Gasman

Alas, probably not many bass-players on this site - most of us (although not all) could write virtually identical blogs, only difference being the make of car full of rubbish going to the dump (mine's a Jeep)...

11pm curfew, 500 yards away from any place with children, this must be Chester the Molester trying for a new career...

Wise move! If this thread were music, it wouldn’t be rock n roll, funk, europop, classical or folk; no, it’d be free jazz a la Archie Shepp or late Sun Ra, no discernible structure or theme but a jolly fine mental laxative!

I think this reply is conclusive proof that it was indeed Nilo posting on FB - oh, but wait! Maybe it's the same Chatbot at work in both places!

Was this another Nilorius post?

Please stop reading without posting!

Maybe something lost in translation here, such as meaning, but wonderfully off the wall!

Mustang Sally played the Gillingham dorset music festival on Saturday afternoon, good setup with two outdoor stages and PA provided. Our 75 minute set went well, but the rain that threatened arrived big time for the last three numbers. The stage was well protected but the punters weren’t, didn’t stop them dancing resulting in a lot of wet but happy people!

Yes, looking on the ‘Black Guitar’ vintage guitar website, mine looks like a ‘61 Contrabass. New price £58 for the guitar and £25 for the rather basic (mmm!) case, total £83 in 1961, equivalent of £1910 today!

Impressive packing skills there, I hope the car boot sale was a great success!

Lovely original condition! Interesting - same body and PUPs as mine, different tuner arrangement on the headstock, plus double-layer scratch-plate and some switches! I wonder what year ours are? Yes, the Martian Cricket Bat soubriquet is very appropriate given the neck profile, although maybe it's more like a baseball bat...

After unexpectedly having the chance to try out a Fender Mustang last week I got enthusiastic about buying one for myself, or at least something similar like the Squier Rascal, as a complete change from my conventional J and MM big boys - fast fingering, low weight, what's not to like? Sanity prevailed when I remembered my rapidly diminishing bank account (two privately rebuilt teeth recently = £2k) and the fact that I still had that old Fenton Weill bass up in the loft that I was given in 1974 - vintage even then! - surely that was a shorty and worth another try before splashing more cash? When I was first given it the poor old thing had a very tatty dark maroon finish, a cracked scratch plate and two non-functioning tuners. Nowadays that might have added value by making it 'road-worn' but back then I had no qualms about restoring it. The paint was stripped back to natural wood, the whole thing polyurethane lacquered, the tuners were all replaced, new pot-knobs fitted and I had a new scratch-plate made by Taffy, a very clever tech in Yeovil where I was living at the time. It was my only bass until '79, when I splashed out on a new Jazz, at which point it went into storage. So I recovered it from the loft last week 44 years later, fitted a new set of Tru-Bass strings and plugged it into my Cube 100w combo for a trip down nostalgia lane. Wow! The very punchy sound from those twin PUPs was still there, the 30" neck and floating bridge were a pleasure to play on and it still looks (to me) amazing for a 60-year-old bass. Downsides? Well, it weighs in at 10lb (4.5 kilos)so it's no lightweight and the neck is pretty narrow (40mm at the nut) - not for the sausage-fingered, I think, although fine for my cute little mitts! It's going on-stage this weekend, should be fun. Does anyone else play one of these or anything similar? Here are some pix of the beast...

I say chaps, all this finger-greasing should be unnecessary - surely natural lubrication is best?

Dutifully went to Mrs Gasman’s Rotary party tonight as her guest. Live band was setting up for after-meal dancing. I escaped the table chat and went to ogle the bass player’s gear, particularly the metallic red go-faster striped Mustang, rare beast down here in Dorset. The owner then appeared and we got chatting, she was about 4’ 11” hence the short scale bass, and a sh*t-hot player. I was then most unexpectedly invited to sit in and play a couple of numbers, as we know it’s unheard of normally, I didn’t ask, she just took a gamble on me after a ten minute chat and anyway if a bloke from a band called Mustang Sally can’t play Mustang Sally on a Fender Mustang it’s a poor show! It went fine, but the real revelation was how good that Mustang sounded, and how smooth and easy it was to play despite it being my first short scale dabble for 50 years; I know it was fate, I must get one!

Jona Lewie was also Mr Terry Dactyl of the dinosaurs. I had the privilege of honking some tenor sax at the end of their not-hit ‘On a Saturday Night’ - (well mixed down in the final cut) whereas the bass player was up front and centre - my pal Malcolm Starr on a vintage..... Sousaphone!

Maybe you misheard - she actually had a fascination with Death Metal and hoped she could convert you?

The challenge can sometimes be counting the number of times a hypnotic riff repeats before a radical change, like the 32 bar guitar solo spot in Sweet child of mine before the stop chords under ‘where do we go’. Concentration and counting is key, plus a readiness to follow if the singer comes in too early!

Just watched Lewis Capaldi on the Beeb. I must be missing the point, seems like a big bloke with no vest on shouting dreary lyrics over three chords then letting the audience sing them for him. But they loved him, so my opinion is worth zilch!

Close, but nearly 800 out...

She does look very pleased with herself for getting through it with only one wrong note - did anyone else spot it? Nice!

We played a private 60th birthday party last night in Gillingham (Dorset) social club. Pre-gig requests included 'Wipeout', (not on our current list but no problem for me although our drummer worked up a good sweat!) lots of rock n roll, and One Step Beyond plus our other sax numbers (me doubling) - all very varied but appreciated. Went very well, enthusiastic dancing, free food and drink and we've now got our new computerised Bose PA working well. Downside? Left home at 18:00, got back at 01:15... definitely cream-crackered today...

“I just can’t hear their lead guitarist at all, I really wish he’d turn his amp up and drown out that bass player...”

We did an afternoon beer festival in Gillingham (Dorset) on Saturday playing outdoors from 2-4pm. The humidity and temperature were challenging to say the least and I was bl**dy glad to see the end of the gig after three encores and two and a quarter hours non-stop playing! Audience liked us so that was the main thing - not much dancing but a lot of beer and cider was being consumed to our musical accompaniment - still, I was totally cream-crackered by the time I got home and flaked out by 9pm First try-out for our new Bose PA (it's that one with the tall thin tops sat directly on the subs, with computer controlled mixing) - great improvement on the previous rig, which is now relegated to foldback duties.

These fingerboard pluckers just need to add a hootenanny strap button and all will be normalised....