Happy Jack

Get stuck in ...

Well, up to a point. Sultans Of Swing was 1978. Artificial Paradise was 1992.

Have you tried putting the wet clothes in the microwave?

A'm sure that a dinnae ken whit ye mean.

Gosh, doesn't he play a lot of notes?

Ah couldnae tell ye, mon ...

That sounds about right ... Scottish guy, very VERY retiring.

Good grief! That goes on for 17 minutes. SEVENTEEN F***ING MINUTES!!!

Hmmmmm. Some are, usually the more energetic end of the psychobilly spectrum, but any properly-constructed DB should be strong enough to support a bass player standing on the C-bout, which is (arguably) the most reinforced part of a DB anyway. And of course it helps (a lot) that rockabilly style normally keeps the end-pin all the way IN. You can buy 'strengthened' DBs and you can retrofit reinforcement to an existing DB, but it's all a bit of a waste of time (IMHO). If you're going to treat a DB badly enough to risk physically breaking it somewhere important, then for the cost of the reinforcement you could just buy a cheap Chinese knock-off. The last point is that if you or your bass or your band sound like **** then no amount of clowning about on the DB will rescue the gig. If you can play properly whilst performing crowd-pleasing tricks (I'm looking at you, @PaulKing) then well done that man ... carry on!

Do you flatpack it away after each gig? What does it look like with a DB on it?

Yup - just had to do exactly this. Or, more precisely, @Silvia Bluejay did it for me. The lower/outer ring had ridden up ever so slightly to touch the upper/central knob. She slackened off the grubscrew for the lower ring, pushed it down less than 1mm, re-tightened, and all was good.

Crinson. Note that the logo does NOT say Fender.

I have been challenged to start a random, pointless Topic every day - without explanation - just to irritate other Basschatters. Today's random Topic is, why do so many otherwise perfectly sensible people think I give a flying f*** which albums influenced them when they were growing up, or which films they have posted stills from? To make this even more irritating, I'm going to nominate named individuals to try to put them under some sort of peer group pressure to waste even more time. So here's looking at you, @Bassassin @silverfoxnik @tayste_2000 @Clarky @Beedster @Shaggy @stewblack @Rich

Game-changer, mate ...

How's your back? Feeling alright? Have a nice sit-down and a cup of tea ...

Basschat never disappoints ...

Only if they're wearing Kohl ...

That's not even CLOSE to being the ultimate.

Yup, I figured there'd be at least one. Reading through that does tend to emphasise just how difficult it is to date a case, what with many UK basses being sold without a Fender case to start with, most genuinely old Fender cases having bits drop off them, and some designs remaining in production for over 15 years.

A story which neatly encapsulates much of what is 'wrong' with slap.

Actually, the whole issue of provenance does come into this. Hardcases don't carry serial numbers, and there are very few websites devoted to recording and analysing the tiny changes over time between various versions of any given case. In other words, if you pay £945 for a "57 - 59 Precision case", how do you know that it wasn't made in 1984? I'm not casting any aspersions here, and I'm certainly not suggesting that there's anything misleading or fraudulent about those eBay listings ... but how do you prove the date of an empty hardcase?

By '76 I had been working for a living for two years, I had other things on my mind (e.g. punk!), and my formative years were pretty much behind me. I doubt that I could have articulated it then, but at 19 I had a pretty clear idea in my head of what a bass sounded like. The first time I saw Mark King on TOTP I just sat there thinking "what a Godawful racket". The first time I heard Lovely Day by Bill Withers I was in heaven.

The next topic will be entitled: "What have you got against bass players wearing shorts."

And not just power tools, guys. I rather suspect that a soldering iron has been used at some point ...