SammyC said:
OK, for all the axe-peeps, why did you choose what you did then?
For me it was because I worshiped Angus from AC/DC and he seemed to do alright on it.
I started playing when I was at school in 1989. Played keyboards at first which I got quite good at, then moved onto acoustic guitar, which again, I got OK at.
The problem was, I was (and oddly enough, still am) a 'leftie'. The only left-handed acoustic got smashed to smithereens by somebody one day, and the only two eletric guitars they had were right-handed and I found it a chore to make the switch.
So I picked up a strange 4-stringed guitar I saw lying in the corner, all alone, and went "oooooo wots this?". It was a Fender jazz bass in Olympic White.
Spent half an hour fiddling about with it and adapted to playing it right-handed fairly quickly.
School's drama department were doing a production at the time and wanted a live band, so I got roped into playing bass for that, on the grounds that I was the only one who'd actually used the bass guitar in the last few years.
Stopped playing bass when I left school cos I didn't have my own, then picked it up again in 1993 and messed about with it for a lot of years. I started to listen to other bassists - particularly like the styles of Paul McCartney and also Michael Balzary (better known as 'flea').
Decided I was good enough to join a band in 1997 but ended up starting my own band instead. We did very well especially around the local area, obviously the highlight being when we played to 2,000 people with Mansun in Norwich.
We had regular arguments (especially between the singer and the guitarist), and the crap really hit the fan when our entire PA system 'went missing' while it was in the care of the guitarist. Coincidentally, only a few weeks earlier I'd seen a final demand for over £1,000 rent arrears when I was at his house, and thats where all our gear went missing from.
To this day we reckon he either sold it to pay the rent, or the debt collectors had it away. Either way, we were stuffed - probably more p***ed off because he could have asked us for help but didn't - he just screwed us over. We skinted ourselves to buy new PA, but things weren't right and we split 31st October 1998 after an on-stage row, during which I swore I would never play with them again. I finished the gig under protest, and that was it. No more being 'referee'.
