casapete

Confession time - I also have a Danelectro Longhorn ( okay 29 and 3/4 “ scale) which is never going to leave me, so that makes 3 shorties really. I’m currently trying to reduce my bass / amp collection, and just concentrate on keeping stuff that gets used. ( Oh yeh, also forgot the Ibanez PNB14E acoustic - that’s 25”, and Fender Kingman 30”). 😁

Or The Moody Blues.

I’m the same with my U5, not a problem for me. My issue now is that I have two 30” scale basses - the U5 and a Squier Jaguar a mate has recently given me - and only really need one, but which needs to be moved on? Both have their good points, and are almost identical weight wise. Going to take them on gigs over the next few weeks to try and decide.

It’s a fairly budget system comprising two passive bins with internal crossovers linked to two 10 inch passive tops. We use a Yamaha EM512SC to power these, 2x500 watts. It all works okay, but does need upgrading. Did a gig recently where we used in house QSC powered 12 inch cabs and it sounded great. Ideally would like something to handle acoustic guitar, acoustic / electric bass as well as 2 vocal mikes, probably powered cabs like your Mackies or similar. RCF stuff gets lots of recommendations on here too, so will have to start looking.

Two gigs again for me this week. Wednesday as usual at the rock n roll club. Plenty of dancers in, but very hot though - think the club have stopped using the air con till next year! I did ‘ Memphis Tennessee’ in my now regular Chuck Berry spot, and went down well. Always a bit knackered next day after playing mainly fast songs for nearly two hours, fingers / hands in particular a bit achy. Sunday afternoon saw our duo performing at our favourite pub in Beverley, The Sun Inn. With it being a bank holiday weekend it turned out to be almost ridiculously busy, all seats & tables taken and little standing room before we even started playing. We had the usual wide range of requests, ranging from ‘Guantanamera’ and ‘He’ll have to go’ ( Ry Cooder style) to ‘Dead Flowers’ ( Stones ) and even some Coldplay ( following their recent Hull gigs!). I used a Squier Jaguar shortie into my Rumble 500, leaving the PA for vocals and acoustic guitar. Our PA only just coped with things TBH, so we will be needing to address updating it soon I think, especially as whilst packing down the landlord offered us a series of monthly gigs for all of 2026.

Sounds like a typical function gig audience! We did one a couple of weeks ago and it was exactly the same scenario. Thank god for alcohol though eh? 😅

Albert Collins was another guitarist favouring the ‘wrong’ shoulder.

Fender, Peavey, Hartke, Trace Elliot and Ampeg have all used active/passive input options at some point. This does seem to have mostly died out now though, with just the input level control handling the job. ( More than once I’ve plugged a bass into the ‘wrong’ input, so suits me. ) 😆

A welcome return to one of our favourite venues this Sunday. Should hopefully be busy with it being a Bank Holiday weekend.

Saturday evening (23rd August) there are some interesting programmes on BBC2. Starting at 9.10pm is ‘We want the funk’, a documentary showing the roots of funk right through to Parliament - Funkadelic. This is followed at 10.30 by a showing of James Brown at London’s Electric Proms from 2006, and then at 11.30pm is the original classic movie ‘Shaft’ from 1971.

Precisions for me were the first thing that floated my boat, and always will. Had a few, starting with a ( bit of a dog ) late 70’s job, which amazingly didn’t put me off buying another , an early Squier 57 which I wish I still had. Wonderful, vibrant and fairly light - the polar opposite of the first one. Soon after I acquired my 63 Precision which I’ve now owned for around 40 years, and I still love it. Whilst in a function band I got into Stingrays which always seemed a logical route to follow after a P-bass. Had a late 70’s one ( sooo heavy), then a couple of nice 80’s / 90’s ones along with a couple of USA Subs, one of which may have been my favourite. A shoulder injury meant looking for something less heavy, so I tried a P- Lyte which I bonded with immediately. Had maybe 5 of these over the years, and have kept my ( slightly road worn ) sunburst mid 90’s one which I use for most gigs these days. Although not really Precision like, I still prefer the simplicity of a standard P-bass really - had mine concerted to passive. I’ve had a Jazz and just didn’t get on with the controls, pickups or body shape TBH! As I’ve got older I’ve got into short scales too. Started off with a Dano Longhorn which is ace, and currently have a Sire U5, a Squier Jaguar and a Fender Kingman, all around 30 inch scale.

Using two ( or more ) SVT8x10 cabs in any configuration when doing a TV session or anything other than maybe a festival stage. I mean, how deaf do you have to be? 🤨

Don’t think I’ve ever fallen out with any previous band members but had one or two resent my leaving, despite giving them decent notice etc. The last band I left were brilliant though, and I still keep in touch with them. From my experience it’s been mainly singers who seek / want a drama when they leave. Instead of working as normal through their period of notice, I’ve seen some just start stupid behaviour on gigs or just putting no effort in at all, as if maybe ( shock horror ) they’re seeking attention of any kind. On more than one occasion this has led to near physical interventions from the band, especially when one singer was caught giving out business cards on our gig to the new outfit he was setting up in an attempt to steal our clients. He was lucky to walk away from that incident I think. 🤨

