Happy Jack

My main band these days is a rock'n'roll 3-piece called Damo & The Dynamites. Apart from the fact that the name is 'authentic' and period-correct (so works well for the punters), the reality is that Damo is the frontman, singer, and guitarist. I have no problem at all with the name, whereas a band named either The Dynamites or (much, much worse) Jack & The Dynamites would just be wrong. I should mention that the band probably wouldn't exist at all, and certainly would be nowhere as successful, without @Silvia Bluejay and me. Nowt to do with my God-like bass playing, more a matter of us providing ALL the gigs, plus the PA & lights, and the sound engineer, and the photos and video, and the social media presence etc. etc. etc. But so what? People don't come to see the band because Silvie and I will be there. They come (whether or not they realise it) to see Damo.

I'm old enough to remember the scandal about Mr. Inlandi Revenoo ...

*** WARNING WARNING!!! DANGER DANGER!!! HUMOUR ALERT!!! *** Having now received a serious application for this amazing job opportunity, I feel I should point out that this was a JoinMyBand listing by a delusional guitarist. I posted it here because I thought it was so funny. Anyway, back to the show ... ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************* Need a bassist for a serious trio project First, we will finish and record our originals, which I will be a producer of and then with those combined, we'll start playing live. Please don't contact me if you are insecure about how you play or in life in general. I'm here to change the course of history, and if you think I'm bullshitting, contact me to see my vocals and demos. Not trying to be a jerk here; however, I'm sick of dealing with non-musical bullsh*t.

You'll never take me alive, copper!

We went into our NYE gig being well aware that it's the sort of pub where people pay almost entirely by card. The pub was always going to make a mint that night, but there was real doubt that they'd have the cash to pay us. Solution? https://sumup.co.uk/air-contactless-card-reader-gsuk/?gclid=CjwKCAiA24SPBhB0EiwAjBgkhq95mN_UOrEEEaF5xxpsYd3DZwokgBqHMXy-iLsWwvqmfPFgJ4uI2BoCzzYQAvD_BwE For a one-off payment of £35 I can now accept payments by card for any band I play in. The only on-going charge is their 2% transaction fee. For £300 gigs we now charge £306 if the venue wishes to pay by card.

Pah! The ergonomics of the headstock are all wrong ...

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! And that's why I have never joined the MU.

The whole 'hours worked' thing has always left me somewhat bemused. I love playing bass. In fact, the only thing I love better than playing bass is playing bass for a genuine reason. I love learning new material. In fact, the only thing I love better than learning new material is learning new material for a gig. The idea of totting up how many hours I've 'invested' in playing bass, and then calculating the return on my investment, seems to miss the point rather. YMMV

I absolutely LOVE the run of the strings from the tuners through the wrong end of a BBOT. 45-degree angle through a tiny, rough hole ... what could possibly go wrong?

First there was the proper enforcement of drink/drive laws, then there was the banning of smoking. Both measures are entirely to be applauded and supported, but there's no ducking that they came damned near to killing off live music in pubs. We've all fought back, of course, and live music is still out there, but it's way harder to get an audience to hit the bar at 8pm, drink & smoke steadily until chucking-out time, before stumbling into their Allegros and Cortinas ... it's only a short drive, I'll be fine, hic!

And don't forget that a 4" wood screw can solve most problems. 😉

We did much the same thing, making the offer only to pubs who had previously paid full rate. Most of the pubs took the offer and were happy to pay the reduced fee, one pub where we like the landlord so much that we offered to pay for nowt insisted on paying us. We did that because we wanted to, we wanted to 'put something back in' if you know what I mean. Of the pubs who took us up on our offer, very few of them are pubs we'll be playing in 2022. Some no longer do music, some only want solo artists or duos, some weren't that great to play anyway. That's OK, we didn't do it because we hoped it would gain us lots of high-fee gigs after Covid. 😂

I'd be concerned by a plumber who drew a crowd ...

What you really want is knobs labelled Quark, Strangeness and Charm.

But really, really easy to carry ...

Describing GAS as "irrational or illogical" is a tautology. Of course it's irrational and illogical. If a desire to purchase something is rational and logical then it's just buying the right tool for the job. The very definition of GAS is buying stuff you don't need because the acquisition itself is the aim of the transaction. Don't ask me how I know.

Bin there, dun that. Bandmates can say the strangest things ...

There are some really 5h1t bands out there. I wouldn't want to be charging the same as them ... I'm better than that and I would want to charge what I'm worth. After a while it might look as if they were 'undercutting' my band, whereas in fact they would merely be charging what they're worth. I'm not really a big believer in applying socialist principles to matters involving talent. 😉

I've got 60 gigs in the 2022 diary just now, running in an arc around NW London from Ware to Woking. Average fee across those 60 gigs is £300 a pop. Slightly more pubs than clubs, no posh functions. As to pub-rock wannabees pontificating on the ENORMOUS fees they get paid, there's no shortage of bloke-in-a-pub guys prepared to bore the pants off you with complete cow poop. When you try to find their high-paying gigs on social media it usually turns out that they haven't played a live gig in years. Ignore and move on.

Looks like I bought @Beedster's Doubler just in time! EA will be missed, they were a great outfit.

Don't like the string spacing from D to G.

My covers band The Junkyard Dogs has covered Baby Please Don't Go for years (with me on vocals!) and our version owes a lot more to Never Turn Your Back On A Friend than it does to Van Morrison and Them. I lent my original copy to one of my best friends in 1974. He rode home on a weird Suzuki thingy with an upswept exhaust (very rare in those days) and the only way he could take it home was by sliding my LP between the exhaust and the rear sub-frame. Seriously. Unbelievably, that record never played again.

What with CNC and Plek machines an' all, I rather assumed that they made Mike Lull necks on a jig and everything lined up perfectly every time. That's a bit of a revelation.