How was your gig last night?

[HeadlessBassist]

2 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

i'm not that good a bassist to be allowed a solo. 😂

Dave

 

You're lucky, Dave. I can't get away without doing one. They'd dock my wages if I didn't showboat at least a little. 😢

[nilorius]

3 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

i'm not that good a bassist to be allowed a solo. 😂

Dave

Just learn Dona Lee.

[Geek99]

3 minutes ago, nilorius said:

Just learn Dona Lee.

My local riff-raff ( rupūžės )would not appreciate the subtlety

 

[Staggering on]

Re tauzero's post yesterday and his "moment of epicaricacy"....

You found the perfect word for the situation, I hadn't seen it before and had to look it up and at some point will use it to impress/confuse/annoy/surprise someone, thanks.😊

[dmccombe7]

1 hour ago, Geek99 said:

Just play a blues bass line. I picked the walking section from Cold Day in Hell - should be easy for a man of your talents 

Once had an impromptu solo while playing Crossroads back in 80's while playing a fretless WAL bass and the guitarist and drummer had decided before the gig they would just stop playing and announce it. No-one told me so it was ad-lib on the spot but i just kept the basic riff going with a series of bass chords thrown in to fatten it out. I was congratulated on it but warned them never to do that again.

Dave

[nilorius]

1 hour ago, Geek99 said:

My local riff-raff ( rupūžės )would not appreciate the subtlety

 

OK, but what would You say for MARCUS MILLER - The Sun Don't Lie?

[dmccombe7]

1 hour ago, HeadlessBassist said:

 

You're lucky, Dave. I can't get away without doing one. They'd dock my wages if I didn't showboat at least a little. 😢

I just play whatever i'm asked to play and whatever the song needs. Bass solos aren't enjoyed by the majority in a covers band. Different when you're Geddy Lee of course.

Even when i played in originals Prog or rock bands i would just play what's needed without making it all about the bass. It was more about the song for me.

Think in some bands showboating is a bit of the show and i can appreciate that.

Dave

[BigRedX]

I do quite a few "solos" as I play Bass VI. However none are improvised - they are all meticulously worked out note-for-note beforehand and are an integral part of the song and could probably more considered to be melody parts rather than solos in the traditional rock band sense. Also I'll mix things up and often the upper register parts are chordal and then I'll drop back down to the bass register for the actual tune/solo:

 

 

[lonestar]

13 hours ago, Geek99 said:

You have bass solos? I thought these were the stuff of legend .. a unicorn appeared, wearing a trilby hat, and then it was my turn to solo kind of thing 🦄
 

"when drums stop,very bad....."

[Stub Mandrel]

Back in the late 80s, my first band was Drastic Action. Our vocalist/guitarist left all the lead work to the keys, except for Show Me the Way and like a Hurricane where I got to go completely off-piste. I used to play a mix of the vocal line (with flourish) and then scales based stuff over each chord untill it got silly. I recall I typically had an HM2, a Mini-Phaser, a chorus pedal and god knows what else all mashing my sound.

[tauzero]

6 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Is that twice the guitarists monitor was unplugged at different venues too ? that's an odd one.

No decent pics of the complimented SEI bass. That's not good. It should be front and centre. 😂

Dave

 

Well, I didn't take the photos. That's guitarists for you.

 

The monitors are Alto TS408s, which have the mains leads and XLR leads coming out of the back. When the audience are literally inches from you, them treading on a mains lead and pulling it out is always a possibility. And although the room on Saturday was comparatively massive, the enthusiastic dancers and sing-alongers got as close to us as possible.

[Al Krow]

 

Always a huge treat to be playing at the London 10k and we couldn't believe our luck with the change of location we found ourselves moved to for this one! 

 

We'd had a late one at a function gig the night before, so an early morning start to arrive to set up at 8pm meant just 4 hours sleep, but it was one of those gigs that the adrenaline gets you through! In some ways our own mini marathon - playing for two hours solid with no break, but we all loved it.

 

A sweet moment for me right at the close when a local London lady, who had an ice cream van set up behind us, thanked us all for providing the music and offered us each a free ice-cream!

 

A little clip from the race: LA Mixtrax - London 10k

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Al Krow

[knirirr]

15 hours ago, Geek99 said:

You have bass solos? I thought these were the stuff of legend .. a unicorn appeared, wearing a trilby hat, and then it was my turn to solo kind of thing 🦄
 

 

I'm not sure about any other genre but in the jazz world there are more bass solos than one could ever need. I even use the bow for some and yet the solos keep happening.

[dmccombe7]

50 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

Well, I didn't take the photos. That's guitarists for you.

 

The monitors are Alto TS408s, which have the mains leads and XLR leads coming out of the back. When the audience are literally inches from you, them treading on a mains lead and pulling it out is always a possibility. And although the room on Saturday was comparatively massive, the enthusiastic dancers and sing-alongers got as close to us as possible.

I see what you mean now.

When we use monitors its normally me that wires them up and i always wrap the mains and xlr cables thru the handles then plug them into cab to reduce the risk of being pulled out but the monitor can be moved if someone accidentally tugs on the cables. 

In no way removes the risk tho but can help in some circumstances.

