Musical Misadventures
Back in the late 80s and early 90s, I was a bass player in several bands, starting with my mate saying, “Will you play bass?” We paid £10 for a “fretless” base and an amp—I say fretless because the previous owner had removed the frets. My mate Sout tuned the strings to the notes I needed for Bryan Adams’ Summer of 69, and seven days later, we had a gig with Disaster Area.
Following several band names, Pickup Truck, Bare Necessities and others I can’t remember, various band members and with an upgraded bass and amp, on the 13 May 1990 as Shute the Tailor, me, Sout, Sammut and Julian hit a recording studio somewhere in Telford.
A few hours later we left with a cassette with three songs, ready to take on the world.
Life and time moved on and the cassette sat in my cassette box for 29 years, until I had the bright idea to publish it. I had already played about with The Twelve Days of Project where my daughters and I sang a reworked version of the Twelve Days of Christmas for the project management profession (with the wonderful back singers, Beau and Bonnie referred to as The “??????”. I made a couple of mixes and released an EP via Routenote to the world referral link here. You can listen to it here.
I thought why not do the same for the demo on its 30th year anniversary, I spoke to the boys who were delighted and on the 13th May 2020 it was released on all platforms. Here is the link to the Amazon.
In the time between my musical adventures we stalled, I always had a bass, bought a cheap electric guitar that I never really learned to play and even bought an acoustic bass that I played a bit. In 2020 during lockdown I discovered the bridge on my acoustic bass had started to come away and I decided to buy a small “sheeran” size acoustic and found one on eBay for £20, cheaper a cheerful. I learned more in the following 6 months than I had for years.
In Summer 2023 I started playing the bass again, I repaired my acoustic bass and found a rock school jamming session to attend with a couple of mates and I have got the bug again, this time performing live for the first time in quite a few years after only four sessions, followed up by a Christmas show and the latest June performance again with me singing, something I have always fancied a go at.
In late 2023, when looking for a solution to create small portable bass, I stumbled across a wonderful sub culture called Cigar Box Guitars and more about that to come.
In between times I have got the bug for Cigar Box Guitar build, discovering the joys on Youtube when looking how to create a small travel bass.
