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I’ve been progressing steadily in my playing since taking it seriously early last year. I landed a gig with a local jazz band, after meeting folks at the jazz jam in Lancaster and getting to know them, and we do the odd gig. We played yesterday at the Ribble Valley Jazz & Blues Festival and went down well. However, I’ve kept looking for other opportunities, JMB and Facebook being the main searches. Anyway, a few weeks ago, someone posted on JMB and Facebook looking for musicians for a soul/ska weddings/functions band. I answered the add, and after a bit of to and fro was sent 10 numbers to look at. This guy is a trumpet player and has sax and trombone already lined up. Basically it’s a horn section forming a band around themselves, and they’ve been playing together for about 20 years. A WhatsApp group was created, and over the course of the last few weeks, new people have been added to the group and introduced along the lines of “welcome Joe, our keyboard player”, “welcome Suzie our vocalist” etc. In the end it’s ended up with nine people in this “band” on WhatsApp who don’t know each other from Adam, and have never met, played together, or have any clue what standard anyone is at. Male and female vocals, keys, drums, guitar, bass (me), and three piece horn section. A rehearsal room was duly booked, and everyone showed up, to meet each other for the first time and play these 10 tunes. It was a nice room, plenty of room, with good PA, back line and drums provided. I had a Hartke head through 2 4x10 Ashdown cabs. Now, based on past experience, this could go in any direction, however, from the first count in of the first number, there were grins all round. Everyone had done their homework, the keys player and drummer are great, the guitar player knows what he’s doing, the horns are in tune and locked in with each other, and the singers can bleeding sing. We rattled through the 10 numbers twice, only pausing to fine tune starts and endings, agreeing where the pushes should be etc. I couldn’t really believe it, it was like a good band from the very first note. Some tunes we did again after wondering whether that perfect run through the first time was a fluke, but it wasn’t, it could be replicated. Get home later, the WhatsApp group is happy, another 10 tunes are distributed, rehearsals are booked and there’s talk of booking gigs already. I’m still not sure how this actually happened, I need to pinch myself. Is this a unique occurrence, or does this happen often? Anyway, I’ve got 10 more tunes to learn in the next week and a bit, and some of them are a bit tricky, so I’ll be practicing every night I can between now and then, as I know now that the whole band will have them nailed before they arrive. Rob

This is from last night with the seven piece swing band at a craft brewery in South River Ontario. We've played there before and it was a packed house, they ran out of chairs with 50+ enthusiastic fans taking up the whole space. We did our usual two swing sets and then I switched to tenor banjo and a sax player went to Bari sax to play the bass lines for our trad or "Dixie" set to finish off the night. We also had a vocalist for some of our swing pieces, a super singer that many of have worked with before and she brought a contingent of friends and added a nice change for our sound. My bass set up (Shen SB 100 and Realist lifeline straight into our Bose PA) never sounded better according to some musicians in the audience and all in all a good night with the added bonus of six free craft beers each to take home! 😊

Punk gig tonight with Emergency Exit in the Graeme Hotel in Falkirk. Football crowds were in when we arrived and place was bulging at the seems. Quite a few left when we arrived and started loading our gear in. By the time we started it was about half full but obviously a lot of the footie crowd weren't into classic 70's punk covers and it dwindled to about 30-40% capacity. Those that remained were the obvious punk fans that had come to see us and were really into it. 2nd set started at 10pm and a few additional punters came in including some mates we know from our Harley bikes. Used my Sandberg MarloweDK for the first set and it sounded good. Decided on the P bass for 2nd set and it was so much more full sounding and i really liked it. Some of the FB clips i've seen so far the P bass sounded amazing out front. I personally could hardly hear it as i was standing directly in front of my bass rig. My wife said the P bass sounded a lot better, deeper and filled out the sound better. I'm still trying to get used to the wider neck and i occasionally miss a string but hey ho its punk and i can get away with the odd mistook. Comments on FB are pretty good and a few comments at the end were very complimentary. Its obviously a target audience and not everyone's cup of tea. Hard watching a venue empty when you start playing tho. HB WB-100 into my Mesa 210/115 cabs sounded good but i did find i was running at quite high volumes with Gain and master at 12 o'clock, Bass at 2 o'clock and everything else flat. I didn't think we were that loud tonight to be honest but that was a higher volume than last week with Glam covers band to a larger audience of about 150 altho bass was active last week with Sandberg VM4. Anyway got paid and all in all we played pretty good after a gap of 6 weeks. Dave

