Bass Race

The good news is we're going back into the studio next Sunday...

The bad news is, we haven't got a bass player to take with us.

Magic J is going to be making punters' watches disappear in Croydon somewhere, so he can't join us - and so, for the last month, the other five of us have been asking every one we've ever met who plays bass if they're free on the 19th (including that guy from the party who said he'd played a bit of bass when he was 17 before he sold his instrument to take his girlfriend on holiday but even though he's now 43 he's sure he could pick it up again really easily). Now Magic J's getting more and more bookings to make things disappear or blow things up, it's getting quite pressing to find ourselves a new magician-of-the-bass, as it were, not just for the studio, but for the gigs as well.

Somewhere out there is the future bass player of the Tricity Vogue Slinktet. I'm dreaming of a double bassist, but at the end of the day I'm not fussy as long as they know their G string from their elbow. (That pronouncement sounds eerily familiar: I suspect that in the past I may once have said something similar about my search for love...)

Of course, there is one last resort... Beloved does number bass playing among his many talents, but I'm terrified of roping him into the band... because what if it all goes wrong and the music doesn't come together, and then me and him end up having a massive row and splitting up? Not that we've ever had a massive row about anything - but the trouble is that when you make music with your squeeze it's never just about the music: the music becomes a metaphor for your entire relationship. One 'bold note' can seem like the end of the world instead of just a slip of a finger. Is it fair on him, asking him to step into an established, tight band, that his girlfriend also happens to run? He's got no choice but to be blindingly good, to preserve his own chutzpah - and that's not a good position to put anybody in. And is it fair on the band either, when I'm getting all cozy with my fella instead of giving everybody equal attention? And if I don't give Beloved the attention that a girlfriend should, he's going to be really hurt because i'm being weird and distant with him... Apart from anything else, this is not the kind of behavioural dilemma i want to put myself in when I go into the studio and attempt to feel as relaxed and confident as possible, so I can deliver that killer vocal.

oh good grief.

One last desperate solution...

last night Beloved gave me a bass lesson and he said I was picking it up really fast and had a really good sense of rhythm and timing... and maybe I should play bass myself in the band???

mmmm... somehow I can't see that quite working. Not before next Sunday, anyway. And yes, girls playing bass do look really cool, but I think I might save that up my sleeve for another band, another day... I'm not really feeling a lowslung bass over a satin full-length gown, never mind trying to play one in evening gloves.

Still, it's a Look...

TV

xx