Leaderboard

Well, that's me crashed out of gear abstinence for this year and it's time for my full confession (although I'm 1 in, 1 out for the year so far, so could be worse). But I have a good excuse - this bass has been living rent-free in my head for nearly 12 years* and I finally snagged one in the finish I wanted. Black and silver ones pop up more often but I've only seen the purpleburst available two or three times in all these dozen years, so seeing as I'm not getting any younger, I decided a bit of carpe diem was in order. It's a three pickup, Les Paul shaped bass. It has three Greco T-bird-a-like pickups and three volume controls. That's it. Hardware is good quality - a Hipshot B style bridge and Gotoh tuners. It's had a life, there are some dings and scuffs in it but it's taken a polish well, the pickups have buffed up nicely and the fretboard enjoyed a drink of lemon oil very much. Lovely, dark rosewood board, yum. S'pose you'll be wanting some pics... It sounds great - I had a blast through my TC Electronic BH250 into headphones and it's got a lot of mid poke about it - might have to boost my mids a bit less when I'm playing this guy! Using the different pickups in different combinations makes noticeable changes to the tone, but it's not quite the same as having a tone knob - I might mod it but I'm not in a hurry. * TWELVE BLOODY YEARS - https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/210350-sorted-greco-3-pickup-les-paul-bass/

I placed this order quite some time ago, so long ago in fact that I don’t even have the original email chain with all of the details on it. I did ask Jon to ping the spec back to me so I can share it with everyone, but this beauty arrived today. It’s not the first lavish spec Shuker I’ve owned, so I know how good his work is, but this is quite something. The preamp/pickup combo is fierce, a really biting tone. Soon as I get Jon to send the spec back to me I’ll share!

Last night with BLOCKBUSTARZ Glam band in Bishopton Social Club turned out a fantastic wee night. When we arrived we were quite taken aback by the size of the venue. It was small with only 8 tables seating around 40. It apparently holds 80. Manager said things have been slow but he was surprised at ticket sales being so poor. Anyways it didn't look too empty so we just went for it and the audience were up for every bit of it. This was THE best audience interaction we've ever experienced. Enough so that when the singer was introducing the band he mentioned it was my birthday and the audience erupted into a "happy birthday" to me. When he mentioned its the drummers next week they did the same all in great humour. For a laugh he said the guitarists was in 2 weeks and off they went again and then Lynn's birthday was May and off they went and finally our singer Mikey even got a "Happy Birthday" too because they thought he was missing out. The whole night was like this. Not a lot of dancing first set but when we came back 2nd set they had obviously been lubricated at the bar and were up from first song. When we joked about what song we were doing next they responded by cheers or disappointed "awe's" when we didn't do an Osmond ballad, but just a great fun night. One of the best nights i've had as far as audience participation goes. Great positive comments at the end of the night too. Had one guy come over at the end and asked if i was the bass player and when i confirmed yes he said it was the first time he'd seen a bass player play the proper Jean Genie bassline with all the runs and fills. He was a guitarist himself. Organiser told us we were the best band they'd ever had in the club and those that never showed will regret not being there, but we have been asked to come back with date to be confirmed. We even had the honour of the amazing DJ Celebrity in Scotland Mr Tom Russell in the audience and at the end he couldn't be any more complimentary. "Band was very tight, obviously well rehearsed and compared to other Glam bands i've seen, far superior." Our Sweet covers were superb but unlike tribute bands we were covering just about every Glam band. His mate has provisionally booked us for Jan 2026. When we asked about the venue and if PA and lights etc his reply was "i want you to replicate exactly what you have tonight" so i'm guessing he liked it 1 hour drive home so not too bad. Was home for 2am. Usual gear. Sandberg VM4 into Shure wireless, Keeley comp, Mesa TT800 and Mesa SW210/115 cabs, platform boots as standard. Dave Not from last night's gig but the boots can be seen.

