gjones

I'll be playing The Howling Wolf at the end of this month. I'll have to pay the £60 Ulez fee of course but luckily the extended parking fees don't start until April 1st. My band won't be playing there again unless things change. My advice to them is to install a PA and backline so that bands can get the bus to the venue rather than have to spend their gig fee on Ulez fines and parking tickets.

You can see where Tom Waits got his influences from. It sounds like the lyrics to one of his songs.

Now if I had the choice of saving my best friend, or my cat, from a house fire.......that would be a conundrum? Edit: I'm sure my best friend would understand if I saved the cat but if it was the other way around I doubt my cat would be too chuffed.

Drummer knocked the bassist (luckily I'd left the band by then) unconscious with the guitarist/singer's 1975 Stratocaster. The guitarist/singer chased the drummer down the street threatening to kill the drummer for the damage he'd done to his Strat. The bassist spent a week in intensive care. The Stratocaster, unfortunately, succumbed to it's injuries.

The whole concept of the RNRHOF is pointless. Music is too subjective for these type of arbitrary awards. Bands moan about the decision process but they still turn up for the ceremony.

I have a Precision Elite which developed a fault in the stereo jack input. I bought a replacement a year ago and still haven't installed it. A G&L L2500 tribute which sounds fantastic but I don't really need a 5 string for the Blues band I play in. A MM Stingray which sounds great but is a bit too aggressive sounding for my Blues band. A MIJ Precision which doesn't sound aggressive enough for my Blues band. Plus a couple of others that don't get played for one reason or another.

London Weekend Television. The wife of their chief executive asked if her husband could get up and sing Eric Clapton's cocaine (small pub gig during Edinburgh Festival). I said no. She had a strop and said she'd make sure my band would never appear on LWT while her husband was in charge. .....and she was right, we didn't.

He's just jealous, cos it's common knowledge that the Devil has all the good music 😈

If you're worried about your brand new bass getting chipped, then don't buy a brand new bass. Instead buy secondhand, pre chipped bass, or if you have to buy brand new buy a roadworn bass, where every new chip just adds to the mojo.

Plenty of AI image generators on internet. You input your ideas and it will come up with something. https://www.zdnet.com/article/best-ai-image-generator/

I think you'd be better off gigging before you master your instrument. If I'd decided to master my instrument before I gigged, I'd still be waiting to play my first gig after 40 years

I think that's what your drummer, in your present band, needs to do. He'll get a clearer sound in his IEMs than micing up an acoustic kit will give him.

You can get a pink one?

There may have been a time where independent musicians could make a decent living but that era has been and gone. Some might still be able to scrape a living but you can only survive on cornflakes and pot noodle for so long.

I always associated a hi fi sound with the sound you get when recording your bass clean into your PC or laptop. The sound is clean and unprocessed through hi fi speakers, or monitors, with small drivers (mine are about 4 inch). I suspect a Phil Jones cab would get that kind of sound, due to the size of the 4 inch drivers he uses.

I joined a Rock band a couple of years ago, after many years playing a jazz bass with fingers in Blues bands. With the rock band I started to play with a pick, because many songs needed that kind of sound. One day I brought in my Stingray and found out that I could get a great aggressive, rocky, sound, just using fingers. You can get something similar, with a two pickup bass, if you switch to the back pickup and add some bass to give it both definition and fullness. Or you could buy a Stingray....

That's an old pro trick. If you don't know the song or you've got lost just turn your volume down and dance around like you're having a great time. I did that through 90% percent of a wedding once.......nobody noticed!

The main thing I like about J Retros is that it gives you versatility - you can get any sound out of a Jazz Bass with it installed. But it also means, if you are using a FOH PA, you can alter your sound before it gets to the desk. I usually add a lot of low mid to ensure that I keep definition when going into a random mixing desk and through the PA. It's also really easy to fit as there's no soldering involved. So a thumbs up from me. Edit: I have two

I played a gig in Glasgow recently where the house amp was an Ampeg Micro CL. I took along my Markbass combo, just in case the amp just wasn't loud enough, but when I got to the gig the Ampeg head was going through a Session 1x15 and was pretty loud. Considering we were playing rocky blues with quite a heavy drummer, I was very impressed at the volume a 100 watt transistor amp could put out. We were going through the FOH PA but even if we weren't the amp could have handled the gig (and the master was only halfway).

Checked out videos of them at NAMM and they look nicer in the flesh than in a photos. No real reviews yet though that I can see.

I watched this review and because the guitar sounded so good in the video I had to try it out. When I actually played the guitar in my local shop it was absolutely s**t! The sound was thin and nasty and the tuners couldn't keep it in tune for more than a few seconds at a time. I actually did buy a guitar that day, it was a Yamaha Pacifica that they had going secondhand. It stayed in tune, had a decent set up, sounded pretty good and only cost me £68. Don't believe the hype.

That fella can really sing. What a great voice. I really like Hartke amps. I almost bought the combo version of your Hartke rig but when I tried to pick it up it felt like it was nailed to the floor. A head and cab might be a bit more manageable.

Barefaced are very good but also very expensive. I would suggest you look to less boutique type combos. The Fender Rumble V3 100 watt combo is a great little practice amp, which is very light and is also loud enough for small gigs (with a quietish drummer). I own one and use it as a practice amp and have played quite a few smallish gigs with it as well. I have another more powerful combo for louder gigs. My Fender rumble cost me under £200 secondhand.