I got a Facebook message today from someone whose name I didn’t immediately recognise. As always, I treat such things with a high degree of suspicion but, when I got home and could check it from the vantage point of my main computer, I realised it was someone who once attended a bass workshop I used to run regularly at various locations around the UK.

Deep to Deep was initially driven by a bassist called Mark Ashby who, with some encouragement from me, organised a meet up for people playing bass in church settings in Sevenoaks, Kent, in 1997. It was a worthwhile gathering. At the time, playing bass in church could feel quite isolated and the main support network I was aware of was the ChurchBass email list, which I had been part of since my university days. That was where Mark and I cooked up the idea of a local, face to face gathering and, since it was met with enthusiasm but Mark didn’t have time to take it forward, the mantle fell to me.

Over the next fifteen years, we had about 30 meetups at different locations in England and Wales. Sometimes we got into double figures on attendance and sometimes it was just four or five of us. Normally we met in churches and church halls and, on one occasion, in my one-bed flat in Lewisham. It was a worthwhile run but, as time drew on, more people got regularly online, more interaction and learning spaces, like Facebook and YouTube, became available and the ChurchBass list switched first to a different email host and eventually to become a Facebook group. I was also getting more busy myself and the gap between meetings eventually became a long-term cessation.

Perhaps, with music stores falling left, right and centre (eg. the sudden closure of established national chain PMT about a month ago) there is an opportunity to kick start the idea again sometime soon? I certainly used to enjoy the chance to chat church and bass with fellow players and to get a chance to try out all sorts of bass gear without any sales pitch or online purchase risks.