Maxell M9V Well,ummm,it's a battery Anonymous 14.07.2016 If you're looking for a 9v battery, this is a 9v battery. It provides power to things that require a 9v battery As a helicopter, totally useless. As a 9v battery, perfect. It will provide power for a certain amount of time, after that time elapses it will no longer provide power. As such it serves as a metaphor for the ephemeral and transient nature of being and provides proof(if any were needed)that entropy is the prevailing force in our all too brief existence. Also it tickles your tongue if you lick it. Hope you found this useful, next week's topic...trousers first ,THEN shoes. Show less

I got this at the weekend that I absolutely love to bits, and just wanted to share. A huge thank you to @walshy for his patience and good nature over the past weeks, as I’ve bombarded him with various questions, requests for excruciatingly detailed dimensions and pics galore. “Walshy, if the neck was an 80s pop act, who would it be? Which discontinued item of confectionery is the bass most like?” Prefab Sprout, and a Texan Bar, since you ask! I’ve been after a ‘68 to ‘73 period P Bass for a while now. I tried some lovely basses, but they weren’t quite for me, as I was after a specific neck profile. As soon as I picked this up I knew it was what I was after. Virginia Plain, Metal Guru, In a Broken Dream, All The Young Dudes, Ernie (the fastest milkman in the west), and this bass: 1972 was a good year…

Yesterday saw a return to the Blue Boar in Aldbourne, Wiltshire. It's been 6 months since we last played there and the deal is normally a 2hr acoustic set. Load in started with the "help" of our new furry roadcrew, Puma. She is lovely but I can't see her making old bones - too inquisitive! We get to the pub and some people had come down from London to see us which was humbling and nice. To be fair they were here anyway but had seen our poster and heard the name. We'd sold a CD before we started and set up our massive amount of kit. I was on mandocello, upright bass, mandolin, acoustic guitar and backing vocals. The London couple were quickly upstaged by a couple that saw us 2yrs ago and were from Spain! Again, I think they happened to be in the area but saw we were playing and remembered us from before. The landlady came up afterwards to say that the locals had been worn down by our consistency in playing gothic music and had to admit we were really good players. That made my night! And we were rebooked for June. I appreciate we're all bombarding each other with our bands, but if anyone is curious, we are live tomorrow on Swindon 105.5FM from 8pm for an hour of music and chat. The show is aptly called "Don't Stop the Music"... and why would we?

I had two gigs yesterday, first one with the acoustic duo and then later with the blues trio ‘The Alligators’. The duo gig was a 21st birthday party for the daughter of a couple who had come to see us at my local boozer on Thursday. The venue was a large pub in a village just east of York, playing in a long room with about 50 guests of all ages. Lovely people to play for, and a set of requests that spanned the generations - ‘Strangers in the night’ and ‘Fly me to the moon’ through to ‘Fields of gold’ and ‘Watermelon sugar’. Played for nearly two hours with only a short break, finishing at 7pm. When the lady who booked us came to pay me she had also bought us a bottle of wine each too, such a nice gesture. I quickly packed down and set off to gig number two, some 30 miles away in Hornsea on the east coast. Venue was ‘The Green Owl’, a modern cafe bar in the town centre. We’d been booked to cover for a cancellation by another band so didn’t know what to expect. When I arrived it was heaving with people, but fortunately we had a good amount of room to set up. The band are quite loud so I need to wear earplugs which often compromises my sound. Strangely in this room it was fine and had my Rumble 500 combo set in just the right place to hear a nice balance of everything, along with my passive Precision Lyte. Two sets of largely unfamiliar blues stuff went down well with the punters, and we managed to get through ’The Hunter’ by Free / Albert King which was requested by a friend of our guitarist. The encore was for the landlady - she asked rather bizarrely for ‘ 2-4-6-8 motorway’ by Tom Robinson which we attempted by blagging the lyrics with prompts from her! Overall a great night, and we’re back at this venue in April. Got in around 1am, absolutely knackered. Quiet day to recover today.

