Happy Jack

I played a pub a couple of weeks ago which was entirely papered with 'red brick'. I wouldn't have minded so much, only it was an 18th century building ...

Use a shovel? I think that IS a shovel.

Oh, I don't doubt that it's a fantastic course. The clue is in the OP's use of the word "retired". A student loan is largely irrelevant when you're no longer earning, and that's a helluva lot of money to spend on improving your bass-playing with little prospect of earning it back. What would a good bass teacher charge for tailored one-on-one sessions? £30 an hour? £50 an hour tops? Even at that rate, that course would buy 127 personal sessions in your own house, twice week for 15 months. Think about it.

And only £6350 ...

Believe it or not, I tried to persuade The Junkyard Dogs to introduce that. The suggestion was not well received ...

The 55 is the classic Elvis mic and it's a wonderful thing, but it's a different beast from an SM58. It's worth spending a bit of time getting the EQ and levels just right - you will be well rewarded. Lovely rich sound.

At which position do you measure the action on a DB, Rabbie? I thought I had my action pretty high but I'm sure it's not over a centimetre, so maybe I'm looking at a different place.

Tonight I depped for a functions-ish band in St. Albans. I have now played Le Freak and Blame It On The Boogie, Dancing Queen and Waterloo, even Uptown Funk, and I was gutted when we ran out of time before I could play Disco Inferno. Never played ANY of those songs before in front of an audience. Years of pop/rock and blues/rock and Dadrock but never disco. Don't know where you all rate that lot for coolness or otherwise, but some bloody good fun to be had! Just thought you'd like to know. 😁

I do like the ideal of Presents from The Bass Gallery ...

Meanwhile, if you thought you'd had it bad ... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-44722812

Is that the technical description? A flock of starlings, a herd of cattle, a pool of drummers?

I do understand some of the frustration about other events being affected by this, but at the same time I am astonished almost every year at the short-sightedness of various venues and organisations - have they never heard of the World Cup, the European Championships, the Olympics? As soon as I open my new diary for the following year, the first entries are the major sporting events that I really do not want to compete with. I won't accept evening gigs if they're scheduled against, say, the Champions League final, or afternoon gigs if they're up against the British GP at Silverstone or the Men's Singles Final at Wimbledon. I mean, come on guys, this is hardly rocket science.

I'm pretty sure that 190cm is the correct measurement for a 3/4-size DB. Certainly that's what both of mine come out at. In fairness, they're a tight fit in my Tom & Will soft case. Maybe the listings you're looking at assume that you want a more 'generous' size?

At the risk of sounding seriously pretentious, we are all privileged to be around to watch a World Cup this entertaining, this unpredictable, and this gripping. I've watched every major tournament since 1966 (that's 25 of the buggers) and I simply cannot recall anything that has been this much fun. When Japan -v- Belgium turns out to be a cracker, despite the usually desperately tight Round-Of-16 scenario, you know that all bets are off. My point? The bass-playing can reasonably be reduced or even set aside just for this short while. You'll kick yourself if you miss one of the great matches because you'd decided to have another run through Play That Funky Music ...

Eleven ill-chosen words to try to sell something as off the wall as that? Perhaps he's embarrassed by it ...

From my perspective, after they released Yessongs they could more profitably have split up into solo projects. Rick Wakeman tried to show them the way, but they wouldn't be told. Yes 1971-73 (but absolutely excluding Toposhitty Oceans) remains one of my all-time favourite bands. Yes 1974 - date wouldn't feature in my top 1000 bands.

Ah great, Tom & Will no longer make that particular case. Try this instead: https://www.gear4music.com/Woodwind-Brass-Strings/Westbury-Deluxe-Padded-3-4-Double-Bass-Gig-Bag-with-Wheels/1MBI

I can't help you with being based in Edinburgh, I'm afraid ...

Get the Tom & Will with towing wheels - not quite semi-rigid but very good padding, and you won't regret having a DB on wheels. If the rigid case is one of those really light-weight hard-shell types, they're not actually worth a lot of money and they take up a ridiculous amount of storage space. I ended up giving mine away just to see the back of it.

Where are the LED side markers?

Well yes, the reading bit is important, but it does help to write down the part correctly ...

Yes, yes, yes, we get that, but what about the important bit? How many songs did you play?