gjones

Fender are concentrating a lot of their resources on promoting to women. They're reaching out to a lot of, guitar playing, women and are offering them endorsement deals. My niece plays Fender electrics and has never paid for a guitar. She has a house full of them but has never had to buy one with her own money. Her first electric was her dad's MIJ Telecaster. Since she signed with a record company, Fender have thrown guitars at her willy nilly (at least half a dozen so far). She's over in LA, recording her 3rd album, and I was with her dad when he called her to see how she was doing. Where was she when she answered? ...... the Fender factory of course. Where she'll no doubt be picking up another freebie.

I own a GK MB500 which is extremely loud through my barefaced compact. I own a Ashdown ABM 500 and an Ashdown MiBass 550 and the GK is significantly louder than both. I recently bought a GK MB800 which is significantly louder than the 500 watt version. GK appear to make very, very loud amps.

The Jeff beck version just sounds like an excuse to do a lot of guitar widdling, over the top of a very boring musical backdrop.

I love this video of John Lennon and Chuck Berry. Especially the bit where the sound engineer switches off Yoko Ono's microphone, as soon as she starts wailing.

Google 'Freakpower'. Their first album Drive-Thru Booty is a great jam along album for bass players. It will teach you how to groove. Curtis Mayfield's album Superfly, has some superb groovy bass on it.

This is how you review a bass. Ed Friedland doing it right.

Of course, she is a pro bass player. In my experience, pro bass players are quite happy to keep down the low end and play the root note all night, if that is what is required. In my experience, diddly widdly bass players don't get much pro work. The guy I saw the other day at a jam, who slapped and popped his way through a segue of 3 U2 songs (I kid you not), spends most of the day waiting by his phone that never rings.

She wrote this note, for the super advanced, freeform jazz, bass soloists out there in Youtubeland, who didn't agree with her video. This is it: ' 'Note from Yonit: Hey everyone! Thanks for watching the video Just wanted to make a few clarifications! * This video is for beginner / intermediate bass players * Obviously, there’s exception to all my tips (which are not rules!) but these tips should help you when playing with your band. Of course you can play open strings if you can mute them (which is a difficult technique to master if you’re a beginner), of course you can play fills that are well practiced, on time, from the bottom to the very top of your neck and so on. * Always play the root - in the beginning of the bar - you can obviously play any chord tone / mode tone you want after. But not straight at the top. We establish the root and then venture out. Of course you can play inversions but that changes the chord, and you probably should make that decision with your band-members. * I may have said ‘never’ and ‘always’ but this is really me just trying to make a point, don’t take it too literally fellas * This can be applied in many genres, but mostly for mainstream genres such as pop, folk, rock, funk etc. Yes, if you’re playing a progressive-jazz-fusion-hardcore-metal song this might not be the video for you. * Here’s a 6 tip for the brave ones who read all of this - make music to be happier and have fun with other human beings. That’s the point of everything, including this video Peace, love and many low frequencies, Yonit'

Just received a lovely P bass from Rich. Excellent deal and great communication throughout. Buy with confidence.

The Fender logo looks undersized and the serial number looks oversized. It's worth £100, if that.

You were probably an obsessive teenager, as I was, when you got your first bass. The first song I played live was 'Alright Now' by Free. It took me forevers, squirrelled away in my bedroom, to get the tricky bassline in the solo. In fact I was still figuring it out about 5 mins before I went onstage. But this dude is 51, he's got better things to do than hide away in his bedroom for 6 months learning 2112.

Learn to play with fingers and play along with some ZZ Top - which have some good simple basslines (I recommend you don't start with Rush).

Hmmmm.....from my experience using them, tapewounds don't do treble. Sounds like he's looking for hi end that just isn't there.

Hmmmm......the piece of kit that made the biggest difference to my sound, is the John East J-Retro. It's so very versatile and lets you get the sound you want through any amp.

Recently our guitarist went and got himself a Marshall stack,and since then, the volume has definitely gone up. Last weekend we played a bar, we have often played in the past, but this time were asked to turn down by the barstaff. Despite our guitarist's grumpy reaction to the request, we duly reduced our volume Surprisingly, we got a really good reaction from the crowd, who up until then had been a bit cold. Goes to show the band are sometimes the last to know what the sound is like out front and if they are playing too loud.

Went to see Garbage, at The Festival Theatre Edinburgh. My niece's band, Honeyblood, were supporting them on their UK tour. Honeyblood were fabulous, as always, and Garbage were great too. I met Duke Erikson, while he was outside having a sly fag, and he said they were pretty nervous as this was a brand new set with some songs, included, that they'd never played before. Their set went well, until Shirley Manson lost the monitor mix in her earplugs. The band had to stop in the middle of a song, until the monitor engineer got his act together, and they could start again. But all in all, it was a great night.

It may have been assembled in the USA but the parts were mostly manufactured in Mexico, if I remember rightly. Just as the Traditional and California models before the HW1 were. Probably USA pickups. The later models had an American standard, neck with graphite rods, and a Badass bridge.

Gets my vote.

I like this better than the original.

Scariest gig was the one where our band played some bar gigs in Belfast, as part of a festival over there. I turned up at the first gig, to find the regulars standing outside, cheering on a bloody fight between two seagulls (lovely). The drummer, who used to be a cop, then turned up and made us aware that there had been a murder there a couple of years ago, orchestrated by the local IRA commander (nicknamed The Surgeon) whose wife had been insulted by the murdered guy. When he refused to apologise, he was dragged out and knifed to death, in the street outside the bar. When the police tried to question the regulars, they all said they were in the toilet and hadn't see anything (all 71 of them). The accused were found not guilty. Anyway, we set up in the corner of the room and decided to just keep our heads down, play the gig, and get the feck out of there. At that stage the drummer pointed out that the 'The Surgeon' was sitting at the bar and appeared to be taking a great interest in our band. We must have played the songs, in our set, at twice their normal speed. Two years after we played at the bar, 'The Surgeon' was shot dead. We won't be back.

Your're wrong!!!! Edit: I thought I'd better add a

Ed Freidland's latest words of wisdom https://www.bassplayer.com/lessons/r-b-gold-sep-2018

I recently bought a G&L L2500 tribute. I just fancied trying a 5 string and had no great expectations. But it sounds great! I particularly like the sound from the front pickup. With the bass up high and the treble rolled off, it sounds VERY smooth and FAT. It's not a sound I would normally go for but it sounds great on it's own and fits in perfectly in a band situation. I like it so much I seriously thought of buying the 4 string version.

'James Brown Is Annie' are keeping the flame burning for Funk/Soul in Scotland. Hamish stuart is a fan, as you can see. Barry Gordon is the brains behind JBIA. They seem to have had a bit of a revolving cast of musicians, over the years. I hear Hamish is producing their album.