The return of Richard Davies & the Dissidents last night at The Beehive in Swindon. Wonderfully cramped and it felt like a proper rock ‘n’ roll gig. Good to blow off a few cobwebs ahead of tonight’s sold out London show.

Was hoping for a good gig today, my and the singer's home town and a fair few people had said they were coming. A 5:15 sunday gig. We used the venue pa but the desk does auto setup with white noise so we had a good sound (4 vocals plus drums) restof us backline only. Had a decent soundcheck. Hadn't played a gig since start of December, just two rehearsals with just four of us. Place was rammed, which was great considering we've only played Barry once before. We made a handful of cock ups but recovered well. Went down a storm, the bucket added over 50% to our fee. Plenty of dancing(!) Lots of compliments especially for the sound and our singer's voice, also loads of great feedback on our setlist. Playing songs we love seems to work. Screenshot from a facebook live...

I've had a busy 3 or 4 months of buying, selling and trading. Here are the ones that have come in so far in 2025. Very pleased with ALL of them! L-R... Ibanez Soundgear SR800BK (1993), Squier 40th Anniversary Precision (Gold Edt 2021) & Epiphone Grabber (2024) L - R... Spector Coda Pro 4 (2013), Kramer Spector NS2B (late 80s) & Stuart Spector Design (SSD) NS-94 (1994)

First two of four gigs for me this week. Tuesday afternoon I played with our duo at a ‘retirement village’ near Hull, the first time we’ve done anything like this. It is a purpose built complex for people 55 and over, with many facilities on site. They have a monthly lunch in an Italian restaurant that features varied sorts of musical entertainment. The guy who booked us saw my guitarist mate playing in a jazz club a few years ago, so we weren’t sure if it was that sort of stuff they wanted to hear. Fortunately ( for me in particular!) they were after us doing our requests thing, and did we get some varied ones - from Django Reinhardt, Tom Waits and James Taylor through to Deep Purple and Led Zep! Always try not to underestimate audiences like this, so we’re mostly ready for them now. The gig went well, with a nice meal before we started too. We’ve been offered another gig later in the year, and the restaurant manager wants us for a private booking in summer so all good. Thursday evening we played at my local pub just down the road. Again, request night format with a fair spread of stuff. Some wag asked for ‘Sir Duke’ and we duly obliged - glad I hadn’t availed myself of the free beers on offer before that one. As we were packing down we got offered a gig for this afternoon at a 21st birthday party near York. We’ve accepted it, but I will have to get on a flyer afterwards as I have a gig with the blues band straight afterwards at Hornsea over on the east coast. Been a while since I’ve done two gigs in one day, so hope my fingers last out.

Another Bootleg Eagles show, this time in Saltburn, North Yorkshire. 18 months of prep is finally paying off... lots of dates in the diary now. Great tunes, great bunch of lads.

Splendid weekend of shows with From Gold To Rio (Spandau/Duran show). 99% sold out show at the lovely St Austell Keay Theatre on Friday to start off.... great sound... and staff were fab. Audience were up for a party from the get-go too 😃👍 Then it was off to the beautiful Littlecote House (a Warners Hotel) for our Saturday show. A stunning (and haunted) place... with a posh venue within. Audience older and not as demonstrably enthusiastic as the night before but they seemed to enjoy it, so job done!)

The second of two gigs for the Dissidents and it was something of a mixed bag. On paper it was a rip roaring success but I must confess that I let the little things get to me, which I don’t normally do. A great start, in that my neighbour’s cat once again tried to come along. She’s a lovely little cat but I can’t see her making old bones - far too risk adverse. I managed to depart on my own and pick up the keyboard player. The venue was Tufnel Park’s Aces & Eights. The sound guy was great, the promoter was super friendly and we had sold out. Despite my fully charged wireless packing up during the first song, it was a great show. Relaxed, friendly vibe and we played well. I had a fair few old friends who I hadn’t seen for years come down and it rounded off what should have been a great night. The problem came around doing the merch store. We shifted 10 CDs, which is good going. However, I had one wannabe haggler, one drunk lady who inexplicably thought I was keeping money from the singer (it’s called being the sober sensible one!) and then one idiot who was actually really rude a couple of times to me. Being pragmatic, this doesn’t normally happen and the problem is clearly them, not me but it did kind of take the shine off of things. I am usually okay with idiots but I must confess that it definitely touched a nerve. I think going forward, we need to split working the merch more and I need to work out why my usually much thicker skin wasn’t so good on this occasion. Bizarre as I am letting a total of 2 minutes cloud what was an otherwise fantastic evening.

