bassbiscuits

Headlined the Friday night of the Summer Sounds festival in Guisborough with the Elton tribute. Quite a hike from Leicestershire (not helped by closure of section of the M1 due to an accident plus general Friday afternoon traffic). Good gig tho, and a proper summer’s evening there. Decent sized crowd, friendly chilled atmosphere and a good blast to play. Dug out my P bass with flats which I haven’t used for a while and really enjoyed playing.

Along the way I’ve played Alexandra Palace Great Hall, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Edinburgh Queens Hall, Hall for Cornwall in Truro, a couple of big summer festivals in the UK and Europe. The Princess Charlotte in Leicester several times along with Leicester De Montfort Hall with various different bands. I love venues which look great from the stage, so on that alone I’d love to play the Albert Hall and Glastonbury.

My cheap and cheerful Yamaha FG512J acoustic guitar. It lives in the stand next to my bass and is the one I wander around the house playing.

I use them all the time - one each side of my cabs. They are meant to go around horizontal handles on cabs, but will just as easily Velcro onto to the side of any furry cab. I do a lot of dep work and never sure how much space onstage I’ll get so they’re handy to create a self contained little corner for me and my basses. As mentioned above, basses don’t get chipped as they naturally sit on the strap pin so unless the stage is made from particularly craggy rock you’ll be ok.

A few I’d like to have back if I could, but no massive regrets. Fortunately I’ve sold only the basses/guitars that I don’t strictly need - cool things which were ultimately not very versatile or weren’t getting used for whatever reason. If I had more money I’d have kept my Epi Jack Casady, my MIJ Mustang bass, a cream Sandberg TT4 that I’ve seen back in Basschat since, along with guitars including a peachy SG Junior and an Epi Casino, plus some old bombproof Peavey amps I had. But yeah I can live without them.

I wasn’t thinking so much of places being unsafe - I was thinking more like festivals and multi-band gigs where half the time my kit is chucked in some compound while waiting for our slot etc.

I’ve got one vintage bass - a 1970 precision bass. It’s a gigging instrument not a case queen - it’s on its third set of frets and has had various repairs to wiring, jack socket etc. It’s an 54 year old bass at the end of the day. But yeah there are gigs and which aren’t suitable for it, and for those I have a cheap and cheerful pair of Yamaha basses instead. I don’t see the point of owning anything I don’t use, but at the same time I decide whether it’s best left at home for some gigs.

Only one of my current instruments was bought without seeing it first (via Basschat). And that’s only because it’s identical to one I already own, and I had a very detailed description beforehand, so I felt sure it was ok (and it is). I’ve bought other stuff blindly off here before without any trouble - amps, pedals, cabs etc. But basses - I’ve bought enough of them blindly only to be instantly disappointed as soon as they’ve arrived and I’ve played them. If they were in a shop I’d have had the chance to try and put back. So now I only buy basses I’ve played and seen.

I’ve not done well with boutique and / or pricey instruments. I like them, they are interesting etc, but I tend to fallback to using mid-priced stuff you can play to death without worrying. I remember trying out a Fender Custom Shop 1955 P bass (the old fashioned style) which looked incredible but it wasn’t right for me at all. Fender P and J basses, Musicmans etc are popular for a good reason - good examples are versatile dependable gigging instruments.

I’ve played with people I wouldn’t consider friends and I’ve also got musical friends I wouldn’t consider playing with. Whatever your reason for leaving, as long as you do it professionally and give people time to arrange alternative plans then it’s fair enough I think.

That was 2008 - the same year I played there with my band at the time (alas I was horribly hungover and must admit I can’t remember much else about it.) Happy memories eh!

Summer Sundae? As in Leicester Summer Sundae?

I really enjoyed watching/listening to a band called Justice - a French electropop/techno duo who headlined on the Sunday evening at West Holts stage. Immediately got online and bought some. Our house has been ringing with the sounds of it ever since. Excellent work.

Er….. Song: Don’t Stop Me Now, by Queen Band: Superbad Venue: The Piv, Nuneaton Bass: Yamaha BB604

Went to Music Barn festival in Kettering this weekend. Band there called Dub Catalyst whose bassist had a righteous deep fat sound. He had a five string jazz and a Barefaced Big Twin I think but I couldn’t get a good look at his amp. I did wonder if he was someone off Basschat. Good band - 10 piece, with horn section, DJ scratching etc in addition to the usual instruments. Nice vibe for a summer afternoon in a big tent.

Thought Dua Lipa was excellent. Sugababes surprisingly good too. Most of their singing was really good but a couple of songs seemed too low for them to sing.

As said elsewhere you can get a whole lot more for £350. Well into the realms of secondhand Yamaha, Squier, Sire, Ibanez, even nudging secondhand Mexican standard Fenders. Good luck on your mission!

Oh very good Monsieur Tricolour.

I’d say this comes firmly under the “chase is better than the catch,” category of thinking. It’s basses. It’s harmless. Go ahead and enjoy yourself.

We went to Montalivet on the west coast of France last year the standard of bands we saw out and about was very high - Latin sort of dance stuff, gentle background jazz outdoors, some rock and roll. All very decent. Not a rendition of Wonderwall among them thankfully.

Yup. After about 5-10 mins you might notice frothy gunk collecting on the water surface in the middle of the pan. Scoop it off with a spoon and keep going until it stops happening. Take them out, rinse and let them dry out. *Add salt and pepper to taste obviously…”

Of course. I’ve done it loads of times. The idea being that boiling them gets rid of all the gunk caught in the windings and freshens them up. Certainly done it to good effect in the past. In recent years I’ve been using flats and or NYXLs, neither of which seem to need changing.

This summer with my Yamaha and earlier this year with my recently-departed MIJ Mustang bass.

I’ve got an Ashdown head too - a big wide ABM500 - which I prefer the sound quality of in some ways. But it’s twice the size and four times the weight of my MB heads, so I tend to take them to gigs every time instead. There’s lots of other stuff I fancy but I keep coming back to my tried and trusted MB stuff which just sounds right to me.