33rd April

April has gone rushing by and I’m still in denial about it being May.

 

My lovely old car has died. I almost never cleaned it, and have overlooked many important things that you’re supposed to do to keep a car in optimum condition. So it’s something of a miracle that it lasted this long. I’ve replaced it with the same model and have vowed to be a better owner. Let’s see.

Musically, the band is on hold while the tracks from our session are being cleaned up and mixed. If we didn’t all have day jobs this would have been a quicker process; but it will be worth it.

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been some interesting developments. Recently, my guitarist pal and I drove to Andertons (an awesome music shop in Guilford) to check out a variety of instruments because… well, just because.

I had a list. Almost everything on the list was a P Bass, as I convinced myself I needed a second Precision that I would put roundwound strings on (the P I own has flats). This was a great idea and I worked through some Fenders and Sires. The very last thing on my list was to try an Ibanez EHBbass. These are about as far from a P Bass as you can get. Multiscale (i.e. fan frets), active, headless, ergonomic body shape, etc. The only reason I wanted to try one was because I’d owned a headless bass many, many years ago and was keen to see what Ibanez had done with the idea.

I picked up the bass, sat down to play and fell in love. It was as if the bass was playing itself. I’ve never had such an immediate reaction to playing an instrument before.

My Precision won’t be going anywhere, but a couple of instruments will be up on Reverb shortly to make room (and raise cash) for the new bass.

Meanwhile, my pal, John Marcell, and I are recording an EP in response to the Substack article, The Neighborhoods, by Rob Stephenson. I’m also piecing together a new Spingere album which should be out later this year. There should also be another Guitar and Oud album from Russell Kilmister and myself (check out the original album here). We might even get the Eclipse Trio out for a house concert or two. We won’t be playing the Co-op Arena though.

I didn't take any photographs this month, so here's an unrelated one of a piece of ventilation equipment having a rest on a sofa.

 

More next month.