An odd weekend - On Friday evening I went to a little studio in Nottingham and played for the first time with a similarly aged keyboard player and drummer on some original tracks (sort of funky jazz with a dance beat). It's always interesting creating baselines to go with other people's music. I was particularly pleased with one track where my line made the track sound quite Flecktones-esque. (Not that I'm comparing myself to Mr.Wooten!) I was all set for a quiet Saturday evening when an old school mate Drummer (can't believe it's 40 years ago!) asked me to go to a local reopening of a pub with his son and daughter in the band and do a guest spot. Nothing too challenging, but I did have to figure out Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" on the spot - never played this before!

I went to the guitar auction at Gardiner Houlgate (work is slow) and I played this. It’s a handmade luthier built bass with a Sims Custom Shop neck and full Status electronics. It’s quite bonkers but it’s utterly amazingly well set up, with a pencil thin jazz neck with built-in LEDs. Little play wear and a fully fitted custom flightcase all for £503. It was very much a speculative bid, but I’m really happy with it. The mind boggles at what it much have cost when brand new.

Dep reasonably close to home. Small venue with an odd layout with us off in one room off the main bar playing through an arch. All seemed to go ok. A few flubs and nowhere to hide as the second guitar I have played with depping with them in the past was not there so just guitar, drums, Vox and bass. All good fun and generally got through ok with a good bunch of guys that it’s easy to work with with knowing nods 🙂 Having used the old skool (and heavy) Hartke LH500 last week it was back to Class D this week and I do find that the latter always seems to start sounding great but after a prolonged group of songs they ‘go off’ and need a break between songs to get their puff back, whereas the LH500 ‘seems’ to be more consistent. Maybe that’s just my ears ‘going off’ and needing the break, but it’s odd. Still living the FrankenJazz and the S2 didn’t get a look in. Still working out the new IEM’s and despite working through menus and setup in the week I was still only getting signal on one plug which I don’t understand, so more to do there.

Played at the Half Moon in Littleover, Derby last night. It's a rather odd shaped room, we're down in the bit with the pool table which sort of protrudes rearwards from the main body of the pub. @SpondonBassed lives nearby and dropped in to watch us for a while. Singer was unsure how well his voice would hold out so we dropped a couple of songs which most strain it. I managed to make more mistakes on "Make me smile" (the only song that I sing) than I have on any previous performance. And I forgot my massive floor fan. Otherwise it was all good.

TL:DR - I've bought a new bass. It's very nice. I've been hankering after a jazz for a while to fit with the vibe of my new band. Thought I wanted another Sandberg, a Vincent or really push the boat out and get a Lull. However, I fell in lust with the blonde Fender Japan Kazuki Arai signature jazz on the Bassbros website. It was 4.5kg however, so not for me. Then they got one that was listed as 3.8kg on their site. I messaged them to double check. It was actually 3.8kg. I was in trouble. Being away from Thurs to Sunday guaranteed that this would happen on Thursday afternoon (pic whatsapped to my by my delightful and not at all surprised by another big box arriving other half). Had to wait until Sunday to open it, it played nicely straight out of the box, but a swap to my preferred strings and lowering the saddles by a quarter turn really made a difference. The I plugged it in, oh my, these noiseless vintage pickups really are something. It's the sound I've been chasing for ages. The low B is fabulous. It's gorgeous and not at all 'signature-y'. An engraved neck plate is the only giveaway, and it comes with a plain one too, nice touch. I've got my first gig with my new band on Friday. Everything sensible says I should play my Sandberg as it's a known quantity. I won't though, can't wait to hear this thing in the mix. If anyone's bothered enough then I'll try to get some video and update this post at the weekend. Or, if you're near the bright lights of Chorley then pop along and check us out at The Shed and Garden.

