Gasman

Got it in one (or should that be six) strings...

Thread title says it all, but of course Your Marmite May Vary...

Please tell me - apart from playing on Youtube - what is his musical career?

Ah, Kingston! I went to school there (Tiffins) and used to loiter around the music shop by the bus station before getting the 406 bus home to Ewell. While up at Oxford (68-71) I waited for my grant money to arrive in my bank account and then dashed back to the music shop by Kingston market to spend it on s/h band essentials, including a lovely Marshall 50 for £45 and a Selmer Goliath 1x18 for £25, then a bright red Marshall 4x12 slope front, good times! The main music shop in Oxford (Russell Acott) was more for classical and jazz instrument lovers, like going into a museum...

Just my own opinion, but isn’t Mr Berthould, genius technician as he may be, a self-promoting PITA and the antithesis of what bands actually need in a bass player?

This idiot thinks there’s a man works down the chip shop thinks he’s Alfie...

I have had a fair few brushes with the famous but not much in the way of their magic-dust seems to have settled upon me! 1. 10 gig tour backing Ricky Valance (Tell Laura..) in the 80s 2. 8 gig tour backing Keith Harris and Orville the duck (OMG!) in the 80s 3. Joined the White Hor Airmen (a London Temperance 7/Bonzo type outfit) where I played sax alongside Rod Slater (ex Bonzos) for several months. We had a gig downstairs at the 100 Club and ex-Bonzo Viv Stanshall had agreed to join in - we went to his house and had a chat and a runthrough of the numbers, but he didn't show up! 4. One WH Airmen gig at he Grey Horse Kingston found jazz legend Ken Colyer with his cornet ready to play New Orleans stuff with another band, but he'd got his dates wrong and he was on his own. We invited him to play with us (very 30s dance band stuff with 'comedy') - he did and it went very well, tho' he looked a bit askance at Rod and I doing the Paul Whiteman-style sax harmonies... 5. Joined the house band 'Brix Six' - classic Bix jazz residency in the Bricklayers Arms Brentford. One night in walked Andy 'Thunderclap' Newman - he played piano with us for half an hour (we didn't do 'Something in the Air' - I wish we had...) 6. My edgy modern jazz group 'Moebius Band' that I formed while up at Oxford featured an amazing keyboard player (Dave Jarrett) who soon after joined prog-rockers 'Quiet Sun'. based in Dulwich. Their guitarist was to-be Roxy Man Phil Manzanera. My brother and I jammed with Dave, Phil and others for Mr Manzanera's birthday party. Healso helped mix a studio session my other Oxford Band recorded in Tower Studios London. 7. Quiet Sun's drummer was Charles Hayward - phenomenal player who I last heard still gigs as a solo percussonist mainly in Europe. He and I spent 6 months trying to get a QS follow-on band together after Phil joined Roxy , we auditioned many musicians but I think our musical genre was, well, a bit far-out for most, especially the bass + lead guys from the Foundations! Try the Quiet Sun album for a taster... 8. Depped for the Temperance Seven a couple of times when they had West Country gigs that their regular saxist(s) couldn't do 9. Honked a bit of sax on Jonah Louie's 'On a Saturday night' - well mixed down at the end! 10. Played in the jazz band that features in a crucial scene in the middle of David Essex's 'That'll be the Day' film - I'm stage right with a ridiculous beard... 11. My London band 'Sweeney' supported 10cc at the Scunthorpe Baths Hall in 1972 I think, and also supported the Pioneers at the RAF base in Northallerton. Their lead singer fell out with their two other frontmen and hitched a lift with us sitting on top of the PA in our freezing-cold diesel Transit to get back to London. The oil pump broke 15 miles down the road stranding us completely - he only had his satin stage gear on, it was -1 degrees. He phoned for a taxi and our guitarist abandoned us and went back to the Smoke with him... are you surprised? Rest of that story another time.. . 12. Lastly, the lead guitarist with my current band is Francis Lickerish, late of prog-rockers The Enid and composer of some amazingly good epic symphonic rock albums based upon the Arthurian legends - worth a Google and listen. Right, I'll STFU now...

Agadoo, the Birdie song, Una Paloma Blanca, I could go on but I need to put my head under the cold tap...

Me too, I spent many hours learning the four original songs a band in Bournemouth (40 miles away) sent me, did well at the audition but lost out to a bloke they already knew who lived down the road from them, saying that I lived too far away. Actually that was no problem for me as I joined another band a few weeks later (also 40 miles away!) and I was able to book the originals guys to play at a local festival I help run cos I really liked their music. Win-win all round?

Isn’t it about time we de-funded the Apostrophe Police for being a total PITA?

I thought this was going to be about a urology problem...

Gigs and rehearsals are all minimum of an hours drive each way for me. No band opportunities anywhere near me, so I suck the travelling up to keep playing with nice people. Good opportunity to listen to audio books too!

99% the case, Daryl! People are usually the problem (if there is one)

Covers band I was in back in the 70s had an Irish drummer. He lived in a caravan in the middle of a junkyard. I never understood how it or he made a living, as nothing ever seemed to change stock-wise. One evening he failed to turn up to a gig which lost us a whole series of gigs with that club. We found out the next day that he was in jail, having had a row with his Mrs which he resolved by shooting a couple of rounds into the pillow on their bed next to her head with a .45 revolver. She was not amused and called the Police, who found several other weapons onsite. With the Irish connection and the troubles going on at the time, none of the rest of us felt like continuing so we split immediately.

Maybe something lost in translation between brain and keyboard here... is Nilorius somehow related to Captain Beefheart?

Where are the Mods when you need them?

Have you tried hiring a van? Just a thought...

Apologies for taking the bait, no personal axe to grind on it, just fed up with seeing it linked to everything...

+1 for Square!

...and no drunk guitarists was always a good red line for me...

Curmudgeons of the world unite!

Mmm, chips!

I saw this and was amused by the ad using 'Awake' rather than 'Woke' - I guess he's worried about having M15 sleepers applying...

In those rare instances when I have had a brand new expensive toy (car, sax, bass) I’ve deliberately made a tiny hidden mark before using them for the first time, to get the newness worry out of the way. The feeling of relief is blissful! However, I do not recommend this approach with new cats or human partners...

I voted 30 and 34 as I take one of each to every gig. First set on the 30” HB to get the fingers and brain working properly and then hand it over to our guitarist for the last three numbers that I do on sax; he loves the shorty as it is ‘sweet on his left wrist ‘... hmm! I like it too, so easy to play but it’s passive so needs that boost pedal. Second set on the Bongo, it’s like changing from a Triumph Spitfire 1500 to a 7 litre AC Cobra, brutal, and I love it!