Staggering on

Here's a bit of the mojo on "Peaches", definitely well used but she sounds great. The colour has been called "butterscotch" as opposed to "blonde" but I think that's just the colour she changed as she aged.😊

I'm with you on that. My Shen SB100 is in perfect shape but "Peaches" my "beater bass" , a '70's Czech ply bass, is perfect for bluegrass, it has a seriously cracked finish that is actually rough if you run your fingers over it. The bass side shows some nasty buckle rash and a bad hit in the C bout that has been repaired as well as some beat up edges. Most of the damage was there when I bought it but gigs in very hot sun and also some in very damp conditions probably added some more mojo. It also had some open seams but that has been repaired and is holding well. From a distance it looks good and a lot of bass players have asked me about it, in bluegrass circles a little mojo is not a bad thing at all. It has Spiro mediums and is loud acoustically and amplifies well and it will get a good workout this weekend.😊 Yes, I know, naming your instrument is silly but "Peaches" just fits with this bass.

Wow, that's great! I watched the video and he and his band have nailed it, music and costumes are perfect, I'd love to play in a band like that. I hadn't heard of the band but I can see why they would appeal to a certain crowd. Same instrumentation as our band but their arrangements are much more period correct than ours, great stuff and fun to play. Thanks for the link, I will pass that on to the band members. Our gig was a lot of fun last Saturday but this week I am going in a very different musical direction as I get ready to head out of town and play with my bluegrass band at a two day festival on Friday and Saturday and a concert on Sunday... variety is the spice of life as they say.😊

A bit of a time warp gig last night, an old fashioned dinner/dance evening with a "Gatsby to Casablanca" theme, just perfect for our 7 piece swing/Dixie band with a guest vocalist. It was a dress up affair with costumes from 20's flappers to gangster outfits and the crowd of just under 50 were up for a good time. As you can imagine most were older but there were some much younger folks there as well. We were scheduled to play 4 sets from 7-11 and figured we would end early but we started early when the meal ended and went right to 11, not too many dancers still there but it went surprisingly well although the horns didn't have much lip left when we finished with a blistering version of the Stray Cats Rock This Town. We started the night with Let's Dance to set the tone and followed that with Five Foot Two from the 20's where I switch to tenor banjo. To get people dancing I gave a quick Charleston dance lesson to about 25 folk and from there on it was a great evening, one of the best the band has played. Our band has a few stony faced musicians but last night they all got into the mood and actually smiled and interacted with each other and the audience, first time that has really happened in 8 years. The vocalist is the conductor of the local symphony but is a good entertainer and has good voice for the type of music we played , almost all standards and big band hits from the 20's through the 40's and we threw in some latin dances and even a waltz medley As front man I worked hard to keep things moving and the band and crowd responded so it was satisfying night for me, the band and the crowd, that doesn't happen too often and we all went home tired but happy. No pics this time but I used my trusty Shen SB 100 into our Bose PA and my Baldwin Ode tenor banjo acoustically, it's plenty loud without a mic. We were in suits so no interesting shoes to report just black dress shoes.😊

For smaller gigs I go direct to our Bose PA but when I play at bluegrass festivals I use my combo amp and DI to the PA and it always seems to work OK. At bluegrass gigs most of the sound guys know what a bass should sound like for bluegrass and are good at setting things up for bass players.

If you can play several DB's that would be ideal. Just because it is a "3/4 double bass" doesn't mean too much because the dimensions and shape vary a lot as well as the neck size and shape. I have owned three DB's and one is perfect for my body size and shape, another is OK and the third was not good at all for me. Just a suggestion, play as many as you can before you buy so you will know what feels best for you. Good luck.

Who knew? Interesting stuff.😊

Yeah, if only I was 16 again. I figure I'm lucky just to be playing at all!😊

Not many of these over here but you can see another photo and a story in my post in General Discussion "How was your gig last night". It is a 3/4 bass with a 42 inch string length and although it is not a very big bass it has a massive sound and came with a C extension and is lovely to play and sounds fantastic, too bad it's not mine.😊

Another concert with my teacher's Young Artists Orchestra, kids from 6 to late teens and a few adults to fill out some sections since many of the kids are too small to play full size cello and bass, total about 35 musicians. The bass section was the same as our Christmas concert with my teacher's 16 year old daughter and a wonderful 9 year old girl playing a half size bass and me, at 79 I am 70 years older than the young bassist! I am so lucky to be playing with these kids, they are all students who started at age 3 or 4 with my teacher's program and are unbelievably good musicians and absolutely professional in their attitude towards playing music and have huge respect for music and their teacher. This concert was mostly movie music (Jurassic Park, Hobbit and others) with lots of dramatic bits and a lot of dynamics to deal with. There was also a string quartet selection but the highlight was the 16 year old playing the Gavotte by Lorenziti with a string quartet on the Thomas Martin bass that her father found for her. She was brilliant on a difficult piece and the audience loved it. Martin basses are rare on this side of the Atlantic but I can see why they have such a good reputation, this is a BASS that can just thunder out those low notes but sounded great when she was off the end of the fingerboard. This is my fifth concert with this group and it is so different from my jazz and bluegrass gigs and makes me practice with the bow which is real challenge. Still taking lessons and hoping for another concert with the kids.😊 Edit: The place was packed for the concert, the action photo was taken during rehearsal just before the doors opened.