Friday and Saturday was QuoVention, a gathering of Status Quo aficionados in Bilston's Robin 2 venue. Seven tribute bands over two evenings including guest appearances from Quo drummers Jeff Rich and Leon Cave and Rick Parfitt's replacement, Ritchie Malone. All the bands were excellent and gave the punters what they had come for. The backline and drum kit provided for us did the job perfectly and the sound engineer put in a sterling shift over the piece. The event took 18 months to organise and was a great success. Bands and fans came from England, Sweden, Belgium. Germany and Scotland. Back to publand for our next gig to bring us back down to earth. Ha ha.

Another early evening gig yesterday at The Lookout on the Pier in Scarborough with the acoustic duo. We arrived there slightly later than usual due to a traffic accident, meaning we had to divert through Bridlington but still got set up in time to start at 6pm. A full house of diners, some who had come with requests already written so we had a pile of them to get through. Best ones for me were ‘Wichita Lineman’, ‘Just a gigolo / ‘I ain’t got nobody’ ( David Lee Roth style), ‘No particular place to go’ ( which I sang for the first time in my life, forgetting how hard the phrasing was!) and then ended with ‘Enjoy yourself’. Used my Fender Kingman bass into the Rumble 100, with no PA support needed. Still exploring some settings with the preamp on the bass, including the subtle effect the phase switch has on things. We are back at this wonderful venue on 30th March, and it’s always a pleasure.

The Twisted Pair gig was very good. I didn't think we sounded all that great, but still a good gig. We're still working in a dep drummer. He's not the best drummer I've played with. However he understands the band and what we're trying to do. I arrived at 1:45 the place was packed. I couldn't find one open parking space. The reason I say it was a good gig is solely based on the number of people that came out. Very generous tippers too. I asked the manager if they always have a big crowd on Sunday afternoon. He told me they had a band last Sunday and the place was dead. So I was feeling pretty "stoked". I've attached a few pics. I bet many of you have rolled up to one of these venues sitting out in the " boon docks" Daryl

Our regular monthly gig at the Sun Inn in Beverley with the acoustic duo. Well I say ‘acoustic’, it was really ‘half acoustic’ as I used my Sire U5 short scale electric, into my Fender Rumble 500 combo, and it was glorious! Quite a few complements on my bass sound from people in the audience (which doesn’t often happen) so it confirmed my thoughts on using an electric bass on this gig. It can get quite loud and lairy and an electro acoustic can be hard to tame, so it was fun having more freedom to play without constraint. Our usual request format included ‘How sweet it is’, ‘Dance with me’ ( an instrumental of the Orleans tune ), ‘Rehab’ ( for the lovely lady behind the bar who is a massive Amy fan, and we got fed up of playing ‘Valerie’ for her! ), as well as ‘Whole lotta Rosie’, ‘Shang a lang’ ( for a group of ladies this time! ) and ‘Stairway to heaven’ which got the biggest round of applause of the afternoon. Really enjoyed the gig, one of the best we’ve played for ages - a perfect storm of venue / audience / landlords and staff etc. Already looking forward to the next one!

Contact has been re-established with the school (staff turnover/changes in all the relevant booking contacts). Hopefully some positive news soon.

