Muzz

This is one of the issues when I finally get my Shuker JJB P...I'll have to set time aside to loathe myself...on the upside, it'll confuse the other lot... 😕😁

Oooo, we could have another...I might be able to persuade him to finish and bring my frickin JJB P with him... 😕🙂

It does happen, both ways, and from uninformed punters and some musicians, but usually not from bassists, IME; from the fairly common punter "What's that?" "It's a Shuker" "Tell you what you want, you want a Fender, my mate's got one" and the punter who definitively told me my Fenderbird was 'Wrong', and no-one played them (I did mention John Entwistle, but that apparently cut no ice), to the other side of the coin: my Shukerbird started out as an Epiphone, the only two bits of it that still remain are the body wood and the neckplate, which proudly reads 'Epiphone' - our old guitarist said to me "You should change that, Epiphones are cheap". Nope, I like it that way... :0) I was delighted to play the biggest gig of last year with my £150 BB414, and there was a kinda reverse joy in playing a corporate gig a few years ago at OT Cricket Ground with a Harley Benton bass that cost me (brand new, delivered) a fifth of the cost of a ticket...and I told everyone, too... 😀

Quite the reverse, especially in small towns where punk came with the tabloid horror stories; there might have been other kids (and we're talking kids here, as per my original premise) who were keen on hearing just punk music, but you had to find a venue first, and 'We're a punk band, can we play the youth club Thursday night?' was hardly met with universal approval in the 'burbs...when the Pistols, the torch-bearers of punk in the media, were having gigs cancelled, it filtered down. The bands I was in and around as a kid generally played all sorts of stuff (the cheaper synths were a big draw; a CS10 meant you were something special), and a live band could get an audience just on the strength of being a live band. As we got older, more venues became available (like licensed premises), and there were even dedicated punk clubs (or club nights, at least), but we were already playing in bands (of all sorts) by then, which, as I've mentioned, punk didn't suddenly create...

There were always lots of possibilities of music outside those two options...

Having been bang on the right age at that time (13/14/15), and awash in a sea of friends, acquaintances and various other Herberts all determined to be in bands, a sea numbering dozens and dozens of wannabe-players of all levels of talent, disposition and enthusiasm, I can confidently say that the old saw of 'Punk made kids want to be in a band' is utter, utter drivel. Kids wanted to be in bands anyway; some of them played exclusively punk songs, many of them played some punk songs, and some played none. Granted, very, very few played anything off Tales From Topographical Oceans, but that was mostly because it was a lot trickier than Teenage Kicks (is that even a Punk song?) when you're rehearsing in your Nan's garage, and besides which, a Minimoog or a Prophet cost as much as her whole house...

I did that on a regular gig we had on a tiiiiny stage in a City Centre pub: the stage was so small it was kinda forced on me, but the house speakers were a deal further forward, and the Rumble 100 on the window sill (with most of the bass dialled out) was a great monitor...

A rare (these days) gig for me: an afternoon set with the old lineup (now sadly mostly defunct, given the singist/geetarist is off solo raking in the cash, and the drummer's been on tour with Heather Small, playing the likes of the Palladium and the Bridgewater Hall, plus he's got the Albert Hall, an album to do in Abbey Road, and a round of the festivals upcoming, too) for a previously-committed charity festival...nice to play with them again, a fun 45, and no heavy lifting...back for tea... Now back to the setting up of a new band...

I should add that my Big Rig is both the Compact and the ST; they're the same width (verrrry important for a fairly OCD bunny like me), and are Stacktastic together...having said that, I've only used them both on two occasions, both to intimidate a stooopidly loud geeetard and keep the 'We need a big backline' singer happy, in the Rawk Band I'm no longer in... I like the height thing from the ST (the Stacktastic even more so) - I had just a BB2 at one point, but although it could fill an aircraft hanger with bass (and literally did so on an RAF gig), standing next to it a lot of it went past my ankles. You can go too small with cabs...

I have an old-school 15" Compact and a Super Twin (after a few in-between cabs, like Bergs, Schroeders, other BFs, yadda yadda), I'd suggest for a 'It'll definitely cope' single cab solution that the Super Twin is pretty damn good. The only thing I'd change mine for is, as Chris says above, two Super Compacts, but then that's a specific requirement of mine (I'm doing a lot of smaller gigs, so modular suits me these days), and not the OP's...

Depends. Did he die of a stink-related illness?

