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Huge Hands

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  1. I could be wrong, but it felt like a lot more than a 1mm difference to me. With the first set I got, the "ears" wouldn't fit in the notches on the body. They were catching the edges and I would have probably had to shave about 1mm off the cavities to make them fit, but they wouldn't have been central in the ear cavity and touching the side, if you know what I mean (the correct pickups don't touch the edges in the current holes and there is probably already a 1mm gap all the way around). So in my dodgy maths head - if each ear needs to move further apart and needs at least 1mm - the gap between them should be bigger than 1mm? Apologies if I', being stupid. It was about 10 years ago and someone has that bass on permanent loan from me so I can't check.
  2. When I tried to get some custom pickups for my old Squ!er P5 (which had Jazz pickups) - I ran into this problem. It appears (from what I was told) that the different width neck and bridge pickups also have different spacing of the holes, which was a problem for my build as the body was cut with domed notches for the mounting tabs and the first set I got wouldn't fit. The pickup builder was amazed that Squier had used the not-as-wide 4 string neck casing for both 5 string positions. He told me that there wasn't really one standard and that once you add all of the copy manufacturer pickup dimensions there can be a lot of variance. I think you will have to find one you want to use, and measure it, and fit for that. This is all based on my limited experience, and of course could be very wrong!
  3. I was told it was her favourite bar and she was always in there, but it in the 5 or 6 years we played there regularly before she died, I never saw her, other than the paintings. Someone told me it was the bar owner himself that painted them, but I don't know if that was true. Her dad Mitch was in there one night and asked to get up and sing with us. He wanted to do Sinatra type stuff and I think we did "That's Life" as we did that as part of our set anyway. He seemed a nice guy, but he didn't appear to have his daughter's talents, or not on that evening anyway.... I later realised it was all a setup, as there "just happened" to be a paparazzi in there and a photo of him singing with us made it into the Monday paper. It was only a tight shot of him and not us though! I used to sit sideways on a tall stool so that I could fit in the tiny stage area beside the drummer - I think my knee just made it into that shot!
  4. Equally tenuous, I did sound for a gig with Noel Redding not long before he died. I walked up to him and patted him on the shoulder to get his attention and ask him to give me a line check. It felt like I nearly broke him - he seemed really frail. My memory is of him not saying much backstage and when he did, it wasn't very coherent. It was supposed to be a "super trio" with Noel, Eric Bell from Thin Lizzy and John Coughlan from Status Quo. It wasn't so super that evening,IMHO, but as you say, I still got to meet someone who was there with Jimi!
  5. In the late 00's, the band I was in turned up to a regular monthly gig on a Saturday night in Central London. As we got there, a van pulled up and another band started getting stuff out. The bar owner came running out an apologised profusely, saying that Amy Winehouse's friends had booked the whole bar for a birthday bash for her and that he forgot to cancel us. After a bit of frustrated grumbling, we found out the other band was her godchildren/nieces or something (I later found out they are quite famous themselves, but I can't remember the name - basically two girls and a boy with their mother on double bass - Daisy, someone and someone?). We were told that they would only do about 40 mins when Amy arrived, so could we hang around and do the rest of the night as we were there? We could see Mark Ronson milling around, as well as Adele (this was after her first album but before she got stratospherically famous), so we said yes of course! At the time we were doing a similar style of sound to a lot of Mark's Dap Kings stuff, so thought it would be good to impress him! The "stage" area wasn't big enough for both bands to be set up (they didn't have a full drum kit and some sort of weird huge organ) so we packed our kit in the cellar and waited.... Hours went by, while we all dutifully stood there waiting with the paparazzi outside the front door....no sign of Amy. We kept asking the party organiser if we could play to keep the people entertained, but he kept saying no - the other band needed to be ready to play the moment she walks in. At one point I remember Mark Ronson shouting - "let the musicians play!", which made me think - wow - someone famous called me a musician! (Not that he had heard me at that point!). At one point, someone shouted they needed a bass player - so I ran in, and found Mark had started messing around on their equipment. WHen I got there he was playing on their snare drum. Our guitarist was playing, along with the two young ladies from the group. Having no idea who they were, I picked up the double bass. It was very low height for me and had plasticy gut type strings on it. I couldn't see any kind of pickup or amp, so not sure if their mother actually played anything to be heard on the gigs, or whether it just hadn't been set up yet. So, I ended up jamming with Mark (him having a go on several instruments), or at least I thumped as hard as I could without breaking the strings (that would be rude!). I think we played about 3 or 4 songs, including a rendition of Bear Necessities, before the organiser ran in and shut us down again as Amy was "5 minutes away". We all put the instruments down and dutifully stood waiting.......but no Amy. It got to about 1am, and as the venue closed at 2am, we decided there would be no time left to play after them, so called it and left. We did get paid, but were mightily huffed that we didn't get to show what we could really do in front of Mark. We had been dreaming that he might have given us some backstage after party gigs or something! Just to rub salt in the wounds, I read a report in the Metro on the way to work that Amy had let her friends down and that Mark invited everyone in the bar back to his suite at the local posh hotel afterwards. We had obviously walked out in a huff before then! In summary, I got to jam with Mark Ronson who probably didn't hear anything I played (I couldn't so I don't see how he could have). I would like to think Adele also took note of my brilliance, but she did look rather inebriated that night so I doubt it!