That's exactly what happened. I agreed to wait until after the next gig and take it from there. The band have been really understanding about it all. After the gig i realised how much i enjoyed it and decided it was better to stay with it. Band were over the moon about it and were not looking forward to searching for a replacement. As they said its not just about technical ability, its being a good fit for the band on a personal level too. I can't deny its a lot of fun, both on stage and off. Dave

Last night at Wilsons, Aberdeen with Nine Lives. Weird gig, definitely a game of two halves. First half was rank rotten - sound in the room was awful - could barely get the vocals loud enough without feeding back, started five mins late because of all the mucking about (not Axl Rose levels of lateness, but it still bugs me). It was passable out front, and people could clearly hear the words because I could see them mouthing along, but there was very little coming back making it hard to hear where we were in a song. No room for monitors in this pub, we basically had to rely upon reflected sound. So spooked I was that I didn't change basses at half time - I didn't want to introduce another variable to an already tenuous situation. But we sorted it. The table nearest the right PA speaker emptied at half time, so we took the opportunity to move it forward, not much - couple of feet maybe, but what a difference it made - it opened up the possibility of increasing the gain of the singer's vox without feeding back and made for a much better sounding second half. It got busy too, and it was much more fun. Went for a couple of walkabouts in the crowd which went down well. Lesson learned - kick people out of the way if you have to to get your PA far enough in front of the band. So, it was the BB1200 for the whole night, into the usual Markbass rig. Footwear - Vans calf hair checkerboard slipons. Hmm, quite colour coordinated last night, just realised.

A couple of live shots from last night, complete with footwear.

Bendricks Rock played Slipping Jimmy's in Newport last night. It was already busy due to rugby and got busier. Proper stage, which is cool for a pub. Dancing pretty much fom the off. The even danced to What Is and What Should Never Be. A bit of excitement at the end with a punter getting ejected, then mord drama outside while we were loading out. New Quecha hiking shoes with my orthopedic inserts, but my dodgy ankle was angry by the end.

Just back from tonight (last night's?) gig down at the local. Just a 10 minute drive from home, and using the Kala and Ortega U basses and Phil Jones Double Four amp so an easy load in and out for me! Full set of Irish standards (Pogues etc) and Levellers stuff went down really well, few deviations from the right notes here and there, but overall a great evening.

Tonight, Royal Blues at Katzspace, London Bridge, that London. Surprisingly packed for a Wednesday night, but we're doing quite well. It's original material, I use the term Americana, otherwise I'd have to say it's a bit blues, a bit roots, a bit country, a bit rock. Ibanez UB804 (EUB) - Swiff wireless - venue DI. The monitor mix was good and it sounded great FOH. Footwear black suede brothel creepers. And Leeds won 2-0 so even better! 💙💛💙💛. 😁 View from the stage

We played a 40th b’day party last night. Had punters up dancing from the first song - that’s a new and novel experience, so we enjoyed that. Except we later learned it was because the do started about 2.5 hours before we set up, and they were already well and truly lubricated with booze. By the second set, the families with young kids had gone home, and the remaining punters had largely passed out/thrown up or were harassing the pub staff. Total mess of a night - even though we played well. Not a family we’ll be working for again.

Been waaay too long since posting here and to be honest, my gig rustiness showed, having a few numbers where I just made stupid mistakes. But the rest of the time was ok, at the Playhouse Cheltenham. Very difficult to sell tickets at the moment, especially for an out of town band doing its 1st gig in the city but we got about 70 in a 190ish capacity venue, so enough for a party. Tenor sax player went down ill the day before but fortunately the trumpet 2 player lives a member of the RSC orchestra so she slotted in just fine. Took our own FBT Pa, great quality stuff and the foh and in ears sound was great, plus the drummer turned up with his dad’s DW kit so we sounded fruity. Played much better as the gig went on and the audience were good fun. Much less time to wait until the next one.

Anyway, yes, we had a gig yesterday and despite polishing my DMs earlier in the day I didn't take a photo of them. In fact I didn't take any worth posting. A new venue for us in Nuneaton. This is probably the 10th place we've played in the town and it's all been organic, word of mouth - which is nice. We had a few in from another venue we play not far away, which was also nice. It was quite a large pub so we were glad of the extra people. Low ceiling and carpet made for a slightly different "on stage" sound to normal, suppressing the top end, but I've played my Rumble for long enough to trust that it will still project a good tone out to the audience. The drummer even removed some of the gaffer tape damping from his cowbell 😂 Anyway we went down well, and they did the usual trick of waiting until the last song to start dancing and then wanting us to carry on all night. At least we left them wanting more. That's our last one for a few weeks - our guitarist is off touring the UK and Germany with Martin Turner (ex Wishbone Ash) through March and April. We just have the odd gig or two in the gaps. I'm looking forward to some free weekends to crack on with the garden and my VW camper (1979 aircooled late bay).

