bassninja

There have been times when I've been 'pro' (i.e. the only pittance coming in to put grub on the table is through gigs), but mostly music has provided enough £, with other bits & pieces, to just keep my chin above the sewage . I now work F/T in the NHS, get paid to play music at work and gig as much as I can with the odd session. I've had the opportunity to tour/sessioneer etc over the years, but have never gone for it because I need music too much for it to become tedious and stressful (like a job). 'Professional' to me relates to your approach, not your status. If you turn up late to a gig with no backline and your leads in a carrier bag (as I have seen 'pros' do more than once), I don't really think you can call yourself professional, regardless of your main source of income.

Coach & Horses, Chichester. A good one for us, plenty of friendlies (including the guv'nor & staff). All went pretty well. There are some folks about who enjoy jambands, after all then... Spontaneous, on the hoof Roundabout>Immigrant Song>Copacabana jam less terrible than it sounds(!) Thanks Steve for travelling to see us.

".....thats to be accepted,it looks plain freaky compared to a [i][b]limited[/b][/i] range Bass" Surely only limited range minds are the problem? Great music has been and will continue to be made on 4/5/6/7/8/9 & more string basses. What about Tony Levin's 3 string MM? Who was it who said " There's only two types of music: stuff I like and stuff I don't..." This feels like a redundant debate to me, of the type you're criticising in the first place.

[quote name='nick' post='129252' date='Jan 28 2008, 01:25 PM']I basically bypass whole EQ section too on my Trace. Could never seem to get a tone I liked without endless fiddling. Sound comes from a Behringer Sansamp-clone pedal thingy....[/quote] +1 When I used SWR gear, my EMG'd Precision with jazz p/up added sounded great with the EQ totally flat and 50/50 on the blend pot, biasing in either direction for punch or snap.

Dave Mattacks

So our banjo player parked outside the gig with his new sparkly Deering banjo left across the passenger seat, because he hadn't got round to buying a f/case for it. He was first to arrive so he put the hazards on and dashed in to find out about the load-in, and when he came back out about 30 seconds later, someone had smashed his passenger side window, reached in and left another banjo on the passenger seat...

Yaay man, I was there too! We must have been near each other 'cos I noticed JPJ by the desk... What did you think? The 'Four movements' was pretty intense. Wasn't quite prepared for it, but looking forward to the album. Check out our myspace (below) for some mando/bass/flatpicking frenzy. I also have loads of Thile & related live stuff if you wanna...

[quote name='OldGit' post='106587' date='Dec 19 2007, 05:15 PM']So how come I'm so skint? "From: SEUK" probably responsible for most of your poverty [/quote] Ahh, you are wise OldGit. I've had to fire the butler just so I can have powdered gold on my cornflakes again.

My guitarist brother (12 yrs older than me) had been gigging for several years in various bands. When I was 16 he gave me a ghastly copy of a Burns Bison (but short scale if that makes sense) and three months to learn his set of covers. Been gigging ever since. Cheers Steve. Fortunately, the gigs I've got since have been through luck, chance meetings, word of mouth and personal recommendation. So I'm pleased to be able to say I've been in at least three bands at a time since I was about 18 (many, many, [i]many [/i] years ago)... So how come I'm so skint?

[quote name='niceguyhomer' post='105749' date='Dec 18 2007, 09:17 AM']We played at a wedding about two months ago and there was a small boy - about 5 years old hanging around the stage, dancing about like they do. He caught the singer's eye and next minute, he got down and was singing to the littl'un when the boy grabbed the mike and started singing along like a good'n. We let this carry on for quite a while because he was really enjoying himself and the audience was loving it. I've found out since that he's autistic and apparently he never stops talking about it. F the money, that's what it's all about.[/quote] Very cool...

Continuing the spirit of 'How was your gig last night?', what was the occasion when you were happiest at a gig, or what is the one stand-out gigging memory you have? For starters... Big Jim Sullivan playing beautiful bebop guitar on my right, and the 'triffik Malcolm Mortimore drumming up a storm to aft. Me grinning like a goon between them at a jazz club in Mid Sussex when up jumps Herbie Flowers on... Tuba! You get the idea...