There are some songs which remain timeless, some of which go back to the 60s, tho a lot of them are known by Da Kidz because of covers by more recent artists, but Dad Rock isn't a complimentary description for a reason. There's a sparse few venues round here which put on Classic Rock bands, but maybe I've been spoiled by playing in a band that played all sorts of music to very good receptions; lots of singing and dancing - I've also played up until a couple of years ago in a Classic Rock band, and the gig audience were blokes even older than me just sitting there or standing at the bar with folded arms. I've had a go at forming a band with a good mate of mine, but it stuttered at the first hurdle when he didn't want to playing anything recorded after about 1985...he hasn't been out there in a band in a while... It can be hard to adjust your clock/calendar, when even Foo Fighters stuff goes back more than 25 years these days... I've just checked, and one of the songs which always goes down well in the noisier bits of the set is Smells Like Teen Spirit, which is firmly post-rock, and that's 31 years old...

I've mentioned this before but my (now ex) singist/geetard BL was doing care home gigs to fill in his earnings a good few years ago. When I asked him how he managed with all those songs from yesteryear, he said 'Nope, it's all Beatles and Stones these days...' Even though I'm looking for a new band/gig/deps, I'm steering away from the Classic/Dad Rock stuff, as the market for it is dwindling...which is as it should be; the pubs (and clubs, to an extent, tho I'm meaning social clubs rather than night clubs, obv) aren't full of sixty-somethings, and even though they're not exactly full of teenagers and twenty-somethings, it's a new audience. My 17-year old, though he doesn't mind some older stuff (he has a very, ummm, eclectic playlist) has no interest in going away and doing a history lesson on 40+ year old bands and music unless he's very interested in it. The nature of the music biz these days means kids have so much more music to pick from (and easily, too), that the phrase 'I like them, I've got all their albums' is pretty much redundant...

Soooo, I have a set of Elixirs on one of my basses, and they're the oldest set I have (at least three or four years old, and they've done dozens and dozens of gigs); they've mellowed past that 'fresh zing' thing, but as they are they suit the bass they're on really well. All well and good, but maaaaan, they honk - has anyone ever cleaned Elixirs? I don't want to wreck the coating, but then again having to wash my hands after playing a bass is a bit of a bind... 😕

I'd agree sometimes the shipping, erm, professionals can break anything, no matter how well constructed; I received a brand new 215 Schroeder cab which had been shipped from Sweden years ago, it had been dropped so hard one of the feet was driven through the bottom of the (very substantial) cab, and there was a big thumpy rattle when I moved it. One of the magnets had sheared off the back of the speaker inside.

I've got a Shuker JJB Signature P on the way with a verrrry slim Jazz-width neck (based on my favourite Shuker neck)...heresy possibly, but hey, I'm paying the piper... 😀

Another +1 for the Helix here - I'm no compression expert, but all my patches have a compressor in the chain, and it Just Works(tm)

Fixed it for you...

One of the reasons I've always been big of using a HPF (I've had a couple of amps with HPFs built-in, but these days with my Walkabout I use the lowest of the EQ settings to cut low bass) to remove the very bottom end, as in small venues it causes more problems than benefits...it's all about the mids for me...

That looks terrific, definitely worth the wait...perhaps he'll finish mine now... 🙂 The neck looks really nice... 👍

I rather like that...although having seen the state of Gene's syrup these days, I rather think 'The Gene Simmons Darkly Unconvincing Top' might be more apt... 😀

I'm not sure what this 'grain' is that means wood can't be finished smoothly? Is it a special wood grain that only Gibsons have? Can't be bothered/organised finishing a £2.5k bass properly? Ohhhh, we'll call it the grain...as I say, I'd never get away with that when painting the skirting boards in our house... It's not just the headstock, either: unless that's a particularly thin nitro (which I'm sure they'd have mentioned), that flat finish just isn't flat...and the end of the fretboard isn't great, either. A grained finish is great with a natural satin, or even black (I've a Dingwall which makes a feature of this), but that's supposed to be a gloss black finish. And in case it sounds picky (tho I do get picky at £2.5k), it's the Van Halen M&Ms thing - it's indicative of QC and finishing...

Grain or not, given that it's painted over (especially in black), you'd think they might've sanded it properly first...again, we're talking a £2.5k instrument here...I wouldn't get away with that finish on the skirting boards in our house, with a tin of Dulux and a 1/2" brush... 😕

Sounds better on that PMT video, but look at the state of that finish on the head: On a £2.5k bass? Honestly, I'd send it back for that. Oh and 'It's got Gene's logo on it; a skull and crossed basses'...ummmm, since when was that any identifier of Gene Simmons? You know, the bloke with the most identifiable face paint on the planet? Pffffft again...

Went to see TS at the Ashton Metro (much like the Electric Banana, don't look for it, it's not there any more, but it was a small venue) in 81, we went round to the stage door to see if we could meet the band...as I was turning the corner, Dee Snider came round the other way and we bundled into each other...he still had his stage gear on, he was about 7ft tall. He apologised for bumping into me... 🙂