That’s just two reasons why wedding bands get paid more money than pub bands though? I spent around 15 years in a pro function band and played probably thousands of weddings in that time. My band would usually play 4 sets throughout the day, starting with a walkabout jazz set when guests arrived, then some cool stuff during the wedding breakfast, followed by two evening sets to get them all dancing. This would mean we’d often have to arrive around noon / early afternoon and finish maybe 12 hours later. All this after maybe a 2 or 3 hour drive to the venue. Factor in hotel managers who saw the band as an annoyance / wedding planners who had no idea how long it took for an 8 piece band to set up / learning first dance tunes for the bride and groom / drunk guests etc etc, then it made the difference between us and pub bands very apparent. In the mid / late 90’s we would get £250 /£300 each, often more for longer sets / far away gigs etc. We certainly earned it , and could see why pub bands wanted to get in on the action. They would seem financially more attractive, undercutting us by a large margin etc. and we did lose some of the lower end of our business to them. However by then our reputation had grown so the bulk of our work remained intact. Scroll on a few years though as finances got squeezed everywhere , pub bands benefitted from this and pure function bands started to suffer. Our band’s work got hit quite badly, so I eventually jumped ship into the rising tribute / theatre band world, and never regretted it. 2 x 1 hour sets, my own dressing room, no lugging gear into damp marquees, start playing 7.30pm and done by 10pm, pro sound engineers / PA, what’s not to like….😁

I’ve not heard of Nevr Dull before, but a quick Google shows it to appear to be very similar to Duraglit, which I’ve used for years with good results. It’s now owned by Brasso, and marketed as Brasso ‘with Duraglit’ I believe. Easy to use and no mess. Great idea, will try that next time - thanks.

Two gigs this week. Wednesday at the rock and roll club was a good one - old friend of ours on drums who is really easy for me to lock on with, so it made for an enjoyable evening. Some people in from South Africa who danced most of the night, and were most complementary. Usual mix of stuff, with me doing what’s now appearing to be a weekly Chuck Berry medley. As some of them are so similar it’s easy to mix them up, although I seem to remember Chuck did this too sometimes so let’s just put it down to authenticity. P-bass Lyte into Hartke 3500 head / Loud 4x10 cab. Then last night I was depping with some friends in their pub rock band. Bit of a strange one as they were booked to replace another band who dropped out, and they were an Irish style kind of singalong bunch! Event was a birthday party at a nice local country pub, and when we got there I didn’t think it was going to be very good for us. First set only had a couple of dancers, but after a break the audience loosened up and we had most of them up at some point. We got a bit loud as a result, but nothing to scare the horses really. My old mate John Cambridge on drums ( ex- Bowie etc) meant a good gig for me. I love his playing and we gel really well, and he’s also great company, very funny ( although that might not be evident in the pic below where he looks rather serious). Songs included ‘Missing You’ ( by John Waite ), some Small Faces stuff and ‘Somewhere in my heart’ by Aztec Camera, as well as some other stuff you’d expect from geezers our age. P- Lyte into Rumble 500 combo, my go to these days. Finished around 10.45 pm, home by 11.30.

In the early days with the tribute band, when playing smaller theatres we had our mixer onstage. It was stage left nearest to me, so I got the job of starting our play on music which was on a mini disc player in the wings. The music was composed by our then keyboard player to neatly segue into our first song with a big opening chord in the same key as the play on - very dramatic. Last thing I did at each soundcheck was to check it was running okay. One memorable night we were all ( an 8 piece band with string section) waiting to go onstage, and I saw the house lights going down which was my cue to hit the start button for the play on. Only then did I realise I hadn’t returned the music back to the start and it kicked into life around half way through. Cue 8 musicians frantically running to their places and instruments - we all just made it in time to avoid a massive gap in the proceedings. Needless to say that was the last time I was entrusted with the task, and soon after we got a pro FOH engineer on every gig who did the job perfectly every time. Even then, hearing the music still gave me flashbacks. 😅

Like the Taylor bass, the Ibanez was designed to use that particular set of strings. I’ve had both basses, and they are great with the D’Addarios. Mine last years, even with regular gigs. As @lemmywinks says above, tension on strings is crucial here, it’s not just about the gauge. Also their unique construction means other varieties may affect the sound. I believe it is a false economy fitting unsuitable strings, and may even affect any warranty you have remaining.

I’m often surprised when people recognise me as I have one of those generic faces that you see everywhere! When I was touring with the theatre band, me and the crew would often get people coming up to chat when we were eating out before the show, which was nice. Now I play mainly locally, I think it’s still nice when people say hello, especially musicians I haven’t seen or worked with for years. Our monthly residencies attract lots of musos and it’s always good to catch up with them, even though I play like sh*t when it’s bass players…..

Black Sabbath, Hammersmith Odeon around 1977 IIRC. Gut wrenchingly loud ( and also the worst rabble I’ve ever heard - sorry Ozzy ). We lasted about 3 ‘songs’ before leaving. My hearing was still affected for a couple of weeks afterwards. The Count Bishops at Dingwalls in London, late 70’s. Large banks of stacked Bose 802 cabinets for PA, and again my ears were assaulted by the harshness as well as volume. Moved to the back of the room, just as bad so had to leave.

I’d forgotten this one! I used to call in there regularly when in Leeds on gear safaris. Classical instruments and sheet music on the ground floor, with band stuff upstairs. You had to ask to be allowed past the stair gate to get upstairs to view the good stuff - mainly new but some s/h as well. A member of staff was sent upstairs to watch you look around. I bought an acoustic guitar from there I think, probably late 70’s.

I owned a late 60’s model like this, mine was the 1x12 though. Had it since the mid 70’s, sold it in 2023 to a very famous player. Was the best sounding guitar amp I’ve owned, my old LP Junior sounded great with it. I now have a Fender 65 Deluxe Reverb which sounds fine, just not so raunchy as the Marshall. 😊