Wombat

They would be useful on a Helix to denote the input you usually use. Shame I don’t have one anymore!

At my House Band OM there is an older lady who comes and plays the most fantastic boogie woogie piano. Always fun to play with and easy even if I don’t know the song. She’s also ‘considerate’ about not playing in my space. She’s went through a spell of bringing different musos who would play guitar and sing. Always Jerry Lee, Buddy Holly blah blah. One time this guy was plugging in his Strat so I asked the lady ‘what are we playing’ and she said ’Stairway to Heaven’. I thought ‘an old blues tune I’d not heard of’ so I said ‘key pls, how does it go’. She said ‘The recorded key, you know, the Led Zeppelin song’! Lucky I had the intro to get the chords up on my iPad. The guy nailed the singing and guitar. Amazing!

I play in an originals band locally so we ‘punt our stuff’ at a few OMs, often in pubs we play in (mostly covers). Initially it was annoying as they all have a 3 song limit and our 3x3min pop originals was taking err, 9 mins (ish) and other bands were playing ’Freebird’ like songs AND putting extra verses in! Our response (which seems to be accepted) is to simply look at the organiser and say ‘as our songs are really short can we play another’ and so far it’s been accepted. No frowning on the 3x9min songs as yet but we’re working on it! Can completely understand why organisers don’t want to p people off but surely there comes a point when you ‘ave a polite word? Also, taking ages in the switch over can be annoying. The originals band use a helix & pedal boards but we have them under one arm (guitar under the other) before we’re called. At the OM where I’m in the house band one bassist took over 5 mins trying to find a power supply for his compressor to get ‘his sound’! Which he was hoping to achieve through my amp, which has a compressor on it!

I’ve a number of ‘boutique leather straps’ for various basses but for a rather anchorish P I’ve gotten back into playing I was recommended a 3in Lekato Bass Strap from eBay by SparkyMark of this Parish. They do do colours but I went for plain black. This one I think. Not the fanciest strap I’ve got but boy does it make a 4+kg bass more comfortable to play.

I’m normally over 15k steps 😉

You sure you meant walk?

At ours it’s sometimes ’bandioke’ where someone sings or plays guitar with a band - often for the first time. People have to pop their Cherry somewhere! We’ve had people who were truly awful - but so encouraged they come back again getting better & better each time.

Yes, but so does a Kay and many other basses. It also looked old, although it was loved so not terribly ‘worn’. I think I was prolly more distracted by the next person up calling out the song & key and the bassist coming off handing me his bass and asking me to play it than really noticing what it was. I do remember not thinking the strap was too low or too high so that was a plus. But thinking ‘is this made of balsa’ it felt so “fragile”.

Playing in the house band at our open mic I was asked by another bassist if I would play his bass so he could hear what it sounded like (sigh). Cherry red P. As he handed it to me I only got a glance at the headstock and I thought I saw a circle with a ‘K’. Played a few runs on mute and the neck was ok. When I ‘pressed play’ it was awful. The two outer strings had no volume at all so you had to dig in to them. The two inner were so loud if you touched them they were overwhelming the band mix. The only ‘plus’ was that it was really light! Afterwards he thanked me and said how great it was sounding and as I handed the ‘Kay’s Copy’ back I noticed there was actually a pick in the strings over the headstock logo that made me think it was the Kay Logo. Underneath I saw an ‘F’ so asked him what it was. 1962 Precision was the reply. Owned since new he’d basically ‘given me a treat’ to play an awesome Vintage Bass! I was very thankful I’d thought it was a dog as it would save me thousands as I now didn’t want to own one! Unfortunately that was short lived as he brought its sister, a blonde 1962 jazz, to the next OM. That was LOVELY!

I'd be happy to let Nathan East play any of my basses. Get photos and videos of him doing it and you just added loads to the value 🤣.

Aye, I was thinking that. As a Londoner who lives ‘just down the road’ I can, if I’m still available (Mrs Bat hasn’t organised for me to be somewhere else!) arrange a tour of interesting places, where tourists don’t get so ripped off etc. Or at least offer advice as needed! Some sort of International Bass Bash seems sensible. Be rude not to!

Booo

So you are supplied by Thames Water too then?

We, could have done that one for you as we’re in Bromley! We would have played to the 3 people and our fans would have only been 30 miles away!

Push Fit Copper? Is that a good name for a metal band? 😂

So what's best? Push fit or copper?

Ah, ok. I see. When I was playing just covers I felt I was taking a ‘slot’ that pros could use. The current band is more originals and it’s great ( and hard!) to get our music out there.

It’s unfortunately not bollocks. Venue is not making a lot of money or losing it they hire the cheapest labour - and consequently bands prepared to play for not much or nothing. Those making a living from playing miss out. You can go all the way back to the Tolpuddle Martyrs for comparison. Do you want fries with that?

There’s a whole other thread going on about being paid. As a ‘hobbiest’ who can afford to play for free I do sometimes wonder if I’m taking money out of the hands/mouths(?) of pros. Mind you, I don’t think they’d be making much money from the sort of sh**ty pubs I usually play 😂. I’d def want to support a ‘known’ local place though.

Thanks. Yes, paid on a card I think. I saw two GAK threads as well as the Bax. Always hard to know where to put stuff...

How do you get 4 hours for lunch? 😉

I just got my email from Bax saying they’ve gone bust and I won’t be getting my order. Apparently I’ve been logged as a creditor and will be paid in due course if there is any money blah blah. Very polite but then it’s probably all legalese….

A business doesn’t go bust if it can pay its creditors…

I brought plumbers in on the 1st page 🤷‍♀️

I meant that rather than accept a refund (a couple of weeks ago) I said I’d wait for the strings to come back into stock. They were a good deal and I didn’t mind waiting a week or so more. My bad. Not received the strings and unlikely to get my money back now.