TrevorR

Last Friday, Fairport Convention at Bath Forum. Supported by the excellent Smith & Brewer. Cracking gig!

Like others have said, Wal Pro series. These were made between 78 and 81 - precursor to the “Custom Series”. Mine’s an active Pro IIE.

Three of my own basses provide the perfect answer for me personally...

That’s some serious mojo... I’m sure it’ll buff right out! Just discovered the thread. What a great gig to be part of. Can’t wait for more updates!

11 years gone today! Sad loss. Loved his playing.

Amazing how many of these bands we have in common. For me it’s... 1) The Beatles. As a wee nipper my (much) older brother, Alfie, had The Beatles Complete and we’d sit on my bed with him bashing away on his guitar singing our hearts out to those tunes... 2) Thin Lizzy. An influence nicked from my brother Brian - specifically Jailbreak and Johnny the Fox. Lizzy were my first proper gig back in 81, with Snowy in the band. 3) ELO. One of my first “my own bands” when Out Of The Blue came out and still an all time fave. Honourable mentions: The Doobie Brothers, The Eagles, Gordon Giltrap, Horslips - all introduced to me by Brian too. Rush I discovered on a school geology field trip. Yes I took a punt on with a £3.29 pocket money splurge... after some initial scepticism I never looked back.

Yes, it was a small, dead ghost... or it could have been a cloth! And a little European flag.

Saw the fabulous Fairport Convention last night and had the whale of a time! What a great band. Over 50 years of plying the boards and they still make great music, put on a fabulous show and come across as guys who are really enjoying what they’re doing. Perusing the stage set up put me in mind of the eternal threads you read on Facebook bass groups and on Basschat’s American cousin asking what rig I need to have to be able to play live. The answer is always along the likes of, “Well, you might get away with 500w but safer to go 800w or a 1000w because of headroom...” and “Well, ideally an SVT and Fridge cabinet. But you’d get away with a couple of 4x10s or 2x12s but make sure they’re 4Ω and the amp’s 2Ω to make the most of the wattage...”. Peggy’s bass sounded fantastic throughout last night. What a great and underrated bass player. And what was his backline? A 280 quid Fender Rumble combo up on a flight case behind his head. It certainly ain’t what you got, it certainly is what you do with it! Here’s some crappy phone photos...

We’ve already had Mr Blue Sky so I’ll go... Sweet Talkin’ Woman - ELO The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy, and Tom Sawyer - Rush

Oh, and an additional BEST.... The Funk Brothers And an additional Wish I’d Seen... Horslips and Rory Gallagher in the late 70s

First concert - Thin Lizzy - St Austell Coliseum 1981 Last concert - Lynyrd Skynyrd (Quo and Massive Wagons) - Wembley Arena 2019 Best concert - Rush Wembley Arena 1987, Gary Moore first blues gig, Hammersmith Odeon early 90s. Worst concert - Heavy Pettin supporting Magnum (they were great) - Hammersmith Odeon, Primus supporting Rush (they were great) Wembley Arena, Dave Hole supporting Gary Moore (he was great) - several times Loudest concert - Rush Snakes and Arrows at Wembley maybe Seen the most - Gordon Giltrap Most surprising - Big Country - St Austell, first tour, won tickets and had no expectations, Rodrigo y Gabriela - Shepherds Bush Empire so much energy and crowd enrapturing power from the nylon strung acoustics! Next concert - Fairport Convention - Forum, Bath Wish I would have seen - Genesis Seconds Out tour, Doobie Brothers in the late 70s or Thin Lizzy with Robbo.

Found a few videos...

We used to do house gigs regularly in our back room - a couple of times a year. It was great fun. Mostly up and coming singers we’d got to know on the singer-songwriter/art centre circuit and from writing for an online mag. But we also had Steve Lawson doing a solo bass gig with his wife, Lobelia, who’s a singer in her own right. We’d have 24 people sitting on sofas and garden chairs and used a small PA I’ve got (tho to be fair, that’s not really needed but since I had it already... why not). It was always a lovely informal setting for music and all our friends who came along loved it (mostly non muso types) and would rave about it to all their friends. We had some great singers from both the UK and US (who were over on small UK tours - solo artists, duos and even a fiddle/cello trio). Highly recommended if you ever fancy it. We’d charge (a voluntary donation of) £10, all of which went straight to the artist plus they invariably picked up a load of CD sales too - which meant it was probably one of their most profitable gigs given the way artists are treated in/near London! Lol! One of our house gig artists went on to win a Grammy or two for songs written with Ed Sheeran and some US country artists, another one is now one of the judges on South Africa’s version of “The Voice”... which gives you an idea of the level of quality of the singers making a living plying the folk club circuit!

