thisnameistaken

Sounds like time to write songs.

I'm having a retro morning while I clean my house and sort out my desk. Currently: Beastie Boys - Sure Shot.

For a bit of picking to syllable practice: The Cure - Love Cats The Specials - Blank Expression I used those to practice when I first started singing and playing at the same time. They're tricky to get right.

There's a close-up of Bernard's right hand at the start of this vid: [url="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RFQcOrqQLN8"]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RFQcOrqQLN8[/url]

To be taken seriously in anything you do, you need to take it seriously yourself. If you're not willing to put in the hard work, you can't expect your adopted peer group to give you any credence. How can anyone claim to be an expert in a field that they haven't actually studied? I'm currently involved in another creative pursuit which I'm far too shy to discuss here because I haven't yet had any measurable success at it, but suffice to say that while I'm actually pretty good at it, I realise that I don't know nearly enough about the mechanics and theory of it, and that under professional scrutiny or even peer review I would look like quite the ignorant git despite my enthusiasm and good intentions. I'm studying part-time (formally - something I have never done with music [intended to in my teens, parents were having NONE of it!]) to support my efforts but also to avoid appearing to be a complete charlatan. That's sort-of accepted in some pop music circles, and all it does IMHO is devalue musicianship generally.

+1 for the Bilbo posts. -1, I'm afraid, for the bizarrely indignant, proudly ignorant respondents.

No love for Adrian Sherwood?

Most fun: Giant inflatable Fyffes' bananas. Least fun: Dousing the venue in TCP, wearing TCP as cologne, generally causing extremely strong TCP smells.

If you don't learn theory as you're learning to play the instrument you'll end up in a position where you can physically play the thing OK but you're constantly frustrated because you can't come up with anything [i]interesting[/i] to play. It might seem boring now, but it will save you from getting stuck in a very deep rut later.

I think Deeder only did the first two or three albums, then decided to pack music in and go do human rights work. Shame, although I feel a bit guilty saying that . His solo stuff isn't too hot either. I mean it's alright, but it's not ADF quality. Edit: No he definitely wasn't around in 2003, I think he left in 2000.

My old guitarist was a lefty who played righty. Most irritating thing I ever saw was when a lefty girlfriend decided she would take up playing drums. I sat down with her and showed her some basic stuff, then swapped the hi-hats and snare around for her and she nailed all the beats really quickly, so I showed her some harder stuff, forgot to swap the set around and she nailed it all right-handed. I made her go to a proper drum teacher!

Just be thankful the keyboard player left, so you don't have to hurt people's ears with MIDI horn patches any more. The Who had a few poppy tunes. The Jam. Cream? There's plenty of replacements for Mustang Sally right there.

[quote name='alexclaber' post='266328' date='Aug 20 2008, 02:46 PM']I don't believe scales are the right place to start on bass. Instead, learn the basic arpeggios - major, minor, dominant 7th, minor 7th, major 7th, half diminished, diminished. If you're outlining a chord sequence that will help you far more than learning whole scales in each key. It's all about the root, third, fifth and seventh. You can do so much with those four basic notes.[/quote] But then you're half-way to learning the scales anyway - might as well just learn them and then those numeric intervals will make more sense. It's not any harder to just learn the scales IMO.

Meh... I've bought and sold a few things with people on here so far, had one seller change his mind but that's his prerogative and I certainly wouldn't get shirty about it. Also had a buyer ask me to "reserve" a couple of items for a couple of weeks, which I did and he was as good as his word. I don't think anything's broken. The good experiences far outweigh the bad and I've never been (or felt like I would be) shafted. Which to me is far more important than the occasional nervous trader pulling out.

Looks quite slick. Usually modern-looking basses try too hard and look really contrived, but someone with a proper eye for design penned that. Nice to see something different but not ugly (I'm looking at you, Bongo) for a change. Hopefully the whole '90s obsession with campy figured woods being used to make basses look like dining tables is coming to an end. Just saw the price. Hmm. Maybe I'd rather have generic hardware on a Jazz-a-like.

All my basses seem to come pre-named by the manufacturer. My girlfriend calls my white Stingray "the toilet seat", but she's mean like that.

[quote name='Matty' post='259065' date='Aug 9 2008, 10:36 PM']Is that one of the Gator Pro cases? To right its heavy. I walked from Kentish town Station to the Fiddler's elbow (a good half mile+) with a fully loaded one of them last night. I still dont have functioning elbows [/quote] Yeah they're not for walking with. But they don't have hard cases either, so what [i]are[/i] they for? Who knows! Maybe they were intended as instruments of torture.

I don't really want to go tying cables together anyway - I quite often shift bits around or only take a couple of pedals out with me - I use the board more for storage. Good thing too - it's heavy as hell. The patch cables I'm using are really stiff - that's the main problem. They're good cables, but too stiff. If I could be bothered to make up cables to the right lengths that would sort it out, but I'm thinking about getting George L's connectors for a lot of it because stuff like the LS-2 is a big pain in my arse with those six right-angle jacks sticking out of it. Pedal board spending is on hold for now though, got holidays and tax bills and stuff eating all my money at the moment.

Sorry for the crappy camera phone pic... I should really sort out the cabling. It's a bigger mess than usual because I took just a few pedals to a rehearsal on Thursday and I haven't been bothered to rewire it in a tidy way. It doesn't really get [i]much[/i] tidier though if I'm honest. Signal goes: Bypass looper (around EHX Bass Micro Synth) -> Robot Factory Meatwad -> Bassballs -> DOD 490 Phasor -> Boss CEB-3 -> Tuner In the Meatwad's FX loop there's the Boss LS-2 with a Boss OC-2 in one channel and the Robot Factory Pulse Synth -> MXR Blowtorch -> Pickle Pie 'B' in the other channel. The exp. pedal is on the Meatwad of course. Still got room for an Octavius Squeezer... Would prefer to downsize my board a bit though, really.

It's difficult to sell something like that - not a lot of buyers for them. Personally I love Warwicks but even I wouldn't want an Infinity, they just don't do it for me. As earlier respondents have said right now's not a great time to be selling anything, but with something like that you'd need to reach a wider market to get a good price for it at any time, I think.

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='257970' date='Aug 8 2008, 11:57 AM']Oh, what's this, a CUSTOMER telling musicians NOT to play Mustang Sally? But that can't be right, 'it's what the public wants'. She is clearly delusional. We must send here for reconditioning to the 'Commitments' school of musical appreciation. AAAAGA Do Do DO......!![/quote] This woman clearly needs to watch more feel-good movies instead of wasting her spare time listening to music or whatever it is she does. You've got to feel bad for her poor deprived guests who'll have to wait until someone else they know gets married before they can hear Mustang Sally again.

[quote name='doctor_of_the_bass' post='258562' date='Aug 8 2008, 10:35 PM']I think it really boils down to the fact that any band is only really as good as its drummer[/quote] Very true. I think if I didn't play bass I'd play trombone. Actually I've got a trombone but I only ever feel like picking it up in the summer, so given that I live in England I don't pick it up very often. But yeah the old big band bandleaders like Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey, and of course guys like Rico and Fred Wesley, I hugely admire.

Those old Bass Collection basses were considered good value for money back in the day. I thought they were a bit small and light, personally, but they sold well.