer than most i.e. I can usually get more than one gig out of them. If my local shop doesn't have those, D'Addario Pro Steels. Tried a set of their 'new' coated strings a while ago with no discernable difference.

I'm absolutely blowed if I'm going to gig and leave my Shuker JJ at home-so about £16-1700 I believe at the moment. I try to look after it, but at the end of the day it was made to be played, preferably live. However I'm prepared to bet that if your average tea-leaf was going to swipe one out of my two basses, he'd ignore the Shuker and take the Mex Fender next to it, as most people wouldn't know a Shuker from a ukelele.

I knocked this up out of an old leather strap. Works quite well. [IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v317/MikeyB17/DSCF4399.jpg[/IMG]

I used to get it quite badly, had a fair bit of time off work with it. I had two steroid injections, which gave temporary relief but it came back again. I went to a physio who got me doing stretch exercises on my forearm tendons, plus strength exercises for the muscles, and I hardly suffer from it at all now. If I get the odd twinge, a few stretches will sort it.

Had mine since 2009-only problem I've had was, again, a noisy master volume switch, which a drop of switch cleaner sorted out fine.