Great gig last night with Nine Lives at the Tolbooth in Ellon, NE Scotland. Small but vocal crowd of folk who were right up for a singalong. Someone even came up to speak to me at half time about my bass, the Reverend having caught their eye - that's a rare occurrence! We put a new (to us) song in the set and played it pretty well, so happy with that too. Got lots of nice comments after the gig, they were a chatty bunch! Dunno if it'll come to anything (because even lovely, polite and enthusiastic drunk people forget stuff), but we did get an enquiry about playing at someone's wedding, they enjoyed the show that much. Gear was the Sire D5 followed by the Reverend Triad into the usual Markbass toan cubes. Footwear by Vans as usual, pink suede this time - sorry, forgot to photograph them!

A ‘charridy’ job for the Glam lads last night supporting Leukaemia and bowel cancer charities. We were asked to finish the night off but for various reasons we asked to be penultimate. Didn’t get a sound check as time was tight and we were rushed on….consequently I struggled the first few songs as there was no backfill or monitoring on my side of the stage….still the show went on and apparently it sounded fine out front. A fairly full gig list until the end of May now…onwards and upwards.

The originals band is intended to perform the BL's songs live, while he records them solo and gets a production job done on them. Last night's gig was to promote his first single. We were at The Yard, Coventry's premier LGBTQ+ venue (according to their website). The drummer is also a sound engineer and had just taken delivery of 90% of his PA system, the FOH tops and subs being the missing components, so I brought my Alto TS408s and we used those for monitors and his DB Technology wedges for FOH. All set up and ready to go with Robert having a little tinkle. I was playing a Sei Original 5-string fretless through a Zoom MS-60B into a Tecamp Puma 900 and GR Bass AT212 cab, footwear was a pair of unbranded slip-on memory foam trainers, Ebay item 185202385506. I made a couple of cockups but it all went well, we got a very good reception.

A small handful may be interested but my musical duo are subject to a one hour radio special this evening on Swindon 105.5. You can listen on your smart speaker, computer, radio or phone. Music, chat, gentle humour. Feel free to dip in.

First on in a 5 band line up, for the A92 scooter club March of the Mods, charity gig at Beat Generator, in Dundee (I hadn’t realised how many proper name bands have played there previously, quite the alumni). Played the same event here a couple of years ago and didn’t enjoy it as our hour set was cut to 50mins before going on and turned out to be about 40mins, due to over running/poor organisation, earlier - utter waste of time. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that I approached this return with trepidation. However, we were a replacement band, doing a favour, so we angled for going on first to avoid a repeat of the situation. It’s a nice sized stage and was good for throwing a few shapes, especially as the rest of the band are fairly static, when playing. Proper sound check and we kicked off at 5:30. You’d think that would be playing to staff and walls, but no, plenty of folks in (it was sold out) and our set had them dancing from the get go. In short, it was great, despite the drummer messing up Town Called Malice for the last verse. Home by 8:00! Played my custom, Maruszczyk Elwood L, with gig appropriate scratchplate, through my usual MXR M82 comp, Tech21 VTDI (for grind on the appropriate songs), into the provided Peavey backline, which sounded absolutely fine. Footwear was Adidas Samba-alike, skate shoes (no pics ).

Played effectively a home town show last night at club 85, hitchin. Really cool line up and first gig since November for me and Gévaudan. Outed a new song, new drummers second gig and it all went off really well. One of those gigs where it just all clicked in and sound was great...although maybe a touch bass heavier would have been cool. Managed to pull some stupid faces as well which was cool. So good night all round. ✌️🧙‍♂️

2025 board updates Big board got the Shure wireless, custom CMC Proto Type, Origin TX-LP and Stomp XL and also now mounted to a Temple Audio Duo24. Small/Fly board is now mainly based on the Stomp plus some pedals I can’t live without.

