Captain Matchbox is one of my favorite Australian bands from the 1970s covering a song from the 1930s.

Ya gotta love the "Gut Bucket" bass!

Played for 15 years with Preston Weber, a guy who built his entire act around a gut bucket. People would bring a crowd of up to 10 people and wait for several hours for their chance to sing and/or play the gut bucket. Some had special leather gloves and cases built for them. The real "purists" would bring their own "bucket"...refuse to play the one Preston had, with a clothes line for a string...that wasn't acceptable.

Hadn't seen one for years....thanks, I THINK LOL!


Russ

lmao ... glad I could bring back old memories for you lol. The gut bucket along with kazoo and washboard featured heavily in Captain Matchbox. But that only added to their charm and catchy sound. I love it.

Here they are again with "Nagasaki" ... where men all chew tobaccy and women wicky wacky woo

Really neat, silly stuff!

I once put a mike under the bucket, attached to a small digital delay set on lot's of repeats. I kept the pedal around my bass (played strings with Preston-and guests-then keys opposite him).

Occasionally, I would step on the delay pedal on-off switch. the result? COMPLETE KAYOS! No one ever figured it out.

But then again, they (we) were all DRUNK!


GOTTA LOVE THE BUCKET!

Russ (boom boom) Lay

What you guys refer to as a gut-bucket was known to us then youngsters in the UK as a 'tea-chest bass'. Exactly that. A plywood tea-chest in which loose tea had been imported, a hole in the top for the single string (any old bit of string), an inverted sauce bottle top nailed in one corner, and a broom handle.

This was my first band (or, properly, skiffle group) instrument. I missed a gig one night when the bus conductor wouldn't let me stow my 'bass' in the compartment under the stairs. "Yer not bringin' that bloody fing on here, cock!"

Happy days.

Memories, what memories lol!

Hi Guys, Tassiespirit and 124,
I used to have a "tea chest bass" with one string (a genuine G,of course),I would never pluck anything but a G string??. A few friends and I would sing all sorts of ditties accompanied by a broomstick with bottle tops attached, called a "lager phone", and then I discovered music!!!! What a revolution. I think I was better then than now, everything was in tune !!! (one monotone throughout)
Good memories, Thanks Nigel.
Ray