Gasman

So that’s the 32nd Panzer division then (or maybe an 8x4 sticky submit button?)

Although I’m right handed, I’ve always been more dexterous using a shovel in a sinister way...

Yes, it certainly was musically, although due to the heat and humidity I was suffering from an attack of Betty Swollox by the end!

Two gigs to remember last week - first one was on Thursday at the Gillingham & Shaftesbury agricultural show, playing from 12:30 to 14:30 - a rather weird timing but it was the last day of the event so everything would be totally brown by 18:00. We had the luxury of a marquee, full PA, raised stage and engineer provided, one of just three bands on the day; the new promoters were apparently cutting back on the entertainment side of things to save money, hence our single two-hour slot. The weather was hot and sticky and so were we by the end. The crowd were pretty responsive for this sort of event (can be a bit unengaged, often preferring to watch the sheep I think), but they were jigging about and applauding, with a couple of further gigs offered for next year. I've decided to accept that I'd really bought the HB shorty bass for our guitarist to spank during my sax set to save his left wrist(!) so I set it up as a cuckoo in his nest of five guitars linked via a Nux radio setup to an A/B switch on my amp while I used the MM Bongo - worked well giving us a very rapid instrument changeover, pic is of me and he, sax and bass. The second gig on Saturday was just six miles up the road for me (and 40 miles for the rest of the band, usually the other way around) in Beaminster - a private 21st party. Super crowd, very good vibe and totally enjoyable except for the stairs in and out - the first ones we've had to deal with in a year or more.

Hey, simultaneous posting on 'in the zone', @EssexBuccaneer - strange or what?!

Thank you for your replies, guys. I'm comforted to know that I'm not alone in experiencing this while under stress. Some folk seem to equate this phenomenon with being 'in the zone' - I see that as a positive thing, internally focussed on something, but being out of your body (although fascinating) is very different, potentially negative and dangerous - I've read that aircrew are usually grounded at any mention of them going into the puppet+watcher state for safety reasons. Funny thing is, I can still remember everything that happened while I was in that state while car racing and bass playing, just like a pin-sharp movie in my head, that is, I can even now see what my robot body did and every remark that I made to my body from above and behind its head. On the other hand, I can't remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday!

The American Psychiatric Association defines depersonalization as follows: "Periods of detachment from self or surrounding which may be experienced as "unreal" (lacking in control of or "outside" self) while retaining awareness that this is only a feeling and not a reality" - it's a dissociative disorder. To put this into real-life terms, it's finding that your persona, the essential you, is sitting outside your body, maybe just above and behind it, watching the body behave like an automaton, continuing to do what it was doing but without you inside its head to control it. You might be passing a wry commentary on how well or badly your body is doing, but you can't influence it. Before last weekend I'd experienced this condition just once before - I used to race UK BRISCA F2 stock cars (little single-seaters, pushing and fencing allowed, quarter-mile oval tracks), and during one night-time meeting I got a flying start in the Final and was out in front, hotly pursued by 20 other cars. Oval racing from the front is a matter of accelerate, corner, accelerate, corner - totally rhythmical, no cars to avoid, utterly fixated on not screwing up, scanning mirror, oil pressure and revs, floodlights flicking past, waiting for the first impact from the cars behind catching me up, intense concentration and stress. After about ten laps of the twenty-five I suddenly went into depersonalisation without warning, and was viewing myself driving from above and behind, criticising the puppet in the driving seat - "you're losing it, cornering's getting sloppy, you never were any good..." and so on. It ended a couple of laps later when my car got whacked from behind, the rhythm was broken and I ended up spun out in the fence - I was back in my head but out of the race. This weekend, I was gigging with my covers band. I was playing bass behind the guitar solo in 'All Right Now', no high-fret stuff, just D-string to G-string then E string, during which I suddenly found myself disassociated from the puppet that continued to finger the frets and pluck and mute the strings. I was above my head looking down and wondering what the actual muting technique was and how had I come to automatically do this without even thinking about it. Then, while my puppet-self kept playing I started dissing my poor posture, fingering and tone and the fact that I'm going bald (good vantage-point above and behind the automaton still thrashing out the riff), then got around to asking asking myself WTF the two mes were doing there anyway... All the while marionette-me played on... fortunately the he didn't miss any riff notes but I only came out of this fugue when the guitar solo finished and I didn't immediately end the riff - our guitarist solos for a variable number of bars on this one so I missed the nod that it was all over - rapid return to planet earth and re-integration! Has anyone else experienced this weirdness?

Conceptually this scam is not that much different to holding ‘Battle of the Bands’ events at UK venues...

I sympathise - last Saturday we were due to finish at 11, our singist went for 5 encores and finished just after 11.30, only because the bar staff put the lights out...

