Happy Jack

But you need to emphasise to the venues that you keep your 'Free' tab on Lemonrock accurate and up to date. So few bands actually use this facility that most bookers won't bother to check it unless you point them at it.

HazBeen, if you're only 45 and you have no significant medical issue (slipped disk, etc.) then looking for mechanical solutions is probably not the best option. If your current woes are caused by poor posture (as in my case, aggravated by having flat feet) then finding complicated structures that will allow you to continue to have poor posture is just going to lead to bigger problems downstream. And yes, I did that too, so I'm talking from experience. If you search Basschat hard enough, you'll probably find my posts about experimenting with 'clever' straps and back-support systems back in 2007/08. Given my own history, obviously I'm going to recommend starting with an assessment by a good Pilates practitioner - do some research first and choose someone with loads of experience and (preferably) an osteopath qualification too. That said, there are other health professionals, such as physiotherapists, who could do the same thing. You'll make your own decision. The important thing is to nail down right at the start what the actual problem is. In my case it was all about posture and poor core strength and the answer turned out to be a regular Pilates class and an exercise regime. All of this hit me like a landslide around the time I hit 50 and was playing fewer than a dozen gigs a year. I'm now pushing 63, playing over 70 gigs a year - half of them high energy rockabilly - and in better shape than I was 12 years ago. My early years of back problems also left me with a very expensive predilection for uber-lightweight gear and that hasn't gone away, but the weight of the bass is no longer the sole deciding factor. PM me if you'd like to go into any of this in more detail.

After 2.5 years? Maybe not ...

On the other hand, some of these bozos are sources of great band stories for the years to come. Last night is a case in point. I'm playing DB in a rockabilly trio (at The Oddfellows in Apsley, in case you know it), just about to start the third set, when a mid-40s lady walks up to me. Here we go, I think, do we play any Abba. She points at my DB and says, "Is that a harp?". OK, this is a wind-up, right? But she looks perfectly serious. No, I say, it's a double bass. "A double bass?" says she, "I didn't know about them." Yes, I reply, it's a double bass, and usually when people ask about it, that's because they think it's a cello. "No", she says, "I thought it was a harp. What does a harp look like, then?". I ask her if she's familiar with Guinness. She looks startled but says that she is. I tell her to picture the Guinness logo. "That's a harp", I say. She frowns, looks around for support, there's none forthcoming and my guitarist is now wetting himslef laughing, so off she totters to the toilet.

I have the cheap gigbag that I used to keep my Harley-Benton uke-basses in when gigging them. It's NOT purpose made for uke-basses, and it's certainly too big to be used with a Kala, but as a cheap, rain-proof gigbag it'll do a job for you. In the front pocket, I discovered the original fitment Thundergut strings that came on the HB, cut to length (obviously) but virtually unused. Drop me a PM if you want it. It can be collected from Harrow or (by prior arrangement) from the West End. Alternatively, check my signature to see where I'm gigging and collect it at a gig.

I do realise that these front-mounted amps are designed to work that way, but I get nervous about the leverage too. Buy a length of this (or similar): https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Pine-Crown-Moulding---34mm-x-12mm-x-2-4m/p/121310 Instant wedgery to support the back.

By the time he's cut holes in the side for the pickup, the idea no longer holds water.

My ex-wife said that PMS could not be altered at all.

I've always been a big fan of the small stuff that passes people by in these home videos. Why didn't he take the coats off the wall and put them on the sofa or the bed, rather than brushing into them in a distracting way every few seconds? Could he really not be bothered to close that cupboard door before switching on the recorder? What's with the rolled-up chequer-floor mat? Above all, why is he filming himself playing indoors dressed for a jog across the park in mid-winter? I think we should be told ...

Although, and famously, none of The Beatles had any formal musical training worth mentioning.

Ah right, this isn't a plastic wrap for your bass then?