Friday night, my blues rock trio Toredown played our regular 4th Friday of the month gig at The Shamrock in Ipswich. Great excitement as I brought a mate along who was recording it with a view to having a live CD put together. Holiday traffic on the A12 north was horrendous but we had left early enough to get there on time. Drummer - who has the pa - hadn't had the same foresight and arrived at 8:15 for a 9pm kickoff. Using my mates desk for the recording meant everything had to be done from scratch so it was a bit tight. Especially as a mystery crackling through the pa was apparent - eventually traced to an issue with the mains socket we usually plug into which then meant fiddling about taking power from a remote socket and taping an extension lead out of harm's way. Anyway, all sorted, got underway at 9.10, so not too bad. About half our regulars turned up plus a load of new faces who hung around until the end. Place was never packed but I think they were collectively as enthusiastic and noisy as we've had. Which was good for the recording A few mistakes here and there but second set was storming, really great vibe. A couple came up to us at the end and almost begged us to play at a blues festival they are organising in July. 2 hr set to finish the evening, food and drink provided, name your price. That was nice. I managed to get lost when I picked up my car from where I had left it - there had been a shop fire and the road I needed to take was shut - I have no idea of the configuration of Ipswich and kept going round in circles until I stumbled upon a road that looked familiar. By the time I got back we were pretty much packed up. Bonus was the fastest journey home ever. Heard rough versions of the recording yesterday and with just a bit of polishing it should be just what we were hoping for. The main problem will be choosing which songs to leave out.

Played down in Ayr last night at a largeish boozer called Harley`s in the town centre with my ac/dc mob. Set up and had a soundcheck and the youngish guy behind the bar speaks to the guitar player. He tells us we are too loud and points to the noise meter up on the wall directly in front of the stage. It`s literally 10 feet from the pa. Can`t go above 110 apparently so after much turning down and running a Marshall on the 5 watt setting, we get it on. Not too busy to start with but filled up ok. There was a dance/techno festival in the town last night and some plonkers came in later defo on something, heard the rock and after a few catty comments buggered off. Gig ended up ok and there was a disco on after us who was louder than us! It`s a bit weird as it calls itself a rock bar and we played there last year and gave it some welly but people must be complaining re the noise as there are flats at the back of the venue. But I must say, I did take some pleasure in the guitar players having to keep the noise down

I just did a gig that was one of the most fulfilling of any that I’ve done in a long while. It was a freebie that our singer arranged at a care-home, which is local to his place. These folks, I tell you, they were spontaneous, involved and we just belted out a range of “oldies for oldies”. The cherry on the cake was when one of the administrators said they’d seen several folks who have dementia and were singing along with seemingly no issues. That touched me and reminded me that whether it be my first gig or my last gig………it’s all about bringing a positive feeling to all the participants.