So everyone’s going Commando now?

I think I've achieved vintage fart level now myself...

Delayed update to our weekend adventures as I was cream-crackered after it all! Saturday we played at an exhibitors-only gig at a steam fair near Taunton, out in the back of beyond surrounded by railway lines belonging to the West Somerset Railway. The ground was still pretty wet after all the rain but no real problems. The crowd were farmers, steam and real ale enthusiasts and they intended to enjoy themselve to the max! From an 8:30 start we ended up finishing after encores at 11:30pm - got back home at 1 am. While loading up we found we had to dodge around half a dozen traction engines and steam rollers parked up right outside the marquee, chuffing and puffing (that was just the owners!) - the first pic was taken at midnight - my Jeep on the left, 10-ton steam things on the right... I was up again at 7am for the local West Bay Days event - I'm on the committee as treasurer, entertainments booker and stage manager, as well as playing bass in our band at 5pm, so a pretty full-on day finishing at midnight after paying the last band. We had six acts this time: Nina Garcia, a very talented local country-oriented solo vocalist/violinist with backing tracks Sugar Rush from Weymouth, a three girl + 1 bloke heavy metal band (yes, really...) Mustang Sally (my lot doing a wide range of covers 1960 - 90) D-State - very competent covers band in a more 80s-10s vein The Loop - A funkity funk outfit d'Ska Assassins - a seriously good six piece ska outfit with great audience interaction Being on both sides of the event (booker and performer) I immediately saw that I'd made a mistake by booking the lady-driven metal band. They were all very good musicians - their young bass player was the equal of, or better than, any of the others there that day. Their vocalist had Tina Turner-level lungs, and their drummer and guitarist were equally good - yes a bl**dy good outfit - but NOT for a 3pm slot with many young families and old farts in the crowd, which rapidly halved in size when they took over from Nina at 3 x the volume. Wrong band, wrong event, wrong slot - my fault. My lot had fun and a very good reception, and as both organiser and player I was glad to see the crowd filling out again for us and the acts that followed. The crowd redoubled again for the Ska band, the skankers went bonkers and it finished up a great evening nicely. We appear to have made a very good profit on the event and will be making donations to local good causes as a result - we're not-for-profit - but OMG I'm still tired after stage managing, playing, then today counting and banking the takings! The other pix below show me spanking my new-to-me Harley Benton short-scale, an aerial view of the stage area at night, and the start of the fireworks display. The vicar on the committee claim that he's only 'in sales and marketing' but weather-wise I'm sure he knows someone very high up in management!

As @obbm says I bet there are a lot of Basschat members who fall into this age bracket - I certainly do - and just thank my good fortune to be still playing and not just listening! I’ve often wondered when requests for the Vera Lynn generation of songs will be superseded in retirement homes by demands for Napalm Death, Trance and Ska. Won’t be long...

We still play a couple of WMCs with bingo in the middle and a meat & bottle draw at the end to keep the punters there as long as possible, not for the bands sake but for the bar! North Dorset traditions die hard...

The axe-wielding bass man could plead self defence after aural assault and mental cruelty...

Strings Beaten Lifeless...

...or possibly penned by Sun Ra circa 1967 for ‘Somewhere There’ but they weren’t free jazzy enough?

Fascinating I’m sure, but could you please just rearrange the words so they make a bit more sense to mere mortals?

Another disappointing development - Post-Modern Jukebox seemed to have morphed into multiple versions on tour in different continents simultaneously, almost a franchise. Last time I went to see them in the uk some years back they had a reduced lineup with none of the names that made them such a fantastic show a few years before.

10cc used two live...

MM Bongo runs 18v...

The Enid - Live at Peterborough Town Hall 1980 (on record label 'Letthemeat vinyl) Excellent Prog/rock/synth/orchestral stuff featuring Francis, the guitarist with my current band...

Godley and Creme’s later album ‘Goodbye Blue Sky’ has some cracking numbers as well as some inevitable self-gratification; it focusses on the post-nuclear doom scenario and features harmonicas... bass, tenor, blues, squeaky, the lot. My fave track is ‘The last page of history...’

I’m now on the thomann returns adventure, the Aguilar dB preamp I bought from them failed last month. I got a returns label from them but was told that I had to take the package to a ‘DHL parcels pickup’, NOT a dhl express. Now there are four express pickup points in my town, but no parcel pickup closer than 20 miles away. Ok, drove to Weymouth yesterday and dropped it off at the nominated tatty seven-eleven store, on top of a dusty pile of other people’s stuff. Yes, I got a receipt, but I now wonder how long ago the last pickup was, and when the next will be? I fear the worst...

Perfect remedy - needs posting on Guitarchat!