Happy Jack

Dating a musician? Cut him in half and count the rings ...

Hmmm ... a very high price, yes, but perhaps not quite as outrageous as some seem to think. I bought a Hondo II Les Paul about 6/7 years ago, paid £180 for it. Now everyone knows that Hondos were the ultimate in crap guitars, except that some weren't. Pretty much every competent guitarist who's played this thing (i.e. not me) has liked it, and it sounds more like a Gibson that you might believe. If I was to be persuaded to sell it today I certainly wouldn't take less than £250 for it, since it would cost at least that to get an adequate replacement (IMHO). £250 is a lot less than £510, I know, but we're not talking orders of magnitude here. Just sayin' ... Oh yes, and this is my first ever post on a guitar forum!

For £200-ish you can get a ridiculously high-quality pre-owned bass. My choice would be an SGC Nanyo Bass Collection, but there's no shortage of choice. At that price point, it's hard to see how you'd lose much if you choose to re-sell it later. If you're particularly keen to buy new, then any entry-level Chinese bass these days will do an adequate job for you. You're looking at nearer £100 for one of those. Unless you're impossibly skint, the amounts are so tiny that there's nothing to lose by having a bass lying around your home unused for 11 months of the year.

I've been on the same bill as Cherry White ... if you're in/near Derby this is well worth an evening of your time.

It's basically a guitar re-imagined as a bass. And I can't imagine where you'd find suitable strings for it!

Robert Palmer - You Really Got Me

[quote name='solo4652' timestamp='1422876576' post='2677721'] "A new, unused item with absolutely no signs of wear." [/quote] The copywriter was a Mr. S. Wonder ...

It's all about the strings. The ones it comes with will probably be awful, and you'll be thinking in terms of upgrading to Aquila Thunderguts or something. Also, and I'm absolutely serious, always use talcum powder on your fingers when playing. As gigging instruments, these things are a load of fun and work very well.

[quote name='fatwull' timestamp='1422722411' post='2676078'] Just imagined Mark King being told "sorry mate, we don't like that slappin stuff" [/quote] If only! Just think of all the irritating noisy grief we'd all have been spared since then ...

Yup. We played there in late Nov and got through the whole three sets without triggering it once. Landlord was so impressed that he booked us for NYE on the spot. We started that gig using exactly the same rig and same settings as before, got 20 minutes into Set #1 and bosh! Complete silence. Oh sh*t oh dear. That limiter is truly savage. In this case, I'm guessing the difference was the exact direction that the PA cab was pointing, or the number of punters close to the band at that moment, or what colour the month was. Despite all that, we've still been booked for another three gigs there.

[quote name='Kevin Dean' timestamp='1422630675' post='2674886'] The only thing I don't like about it is that I would have expected the wires to be built into the frame & it takes longer to set up than it should . [/quote] Understood, but having them externally means that repairs & upgrades are far easier. I also notice that some of the drummers who use my Roland prefer to have different pads in different places, and at least one of them likes to remove two of the pads! Where the kit is used repeatedly by Paul (i.e. no one else fiddles with it) we usually move it around fully-plugged (except the two pedals of course) so there's very little actual setting up involved.

Come on over Nige ... it's right here!