A bit late posting but we played another fund raiser last Sunday at the cathedral in North Bay where we played in February of 2024 to help raise money for roof repairs and this time they even paid us for our efforts. Probably at least 200 in the audience, a bit lower than we hoped but it was a beautiful spring day and I think some folks decided to enjoy the good weather. We had a vocalist with us this time and she was great as usual and really knows how to work those old jazz tunes. We did a swing set and then I switched to tenor banjo and one sax player used a bari sax to play a bass line and we played a shorter Dixieland/trad set. Good fun and the church and the band both made money. Shen SB 100 into the Bose PA and Baldwin Ode banjo. The word on the cross above the bass sums up how I feel playing some of the songs. 😊 Edit: Keyboard player is there but hidden behind the alto sax player.

Hmmmmm... I think I meant younger than some of you with a few approaching me, I'll be 79 in a couple of weeks! 😊

A bit of an odd one last Friday for the seven piece swing/jazz standards band. ! 100 years ago North Bay was incorporated as a city and there are many events going on to mark this and we played at the Italian club's old style dinner dance at their hall. An hour of cocktail music and then they fed us and the 160 guests and at about 8:30 we started our dance sets that included some Italian songs. The crowd was older and although we had a few dancers and others who sat around to listen to us we knew it was going to be a earlier night than they planned. We played two sets and finished not long after 10:30. Great food(prime rib) and I had chats with some of the attendees so all in all not bad and the ten or so Italian tunes we learned went over OK and we had some compliments on our music. As usual my weapon of choice was my Shen SB100 straight into our Bose PA. We were set up in a corner in a fairly large hall so we had no idea how it actually sounded. Downside is that after 7 years as a band the drummer decided to quit the next day after enduring a lot of hassles and criticism from the trumpet player. I am also a target but so far I can handle it, she is a music teacher and sometimes likes to treat us like one of her school students. She is often right but her attitude is the problem and no one ever calls her on her mistakes, very frustrating but I like the rest of the band and the music so I am hanging in. We have a good dep drummer for the next couple of gigs in May and June and BL is starting a search for another drummer, the one who quit is very good and was an asset to the band. Life goes on.

Good gig Saturday night with the seven piece swing/Dixie band and we had our guest vocalist with us again. BL rented a small hall where we have played before and we had around 50+ that included a number of folks who had never seen us and a bunch of our regulars. We also had about six musicians in the audience that most of us had played with in the past or present in other bands, that was a bit different but they all seemed to enjoy the show. I was particularly pleased at the end when the best jazz guitarist in our area and his wife who plays bass complimented me on my playing and especially the sound of my bass. They both wanted to try the bass and checked out my pickup and we had a really nice chat. I have met both of them several times and they have seen me play but I must have been doing something right for them to spend so much time with me after the show. We did our usual three sets, two of swing/jazz and a shorter set of trad/Dixie where I switch to tenor banjo and the sax players go to clarinet and bari sax to play a bass line. The Dixie set was a bit rough with two new songs that we had only played once in rehearsal but all in all a good night. No photos but I was using my Shen SB 100 straight into the Bose PA and the banjo was acoustic, the horns aren't mic'd so I could hold my own in a room that size.

I finally pushed a bit at our seven piece swing band rehearsal last night. One of our members is a music teacher and we can use the music room in her school for rehearsals for free but we almost always leave things where they are in the room to avoid moving the drums. Lately that has had me (DB with my own amp) and the keys at the front of the room and the drummer about 30 feet away at the back of the room with the horns set up between us. It is a terrible way to set up and means that the rhythm section can't hear each other but last night I strongly suggested ( not normal for me) that we should make the effort to move things and it made a huge difference. We have been gigging for about 8 years together and this was the best rehearsal in a long time, when we gig we set up like this so it makes sense to rehearse that way. Glad I raised the issue and so was our guest vocalist who really liked that she could hear the band the way it would sound on a gig. I used to dread these rehearsals but I'm looking forward to next week and will make sure we will set up the same way. 😊