Playing at a charity festival at Ascot Racecourse in a big open marquee stage facing the festival. We started play our first set and the bass sounded great on stage. Big and round with a sort of cool ambience - surprising in the circs. We finished playing turned off the wireless transmitter and I set my bass back on the stand. Only to hear my bass amp announce what a treat it was to have the band, that they would be back later and the next event would be over at the... Yes, my bass wireless and the announcement mics were on the same frequency. The reason for all that “ambience” was that I had been treating the entirety of the racecourse beyond the music area to a 45 minute funky bass solo through the Ascot Racecourse tannoy system. Swapped to a cable for the next set!

@cetera you should do this one in your show!

They’re great. Their new cover of ELO’s Mr Blue Sky is just sublime!

Absolutely lovely tribute to Neil Peart in the Guardian today. Beautifully written, heartfelt and insightful. Made my eyes well up too, reading it. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/10/neil-peart-dead-rush-drummer-appreciation?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Such sad news. The reasons for his retirement are now clear. As others have said it’s good that a veryprivate man was able to live out his last few years and his struggle with an awful condition in privacy. Rest in peace, Neil.

Big +1 on OnSong. I curate all our chord charts and have converted them all to OnSong transposable format and PDF for old school printing. However the ability to have the band’s whole repertoire on your iPad at a swipe is really handy when the set list gets changed or songs transposed at the last minute. Love it. Better than kneeling on the floor riffling through a huge lever arch file! I use it with a Bluetooth page turner pedal which makes using it in the service a doddle! Here’s a few more resource pages I find really good and helpful... WORSHIP TOGETHER: https://www.worshiptogether.com Lots of current/recent song sheets on here for free use, licensed by the publishers If you register. Includes transposable ChordPro format files for a load which are compatible with OnSong etc. Great video tutorials etc too. I like their “New Song Cafe” videos where a writer talks about one of their songs and demos how to play it. Use this website a lot. WE ARE WORSHIP: https://www.weareworship.com/uk Lots of free tutorials and download PDF song sheets when you sign up. More stuff available on subscription but I don’t bother. WORSHIP READY: https://www.worshipready.com Similar sort of thing. Really a paid subscription service. However, the free registration gives you access to lots of tutorials, online chord sheets and a free OnSong etc chord sheet download per month. C’mon @Big Rich, we’re on tenterhooks here... how did it go?

Echo a lot of the comments already made. Been playing bass in worship for 30+ years in a number of contexts and situations (tho not for the last 9 months for a number of health and family reasons). From pop-up churches in school halls to conference centres. My current church has its own building now but for the previous 15 years hired rooms at Sandown Park every Sunday. Our general format is a small rock band - drums, bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar and sometimes keys. Lucky that although none of us are pros (and range in age from 16 to 60ish) we manage to play to a pretty good standard. We’re also fortunate that all our keys players know how to stay away from the bass register! Yay! It’s great fun playing in the band as well as really rewarding. Looking forward to getting back to it this month! Here’s a few photos of the band... general typical Sunday set up... An acoustic evening we did... Our Pentecost service celebrating the various nationalities in the church... Me rockin’ the bass...

Zombie thread resurrection... ordering some strings (don’t panic, from Strings Direct) and thought... I wonder how Stringbusters is getting on after all the shenanigans a year or so ago. Like many others here I was a regular user and satisfied customer for many years - until the downhill slide. Logged onto the site URL and just found a placeholder page which is trying (and failing) to look like an ongoing guitar blog. Pretty final looking for now...

So which of the ‘burst T-birds are you going to sell to make suitable hole for the white one? 😉 🤣

Les Nemes sold off his Haircut 100 Aria SB900 this year, if I recall correctly.

There are always some CDs and books on my Amazon wish list around birthday and Christmas time and this is what Santa brought this year. An eclectic old mix of music and the latest Dave Hepworth book to read. I do like his writing - much more than, say, Mr Morley!