John Hancotte's Bass Desires: A fine evening for a wedding reception at Druid Hills Golf Club

In spite of a Friday the 13th and predictions of thunder storms (70% chance), the weekend turned out to be a warm, partly sunny, breezy and, well, springy one. My day started with Spencer. Not much of a revelation there - I think they all start with Spencer. Okay, maybe they start with Praline, who sleeps in between Sabina & me lately. I eventually got Spencer ready for his day with "Mommy" and then drove off to get Jack from Karate practice. I then drove him up to a high school in Canton for a track meet. Those events sure are a large scale. We didn't get there till just after 11:00 and we left at about 1:45 - he only had enough time for 1 run. He did well but he's like his old man, not the fastest gun in the west. Eventually, I made it home in time to shower, change, pack, and head down to Druid Hills Golf Club, located very close to Fernbank Science Center off of Ponce de Leon.

I had acquired a new (used) Boss Bass Chorus pedal earlier in the week. My Super Chorus pedal, which was also a used purchase, never really sounded quite like I remembered the famous Boss chorus effect to sound. On top of that, there is a slight issue with the switching on it. It generally, for whatever reason, requires 2 or even 3 good depresses for it to either switch on or off. Can't figure it out. So, the new (used) pedal works much better all around and sounds sweet. I actually don't use chorus that much on bass, but once in while it gives a little colour (love that old English spelling on words like colour and flavour) when I wish to be colourful. At any rate, it helps my fretless playing sound like it could be pitchy from the chorus than from the pitchiness. So I actually installed it on the Pedal Train before soundcheck got underway. Nice to update the board, as always. I repositioned some of the pedals as well, hopefully to make switching a bit easier.

Another equipment update: my Fender Jazz bass is back and buzz free. A while back I decided to try to upgrade the pickups. I had researched and found that a new model of pickup was coming standard in the Fender American Deluxe series of basses. I found a great deal (relatively, mind you) on these Fender Samarium Colbalt Noiseless Jazz Bass Pickups. They were designed by Bill Lawrence, who has been making pickups for decades now. I installed them and they do sound good, but I had a slight buzz when I wasn't touching a metal part on the bass. On top of that, my tone just wasn't the same. I have since gone back to the stock pickups. I don't know what the deal is, but these pickups are hard to beat. The bass was made in Japan, so I don't know if that has anything tho do with the PU's being better than, say, the Mexican variety. They are not as loud, but the SC pickups are almost too loud! The stocks are more scooped sounding with a glissy top end that is indicative of single coils, and I just miss that more than anything else with the SC's. I've actually gone back and forth once again because i thought I must be missing something. It's a pain to remove the pickguard and control plate, desolder the pickups from the pots, install the other pickups, yadda yadda. One thing I do like about the newer pickups is that they are bigger. They are a tight fit and they look sharp. Well, looks isn't everything, is it? I replaced the old ones once again, but this time I inserted a piece of foam (taken from a foam sanding block - only foam I could find laying around the house) under each PU so that they sit a little higher. I am trying to give them a bit more stature and raise them a hair to boost the level just a touch. Since I rest my thumb on the neck PU when I play, I want that one to be sitting as high as possible. I had recently replaced the output jack, so this is as good as it gets for now. Pretty much no change! Maybe down the road I will feel the need to upgrade the bridge or the tuning pegs/machine heads. One thing I'm considering is to have the bridge SC PU installed into my Precision. It will cost about $85 and the tech at Guitar Center seems to be very comfortable with that procedure. I really enjoy playing that bass in a rock setting, and a Jazz PU at the bridge could only make it more versatile. It would have an additional blend knob with center detente so that I could get my P-bass tone as is now after the mod. That bass already has a Quarter Pound™ for P-Bass® SPB-3, as well as a Badass Bass II bridge and a Hipshot BT7 Extender Key for the E string which can instantly drop the E string down to D. I play this bass often with bands that tune down a 1/2 step so that we are, low to high, Eb Ab Db Gb. My tuner thinks in terms of sharps, so then it's D# G# C# F#. Ugh. So the Hipshot actually drops it from Eb to Db, or D# to C#. That's why I need to have a 105 for the low E. Maybe even a 110 would be good. Hmm. Something to look into.

Soundcheck was a little weird. Always such when we don't have anything to really go over. I thought we might have ventured into new territory, like the tunes we had worked on in Dillard (Shining Star, Here Comes My Girl, Summer of '69). Nah.

It was our last gig of the month and David Winterhalter's last gig with us. Hard to believe he's leaving. We are really going to miss what he brought to the table, particularly his clarinet playing. Also, he wasn't shy about bringing the horns: alto, tenor, & baritone sax were often part of the mix. He even picked up an EWI not too long ago, with some cool patch capabilities. And I'll tell you what: he never really learned the cowbell part for Honky Tonk Women, but he sure is a great tambourine player. Don't laugh at that. It's not easy to play a tambourine convincingly. There's no volume control for one thing. It takes a bit of finesse and even anticipation to swing it in rhythm, assuming one has that kind of rhythm already. He has amassed a substantial percussion collection which is another great attribute to David. He really came out of pocket for many things. He has put together a fine sax book for Anton or whoever will ultimately use it. Another fine trait he has, since his first charts for us were of the hen scratch variety - his new charts are Finale and very easy to read. He sounded great this last night. Anton was there too, but it was Dave's moment and he went with it in full force. I hope his transition down to Florida works out well for him - he may have a slot in a band similar to Platinum down there! A class act and I can honestly say I'm a better man for having known DW. Virginia did a swell thing and bought a cake to celebrate his last day with us. We enjoyed it - yellow cake with chocolate frosting. hey, we had a great hot meal of chicken, real mashed potatoes, and fresh veggies. All around a fine evening. The only bummer was that we ran over a bit at the end and didn't get to end the set properly. We were supposed to play their final dance of You Are The Best Thing, but the DJ (not our DJ) handled it!