Japhet

My taste is 'the plainer the better' (apart from natural finishes which I don't like much). Conversely, I don't like anything 'flash' at all. Flamboyant body shapes and glitzy paint, gold hardware, exotic woods with elaborate grain patterns, multiple pickups, too many control knobs and switches are all red flags for me. At the other end of the scale, I don't like relic finishes. It's all fake and trying to be something it's not. I could tie my bass to the back bumper of my car or bury it in the garden for a week but what's the point?

I don't like red - but then I don't like red anything (cars, clothes, guitars etc). Also relicing.

I'll give a shout to Jimmy Dewar (Robin Trower) as a bass player with a fabulous voice as well. Also Tommy Shannon and Noel Redding.

At the more modern end of the spectrum, I'd add Roscoe Beck as an example of how things evolve.

Waterfront - Simple Minds.😀 Have wanted my band to play it for years so that I can play a few bars into a looper and then saunter off to the bar for a pint.

I don't notice the weight during a gig, but as soon as it's finished and I start packing stuff away my back causes me all sorts of grief. Lighter basses don't seem to make any difference either.

I used to gig with one of those Peavey 1820s and a Trace Elliott SMX head years ago. It used to feel like somebody was kicking me in the back of my legs with the amount of punch it had. I used to spend nearly all of my gig money in the osteopath's though.

I remember listening with great interest to the basslines of James Jamerson and Bob Babbitt which probably piqued my curiosity. I think there were 2 players though who really pushed me over the edge on 2 particular records. Firstly was Trevor Bolder on Aladdin Sane and secondly was John Entwhistle on Quadraphenia. Both came up with some exquisite and unusual lines to such an extent that I wore those records out and am still blown away by them decades later.

Mike Kerr - Royal Blood.

If given the chance, I tell people that never watching any reality TV is the only realistically attainable ambition I have left in life. I remember the very first outing of Big Brother and thought it was like a fly on the wall deal, only flies on the wall were much more interesting. I've pretty much managed to avoid all of it since then. I also remember Clive James on TV. The Japanese show called 'Endurance' where contestants were made to do revolting things, eat disgusting things, were humiliated and tortured made compulsive viewing because it was so wierd and so cruel. You can see hour after hour of that kind of dross every single Saturday night now on British TV. It's all a bit sad really.

Little Feat - Waiting for Columbus.

I absolutely hate all forms of reality TV. Had some of this garbage inflicted on me by the Mother in Law who was telling me that 'this is proper entertainment blah, blah, blah'. This really is plumbing uncharted depths of shite.

I would say, find the last thing you absolutely had to have. In my case, that is a fairly expensive effects pedal which now lives in a drawer in my office. Prior to purchase, it was something I absolutely couldn't do without and now it shares the drawer with umpteen other examples of the same madness.

Haven't bought much this year but one item stands out. I picked up a Valeton FET Preamp pedal for peanuts off Ebay and it's a tone monster. Works great as a booster too to drive the front end of my amp. Think I paid £19 for it and I've had pedals that cost £119 that couldn't hold a candle to it.

I'm pretty sure you can add an extension cab to the Rumble 200 but not the 100.

You're opening up a whole can of worms here. Firstly, watts are really pretty irrelevant when the efficiency of the cabinet and drivers are equally, if not more important. Broadly speaking, cheap, badly made stuff will advertise as very high wattage but doesn't convert into a good, or loud sound. Quality gear will achieve way more with much less advertised power. A decent 300 watt amp will melt your face but a cheap 1000 watt one will invariably sound crap at any volume. You then have class d versus analogue or valve amps but we're now disappearing down the rabbit hole.

3 from a long, long list. The Pretender - Jackson Browne Stratus - Billy Cobham When the Levee Breaks - Led Zeppelin.

Ampeg SVT and 8x10. Of course, that is disregarding the logistical prblems of movement and storage.

Can't imagine the misery of paying through the nose to slosh around in mud and other people's body fluids for days on end on the odd chance you might hear something that wasn't utter pish. Last one I went to was Knebworth in 197? and that was pretty abysmal even there were some good bands playing.

My back problem seems to be more related to the amount of time standing relatively still during a gig. I'm OK until we start packing away and then the much greater range of movement required triggers some really painful lower back issues. I'm sure a lighter bass would be of some benefit but I'm not sure how much.

Speaking of detectives; (from the mad mind of Alex Harvey) I got the call on a rainy Monday Business was uneasy So I turned up the collar of my coat and Considered the situation. Now was her Daddy bad? Or was it good for my Baby? But there's one thing bothering me.....Who was the man in the jar?