Saturday night saw an unexpected outing for Rascallion, replacing another local band who had been due to play at our favourite village hall venue, but suffered a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly a couple of weeks ago. No major dramas to report for once, other than Mr Singer's 12-string electro-acoustic suddenly turning into an 11-string (cue 1001 hoary old g-string jokes). The onstage sound was probably the best we've ever had - our new monitor setup (an Alesis Strike Amp 12 on the far side of Mr Drums, and an HH Tensor in front of Mr Singer and Mr Lead) worked brilliantly and provided a beautifully balanced overall mix, while my trusty old Ashdown Five Fifteen minirig is doing all I can ask of it as far as personal monitoring goes. Made a few minor whoopsies here and there during the first set (when I'm usually a bit tentative anyway), but from the second song of the second set onwards things were really cooking and I could just let my left hand do its stuff without really having to think about it. Great response throughout from the small-but-perfectly-formed audience who really do seem to appreciate our brand of country-fried rock and blues, with a few up and dancing, loudly demanding an encore when we finished, and then demanding a second encore equally loudly - we briefly considered risking "Rose of Cimarron" which we only did for the first time at rehearsal on Thursday, but the chap who runs the hall was shouting for more CCR, so we went with "Travelin' Band" instead, and for once everybody remembered how the ending goes! Next scheduled gig is an outdoor charity festival in July, but someone who was there last night has apparently now asked if we could play their birthday party at the same venue in June, so we're just waiting on Mr Rhythm to check his holiday diary before we say yes. Couple of short FB vids here... https://fb.watch/ke1m2DkVqD/ https://fb.watch/ke1tbXe3nm/

Three gigs in two days for the very busy band I'm in - two pubs and an open air festival in between...which was freezing cold, the worst onstage sound I've heard in decades (I was just DI'd, but it wasn't just me - there was one sound guy and just a line check), but apparently out front it sounded (like the other bands did ) OK. Left the house at 3pm, got in at 1:45 this morning, knackered... On the upside (I was at the Physio Friday for a neck injury), the 80s headless bass was nice and light and very easy to play with, and I've got it sounding good now. My gigging rig* is pared down to the lightest, most easily transported kit that still brings all I need, which helps an awful lot. * Helix into Fender Rumble 12 (with 'proper' Eminence 12 in it) on a raised stand for stage monitoring - all the bottom end dialled out - and DI taken straight from the Helix, the PA does the heavy lifting. Easy.

A short set of 12 songs as we were the openers of a 5 band punk night, at the Friars inn, Hemel Hempstead. Some of the other band members looked like they had started shaving, I think; so we were a bit out of place, being oldies doing covers and the rest were kids doing originals. It was nice to play on a proper stage with a backline and just have to DI out and let the sound guy sort the levels out. The other band members then had the privilege of hearing my bass through the PA 😀. I took my G&L Kiloton last night; it doesn't bring the thunder like a P bass but it certainly cut through.

1970, and this is embarrassing. I’ve possibly done a couple of thousand gigs by now, and pretty well all are forgotten, but you always remember the first, don’t you ? This was in Exeter, and my first proper gig at 18. I was playing a Danelectro Longhorn bass through a Linear Concord amp and an old Selmer 2x15 cabinet. The band had rehearsed in the local church hall since forever, but I don’t think the songs were getting any better. I can remember playing Taste’s ‘What’s Going On’, Hendrix’s ‘Cross Town Traffic’ and Cream’s ‘White Room’ amongst others. We got a gig in a local youth club about a mile from the church hall where we’d been rehearsing and also kept our gear, but as we had no means of transport we were seriously planning on CARRYING the gear the mile long walk to the club. Then realised at the last minute this was a completely daft idea, so managed to persuade a reluctant builder neighbour to take us there in his van. The club was full of bovver boys/skinheads and their girls, who were all wearing identical short coats which I seem to think were called Crombies or something like that. They scowled at us as we set up and things didn’t get any better. We’d only played four or five numbers (which had been completely ignored by the audience) when the doors burst open and a rival gang of skinheads from another club turned up and a full scale brawl quickly ensued, chairs and tables flying everywhere. To try and continue playing would have been pointless. After a short while the local police turned up and cleared the place. We were paid £8. £5 went to the builder for the van, and as this was pre-decimal times we were left with 15 shillings each.

I went to see Peter Hook & The Light last night. How the back of my BBPH now looks, 😀

@ossyrocks... @ossyrocks...wake up...breakfast is ready. Were you having that dream where all the musicians knew what they were doing and it all fell into place straight away?? Never mind, maybe one day...