Er...its a bit weird to be discussing this on the Basschat board, but as well as a lowdown funkin' basspig, I'm an occupational therapist working in psychiatric intensive care. Part of what I am interested in is object relations theory (what things 'mean' to an individual, rather than what they appear to be to others). So a 'forest' to me means something quite specific to me, but to so someone living in the black forest of southern Germany (for example) it has a whole other set of associations relative to that particular culture, upbringing of the individual, local traditional mythology etc. A bit like semantics is viewed by linguists. So my dirty, knackered '73 Precision with all the 'mojo', dripping off it (as you correctly call it) will not feel like its equivalent from the FCS, because I have a relationship with it, and it has been with me for the best part of 20 years, and we have a shared [i]history[/i]. I can tell you where & when most of the dings, gouges and chips came from on my old faithful. With a relic'd instrument, I'm aware its a quality piece of kit, but one that has been made in a calculated fashion by a highly skilled luthier, but one who is recklessly weilding a chisel or a bit of chain/sandpaper for purposes other than the creation of 'mojo'. It feels fake, maybe because you know its fake, that's why I've never really found them that interesting. Here's a more coherent link, if you can face it... [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_relations"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_relations[/url]

My Thumb V has caused some trouble in my left shoulder (probably years of neglect and bad posture too). Comfort Strapp helped a bit but it don't really like the 'sagginess' of it. A good 3" wide strap with a Tesco seat belt cushion (about £3) is helping at the moment. Best thing I did was to visit a chiropractor, though.

Friday at The Fountain in Chichester. Went pretty well considering the band haven't even been in the same room for the last 3 months, what with other commitments etc (!) After 15 odd years of playing together, we know each other pretty well and the friendly crowd was behind us. We do quite a lot of Grateful Dead/Little Feat/Allman Bros type stuff, and it was nice see people getting off on the jams. Railway in Bognor Regis tonight with a jazzy/acoustic trio, and I'm right up for it...

'Live at the Wetlands' is on my desert island list... Loads of free (approved) live d/ls at [url="http://www.archive.org/"]http://www.archive.org/[/url]

[quote name='Sean' post='83655' date='Nov 4 2007, 07:35 PM']Cancelled! [/quote] Bummer...

So how did it go? Ours was a 21st party with people dressed as cowboys penguins and pirates. A bit random...

MB1. More than one band with the name Premature Ejeculators?...... well you know what they say?........."First come,First Served". [/quote] I 'spose whoever came first would get to keep the name...

Flinty Imp Nurture?

Play live as soon as you can. Even if it doesn't go as you'd hoped, you'll have learned a hundred times more useful stuff than you would have done by sitting noodling meaningfully during The Antiques Roadshow...

There's a superb cover of King Crimson's 'Thela Hun Ginjeet' by the Frog Brigade with a great bass solo at the beginning of the 2002 Bonnaroo DVD. No joy from YouTube as far as I can see though.

[quote name='jacko' post='56042' date='Sep 5 2007, 04:24 PM']Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Billy Kreutzman are currently my favourites[/quote] Definitely +1 for The Dead but also... Dave Pegg/Dave Mattacks: Fairport/Tull/Nick Drake/Richard Thompson/John Martyn etcetcetc Mike Gordon/Jon Fishman of Phish

Also just got a Behringer BDI21. Great, cheap alternative (who said rip off?) of a SamAmp DI thingy.

I was in a jazz trio with session supremo Big Jim Sullivan for a while. Learned an awful lot fast. Got to meet & play with Herbie Flowers at a few of those gigs (looks like at least 75% of us here have met Herbie though. Nice bloke nonetheless...) I did an unrehearsed dep for a band at a party at Roger Taylor's enormous Surrey pad (the Queen drumming one). Met Gary Glitter (uurgh...), cool bassman Phil Spalding, Martin Chambers from the Pretenders, etc etc. Tony Hadley wee'd on my foot there... (by accident I hasten to add). Alvin Stardust. Richard O'Brien (Crystal Maze, Rocky Horror Show etc) said I played bass like a piano player's left hand. I think it was a compliment... I performed in a musical with 80s DJ Mike Read & Radio 4's mellifluous voiced announcer Peter Donaldson. He had us howling with laughter at his selections from the shipping forecast (just kidding ;-) But the best one was with a personal hero from my prog days: David Palmer from Jethro Tull. I remember him as a bearded pipe smoking Bloke behind a pipe organ and bank of synths... I met her shortly after her sex change when she became Dee Palmer. Got a peck on the cheek at the end of 'Locomotive Breath' though...

Should be in my signature thingy. Ah yes, there it is...