22 Dreams

I bought my first fretless bass on Wednesday. I'd wanted a fretless bass ever since I was 19, in an on-and-off kind of way. And during one of my Christmas shopping expeditions, I walked into Music City Sydney in Petersham on my way to and fro from one shop to the next. I immediately noticed how downscaled the shop had become since I'd last strolled in, some 12 or so months ago. I just glazed around not paying much attention to anything in particular. Until I spied a bunch of basses on one wall with orange stickers stuck onto each instrument with sale prices. A fretless bass immediately caught my eye. It had a sticker of $314, down from the tag's rrp of $449. I had a go of it. The action was quite high. I asked the man behind the counter to lower it for me. He lowered it a little but that was as far as it could go. It's still playable but at some point I'll have to find a way of lowering it further, if that's all possible. It sounded good and play...

Last Wednesday night, or Thursday morning come to think of it, Sarah and I were slumped away in the back courtyard of the Bank Hotel in Newtown enjoying post-midnight drinks. We ended up chatting away to this emphatic though rather didactic Australian guy who really liked the sound of his own opinions. He had this effusive, quasi-psychic manner about him that compelled him to point the finger at us to tell us what we were, without knowing anything about us. Sarah was a singer who could pitch five octaves. He told her to just concentrate on the singing, all the while ignoring (or not ‘seeing’) her prodigious songwriting and piano-playing gifts. I caught the finger from Kenny too. Without saying a word about myself or who I was, Kenny told me “…you’re a bass player. I know you are. Look at you! You’ve got the body tone, the build. Stick with the bass because there’s too many crap bass players around and good bass players are needed everywhere.” Well, I do more than just play ba...