Me too. Unfortunately it was 1993 so no smart phones and everyone was too poor to own a camera. Also it was in the roughest pub in Rhyl that was full of all the types that were barred from everywhere else. I remember thinking at the time that we could actually die tonight! We opened with a fast cocktail jazz rendition of the Star Wars theme and everyone rushed towards the stage. I was actually shocked that they didn't attack us but instead, everyone stated cheering and freaky dancing with huge grins and laughter. They got it. It was right there that the power of music and spectacle was revealed to me. We quickly followed with our turbo flamenco number, El Gringo - Master Of The Bingo. I also realise that some things are best remembered simply in our memories! 😂

Two great gigs for us this week. First at Billingham Forum which is always a great place to play with the audience well up for having a good time. Then down to Burnley Mechanics, which despite the tricky load in is another one of those venues that is guaranteed to be a good night. Capacity audiences again defying current financial woes. Nice to have both of our cellists back with us, really does make a difference. We're having some time off in May, then back in June and July with a vengeance - our usual dates supplemented by some rescheduled ones due to recent band health issues, so looks like a very busy summer.

Local pub, first time with the dwarf effect pedal, only one issue! - we were in a little alcove which seemed not great but turns out it was great for sound, the PA was outside, we were inside, no feedback or anything, could keep the volume inside quite low. Its only our third gig with our new guitarist and it is going from strength to strength. A few silly mistakes but nothing major, crowd were good, didn't seem like anyone at the start, but by the end it was pretty busy. Effect pedal is excellent, very happy with it, considering going ampless soon and just going through the PA.

Little bit of a late starter. 21, in a band called The Bobblehats at The Buccaneer in Gunnislake, Cornwall. A fantastic, distorted, ear shattering riot that saw us banned from ever playing there again. 😂

No, why should i ?

Also available in black apparently

NBD! I’m now the very proud owner of this Overload Achilles bass. Absolutely in love with how it sounds, really nice deep tone and lovely to play. Matteo at Overload was awesome, helping me decide the final spec and walking me through the process. I had a lot questions about ordering a custom bass, such as woods and shipping that I posed on this site, so a huge thank you to everyone who answered them and patience on follow up questions. It great to have such a responsive and lovely community here that helped so much in choosing what to do. For any one interested in spec: 5 string Achilles Bass 34-37’’ Multiscale Body wood: Swamp Ash Top Wood: Poplar Burl with Wenge layer Neck: Wenge and Bubinga Fretboard: Birdseye Maple Pickups: Nordstrand Big Blade Preamp: Aguilar OBP-3 Schaller Straplock Gator hard case Gruv gear Neo Solo Strap

Saturday night saw us return to The Victoria Club in Aylesbury. Room is up stairs (no lift) so not a good load in and finding somewhere to park a nightmare. Small audience, but we seemed to have been well received. Our drummer was not available so his brother depped and did a good job.

It's down to the band leader doing their homework and asking the right questions and giving the right information. I've recently been approached by two people putting together bands. It was pretty obvious to me which one was clued up and which one was a deluded dreamer just from the WhatsApp messages. If they're clued up they'll attract the right musicians and be upfront about what they expect. You're probably very lucky in that you've hit someone who knows what they're doing. It can take a long time and a lot of dead ends before you learn who to avoid.

Perhaps you are thinking of mammoth tusk? What with it being extinct, it is not an endangered species, so can be traded (unlike elephant ivory). Example here: https://guitarpartsandmore.com/products.php?Fossil-Mammoth-Ivory-Saddle-Blanks-14

Just got home from a run of shows my band Sour Tusk supporting American heavy metal band Corners of Sanctuary on their UK tour. Most of the shows were great. A couple had a very poor turnout frustratingly but that's how it goes sometimes I suppose. It was very hardwork getting 3 hours sleep some nights working and gigging but overall enjoyed it. Glad it's a bank holiday weekend to recover. 🙂

Where can you get this eucalyptus.. asking for a friend

Apparently Koalas are not drunk. They are permanently stoned. What they eat (eucalyptus?) sends them, maaaaaan.

