Cato

The surprise fuzz bass elevates an otherwise pretty generic ,forgettable tune. As mentioned above there have got to be possibilities for sampling that bass and using it for purposes which could never have been foreseen back in 1961.

Sounds like you've got it covered. You can never go wrong by trying out as much gear as possible.

Have you tried many basses yet? The average Jazz neck is still a fair bit chunkier than any guitar neck I've ever played. It might also be worth looking at PJ basses, you get at least as much versatility as the Jazz configuration and it would broaden the number potential candidates a fair bit. I don't really have much experience with dual humbuckers but I imagine they also give a lot of options. Finally, if it's versatility and flexibility you're after then you might want to consider instruments with an active preamp, especially those with an option to switch the bass to passive.

I'm not too keen on the bridge on my V7 fretless, it just doesn't seem that solid. There's a bit of lateral movement on the saddles when you pull the strings, but it's certainly no worse than the average BBOT and unless you hit the strings with tremendous force it's not going to cause any issues with playing. I just prefer bridges where everything is locked down. As for the tuners they seem fine to me, although ,due to my dodgy fretlesss playing, just because the bass is holding it's tuning it doesn't mean that I'm playing in tune.

From what I could tell from visiting Jamaica a few years back 'classic' reggae doesn't seem to be that popular these days, at least not with the younger generation. Of course you can't get away from Bob Marley and a smattering of other one hit wonder reggae tunes in the tourist hotels and bars, but when we were driven across the island to the airport the taxi driver was listening to the radio and it mainly seemed to be American style pop and hip hop. There was some 'dancehall' stuff as well which has reggae roots but is really more a sort of dance music/rap combo but nothing that came close to what I would have described as 'classic' reggae.

I saw them turn up as unnounced support for a Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine gig at the Hummingbird in Birmingham in around 92/93.

It's probably going to need headphones or decent speakers to hear both the low and high bass bits on this one.

As above. There have been a few reasonably, if temporarily, popular rock bands (within a rather broad definition of 'rock' as opposed to the ridiculous number of subgenres formerly known as 'metal') with interesting basslines in the last decade or so. Arctic Monkeys, Editors and Maximo Park spring to mind. Whether there's any demand from audiences to hear any of their tracks apart from maybe a couple of early Arctic Monkeys songs is uncertain.

The old 'toast rack'. I didn't realise you were at Eton.

No damage done but I once heard my jazz bass hit the ground with what sounded like some force about 45 minutes after I left it propped up against the sofa. It must have been tipping over very, very slowly from the moment I left it there until it reached a point of total over balance and plummeted into the floor.

Probably get a lot of Youtube hits though. You could be the next 'This drummer is at the wrong gig'.

The lack of control plate sort of reminds me of a Hamer Cruise.

It can be a very useful practice/song writing tool. Once you've got the hang of it it's a quick and easy way of putting various parts together. For practising it's a great way of quickly recording yourself then listening back so you can critique your performance.

I use a Boss RC30 which, if I'm honest, does a lot more than I really need it to. The Zoom B1on (and the G1on) opened my eyes to the possibities of looping on bass and guitar but they only have 30 seconds of loop time which can be a bit restrictive. And of course they don't let you remove the layers that you c*ck up. The ability to delete a layer that you are unhappy with is absolutely vital if you don't want to have to give up on something that you've spent some time and effort building up. It's also nice to have the option of saving any loops that you're particularly pleased with or exporting them to a PC or laptop. The drumbeat/metronome feature on many loopers is invaluable for keeping things tight.

This is going to sound rather obvious, but when I make loops I just swap the same lead over between bass and guitar. Usually the guitar goes though a multi fx pedal first which I take out of the signal chain for the bass, but it's really not much faff at all. I can't really see a benefit in having two instrument inputs unless you want to record vocals at the same time you're playing, after all you can presumably only play one guitar at a time.

I put a set of Aguilar 70s and a Kiogon loom in a Squire VM70s Jazz and was really pleased with result. If I was looking to mod anything else I'd certainly look at Aguilar first.

I've been keeping an eye on a some of the larger online music stores because there's a couple of specific items I'm interested in anyway and it seems daft not to wait a couple of days on the offchance that someone offers a discount on them. Andertons are currently running a 'Black Friday presale' which consists mostly of B stock items being offered with a pretty much standard b stock discount, I reckon the same items would almost certainly be available at the same price at any time of year.

Mostly I listen to music on my phone on shuffle. There's a bit of bias towards funk on there but there's a fair bit of other stuff too so I'm probably more 60/40.

I can listen to and enjoy just about anything if the bass is good enough. ABBA being an example that springs immediately to mind. Musically they're not my cup of tea at all but the bass on some of their tracks is absolutely outstanding.

It does sound like it's got the potential to be an interesting project. Something a bit different from the usual band thing. Having said that, I'm not sure I'd have the patience to rehearse like that, I can imagine getting a bit frustrated with sitting around during vocal exercises and relaxation stuff. I'd be tempted to arrange to turn up after all that was over, otherwise I can see myself annoying the hell out of everyone by absent mindedly noodling whilst waiting for the part that requires my participation to get started.

Does Wings count? 'The band the Beatles could have been'. - Alan Partridge.

I think it's one of those terms that means different things to different people. The other day I was reading the wikipedia entry on the 'Great American Song Book' https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Songbook To be honest I reckon I'm familiar with maybe one in three of the 'standards' listed in that article. A lot of them seem to be fairly obscure musical numbers from productions that have probably barley been performed since the 1950s. I suppose the whole concept of what qualifies as a 'standard' these days is entirely subjective.

I'm certain the guy is delighted with the way this has turned out. I also wonder if he might actually sell some real tickets for the remaining shows of the 'tour' to curious punters who wouldn't have otherwise thought of going.

Could have been worse. At least HJ addressed the problem before he went 'full Kravitz'.

I've just googled 'Threatin' and this story seems to be gaining a fair bit of momentum. I wouldn't be surprised if it makes the national press in the next few days. I bet the Youtube views are shooting up as well. So if it was attention the guy was after, it looks like he's going to get it, although I'm somewhat dubious as to whether that's actually going to translate into any kind of commercial success.