gafbass02

My kit has already gone ahead to the next venue. When I get there later I’ll try to snap a few off

I had a great one in Hereford last night. I dropped my budget transmitter in favour of a custom-made dual guitar/IEM cable (like a hosepipe!) and it felt much better! I was always uncomfortable with the transmitter hanging out the stupid Ibanez recessed socket. Crowd was amazing, up dancing from the first song. Whole place was rammed and the boss was so pleased that he paid us extra. Off to a more local place tonight.

There were many perks for sure, they did me some favours and I made mates for life. But on the whole, it was pretty hellish. I won’t go into details in public and I’m sure things have changed in the interim. (Except the Public!)

I did ten + years at Richer Sounds. Sadly I was long gone by the time the payout happened.

My number one might surprise a few people as it’s not my sonic blue jazz, or indeed my sumptuous SR1200. It’s a tatty, banged up old SR500 that looks like it had an accident with a wood chipper. I bought it for £150 after the whole ‘nearly died of covid’ thing when I realised I needed a light bass. It has a dodgy 24th fret and a badly shimmed neck. And I love it. Its the bass I do most of my gigs with and even at home, I pick this one out the rack nine times out of ten. Go figure.

Alas no longer, but I used to play a couple of sixers back in the day

I had this on a ray years ago. Never figured it out.

Bless you. Many thanks 🙏

Gig number 4 was a fantastic evening. A lovely stage set up (mmmm…carpet!) in a decent marquee to a very appreciative crowd. I snapped a few pics and the whole thing was live streamed so there’s plenty of (pleasingly;) bass heavy video on our Facebook page this morning 😂😂 https://www.facebook.com/TheBridgeCheltenham

Just back from playing at Gloucester tall ships festival, lovely crowd and full on hilarious ‘little Britain’ esque stage manager 😂😂😂Fun was had and now off to some local festival thingy this evening for gig 4.

Two good gigs yesterday. The bath and west show (load in nightmare!) and a local festival. A long drive between them, and yesterday’s ‘gig first’ was dog poo on the local stage!!! Im still buzzing from a lovely compliment from one of the other bassists (very good one too) who called me a ‘f*****g metronome’ These are my first gigs in ages without IEMs and back on my headrush monitor… Looking forward to getting back to our own engineer and IEMs!! Two more today including Gloucester tall ships festival.

Funnily enough, I had one of these before and was very impressed. I missed it, so I just bought a newer one like this and it only lasted a couple of weeks before I also moved it on. I found it very lifeless and the eq was weird. It needed the treble on full and even then still lacked bite. Any bass boost just made it muffled and the fit and finish was very shoddy. I’ve owned several stingrays and a sub ray 4 and a ray24ca. And this one was just ‘off’.

Last night was a very dusty barn in deepest Somerset. A fun night, despite the super live acoustics.

Mr Brightside and Dakota make me cringe, especially when the inevitable muppets take to the floor, all preening and pointing as the songs on their apparent inwardly ‘approved’ list come on. Once upon a time id’ve maybe voiced my dislike, but these days I have a different approach. Firstly, as a covers band I’m aware that the crowd mostly see us as essentially little more than a glorified jukebox. We’re there to entertain, and if they like the songs, then fine, I imagine they probably wouldn’t like my choices much! 😝 So I just crack on. My method to wring enjoyment out of those sort of tunes is to concentrate entirely on my tone and technique and locking in with mr drums, I make that my sole focus for those few tracks.. (Made easier by being in IEMs). It sounds odd, but I don’t enjoy the crowd going nuts bit, because it feels like ‘stolen valour’. Not my songs an’ all. Instead I guess I’m inwardly imagining that there’s someone in the room thinking something along the lines of ‘blimey, that rhythm section’s tight!’ Or ‘that bassist’s timing/technique/tone is bang on.’ it gets me through 😅😂

They are indeed. It’s all a bit baffling

Sounds like they didn’t understand the concept of a bass doing more than plonking along quietly at the back and panicked

All these lovely old natural jazz basses are making me feel funny. Some lovely pics on here.

No prizes for guessing here. My 1990 MiJ 60s reissue jazz bass. Ive owned it since around '92 and used it for thousands of gigs. The only original part these days are the body and three of the tuners. The rest is a wonky hodgepodge mishmash of parts. For a time it had an East preamp, EMG pickups and Status graphite neck and an 'Animal' sticker. The original neck was sold on here when it was bassworld. These days it has an allparts neck, badass ii bridge from about 1993, a custom 'signature' split Humbucker in single-coil sized casing. (Its a Wizard 'GAFfer') in a cream casing. The bridge has a Seymour Duncan quarter pounder in there. These are all hooked up to some fancy pots with some fancy wire and squished into a brass shielding doo-dah thingy similar to the one that got pulled out decades ago when the EMGs went in. Since the 90s its also had a vintage style hipshot de-tuner that goes the opposite way to all the others! The paint has been randomly splitting and chipping for years - add that to the gig wear and its looking pretty tired, but it sure has some stories to tell! If things had gone differently, this would definitely be the one I'd be asking Fender to make a signature. I've owned over 300 basses now and this will always be the one that's the most 'me'.

I have two pairs of the zs10s and am super happy with them.

Mick spotted a wanted post and very kindly sent me not just one tuner but a whole set for a ridiculously cheap price. Absolute basschat legend and a true gent.

The Bridge I’ve been with them about a year and loving every minute.