  6. First time I ever went to a blues jam was because the guitarist in our new band somehow thought they would let us get up as band together. That blatantly wasn't the case, but he wasn't one to give up easily. While we all sat there quietly wanting to kill him, he pushed a couple of us to put our names down to show willing. I got called up for a lady singer that appeared to be well known in this jam, and was being treated as if Tina Turner was about to take the stage. She was pretty good to be fair. The house bass player appeared miffed that I wasn't a guitarist, even though I had definitely put my name in the bass player's list. I told him I'd seen him playing guitar on a previous couple of tunes, so could we not swap? Reluctantly, he picked up his guitar. They called the drummer up, and a guy got up wearing sweatbands on his wrists, and doing rock hands with his brand new sticks under his arm. They all seemed to know each other and I figured they had called up the best players (apart from me as they didn't know me) to back their star singer. After a couple of seconds of the guitarist showing me the bass hook he wanted me to play, we were off. It was going ok! I thought - "Hey, I'm enjoying this!". I hit the change to the 4, at the right time with a run. They seemed to like that. Great......until - the drummer decided to do a drum fill..... There was a magical stretching of time where he thought about the fill, worked out what things he was going to hit, then went for it, played an extra 3 beats just to be safe - then went back to the same straight beat (everything but the fill was pretty much solid and in time). Each time he did this, there was this weird pause where we waited for him to finish, then all tried to kick in again. Any trying to be clever and play something under his fill ended in divine embarrassment for me, but oblivion for him and all the while him grinning like a cheshire cat. At the end of this first song, it became apparent that our jam slot was 2 songs, and we would all have to go through that with him again on another one. I suppose at the end of the day it kind of worked, our guitarist kept badgering the jam organiser and they did let us get up as a band, but right at the very end. In summary, I got to play 4 songs, missed my last train home and had to spend a fortune on a taxi.....
  7. Oh man, I only just saw this. I once bought some pickups from Nick about 10+years ago - came across a a really top bloke and I always kept an eye out for him on here after that. I was always amazed at some of the stellar basses that passed through his hands. RIP Nick.
  8. Considering all of his comments about "the bass player" when talking about the Police, I am surprised that Stuart Copeland ever agreed to play in a band with loads of them!
  9. It's been over 20 years since I stopped working at Butlins, but in my day that would have been the house bass player's own supplied rig, and not necessarily available for free use by anyone. However, as they play almost every night of the week, they get to leave their stuff set up. I guess it depends on the player - when I was there we had two house drummers - one in each of the two main venues. One would leave his kick and toms out for all and sundry to use, the other would get VERY angry if anyone so much as breathed on his stuff.
  10. Just before Christmas I played a gig with a highly intoxicated middle aged lady in the audience who spent the whole night trying to make it all about her, trampling through the "stage" area during breaks and tripping over/pulling up cables etc whilst trying to "have a shot" on our instruments ("Go on, giz a go....") We begrudgingly just about put up with her trying to sing and cuddle us all until, as we were packing away she started trying to lift my shirt. From what she was mumbling I think she wanted to blow raspberries on my bare stomach (I am the most portly member of the band, so there is plenty of surface area). I made it clear she had gone too far and she thankfully grumbled some sort of abuse and walked off. Imagine trying to explain that one to the Police if it had kicked off! I do wonder though, if I refused to play at a venue because one punter had been a bit annoying, would I have any venues to play in? I wouldn't be surprised if we went back there and the same lady, with a lot less demon drink in her would probably be fine? I am not excusing the behaviour of the OP's experience, just thinking out loud....
  11. When I bought mine, (I think they were serial numbers 9 and 10) they were called Retro 210s, and were famed for having a more mellow/vintage/warm sound. I think Alex dropped the "Retro" in the name, so may have changed the characteristics of the sound since my early models, but I wonder if they may not be the right sound for metal? I know a couple of other players that tried mine and weren't so keen as they weren't flat enough response? As others have suggested, I would do a "try before you buy" or buy second hand cheap if you're not sure.
  12. I have a pair of the early 210s in 4 ohm before the switchable impedance was a thing. For 90% of what I do, I only need one cab. I run it with a Carvin head which does about 600W at 4ohm IIRC. I rarely turn it above 12 o'clock and that to me is uncomfortably loud. I guess it is down to your perception of what uncomfortably loud is. I don't know how running one at 8 ohm would decrease this though. I have the Carvin because Alex recommended this as a good amp capable of handing high power at 2 ohms when I use both 4 ohm cabs together. I have a 2 channel Ashdown Little Giant as a backup that runs one cab per channel, but to me I think I can hear that running out of steam at higher volumes. I don't know if any of this helps you whatsoever!
  13. I bought a 2001 Laguna estate in 2005. Had it about 9 months. It used to eat tyres and had so many problems. I ended up selling it for scrap money and lost a packet. I swore I would never have another Renault again, but this year I bought a Trafic van. After a year of expensive repairs, I am ruing not sticking to my own rules......
  14. I just checked and mine is an 8 digit number, starting with a 1. No letters.
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