peteb

Pretty much what @Woodinblack said. He mainly used the 62 sunburst Jazz that he bought as a teenager, but he also had a red jazz bass, a 50s precision and a fretless P bass. Towards the end of Zeppelin he had an 8 string Hagström and an Alembic. Post Zep, he generally used Manson basses, although I have seen him playing a more recent sunburst Fender Jazz. https://www.guitarworld.com/features/the-10-most-famous-bass-guitars-of-led-zeppelins-john-paul-jones Now that's a bit of a sore point! A couple of us have been on about that for ages, and it is one thing that is definitely stopping us getting more of the top gigs on the circuit. A guitar player that I play with in another band, also plays in a Police / Sting tribute who are very busy - basically some of the bigger places we play are some of the smaller gigs that they do. When they got a pretty serious agent behind them, the first thing he did was get some high quality promo videos done, which led to them getting bigger and better gigs. If you search on YouTube (and I would rather you didn't), you get all sorts of cr*p come up, mostly with a different singer and before I was in the band. The best of a bad lot is probably this clip that a punter did on a phone at the excellent Cluny in Newcastle (not too bad for a video on a mobile). This was the first gig that Didge (keys player) did with us, but he's hardly featured on the clip for some reason.

Led Into Zeppelin - obviously a Led Zep tribute based in West Yorks / Lancashire, playing 20 or so gigs a year all over the country. Formed long before I joined, exactly four years ago (almost to the day). There have been a variety of different line-ups (some good, some not so great), but the current band is really good and seems pretty settled. Originally, I was asked to dep by the guitarist BL (who I knew vaguely from playing the blues circuit), but they asked me to join full time after a couple of gigs. Since then, I have brought in a new singer and keys player. I've also got an 'occasional' blues band that only plays a couple of times a year (due to how busy a couple of members are), and I do the odd dep for blues bands and sometimes the originals band led by the girlfriend of the guitarist from the Zep band.

The gig on Saturday was a dep for a blues / americana (sort of) band at Diseworth Village Hall. A bit different setting to the last gig I did two weeks ago, a slightly dodgy rock club in a rundown part of inner-city Hull, this was a small village hall in a well to do part of rural England, just off the M1 a short distance away from East Midlands Airport. A lovely and rather picturesque little village, complete with signs on lampposts rallying locals to protest at any possible industrial development in the area (as well as discouraging strangers from parking up there for a fortnight to avoid using the nearby airport car parks)! The people promoting the gig were super friendly and helpful (as they were in the club in Hull), decent PA, free food, having to keep turning down free beers, etc. Not a bad payer either! I say it was a dep gig, but I was in an earlier version of the band and have done a couple of deps since I left. Basically, when I’m playing, it’s the Zep tribute band with a female singer-songwriter (the guitarist’s girlfriend), so we all know each and are used to playing together. The audience was not exactly the most rock'n'roll crowd, but nice people and a very good reaction, so generally a great night. The usual motorway closure on the two hour drive home, but this one wasn’t too bad – M1 closed, diverted onto the M18 to the A1(M) and then picking the M62 up just a little further out, maybe 15 minutes added to the drive. One day I will start a thread on night-time motorway closures driving back from gigs! Gear was, as ever, the 70s P bass into a Handbox R-400 amp / Berg CN212 cab. Footwear was the usual grey suede Vans hi-tops! I’m a bit worried that they are starting to wear out and I might have start wearing in a new pair for gigs (darker grey pigskin Vans)!

But it often does. Also, a clear loud sound doesn't sound as offensive or as noticeable as an overly distorted (where its not meant to be) one does. I still see people taking out JCMs and the like, but they are not cranking them as much as they used to and only using one 412 (or even a 212), whereas in the past they would have taken two cabs. Also, even if you don't want to take the modellers / IEMs route (and I'm not keen TBH) but think that a JCM is too much, there are loads of quality, lower wattage valve amps available now.

Was that a Ric or a Stingray? My second ever bass was a Ric copy, which was awful and put me off them for life. A mate of mine has a Ric that he adores, but I reckon is probably among the the worse 'expensive' basses that I have ever played (sorry Paul)! I have a curious relationship with Stingrays. I think that they sound, look and play great. But... I never seem to take them out on gigs! I have bought, then sold, the bought again a number of Stingrays, but hardly ever played one on a gig. I currently have a red 91 Ray, which a mate of mine sold me cheap after me admiring it for a few years. Because he wanted me to have it and insisted on letting me have it so cheap, I feel a bit bad selling it on. That and my missus telling me to just keep it as I will inevitably buy another one in a few months time! It currently goes out as my spare for the tribute band gigs, but rarely leaves its gigbag!

You are quite right. I can tell you from experience that stage / out-front volumes are nowhere near as loud as they were in the seventies, eighties and (to a slightly lesser extent) nineties.

