Breakfast

A real loss. He had interesting things to say and probably my favourite username on the forum.

RIP

I've been playing bass again after a while playing g****r as we move from acoustic to being a proper electric band and it's been really cool, but now our singer is suggesting I go over to lead guitar and it's a tough choice. Nice to have two instruments I really enjoy, mind...

That's sort of what it feels like, and I wouldn't want to bet cash money that I don't have something in there, though I've only noticed it after playing and I can't recall a time it would have happened.

Right, time for Musky's scalpel and microscope experiment

Could be that I guess. I do now recall that it was worse when I used heavier-guage strings.

So I'm back to being a bassist after a couple of years out in the wasteland of playing guitar and one of my old bass bugbears has come back to haunt me.

I get this real sharp pain in the fingertip of my left hand middle finger when I'm playing. It's a sharp, needly pain, in fact it feels most like a splinter in the tip of my finger, particularly in that once triggered the finger continues to be very pressure sensitive for days afterwards- worst when playing bass but I can feel it now as I type. I know there isn't a splinter there because I went over that fingertip with a fine tooth comb, and when that didn't have any effect I looked at it with a magnifying glass and a bright light.

I have got this from time to time over the last five years when I have been playing bass - guitar doesn't seem to trigger it at all - and it doesn't seem to relate to how much I am playing, except that I end up playing less for a few weeks after I trigger it and having to change the fingering on everything I do play because it really fricking hurts.

I think I may have asked about this a few years ago in BC days, but we have many new members now, so I'll ask again in the hope that I'm not a sad lonely freak and that someone can explain what is going on, or at least give me a fair guess.

I have to avoid basslines that are too close to the melody with the stuff I'm doing at the moment ( I'm back to being a bass player again, yay! ) because our [i]singer[/i] can't not sing the bass line if they get close...

I can't sing and play, the rhythm is too different. I can play guitar and sing and I think it's because one doesn't have to think to play guitar ;D

One more bump then I guess I'll fleabay it...

[i]bump![/i]

Still available, still a great bass....

The time has come when I need to face up to the fact that my addiction to pony has outweighed my addiction to rocking out and it's only fair that I rehome the basses that have been languishing around the house unplayed since I left my last band.

This bass, a Korean made Spector thru-neck is basically perfect. I don't say that lightly- it plays beautifully, it looks amazing and you can get more or less any sound you want out of it's big EMG pickups. It has been beautifully cared for before I owned it ( I bought it from the much missed WFG back in the bassworld days ) and aside from needing the jack socket to be replaced a coupleof years ago it has survived many gigs with me without seeming to have picked up any marks, which is something of a miracle travelling with me, but probably related to the fitted hard case it comes with.

I'll be really sad to see this one go- I honestly can't imagine [i]needing[/i] more bass than this- for sure you could get something with a bigger name or from a more prestigious country, but beyond this point you are, to a degree, subject to the law of diminishing returns. It gigs well, it records well and I have found it absolutely consistent in terms of tone across the strings and up the fretboard.

Anyways, I guess you want to know what it looks like- sorry for the slightly dark pictures, I'm rarely home in daylight:

The whole thing.


My camera just loves that amber sunbursty kind of colour scheme- and so do my eyes!


Looking down towards the bridge


Looking great in action a couple of years ago.

The only problem with it ( if you consider it a problem ) is that it's moderately heavy. Not outrageously so- it balances nicely and it's never been a problem for me, but the solid construction that makes it so reliable also makes it a little heavier than the other basses I own.

Anyways, I would like to be able to make back what I paid for it- I got it for £300 plus whatever postage was required and I felt like I'd got a total bargain at the time and what with inflation and whathaveyou you'll be getting even more of one for the same price. I'm entirely open to suggestion as concerns posting it or otherwise and based in Surrey if you want to buy it and collect in person.

I get on alright with the muso type of ones- the kind of multi-layer mushroom design - in fact they tend to take out a little more middle and treble than anything else so it can be slightly easier to hear the bass and drums. I used to use them for practice if it was getting loud and absolutely always for the other acts on the bill during gigs as that tended to be when I was in front of the PA. I rarely played gigs wearing them because there I did need to be able to hear as much as possible of what was going on but I also found that being on stage was probably one of the less loud parts of being in a band.

I had noticed his absence of late, he was a really familliar figure back in Bassworld days. What a loss for all of us.

He sold me a bass too, nice Spector thru-neck. From the sound of it about half the forum are playing ex-WFG instruments.

Iron And Wine, Our Endless Numbered Days.

Just bought the album, listening for the first time. Good so far!

If you tend to dance energetically while playing, make sure the stage is solid enough for the job. Drummers can find it disconcerting to have their cymbal stands waving around like brances in a gale.

Get a small kickback type amp- most of your sound will be from the PA anyways and the ability to carry all your kit from the car to the venue in one go is priceless...

Half way through playing a song you have played hundreds of times don't think "hey, how do I usually play this?" It will make you forget...

The Hold Steady - Stuck Between Stations.

What used to really get on my tits was that the singer in my last band had a guitar that in some venues fed back on A played at 5th fret on the E string, which happened a lot as he liked playing with a capo on second fret. It typically happened worst when he played an A chord and I hit the root note on the bass at the same time. Whenever this happened, particularly during shows it would create a nasty low boom and he would glare at [i]me[/i] for feeding back so badly. Several times I showed him during soundcheck that I could turn the volume to zero on the bass and still the feedback would keep happening, but he simply could not hear facts that he didn't want to hear.

[quote]I'll raise you Daft Punk's Da Funk-[/quote]
I was in a band that used to cover that.

As you can imagine, I had a whole lot of fun...

Bring some way of keeping yourselves entertained while you're not actually doing anything. A pack of cards is a versatile way of entertaining a bunch of musos while you sit around waiting for the next opportunity to be useful.

It's a vicious circle though. Bands are late so venues tell them to get there ridiculously early and then if you do arrive when you are told to you are about 2 hours before anyone unlocks the venue or the sound engineer arrives.

Being first to soundcheck is a nightmare as well because there are always line problems and then you look like a bunch of stroppy prima-donnas when actually the problem is that the venue cabling doesn't work or the engineer has left his coffee on the "mute" button for the left channel or something.

Once you're playing there is no excuse for messing up the times though. The promoter should be providing an on-stage and off-stage time for each band and making bloody sure they stick to it.

The clip at the start of the thread is [i]ace[/i] top bit of 70s folk-rock that is totally new to me. As folk-rock is pretty much my microgenre of choice, that's very good news as far as I'm concerned...

Before I read [i]Hammer Of The Gods[/i] I didn't really like Led Zeppelin. Afterwards I did. JPJ is one of my big influences now...

Guitar, Mandolin and Drums. I love playing drums very much indeed and of all the instruments I play it's probably the one I am most "natural" at playing, however I haven't owned a kit the last few years and rarely had as much chance to practice compared to the other things I play so I'm pretty bad at it.

Currently having a bit of hankering to play again so I may see about renting some in a rehearsal room and getting a couple of my friends along for some stupid jamming fun.

I love playing drums and I love complicated beats. I had a drum kit for years and used to happily hammer around on it, but I always spent more time concentrating on playing interesting beats and fills than on playing in time so I don't think I was ever really terribly good.

It means I really appreciate a good drummer when I hear one, though.

I learned that when a band has quietly but steadily been getting more work and less fun, you feel amazingly better about the world when you quit.