Tuesday 17th April sees The Weatherheads in concert at The King's Head, Crouch End. Come on down and relive the seventies with a fusion soundtrack supplied by us.

Phil suggested we ought to put a couple of Pat Metheny tunes in the piano trio's non existant pad at the jam. Bright Size Life of course popped up but Phil rang excitedly yesterday and said we should do Unity Village, something I hadn't heard of. I had a bit of a rummage around, found a chart and knocked this out in Garage Band.

This is the North London All Electric Bass (and Bongo) Band's version.

Here's another clip from the Weatherheads preview gig. This is Actual Proof from the Thrust album. It's great fun to play and as close to free climbing as I'll ever get, proper fingernail stuff. The more risks you take the better it sounds, right up until the point where it falls apart.

Wow, I'm a bit emotional. It's been nearly a week since The Weatherheads had their debut upstairs in the East London pub where I seem to do almost all of my playing. My first listen to the recordings I found typically depressing as all of the,mistakes just jumped out and slapped me, so I didn't listen to it for a few days.

The video too was a bit of a shock, like catching yourself in a full length bathroom mirror, only worse, I think you know what I mean, never mind, only good can come from confronting such things.

Well I got back, had a closer listen and began to find things to love. The playing is superb in places and these guys really sound good together. As I listen more the attention to detail that Gabriel gives is just stunning as is the subtlety of the percussionists and Duncan is very inventive and sensitive.

I really feel this is worthwhile and I'm very proud of our achievements.

Here are three tunes from the gig.

I've always had my birthday just before Christmas which is a good and bad thing, for reasons to dull to expose.

I'm playing for the old folks Christmas dinner this year which will be nice, they won't be getting this though.

I've played bass for lots of people for many years and have always loved the idea of being a hired gun, getting asked to play and getting paid for doing a proper job - lovely.

This band running lark is something else, I'm really pushing it with the people skills thing and blimey corraling musicians can be a will sapping experience at times. Then there is the task of actually getting gigs - I've never done that, don't know how to do it and don't know who to approach and what to say.

But saying that, this band sounds lovely and is a bit of a dream for me so it's bound to not come together easily and I guess that's how it should be, all the best things require effort.

Today's tune is the final few bars of Jaco's Continuum. I recently got the fingerboard on my old Japanese Jazz varnished, for no real reason but I did treat it to a new set of strings. It's not the best sounding bass but it is sounding its best.

This year, for the first time in ages I've contemplated some new basses. I've always been very faithful to my old '70s Jazz and very early Stingray, both being owned and played by me for over 25 years, along with these has been a Japanese Jazz that was my tour backup for many years, a very tough and reliable bass that I took the frets out of when the '70s Jazz had the frets put back. So a couple of months back I picked up a used Road Worn Jazz, which I have been running in furiously, I'm quite enjoying it, it's a very resonant and pleasant sounding bass, pretty light and quite characterful.

Here they are,

The '70s Jazz

I bought this with really bad fret damage, had an ebony board fitted and played it fretless for twenty years, with no lines or markers. Somewhere along the way the original pickups, pick guard, bridge, control plate, string guide, buttons and nut were thrown away and replaced, makes me feel slightly sick. This bass got its frets back and had the neck refurbished with new binding around eight years ago. It's got a real thunk to it, and has been my sound for a long time.

This by contrast is all original other than the mutes turned to crusty tar so I wodge a piece of foam in when I need that sound. It's a very early one and I have been told I wouldn't get another, so I hang on to it. It does get out to play in the Film and TV theme band, pick and flatwounds. Scares sound engineers.

I haven't really been asked to play fretless for so long I actually can't remember the last time this got used on a gig. I get it out every couple of months and get my left hand back into the slightly different discipline. I bought this new around 1990 and made them swap the bodies on two basses, I ended up with black but have subsequently wished I'd stuck with the other Daphne Blue one. Shockingly reliable and with such a tough finish it will go on forever.

This is somewhere on the way to what I feel a true sixties jazz should sound like, It's very resonant, you can really feel the whole thing working, and I'm sure it will improve with playing. I have a strong feeling that this would make a good fretless, mmm.

The tune to go with this post is a bass only intro to Havona, played on the red Jazz.

Joe and Herbie on one stage.

I'm putting a band together, designed to play the great '70's (erm and '80's) jazz fusion anthems from Weather Report and the Headhunters, bloody hell, this will be fun. I'm determined to see this one through, although my band leading history is populated with grand ideas never achieved.

This post is accompanied by a little Watermelon.

Well I was supposed to put down the bass part to Night Passage as a means to learning it off the page, but I hit record in GarageBand and started noodling instead. It's just me on a Jaco ramble, I've spent most of my practice time over the last couple of weeks working on the electric as I hate to lose the chops and I love working on my Pastorius repertoire. It's the new to me Mexican Jazz which still hasn't had a proper set up so has the tone rolled right off to hide some of the fret clatter when cutting the notes. There's a whole load of the Punk Jazz intro and bits of Chromatic fantasy and a couple of licks from Donna Lee all the great Jaco staples, see if you can spot them all. Isn't it great to think that Summer is almost here.

I've just acquired another Fender, a Jazz bass in fiesta red. My old '75 has been getting more unreliable and besides it worries me taking it to pubs where every bod seems to know how much these things are now worth. Added bonus is the new guy is pretty light and sounds fine. Although I bought it used I'm just running it in for a couple of weeks before getting the boys to set it up super stunt wise.

As is the norm around here this is Niama, just the head recorded on the Little Red Courgette.