Happy Jack

Dave Allen was very big on TV in the late-60s through to the mid-80s, Irish comedian with a droll raconteur style of story telling. Many of his stories managed to incorporate his missing half-finger ...

This Tom & Wills padded gigbag on wheels has done an excellent job for me for years but sadly it is now approaching the end of its useful (gigging) life. The most-used handle is tearing away from the body of the bag and other wear suggests that its beyond saving. I've bought a replacement now and this is too bulky to have hanging about the place. But before it goes in a skip, this is still a good bag for some purposes, including non-gigging uses such as storage or protection from passing damage. I'll keep it for a week to see if anyone fancies swinging past Harrow HA1 to pick it up. If not, then it'll have to go.

Exactly this ^. You probably need to define 'rig' for these purposes, @Clarky. More sensibly - and entirely to my astonishment - of all the truly lovely amplification kit I own my go-to for almost every gig is the Trace Elf. Virtually all of my gigs have full PA support so I have no need (or use) for silly-loud on-stage volumes, which makes the Elf the obvious choice regardless of the venue, the genre of music, or the overall volume level. It handles a 5-string Rickenbacker and an aluminium double bass equally well, so there's no point in anyone trying to dismiss it as some sort of one-trick pony.

Time to start working on your Dave Allen routine? 😉

And how's that going for you? 😂

You'd think we'd be talking to each other, eh? 😂

Yes, just out of shot to the left, plus the KK Baby Bass I bought from @PTB which is in the studio outside. Obviously something has got to give so I'll be selling the 4/4 Zeller. 😟

But Shirley, using the PA foldback simply passes the environmental issues further along the chain, neh? A speaker is a speaker ...

Agreed - there are independent audiologists who do this sort of thing without needing a Boots. Any hearing aid specialist should certainly know about this stuff - go in and ask.

Another vote for ACS here - I've worn mine at every gig and musical event for the last 15 years. I already had very bad tinnitus when I bought my first pair and I won't pretend they've "cured" that, but they've certainly slowed down the deterioration and they make gigs far more pleasant places to be. Bonus if you sing (lead or BVs) because you can hear your own voice inside your head far more clearly, helping greatly with pitching.

That's a helluva lot of money for a bass that's going to be treated (deliberately) roughly. It's the nature of playing doghouse bass in a rockabilly or rock'n'roll band that you're going to throw shapes and do tricks, some of which may well end up in embarrassing outcomes and collisions with guitarists' headstocks and stuff. Don't ask me how I know. I routinely play very primitive single-slap stuff on four different DBs, none of which could be described as optimised for rockabilly slap (Extra-wide fingerboard? Do what?), and it doesn't seem to have done me much harm. https://www.youtube.com/DamoAndTheDynamites If this is a new band project then I'd be more inclined to buy something pre-battered and fiddle with the setup until you're happy. If the band takes off and you're getting lots of well-paid gigs, then you can upgrade later. Meanwhile, someone who knows what he's talking about will be along in a minute. @PaulKing @TheRev

I played boogie-woogie piano when I was a teenager ... not well, but I played it. And I could play the cowboy chords on guitar. Gave it all up when I hit London at 17 and found myself sharing flat after flat with committed wannabe rock stars. I started playing bass from scratch on my 49th birthday and 15 years later I felt I'd achieved at least basic competence. Then I found myself playing bass in a not-very-good soul band as a side-project during the Covid lockdowns. We lost our keyboard player after our first batch of gigs and found ourselves approaching the next batch six months later still without a keys player, so I suggested that I slide sideways onto the keys seat because it would be easier to recruit a new bass player. There were some raised eyebrows but we went ahead and did it, and it worked. I focused for three straight weeks on keys, keys and more keys and - given the limited level of playing ability in the band - by the time we gigged I didn't stand out as the novice. Entry level stuff is perfectly acceptable on keys so long as you don't big yourself up as the new Rick Wakeman. I left that soul band when the rather decent lead vocalist left to concentrate on singing karaoke in care homes. 😱 Two years later and I've gigged on keys with three different bands, with a bunch of dep gigs for a fourth band coming up this Autumn. I've got steadily better and better (as you'd expect) but Rick Wakeman remains thoroughly unchallenged by me. @la bam, the best advice I can give you is to be straight with people about your playing level. Any halfway decent muso is going to understand what you're saying; if you're not good enough (yet) for that band then best you don't join it, but a lot of bands will take sax as much for the look of it as the sound (a bit like DB in that regard), and many really famous sax parts are astonishingly simple when you analyse them.

@AndyBass your profile doesn't say where in the country (world?) you are ...