Guide to life

Befriend the bar staff

Gaffa tape is brilliant

Sometimes you're the pigeon, and sometimes you're the statue

Phone your mum

Put your CDs back in their boxes

When carrying a Double Bass up stairs, go backwards

If you can walk you can dance

If you can talk you can sing

Turn the amps off first, then the desk

Why? Why not?!

New strings make all the difference

Any idiot can play the guitar. It takes a special kind of idiot to play The Bass

Two wheels good four wheels bad

Listen to your singer when s/he's singing, but not when s/he's talking

You are not what you wear

Clarinet & flute players usually keep a packet of Rizla in their cases

If you own a cat, check your shoes for dead mice before you put them on

Wear earplugs. Wear earplugs. Wear earplugs.

Life isnt like the movies

Ernie Ball Super Slinkys 45-100

A little bit of kick and snare drum in your monitor can be useful

The Lion might be the king of the jungle, but nobody messes with the elephant

Don't eat silica gel

Bowed harmonics sound weird

If it sounds right, it is right

A peanut isnt a nut, its a legume

Invest in good quality leads

Tea, pretty strong, not much milk, no sugar

If you do what you've always done, you get what you've always got

It's worth learning some scales. Sorry.

Be nice to sound engineers

If someone wants to pay you three hundred quid for a half hour set, let them

Trust your instincts

Hartnell. Troughton. Pertwee. Baker T. Davison. Baker C. McCoy. McGann. (Hurt). Eccleston. Tennant. Smith. Capaldi. Whittaker.

Bad things happen when good people do nothing

Happy endings are a myth

Take a book

Take a spare - You never know

Turn the desk on first, then the amps

Nothing has the wow factor of a Double Bass

Except possibly a Stick

Some people can lick their elbows

The Bass. Capital T Capital B

If you can't afford it, you can't have it

Don't put drinks on top of amps. Ever

Tell the sound engineer if you use feedback (or they might try and get rid of it)

Measure twice, cut once

Don't drink and dial

Rodeohead is a work of genius

If it wasn't horrendously difficult and painful, you did it wrong

Choose life - Choose PHP

If you have to use pliers to remove bridge pins, put a towel inbetween them

If you're playing Double Bass in your New Rocks, set the endpin higher

Gaffa tape all your leads to the stage

A Confederacy of Dunces is the best book ever

A good luthier is worth their weight in gold

Save the cheerleader - save the world

So many drummers, so little time

Get a good drummer. Then listen to them

The canonicity of spin-off media is unclear

Everything's bigger in the Bass department

Halfwound strings are kinder to your fretless fingerboard than roundwounds

You can't polish a turd
But you can stick a flag in it

Plug one end of a lead into an amp and touch the other. The noise it makes is a G

Aim for the eyestalk!

If you know the key and the tempo, you can give it a go

If you don't ask, you don't get

When bouncers grab you, go limp

Pay in cash and haggle - you might get a discount

Just go for it

Listen first, then play

Hook your lead through your strap

There are two secrets to good comedy. The first is always leave them wanting more.