ivansc

VM story I love best is the guy in his band who polished Van's microphone while the Great Man was busy pissing or somesuch... Not so much that he polished it, as where and with what part of his body. Probably apocryphal but I SO want it to be true. So many stories about what a nasty bastard he is.

better yet, ring the changes round the circle of fifths every four bars or indeed keep changing to the relative minor of the minor key you are already in. Am to F#m to Dm to Bm, etc.... he would soon get the message. They just don't get how much control WE have over what THEY are playing, do they?

My original P bass and my reissue of it (63 rosewood fingerboard) measured/s 42 wide and just as importantly 19 deep. wide but shallow suits me perfectly.

Bizzybass is how I would describe it. All very clever and if bass playing was an olympic event, etc..... Off for a quiet yawn.

This is not looking good for when I put my '62 USA reissue Precision and my G&L original USA ASAT up for sale then, is it?

(grin) "Hope I die before I get old" eh? Blue is doing it for a living, not a hobby. You are an amateur ( not meant rudely, just that your paycheck doesn't depend on your gigs, so you can afford to feel the way you do) but some of us don't have that luxury. FWIW I officially retired in 2006 but have never really stopped gigging. And I still enjoy every bit of it apart from the getting gigs but, like Blue, someone else is doing that.

I used to be good and then my hands started falling apart, so I wound up being less good and more sneaky. Nowadays, I must be faking it fairly well, as I still get a fair bit of work. But the crucial part of getting work when I was in Nashville was definitely how well you got on with the other guys, plus the ratio between your ears being open and your mouth being open. Oh, and you had to be able to play the parts., of course.

Those Atlansia are totally MAD! Probably way out of my league price wise but if I was still doing decent sized gigs I would be SO tempted, just for the look.

Another cracker yesterday afternoon. 3-5 in a great little pub off Mill Road in Cambridge. Guest harmonica player enjoyed himself, too. We seem to be attracting more local musicians now as well.... Wondering what the hell I am doing different now to what I have always done in the past.

VTypeV4: Yours is PRETTY!

https://www.youtube.com/csMN6RkMqa0 Oldie, but... Damn! How do you embed YT stuff on here again? OK.... lets try this

Andy Metcalfe (Soft Boys, Squeeze and others) bought a brand new Bassman 135 and that weird 4X12 Cab with the inward-facing pyramid shaped baffle board in 1977. As far as I know it was one of the first 135 heads and it had the lighter grey tolex than shown in your photo. FWIW that cabinet rattled like a bugger. Spent hours sorting it out with screwdrivers hammers and glue and I dont remember it having that silver piping. Certainly not blackface unless Fender did a reissue of the Blackfaces. Otherwise they were long gone before the 135. Like 15 years long gone at least. I`ll see if Andy remembers, but I doubt it.

And if there wasn't that Dano in there it would all fall apart....

(blush I remember Rotop strings, who I believe became rotosound... My first Precision had them on when I bought it used in 1963

If you had checked out "standing in the shadows of Motown" you will know just how good Chuck Rainey is. His take on Jamerson is stupendous. I have loved his playing literally for decades & he has always been at the top of my list of great bassists. Wish I could get his tone and feel. Everyone should watch some of his teaching videos.

Blimey! An EIGHT PIECE BAND! Bet you dont play many pub gigs... Fun stuff though - love me some Paulo

I have regularly broken strings from Alembic, Rotosound, D`Addario, etc. Entirely down to my massively over-the-top string bashing when I was younger. These days I dont even break guitar strings that much. FIngernails, yes, though. FWIW I have been seriousl yconsidering springing for a set of those Thomastik bass strings for my USA 62 reissue P Bass instead of the rather stiff D`Addario ground wound ones on it at present. Tried a set of tape ones and didnt get on with them either. Sounded like 30 year old strings the day I put them on. Only in a bad way.

I built a 3 room extension to our house many years ago. Dining room with vaulted ceiling for her, combined utility and dog room for dog & washing machine, studio for me. The only thing NOT music related in the studio is a bloody great double wide filing cabinet which wont fit anywhere else (according to SWMBO) but I can live with that. Oh and all music stands, mic stands, PA stands, etc., in the concrete shed safely snuggeds up in a large zipped keyboard nylon case.

voice over talent. Tons of them around, very few gigs that really pay well. Ring any bells? FWIW my first gig in Nashville was a voice-over session "because I had a really cute British accent". *sigh*

Used laptop bags and cheap nylon shopping bags - the sort with the zip across the top. Have my Dynacord PA head in a ladies shopper thaat cost me eleven quid instead of fifty for the "real thing". MB LM3 is in an old laptop bag (free) instead of the official bag at fifty odd. Three gym bags for all the cables and mains adapters for the PA rig, Bass rig Microphones (seven of them) and a guitar rig. The whole lot including the PA fits neatly under the "desk" (a section of kitchen counter top) in my studio! Stands are in an old keyboard bag in the garden shed and all the ret is used in the studio when not gigging. About as compact as I can get. If I am doing a bigger PA gig I generally take one of my aluminium "pilot's case" or "electrician's toolbox" thingies. Bought four of them in the nineties at a tenner a piece - was shocked to see how much they have gone up in price!

A good agent is a real find. A good, GREEDY agent is even better. So log as they dont start skimming.

It is hard somertimes to sort out the players from the funky timewasters, even when they already have a band together. Pre-requisites for me are that they all have decent equipment and a way to get it to a gig, they have at LEAST one member charismatic and driven enough to "sell" the band onstage and off and that when it comes to playing/rehearsing/workings stuff out all egoes get left at the door. Oh and they all have to actually WANT TO GIG - ASAP, which is often the thing that we all miss.

Watching with the sound off. I would reach through my monitor and strangle him if it was on. Bloody Pose-y guitar bashers...

Stingray - the PRS of bass guitars.... I'll get me coat....

Mad gig this Saturday. Ted, a guitarist friend, was supposed to supply the music for his friend's birthday party & discovered that all the singers and all the drummers he uses were away. Hence I got recruited as singer/guitarist, a young lad Ted knew came in on drums and he had his usual bassist, who is also a friend of mine. They didnt know any of my stuff & I didnt know theirs but we DID get "bang on my drum all day " organised as a nice party tune with an actual bass solo! So - an interesting evening of them learning by doing all evening - party boy provided a pizza & drinks for the band were free all night, plus it turns out he has a radio show called "Rock of Ages" on the local radio station and wants to interview me on his show. (grin) since I am part of a dying breed, I suppose... A great evening with many laughs, much boozing and dancing (from the audience) and I finally got home about 2.am - three hours after we finished for a gig 13 miles from my front door! I discovered I had been banished to the spare bedroom, since My Lovely Wife was of course firmly entrenched in the land of Nod about midnight.