Dave

[dmccombe7]

29 minutes ago, knirirr said:

 

I'm not sure about any other genre but in the jazz world there are more bass solos than one could ever need. I even use the bow for some and yet the solos keep happening.

It seems to be a bit more accepted in Jazz music.

Dave

[Stub Mandrel]

15 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

It seems to be a bit more accepted in Jazz music.

Dave

 

In trad jazz, the number of soloists is inversely proportional to the musicianship. If everyone gets a solo, in every song, you can be pretty sure the mediocrity rating is off the scale.

[tauzero]

17 hours ago, Geek99 said:

You have bass solos? I thought these were the stuff of legend .. a unicorn appeared, wearing a trilby hat, and then it was my turn to solo kind of thing 🦄
 

 

The band that I dep for has a mandatory bass solo. Just the one, though.

[tauzero]

4 hours ago, Staggering on said:

Re tauzero's post yesterday and his "moment of epicaricacy"....

You found the perfect word for the situation, I hadn't seen it before and had to look it up and at some point will use it to impress/confuse/annoy/surprise someone, thanks.😊

 

It's the English equivalent of "schadenfreude", which, as a German word, is no longer permitted since Brexit.

[Muzz]

On 12/07/2025 at 12:05, 12stringbassist said:

It's been a while since I've been able to post in this topic, as our old guitarist opted out at the beginning of May.
It's been cancellations, auditions and just a couple of rehearsals since then. I think we've got the right new guy.

I was slightly nervous in the run up to last night's first gig, as we didn't manage to rehearse this week as our drummer has been taken into hospital for urgent surgery. He's going to be out of the game for a while. A good friend of ours is going to sit in on drums for a while when he can and I am meeting another drummer this evening, when we play another gig (and he's on drums).

We're deviating from usual set to a degree, as our new guitarist has some songs he's pretty good at, so to get a set together, and to change things a bit (the old band was a bit of a museum, as we couldn't add new songs without a distinct lack of enthusiasm from one corner of the room). We've pulled the best set together of crowd pleasers that we can .

There were a couple of hairy moments, but the punters didn't notice.
The good news for us is that we are back doing it and enjoying it.

 

Nige! 😀  He deps for us now and again...  The Inn On The Wharf is a great gig, we're trying to get back there ASAP...

[Muzz]

Played a rare gig with backline and without inears over the weekend...never again (if I can help it). I'd forgotten what a rare thing it is to have a decent onstage sound (I didn't have one, obv), and obviously everything was wayyyy too loud...pfffttt...

 

Once you've gone inears (with your own mix), it's tough to go back...

[dmccombe7]

15 minutes ago, Muzz said:

Played a rare gig with backline and without inears over the weekend...never again (if I can help it). I'd forgotten what a rare thing it is to have a decent onstage sound (I didn't have one, obv), and obviously everything was wayyyy too loud...pfffttt...

 

Once you've gone inears (with your own mix), it's tough to go back...

Wish our band would go down that route. Might swing it for next year as we will be mostly using PA hire company for our gigs. Once he has it set up on the desk he just saves the settings. 

Will def be looking into it for next year.

Dave

[dmccombe7]

1 hour ago, tauzero said:

 

The band that I dep for has a mandatory bass solo. Just the one, though.

Was song is it in ? Are you given freedom to express yourself or is it based on a cover version ?

Just curious.

Dave

[Obrienp]

Two x 2 hour gigs at the Dereham Blues Festival on Sunday. These were the inaugural gigs for the Checkmate Kings new line up and the first the band has done since last year’s festival. The first was outdoors at the George Hotel to a packed beer garden and pub. Despite some significant cock ups it went well and we got plenty of positive feedback, including a possible return match later. It was pretty hot but we were under two gazebos, which gave us the space to spread out. Gear was 2 x LFSys Monzas, Blackstar U700, MB LMIII 500 back-up, Mooer Envelope filter pedal, Boss Tu3, Maruszczyk Elwood 4a 32” and Greco Atomic 32” as spare. Everything was DI’d, so the master didn’t go above 9 o’clock on the U700. One of these days I’ll get the chance to open up the rig!
 

The second gig was early evening at the Red Lion and indoors. Hot, hot! We were squashed into a small space at the end of the bar. It’s a small pub, so pretty tight. However, our keyboard player wasn’t able to attend as he was playing at the Ely folk festival, so at least we were down to 5. Minimal equipment, just vocals, kick and sax into one PA column. I only used one cab and the guitarist used a small combo. Without the keyboard player we had to drop some material and rearrange on the fly, which had mixed success. I had some brain farts, which was embarrassing given some of the people who came to see us. Just as we were starting, I noticed that one side of the bridge saddle on the A string had dropped, which explained why I could hardly hear it (choking off). Fortunately I had my guitar multi-tool with me and I was able to fix it.

 

Ah! I can’t post the pics, I seem to have a 43KB limit! That’s tiny these days!

Edited 4 hours ago by Obrienp

[dmccombe7]

23 minutes ago, Obrienp said:

 

 

Ah! I can’t post the pics, I seem to have a 43KB limit! That’s tiny these days!

Yep i ended up deleting all my very old pics.

Dave

[Bluewine]

Full Maple Road gig at Bastille Days this Saturday.  We'll play from 3:00-5:00.

 

No, we won't have the crowd in the pic. Lol

 

Daryl