String Break

I recently auditioned for a band in Woking, Surrey. It was more of a jam but they had given me a few songs to learn although the drummer and the guitar player had not bothered to learn them. It turned out that it was a new band formed by a keyboard player, which was a good start I thought. I have been in many bands over the years who were looking for a good keyboard and none of them ever found one – good, bad or indifferent.

So I’m playing my Yamaha RBX bass through a Peavey stack which is turned up but I’m not hearing a lot of volume. Well its a rehearsal studio rig so maybe its been beaten up and is not very well. To compensate I’m probably hitting the strings of my bass harder and before long I lose the 3rd string, its broken and I have no spares. I check out the reception desk – do they have any strings? No they don’t, I would’ve stocked them if it had been my rehearsal facilities. A rehearsal place I went to in London had a good stock of strings, because its obvious that sooner or later someone will break a string, though usually its the guitar players not the bassists.

I called round at the other rehearsal rooms and was lucky enough to find a band taking a break and a bassist who had the right spare string – result and back to the audition. Our drummer is never seen again after this audition – like many drummers he is in another band or two but unlike the rest he doesn’t like the idea of rehearsal’s very much so he doesn’t bother coming to another one, although technically he is still in the band. At all the subsequent rehearsals he is able substituted by an Alesis SR16 drum machine which has less attitude, a better sound, improved time-keeping and a 100% attendance record.

So we start playing again – and five or was it six songs in the 4th string breaks – it has never happened before – two strings breaking on a bass is incredible. I go in search of my former saviour but this time he can’t help and so I play the remainder of the set with three strings and then my lead packs up so I borrow one from the guitar player. I plug it and straight away the problem of the missing volume is solved as the amp produces one powerful pulse of feedback.

As I now have an assortment of spare strings at I home – whenever I change one I keep the old one I replace the 4th string and all is well.

A few weeks later the band meets again, this time in Guildford, Surrey and everyone is relieved that I get through it with all strings intact. I thought that the band was actually going to gig so I bought a new bass amp.
One day I receive a call from the keyboard player who says that he has joined a band and that if we want to we can keep rehearsing. Well thanks – that leaves a guitar player who can sing but doesn’t make time to practice and a singer, but now since the keyboard player owns the Alesis we don’t have a decent drum machine either. I know that this band is not going to get work and so does he so thats the end of the line.