Hahahahahaha! You just gave a whole new meaning to the term "dressing" doesn't it?

If you're (chuckle, chuckle) serious about this, I advise that you not do anything to avoid the faux pas--turn it into sartorial splendor by embracing it loudly: Title your recipe, "Plaid Upright Bass" if you're serving it to musicians, or remove the skin and call it "Stripped Bass." Ba-dum-dum.

Tell everyone it's a Scottish striped bass.

When grilling your bass, stop grilling over direct heat and find a way with your grill to do indirect heat. On my weber kettle or open grate grill I put the coles on either side of the cooking area and on my gas grill ( for week nights only) I am able to turn on different burners and leave off different burners so that it has the same effect. You can always put it on some foil if somehow your not able to do any of this so the you can cover with a lid and cook from the top. Good luck!

Just make sure everything else you serve has no stripes, checks, or polka dots... :) I don't really have answer I just like the idea of a plaid bass. . .

There's really no need to rotate the meat on the grill (2 to 4 to 8 to 10...like the hands on a clock) so that those cross-hatched marks happen naturally. Be a little less regimented about it and I guarantee they won't be quite so obvious. Or, flip the meat more offten so the look is muddled.