Rayman

I’ll jump in on this too. I’m 61, and I’m still fronting an original heavy rock band, the same band I joined in 1982. Were recording a new album and it’s sounding absolutely awesome, very pleased with it, and live were better than ever. My voice is still holding up, and young people who come to see us love the stuff, it’s old school, like their dads listen to, and it goes down pretty well. THAT SAID…….. a month ago, my best pal lost his battle with cancer. He was 59 and an amazing metal guitarist. I helped lower him into the ground to the sound of “Where were you?” By Jeff Beck. In January, my mum died. No great surprise, but still, you know. In February our drummers wife had a heart attack and died for 10 minutes. Somehow, they revived her and she survived, but unfortunately with severe brain damage, so he has his hands full looking after her. The band, keeps him sane. My point. If you’re young and you’re reading this, be all you can be. Take nothing for granted, don’t waste time being miserable, do the things that make you happy, with the people that make you happy, play music, love music, all music, and most of all, KICK ASS. If you’re old and reading this, all of the above also applies to you, x2. F*** getting old.

I like him too, but I wish he’d just wind it in a bit. The crass punkesque attire is a bit irritating, but, it gets him noticed, so job done there I guess. I like the fact that he isn’t a virtuoso, there’s too many of them on YT already.

Nice…. Interested to see how that went. I’m big time into fretless at the moment, just not sure I could pull off a whole set on one.

Strings are so important, it’s pretty obvious really, but you play the strings not the bass. The strings are the interface you interact with, so it’s so important to have strings that feel and sound right. Personally I love well worn in strings, maybe a year or two, but when they really die off I don’t like that dull tone. Equally I don’t like brand new zingy strings either, definitely somewhere in the middle, but it’s very subjective, horses for courses.

I did have a spare set of old 80s BB tuners from my Yamaha days, but I don’t think I still have them. I will double check.

So I bought a Ditto mini looper from Juan Alderete. I’m a fan and wanted a looper, so I bought it from him. Anyway with one thing and another I only just got around to booting it up, and hey presto, the last loop he was working on with his fretless bass is still on there! It was a bit weird hearing it to be honest, I mean he’s not dead or anything but it’s very cool to have one of his loops. So do I keep it? Can you save them?

This.

Another vote for a V7, 5er in my case. With 20+ basses to choose from, the V7 is still my #1 play at home bass. Absolutely lovely to play and it’ll do anything totally. Mine was ridiculously inexpensive used, and I wouldn’t be without it.

Yeah we had stunned silence a couple of times in the past. I remember playing the Nottingham Palais to a couple of thousand people, and literally at the end of the songs it was silent 😆, very odd situation. I’ve been spat at, had ashtrays thrown at me…. Etc etc, all many years ago now thankfully.

Yeah, we’re pretty lucky most of the time, playing original heavy rock to audiences who often don’t know the songs, we go down pretty well a lot of the time. However sometimes it just doesn’t click, and on a wet Tuesday night the folks that came to see what was on just didn’t seem to be into us. Cest la vie! The band before us went down pretty well, playing kind of indie rock, and they were great, but our 80s style heavy rock just didn’t do it for them. All part of the fun, and I’ll take indifference over hostility every time! lol, because we’ve had both down the years! Thankfully the days of having stuff thrown are long gone! 😆

Nice little venue in Manchester, good sound and engineer, and we played pretty well, but the audience weren’t into it. I wheeled out the Yamaha RBX A2 5, which sounded fantastic, ace low B, so I’ll defo use that again. My TCBQ500 via a house Warwick 4x10 sounded decent, and so easy to walk across town with just the bass and head in a rucksack.

Anything with “Yamaha” on it is fabulous. From my old BB3000S to an RBX175 I had, and a whole bunch of others in between, everything they make is great. One of my current favourites is an RBX A2 5, which is absolutely superb. I recorded with it last week and sounded immense, great low B.

I have one somewhere, but I upgraded the electrics to Vol/Vol/Tone CTS etc. I have a feeling that it was Volume, Blend, Tone originally. Sorry that isn’t a definitive answer.

Easily my best acquisition was this Hohner fretless jazz, used, from a BCer, I’ve upgraded the electrics to CTS etc and put a Fender high mass bridge on it, everything is as it was. The pickups are awesome, stock I presume, and the neck is lovely…. Its for a specific album track we’re recording, and I haven’t put it down since. The worst thing I bought was an Ibanez SR506 that doesn’t work, but possibly my own fault to be fair. It’ll be the first project of 2026.

A couple of decent gigs….. loving the P bass and favouring the TC BQ500 & 4x10 at the moment. One night in Leeds…. and one in Stoke…. Both fun ones, and the new songs seemed to go down well.

Glenn Hughes last night at the Ritz in Manchester. Still absolutely fabulous, I love his pick playing, and his voice…. Absolutely mesmerising, still, at 74yrs old. Amazing performance. Sophie Lloyd supported and came onto join in on Burn. She’s a decent guitarist, although her stuff wasn’t really my bag.

Absolutely my all time favourite player, and he rarely gets any credit….. the bass lines for XTC on Drums and Wires or Black Sea, are absolutely outstanding and completely original. Nobody sounds like that…. go and listen to Roads Girdle The Globe from Drums and Wires, and give your ears a treat.

I do it all for us, but unless there’s a joke to be had, usually at the expense of someone in the audience, I keep it to a minimum. I think it’s important to have a bit of chat between songs… but the big no no as far as I’m concerned, is introducing individual bands members. Literally nobody cares.

Yeah I don’t think I’ve seen a Steinberger in the flesh, it’d be interesting to try one. This Hohner sounded surprisingly big, and much darker than the P bass. It was a nice contrast.

Good one last night. I used the TC rig rather than my usual Ashdown, and it sounded great, lots of clout via the 4x10. The P bass was magnificent as always, but it was a lot of fun using the Hohner B2 for a D tuned number. Cool venue and a very lovely audience.

The Blossoms, Stockport. Great little venue. Leaf is the promoter, not the new name of the band. Our smallest setup due to the size of the place, so just the ABM500 combo, but it sounded pretty good, although I could’ve done with raising it up a bit. The P bass was great, a bit zingy with new strings, but very happy with it. Cool little gig.