Warning: satire following. Take with a grain of salt.
Ladies, Gentlemen, Double Bass Players All:
It is time to have an “official” Dead Spiros Club thread. The electric side of this forum has all sorts of clubs. As you can see in my signature, for example, I am a member of the Grumpy Old Farts – Get Off My Lawn club.
Dead Spiros are like comfy slippers, an old Retriever, and your favorite easy chair. They have settled in to your bass and your personality. They are a part of your life and family. They love you as much as you love them. You can’t imagine having to get along without them. The loss of a Dead Spiro, especially right before a gig, is a traumatic event requiring consolation, fellowship and counseling to manage, usually accompanied by multiple beverages of choice.
Worse, as we age, the young up-and-coming players don’t have a clue as to what we are talking about. Like all young sprouts, and I resembled that remark once, they are still tempted by everything new and different. That’s alright, because it is part of the learning process. It will make them appreciate Dead Spiros even more when they finally grow up and become eligible to join.
So keeping in mind the Monty Python line, “I can’t take him, he’s not dead yet,” The Dead Spiros Club is hereby established, with the following by-laws:
1. The minimum time a “new” string must be on a bass to be eligible for membership is one year. This can be shortened to six months if the applicant can demonstrate he/she purchased them used on this forum, and that the leader silk is frayed.
2. Mixed strings are acceptable, so long as at least one string on the bass is a genuine Spiro, meeting the above criteria. Purchasing a bass with Spiros already installed is also acceptable, so long as the prior owner can provide string envelopes or receipts showing the requisite age on the strings. In other words, membership is transferable.
3. Except in case of breakage or accident, for which probationary dispensation shall be extended, a player must keep at least one dead Spiro on the bass at all times. Any member who changes all strings at the same time must take a year’s sabbatical until he/she has duly killed his/her “new” Spiros. The sabbatical can be waived one time if the removed dead Spiros are sold to another player who can confirm they are actually installed on another bass and gigged.
4. Renewal dues shall consist of reporting a confirmed booking and performance where the string is actually played at least once a year. Yes, the bass must come out of the closet.
5. Special honoraria, bronze, silver and gold, may be displayed at the 2 1/2, 5 and 10 year mark on each string. Members are encouraged to affix a used string retainer of the appropriate color, taken off any broken string, or if a color cannot be procured, multiple retainers corresponding to each level of tenure, on the string afterlength right above the tailpiece, to represent and exhibit status. If you play a string that is over twenty-five years old, then the rest of us simply are not worthy.
6. Honorary and reciprocal membership shall be extended to those who play, or at least have possession of, displayed in an appropriate shrine or other place of honor and respect, Lycons, but the applicant must produce a string envelope as proof of eligibility.
Official password: Growl.
Official color: Red.
Official slogan: “No, you can’t have my gig!” (To be pronounced every time by every member upon any member meeting a bass player he has not met before.)
Official pledge: To refrain from everything “new” as much as possible. I mean everything, not just bass strings. For example, my doubling tuba is forty years old with a fifty year old bell. This does not include the playing of new music or new arrangements of existing music. Quite to the contrary, that is necessary to propagate our species.
Since this is a new club, I will start off as Member #1: My last gig was September 27, 2014, with the group Wings of Swing, for a USN ship reunion in Branson, MO. E string: 3/4 3885.5W purchased 2012 by credit card from Gollihur Music (because at the time there were no dead ones available), replacing a set of S42W’s purchased used on the forum, and then sold to KungFuSheriff, to whom I shall arbitrarily assign (gotta use the pun, "grandfather" in) as Member #2, and extend the first honorary Lycon membership to Drurb.
Ladies, Gentlemen, Double Bass Players All:
It is time to have an “official” Dead Spiros Club thread. The electric side of this forum has all sorts of clubs. As you can see in my signature, for example, I am a member of the Grumpy Old Farts – Get Off My Lawn club.
Dead Spiros are like comfy slippers, an old Retriever, and your favorite easy chair. They have settled in to your bass and your personality. They are a part of your life and family. They love you as much as you love them. You can’t imagine having to get along without them. The loss of a Dead Spiro, especially right before a gig, is a traumatic event requiring consolation, fellowship and counseling to manage, usually accompanied by multiple beverages of choice.
Worse, as we age, the young up-and-coming players don’t have a clue as to what we are talking about. Like all young sprouts, and I resembled that remark once, they are still tempted by everything new and different. That’s alright, because it is part of the learning process. It will make them appreciate Dead Spiros even more when they finally grow up and become eligible to join.
So keeping in mind the Monty Python line, “I can’t take him, he’s not dead yet,” The Dead Spiros Club is hereby established, with the following by-laws:
1. The minimum time a “new” string must be on a bass to be eligible for membership is one year. This can be shortened to six months if the applicant can demonstrate he/she purchased them used on this forum, and that the leader silk is frayed.
2. Mixed strings are acceptable, so long as at least one string on the bass is a genuine Spiro, meeting the above criteria. Purchasing a bass with Spiros already installed is also acceptable, so long as the prior owner can provide string envelopes or receipts showing the requisite age on the strings. In other words, membership is transferable.
3. Except in case of breakage or accident, for which probationary dispensation shall be extended, a player must keep at least one dead Spiro on the bass at all times. Any member who changes all strings at the same time must take a year’s sabbatical until he/she has duly killed his/her “new” Spiros. The sabbatical can be waived one time if the removed dead Spiros are sold to another player who can confirm they are actually installed on another bass and gigged.
4. Renewal dues shall consist of reporting a confirmed booking and performance where the string is actually played at least once a year. Yes, the bass must come out of the closet.
5. Special honoraria, bronze, silver and gold, may be displayed at the 2 1/2, 5 and 10 year mark on each string. Members are encouraged to affix a used string retainer of the appropriate color, taken off any broken string, or if a color cannot be procured, multiple retainers corresponding to each level of tenure, on the string afterlength right above the tailpiece, to represent and exhibit status. If you play a string that is over twenty-five years old, then the rest of us simply are not worthy.
6. Honorary and reciprocal membership shall be extended to those who play, or at least have possession of, displayed in an appropriate shrine or other place of honor and respect, Lycons, but the applicant must produce a string envelope as proof of eligibility.
Official password: Growl.
Official color: Red.
Official slogan: “No, you can’t have my gig!” (To be pronounced every time by every member upon any member meeting a bass player he has not met before.)
Official pledge: To refrain from everything “new” as much as possible. I mean everything, not just bass strings. For example, my doubling tuba is forty years old with a fifty year old bell. This does not include the playing of new music or new arrangements of existing music. Quite to the contrary, that is necessary to propagate our species.
Since this is a new club, I will start off as Member #1: My last gig was September 27, 2014, with the group Wings of Swing, for a USN ship reunion in Branson, MO. E string: 3/4 3885.5W purchased 2012 by credit card from Gollihur Music (because at the time there were no dead ones available), replacing a set of S42W’s purchased used on the forum, and then sold to KungFuSheriff, to whom I shall arbitrarily assign (gotta use the pun, "grandfather" in) as Member #2, and extend the first honorary Lycon membership to Drurb.
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