A few years back I was kitting out my new rehearsal space, and volume was going to be an issue. So I bought a really nice set of Roland V-Drums from Nige (xlddx) in a trade involving my Status Vintage GP Artist Please note - I do NOT play drums. At all. My plan was only for them to be used at rehearsals, a drummer with a volume knob, and I was aware that the kit I'd bought was a bit OTT for that. Paul the Drums (in the Junkyard Dogs) saw them as a bit of a novelty item, quite fun to play in the studio but obviously you'd never gig with them. Drummers in other bands I played with were impressed with the quality, but nit-picked about the 'bounce' of the sticks and the fact that you couldn't, e.g. use brushes with them. Fast forward to now. The Dogs now play about as many live gigs using the leccy kit as using the live drums. We have seven gigs between now and the end of March. Four of them will be with the leccy kit, and in at least one of those four we only got the gig precisely because we DO have a leccy kit. That was also certainly the case with our high-paying NYE gig last month. [i][If you want to hear the kit in action, click on the Junkyard Dogs link in my sig, and come along to any of the Halfway House, the George Inn, or the Chiswick Club Society.][/i] Leccy kit gigs take up less space when playing, and MUCH less space while setting up and breaking down. The load-in & load-out are far easier too. Venues with a sound limiter are a doddle, and we can get (and keep) a better balance across the band at any gig. Paul the Drums no longer complains at all; he sees it as just another string to his bow. Other drummers are far more enthusiastic. We used the leccy kit at maybe 15 gigs in 2014. We had not one negative comment from a landlord, punter, or fellow muso in the audience. I'm no fan of axing live drum kits, and I enjoy playing alongside them as much as anyone. But similarly I'm no fan of axing proper double basses, yet I play at least half my DB gigs on a Baby Bass. You do what the gig needs, and increasingly these days the gig needs a band with a volume control ... especially one for the drummer. Edited for correct bass trade!

Genuinely astonished at the amount of negativity towards leccy drums. A good quality kit is indistinguishable (to the audience) from a live kit, and the pub rock scene continues to move steadily towards bands with a volume knob - especially for the drummer. Paul the Drums in the Junkyard Dogs was slow to warm to them but wouldn't now be without them for small venues. The drummers in two other bands I play with have also abandoned their opposition. Getting back on topic, glad you came through the audition process unscathed, and I hate pointy Ibanez guitars too.

On most Precisions, the first thing to go when you start to roll off the volume is a bit of top end. So yes, you can alter the tone with just the volume knob.

[quote name='thebrig' timestamp='1422544617' post='2673938'] I never played bass or guitar again until about six years ago, I am now aged 63, and been in some decent bands for the last five years, and I now realize that I can actually play quite well, so I'm now trying to make up for all that lost time! [/quote] That really is a recurrent thread around here, isn't it? Include me in ...

Viewed purely as a retail experience (which is a pretty reasonable point of view) the negative comments about much of Denmark Street don't strike me as particularly unfair. Working a few minutes from there for nearly 20 years means that I've had the opportunity to spend more time there than most Basschatters, and I've seen plenty that's good and plenty that's bad. But the reason for much of the [i]angst [/i]about Denmark Street's imminent demise is that it's NOT just a retail experience. It is genuinely part of Britain's musical history (not just punk, not just the Stones, it goes back much further than that), it is genuinely a tourist attraction, it is genuinely a nexus (sorry about the pretentious word) where different aspects of the current music scene can rub up against each other. Should that stand in the way of progress (assuming that you view this as progress)? Dunno. I really can see both sides of the story here. But I'm glad that the Street's not just disappearing in a foam of complete apathy. At least we'll be able to look back later once it's gone and think that we at least [i][b]considered [/b][/i]trying to keep it. Personally I'd feel happier about it if I knew that "the scene" was going to re-locate elsewhere. In practice, there's a real risk that "the scene" may now become almost completely virtual. Places like Basschat, in fact.

[quote name='Beedster' timestamp='1422550815' post='2674021'] [size=4][color=#333333][font=Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif]'....the Corkscrew Saloon on the Furnace Creek Ranch in Death Valley National Park...'[/font][/color] [color=#333333][font=Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif]It's a rock 'n roll setting, better than Weatherspoons' in Walsall [/font][/color][/size] [/quote] I had exactly the same thought.

I'm guessing that Detective John Maclaine falls into the category of "other conditions".

The real mystery is why characters played by Bruce Willis (I'm looking at you, Maclaine) can't afford to buy biological detergents.

[quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1422537748' post='2673812'] Aye, just the top of the head is it? [/quote] No, of course not! I also do a nice line in soiled, once-white T-shirts ...

[quote name='toneknob' timestamp='1422534828' post='2673765'] Also, a well-known US actor was seen in there last week dropping £10k on a vintage P ... [/quote] Nah! That was me, body-doubling for Bruce Willis.