Silvia Bluejay

Thank you all for your kind words!

Heh... I told you I was exhausted, but not ready to publish, then I decided it was time to stop faffing around, and that happened at one in the morning!

Good to know you like it - thanks!

Course I did! Memento etc.

Yay! My first reader! Within a few minutes of posting! Thank you Clarky. It was huge fun. Roll on next year

OK, I think it's time to stop fiddling with the blog and just publish it. Here it is: [url="http://wp.me/p2ZbyY-94"]http://wp.me/p2ZbyY-94[/url] As always, it can be edited at any time, which means you guys are more than welcome to point out any errors and/or omissions, including your names and your rigs/pedalboards/instruments! Just let me know and I'll add what's missing or amend what's wrong. I have more photos than I can fit in the blog - I'll create a Flickr album with the spares, and post the link here, when it's ready. Thank you all for your patience

I'm nearly there with the Bash blog, but I need a little help. If anyone has a photo of Urb giving his talk, and wouldn't mind me publishing it in the blog together with the ones I took of the other talks (with full acknowledgement obviously), I would be very grateful if you could email/PM it to me Also, what was/were the name(s) of the new Markbass effects Bryn was presenting? I had to rush in and out of his talk and didn't memorise any details Thank you all for your patience and support! I will also create a Flickr album with quite a lot of good photos that I couldn't possibly add to my already rather long blog.

Let alone double bass...

Aw, but it's daamn 'ard to go on stage with blood gushing from a wound, give a sterling performance nonetheless and then also carry a double bass up a steep narrow staircase... (albeit with the photographer's help)

LOL thanks He's a youngish, very nice Spanish guy who moved to London a few years ago.

There you are

Expect a multitude of photos... in addition to the SE Bass Bash and Junkyard Dogs ones I'm already drowning in. Watch this space - and FB, Twitter etc...

Can't possibly make that, Peter, I'm afraid. You guys have a great afternoon. I'll keep an eye on future ones

If you're on Twitter, follow @basschatuk - I banged on about this meetup for weeks in advance, and will do so again for the next. I publicise any meetup around the country. The only one that didn't need any help this time round was the South East Bass Bash, but our Twitter account always keeps followers up to date with events like these.

You guys called? Welcome, Ulgnor! In the words of Jason Newst3d, keep it heavy! \m/ \m/

OK - I haven't heard from Lars yet, but I know he'll be on the phone as soon as he has news. Regarding the short notice, it's [i]probably [/i]not going to be "tell you tonight to get ready for a meetup tomorrow morning" but it might still be pretty tight, we don't know. The only reason why I'm being so recalcitrant is that we have let John down once before and we don't want to do that again. Once I lose sight of the bass, despite all the best intentions from all sides, there's no guarantee I'll have it back pronto on the day/night I need it - we have seen how life has a habit of getting in the way. I'll feel more relaxed once we have got those previously mooted meetups out of the way. At that point we can again give priority tothe bass being moved around. However, at this point in time I'm not even able to say whether John is going to be available for another meetup, so it's all a bit up in the air. I'm not the prime mover in all this, so I'll be awaiting instructions. Simply tell me what to do and I'll do it.

Look I'm getting slightly bored with all this. You guys just decide - do you want stars involved or not? Do you want the press involved or not? The latter is somehow dependent on the former, unfortunately, as the media are only interested if there are big names to be dropped, and don't give a flying **** if they have played or just held the bass. If the answer is no to the first question, let me know, and I'll thank Lars and ask him to dedicate his time and hard work to other projects. Whatever your final decision, I will not be the one who writes the speech to give the audiences at the relay gigs.

Guys, what you don't seem to realise is that in general we're not meeting these stars in a proper gigging environment. Even on those occasions when James went backstage to a show, he was only allowed in either before or after the show, and just for a very short time.

Still on my hard disk, slowly being whittled down to a manageable number. Nearly there I'll put some in my still-to-be-written blog and all the remaining good ones in a big album on Flickr. Bear with me for a few more days.

Excellent

I don't want to be Capital-centric, but holding one of the meetups in London would probably have a reasonable level of attendance. Not sure about anywhere else, unless you're happy with just 3-4 people turning up.

No prob James. I've emailed you a new press release and photo

Guys, I didn't have the time to go round with the bass at the bash, as I said in a post on the previous day, so there was no fundraising at all, and no photos of the bass with anyone except Dave and Paul. I simply had too much else to do, and so did absolutely everyone else at the bash. I am waiting to hear from Lars about meeting the two gents mentioned above. It might be a short notice thingy - it was like that last time we tried (and failed), and I'm not blaming James for "f**king it up" as he says - we only had a couple of days notice, and Peter Hook was waiting for James in Bristol on the previous day, and he* was supposed to be travelling around the whole of the South East in the space of 48 hours. Not ideal. With the Baton possibly being required at short notice - such as "can you make it tomorrow afternoon?" - I would prefer to hold on to the bass until Lars has some more precise info, if you guys don't mind. James, there was a newish version of my press release, but I'll create a newer version and email it to you. Anyone else thinking of contacting the press, feel free to PM me and i'll send it to you as well. * James

If you read my previous posts, that's what I'm saying. I'm also saying that, having had a glitch with two appointments with two stars we had to cancel at very short notice a week ago, at the moment the bass is here with me and emphatically [b][i]not[/i][/b] going anywhere until we can be sure we do not have reason to disappoint any of our other endorsers.

It comes down to choosing between having it played at the Dog and Duck to 20 punters every weekend, or having John Taylor of Duran Duran and Mark King endorse the cause, without being asked to put money in the box but with the agreement that their photos will be used in our press releases. Can't be both at the same time. Let me remind you that Lars Mullen, who has a bulging little black book of star contacts, is working very hard, for nowt like the rest of us, to raise the profile of this project. We can thank him and ask him to stop at any time, and return the bass and the project to its previous relative anonymity. Up to us. At this stage, we are talking to John Taylor and Guy Pratt, both of whom were contacted and showed an interest before. If you'd like me to ask Lars to stop contacting other people, I can do that. I'm only the PR person and occasional photographer - I'm not a fundraiser.