I played piano (badly) and guitar (very badly) as a teenager. I sang bass in various choirs (although I've always been a baritone) and would routinely sing along with the bassline of the big hits of the day - especially All Right Now by Free. Gave it all up when I was about 22 ... no great loss. Picked up a bass guitar for the first time on my 49th birthday (it had been bought for my teenaged daughter but she never played it) and I've never looked back. I grew up on Guernsey. Bass guitars were a rarity and I never even touched one until I moved to London in the mid-70s. Maybe things could have been different, then? Well, maybe. I remember sharing a flat with a bass player and it took both of us to get his bass rig up and down the stairs. I always was a lazy s.o.b.

I tried taking a double bass by tube just once, to an open-air festival gig with no parking anywhere near. My DB gigbag has wheels and is therefore towable, but the bass really didn't enjoy being towed along uneven pavements and up & down curbs. My journey was very simple, eight stops on a single line with no changes, but neither station has lifts so the DB had to be carried up/downstairs at both ends. All I can say is, I'm bloody glad that @Silvia Bluejay was there to help! For any public transport gig, leave the DB at home and take a Precision ...

Or you could just take up playing the harmonica, of course. Just saying ...

Try swopping out the Telefunken valves for some higher-gain models. A German engineer in a white lab-coat looking over your shoulder might not approve, but it's easy enough to get the sound you're after with a bit of experimentation.

I had several vintage Dynacord valve amps some years ago, all very Germanic ... bullet proof and built like tanks, but also alles ist richtig = we don't do distortion. These were some of the cleanest valve amps I've ever played a bass through, but in truth they didn't sound as 'rock' as my old Selmer and WEM amps.

I mined that blog for information on so many occasions ...

That really does take things to a new level. The pickup arrangement is simply beyond belief.

Don't go and see @TheRev without taking a nice bottle of cider. Poor lad hardly ever gets to drink any ...

On the height issue, I'm just short of 5'11" and always played my DB with the end-pin out about 6" (bringing the nut in line with my eyebrows) until I joined a rockabilly band. Now I keep the end-pin all the way in and the bass is little more than resting on the ground. It took surprisingly little adjustment in my playing position to get used to it, and the DB is actually far more stable with the centre of gravity lowered in that way.

Good review, and I agree with most of what he says, but I was quite surprised by his description of the pull-up Tone knob function. He seems to think that this is to 'thin out' the bass tone and pick up more highs, which I suppose is one way of describing it, whereas John Hall actually named it to me as 'the vintage knob' and he was quite right - pulling it up instantly restored the classic vintage Ricky 'clank' which had been missing without it. There are situations where the Ricky 'clank' works really well, but there are many more situations where (IMHO) it doesn't. I play mainly T-birds and Precisions, so that gives a flavour of how I like my bass to sound. The thing I liked so much about the new 5 is that it can sound like a vintage Rick AND it can sound far more mellow. On the string spacing thing, though mainly a fingerstyle player myself I would certainly have to play more with a pick if I got the chance to own one of these - unlikely to be an issue any time soon, since Rickenbacker seem to be keeping supply ridiculously low, perhaps to add to the mystique of the bass. The biggest problem with this review was his complete lack of a silly hat.

Incidentally, I've had two of these and both of them had really weak original pickups and dodgy pots. I sold the first one (in maroon red) because of that - it looked great and the sliding pickup system is astonishingly effective, but the tone was so weedy that I couldn't imagine gigging it. A few years later I stumbled across, of all things, a single Dark Star pickup. I bought it on spec, and then went looking for another The Rail. I found one (in black) and then had Andy Gibson in Denmark Street do a real number on it. He loves working on those things because Dave Swift is an admirer of them too (Andy works on all Dave's basses AFAIK). We ditched the original pickup, pots and wiring, he prepped a piece of ebony to add on to the sliding base so that it was 'squarer', and then mounted the Dark Star on the newly-enlarged slidey bit and did a complete re-wire. The bass now sounds absolutely awesome and lives right here alongside me in my tiny study on the landing ... it's my go-to 4-string bass when I'm learning or practising. On the other side is my go-to 5-string bass and that's a Status Streamline. Judge a bass by the company it keeps ...

After all the mods & upgrades I've had done, you could be a long time a-waiting ...