Tonight was a private do - a 65th birthday party for a guy we've known for absolutely ages. His birthday isn't actually until April, but he rearranged the party around our availability. He's a really nice chap but it's always hard work at one of his events - backing him singing for half a dozen songs as well as doing our usual sets. The evening started with a chap playing some nice smooth, tasteful jazz/latin trumpet along to backing tracks through the tiniest little Bose combo. What a great little setup for dinner/dances or a bit of event background music. He was followed by a girl with acoustic guitar and a great voice doing some unaccompanied covers. It turned out she had got up to play guitar with our band in a pub aged 15 nearly 40 years ago! It was great to hear about the musical career she had made after that early encouragement (no, neither me nor the guitarist could remember the event, but she still did) Anyway as it was a party we dialled down the heavy rock & prog and dialled up the pop & funk. We had them dancing all night -win! The venue was a village hall geared up for the local am-dram society - quite a high stage, but a great sound The theme was beachwear, and they had hired a photographer... It looks like a scene from a Weekend at Bernie's - if you're old enough to remember that film 😂. They have also cropped out my burgundy suede Vans 😜

I was back up in deepest darkest Northumberland in the Coquet valley with our acoustic Americana trio. Lovely old pub, very cramped but packed with locals and friends of the band, and a thoroughly enjoyable night. The drive to/from the gig was challenging due to the rain, flooded roads, and fog - thank the heavens for four wheel drive. This is the sort of gig this trio was created for, and last night didn’t disappoint. Oh and my double bass fumblings received praise from a couple of audience members who are also musicians, and we were rebooked for what will be our third gig there this year. Job done 😎

Friday saw Hurtsfall in Coventry at The Arches Venue for the Necroscope Goth and industrial night. Great venue although a little difficult to find if you've not been before, and a great promotor. Pity I can't say the same about the sound engineer. Set up and sound check went very well, we were playing last so sound checked first, but there appeared to be a lot of unplugging and moving of cables between our soundcheck and getting the other two bands set up including a lot of worrying sounding pops and bangs coming through the PA as unmuted channels were plugged and unplugged. When we came to play we were told that there was no need for a line check as none of our stuff had been moved since the original soundcheck. Come the first song there's no sound from one of the synths. We play through regardless, but pause to get the problem sorted before starting the next song. First the promotor has to go and find the sound engineer as he's gone outside. Then there is an almost point blank refusal on his part to accept that the problem isn't with our equipment. Finally when we persuade him to check the connections to the PA, and after even more pops and bangs through the FoH it turns out that the PA's XLR lead connecting the synth to the stage box is dodgy. Once that has been replaced everything is fine. I accept that if you work at a venue not every band that plays there is going to be to your musical taste, but you have one job and that includes being there in case there is a problem with the sound during each band's set. In a way programmable digital desks have made some less than enthusiastic PA engineers even more complacent. I didn't say anything on the night because we hope to playing there again and I don't want to see what happens if he deliberately messes up our sound, and anyway come the end of our set he was nowhere to be seen and his assistant who was very pleasant and easy to get on with was left to pack everything away. After all that we played really well, so it's pity that the audience was somewhat on the small side. We were competing with another Goth gig in Coventry that night and it was also the first night of Corrosion in Morecambe where more than a few of our fans were in attendance (they were all posting photos from there on Facebook). Still those that were in attendance seemed to really like the band, and we sold a surprisingly large number of T-Shirts and singles afterwards. The promoter is very keen to get us back later in the year when hopefully there will be a bigger audience. I'd saved posting this hoping that there would be some photos on social media over the weekend, but despite seeing at least one professional-looking photographer in action during our set nothing has shown up so far. Our next gig is in Sheffield on 5th April supporting Deviant at The Corporation.