Great story from Nick Beggs (in the latest edition of Popbitch): "I was performing at a rock/pop festival in Europe in the 80s and staying at a hotel with all the other luminaries of the day. I recall seeing Ozzy Osbourne and Bruce Dickinson talking in the hotel bar that evening. Becoming overwhelmed by my fan-like mentality I helplessly ran up to Ozzy and spouted, "Oh my God! Ozzy Osbourne! I can't believe it, you were my biggest influence!" "To which he replied. 'F*** off! I'm not taking the blame for that crap." There's another great story going about featuring Ozzy, Slash, Cliff Richard and the late Queen of England (that I won't repeat here) 🙂

I must admit, I did wonder about that. However, Jake E Lee put up a screen shot of a text he received from Ozzy a couple of days before he died, thanking him for doing the Back to the Beginning gig and suggesting that they meet up in a few weeks time when he went back to LA. So, perhaps it was more unexpected than you might think.

I was never too keen on the original Barefaced cabs, but I quite like the cabs with the 10" speakers. As I'm getting older, I can see myself getting the 310 cab sometime in the next few years.

They've probably just got it back from being repaired after the last time you used it...! 🙂

In my experience, they pretty much always do...!

Hasn't that always been the role of bass in 90% of music?

The rumours are that a new album is indeed on the cards!

Absolutely! All my mates who worked in music shops loved Oasis first time around. They said that suddenly a new generation of 13 year old kids started coming into the shop, wanting to buy a guitar and to learn to play Rock 'n' Roll Star and Cigarettes and Alcohol...

As I understand it, the 'head' is the main theme of a piece of music, which you are likely to return to during the piece. The chart is simply the piece of paper that you have on a music stand in front of you (or these days, a file on an iPad). For example, in Jaco's 'Portrait of Tracy', you get the all harmonics intro, then you play the head (the main melodic bit that you remember about the tune) before a B section and then back to the head for the outro. I'm sure that Rob can correct me if I haven't got that quite right.

I get cramp when I try to play with a pick these days as well. I went back to fingerstyle after playing with a pick for several years because I realised that I was a more fluent and had less limitations using my fingers. I was just a better player that way. I do occasionally meet people who remember me as a pick player. I actually started out playing fingerstyle because of the cool looking, smiling black dude with the afro and P bass in the instructional book I originally learnt from. If he played with his fingers, then obviously I should...!

Yea, but Chris Squire and many others did! Both can be great - whatever works for you...

I originally learnt to play fingerstyle, but a band leader persuaded me to play with a pick (very much a thing at the time), which I did throughout the 80s! About 1990, I reverted back to exclusively playing fingerstyle, which I've carried on with to this day. To be fair, I was always a far better fingers player and these days I very much doubt I could play anything like a full set with a pick!

So, played the Farmyard Party at the weekend - pics above on @casapete's post a couple of pages ago. The Friday was very hot and sticky. As we were staying over, I had to put up a large tent pretty much on my own (the missus is recovering from an operation on her hands) in rock hard ground - hence me managing to look sweaty, pasty and sunburnt all at the same time in the picture of me and Pete above. Great to meet Pete before the gig - I was obviously pretty busy trying to get everything ready for our show, so I only managed to see a couple of songs from his band, but he is obviously a very tidy bass player. There was a bit of a groan from backstage as they played a song on our setlist, but fortunately that seemed to be the only one, so we managed to avoid too many duplicate songs! The gig itself was a bit hit and miss. We had a (very good) dep guitarist and it had been sounding brilliant in the three rehearsals we managed to get in before. However, live there were a few adventures starting and (particularly) ending songs and a fair few missed cues. Endings became a bit of a negotiation between me, the guitarist and the drummer, with the poor keyboard player trying to work out what was happening from the other side of the stage! However, we got a pretty good audience reaction and had a lot of very positive feedback after the show (with a couple of gig offers thrown in), so it can't have been too bad - amazing what you can get away without the audience noticing when playing live sometimes! Gear wise, I was using the 78 P bass and the usual set-up of a Shure GLXD wireless, Thumpinator, Cali76 bass comp and Caveman pre into a Handbox R400 and Berg CN212 cab.

No, I'm afraid that might (marginally) help to keep you fit, but it isn't going to do anything to maintain muscle mass or bone density. The only way to do that is to regularly lift weights.

The jabs work, but they do have side effects and they won't give you too many of them. I had one when I was a teenager and about to do my O levels. To be fair, my hay fever used to be much worse in my teens / twenties

Nice one Pete - I will see you later

This I believe that lifting weights also helps to maintain bone density, so if you slip when you're old you just get up and brush it off rather than requiring a hip replacement.

It's always fun to be part of these big events, even if you're not on the main stage.

Fortunately, the only time I've ever used Preparation H was to put on a new tattoo years ago! Summerfest looks like a great event - shame we don't really have anything similar this side of the pond. The bike rally I'm playing (the Farmyard Party) is one of the biggest ones in the north of England, not quite as big as Stormin' The Castle in the North East, but still about 6,000 people on site. They have a blues tent (stage) for the old school bikers who still like their blues - will probably have a few hundred people or so in there. Maybe a 2,000 for the main stage (that I last played ten years ago with a rock band).