Stub Mandrel

Tonight, despite being in a good room and my eq virtually flat, my jazz sounded lifeless. It was only 2/3 of the way through the rehearsal I realised that I had tried the tones off, neck pickup backed off a bit reggae sound before we started. I'd reset my volumes but not the tones... Anyway... it's originals and for one song I needed inspiration and a more aggressive sound. I found both with a pick. The changed sound inspired me to a much better bassline.

Not my videos... they are my partners in this collaboration!

Are you a billionaire? 😁

If you think that's disturbing:

Rehearsing with Taffman and Daffodil tonight... so we'll have a go at the theme song...

That's about 30% more stretch!

You need a 'proper' jazz pup pair to get the full range of jazz sounds. That's why PJs don't cut it.

Here's the evidence...

I've just received a Kay Gremlin from Lee - don't ask why I love these old, bargain-basement instruments! It was packed brilliantly well, better than described and Lee was great to deal with, as said above he's a credit to the Basschat community.

I use 1 finger per fret all the way to the nut... even on a 35" scale five string. I do have fairly long fingers.

Crikey you're all in the wars... I hope it isn't catching. Speedy recoveries @Bluewine and @Gasman!

5* OOMPH rating.

It's always a buzz when people come because of your reputation.

My approach varies depending on how well I know the song (in a general sense). I recently learned Jean Genie. I've busked it at jams a few times and know the structure simply from having heard it a lot. I had to learn the proper details, especially around the chorus but it was fairly straightforward. On the other hand although I 'knew' keep on running it was not well and I was surprised by the complexities in the verse and chorus... especially the changes in syncopation. Plus there were several different tabs so I had to decide which was most accurate. I broke it down into sections. I did one ir two play throughs at half tempo to make sure I had the rhythm right. Then it was brute force... start at the beginning and see how far I could get. My two rules... 1) if I keep making a mistake stop, slow right down and get it righ. Practising a mistake is never a good idea. 2) walk away, ideally sleep on it. You will always be better on returning to . Combine the two approaches. Accuracy at the expense of speed, plus a chance for your brain to process the learning = much faster and more accurate next time around. So my learning is usually many songs in parallel, rather than one at a time. Currently learning 34 songs - a soundcheck, two 15 song sets, and 3 encores. Luckily most I already know or am familiar with and many (but not all) are reasonably straightforward.

Open a burger van?

It was odd, perhaps we hit a bad weekend.

We spent a weekend in Manchester but the only city centre music venues that had gigs had either (cheesy type) jazz or drum'n'bass DJs. On the other hand, we saw five bands in three days in Brighton. Over in South Wales still lots of venues but marginally more closing than opening.

Cow Wow Wow

So I understand.

Billy Cobham would 🙂 And Dave Mattocks, possibly the most in demand session drummer you've never heard of (if you're not a Fairport fan).

Making music and bringing joy to an audience, that's a huge buzz.

In the 80's/90's I always used the effects loop. Don't use it at all these days.

That doesn't look like factory wiring and there's a suspiciously 'battery shaped' space in the contol cavity.

Lots of Rory fans about. Massive annual festival in Ballyshannon and check out Band of Friends with Brendan O'Neil and Gerry McAvoy.

Meep Purple