The band where i play now, was made by a woman - vocalist. She posted her voice samples on facebook and told exactly what musicians she would like in future band and what music she would like to create. I liked all and responded. In a short time (1 mounth) all band was completed. Vocal, 2 backvocals, piano, solo guitar, rythm guitar, me bass and drums. We are all satisfied with each other and working. At 2.june is planned the first gig for 1500 listeners.

Pros: you'll never have to change them Cons: they'll never sound great

Got the rare opportunity to really push the ABM600 last night. Played a fairly large venue and on a stage with a lot of space. Pre shape engaged, which is unusual for me, 340hz boosted, valve drive at 11 o clock, gain at 12 o clock, master up at around 1-2 o clock. Man this thing is thunderous when you really push it! Signal chain, Sire V7 vintage>Darkglass vintage Microtubes>ABM>Barefaced Big Twin 2.

A gig of two halves (aren’t they all!?) PA fine in the sound check. Went on for the first set and no idea what was going on…stuff suddenly really loud then gone and our sound guy having a ‘mare. Tried to start the first song twice, no joy so I just put the bass down and walked until it was fixed, sort of so the first set ok but I was not a happy camper. A break and some fettling and the second set set went very much better. Good crowd dancing and singing along. Alan a happier bunny. Slightly odd venue, large but playing out of a stage in the corner. Rather than stack the BB2’s like last week with a different & smaller band I tried them either side of the kit and at right angles to each other which seemed to work well

And then managed to get Hooky to sign the control cover from my BBPH and the pickguard from my Eastwood Hooky 6 Fac51 edition. Most definitely chuffed.

A very hopeful yes. Especially given what the original Rascals now go for. It'll be a different beast to the Fender version by the look of the PUs and controls with just a vol and tone and a selector switch. Hopefully it’s not stupidly heavy either. Like the green, love it in black (I always do with basses). A mirrored or black scratchplate on one of these would look ace.

Good gig last night in the Butchers Arms in Inverurie. Three quarters of the band had been absolutely full of the cold in the run up to last night, it was very much a case of kill or cure. I only started feeling more like myself the day before. Poor singer - he was really feeling it, high notes were an issue despite warming up and Vocalzone lozenges so we skipped a few he felt he wouldn't be able to do and juggled the set around a bit. It was a really cool audience though - they could see that he was struggling but powering through and not only appreciated the effort but really stepped in with the singing along on quite a few songs. Made it to the end, and I even got a couple of compliments on my playing - always nice to hear. Singer sounded like a frog afterwards, poor guy. Thankfully we've got a month off from gigs now so plenty recovery time. Weapon of choice last night: Reverend Triad. Even remembered to flex those series muscles a couple of times from the Freeway switch I wired in.

Another month, another working men's club. This was very Phoenix Nights. We all made some heinous mistakes during the first set, bit we were on it for the second and encores, so it ended up being a good night. I got some great compliments on my playing and tone, and I'm loving this setup with the ABM Evo IV, Two10S and V7. One (admittedly quite inebriated) chap even declared me to be the best bass player he's ever heard with the exception of John Entwistle, which I'll take! 🤣 And the most attractive woman there by several hundred miles made a point of saying thank you to me for us putting on a great show, so that was just the cherry on the icing on the cake. The only downside was not getting home until 12.30am, not getting to sleep until 2, but then having to be up at 6.30 to hand off @Merton's broken amp to his sister. Fortunately Mrs Greg let me have a lie in until 10.30, so a good start to my long weekend.

Saturday night gig at the George Hotel in Castle Cary for Mustang Sally, a warren of a place with lots of side rooms for eating, drinking, carousing etc. We got the bonus of a party of very happy young ladies on a birthday party bash who joined in with tamborines, vocals and jumping about. Georgie our lead vocalist did her standing singing on the tables thing towards the end - a very cheerful and rewarding (in all senses) gig. We tried out some new numbers, no disasters , including 'Geno' in my sax set - must get the harmoniser sorted for next time for the full effect! The Bongo is a beast of a machine - just getting used to it now after four gigs tone & volume-wise.

We had the exclusive rights to sell these when they first came out. The biggest problem was getting hold of them. We more or less agreed to take every one that Joe could get to us but I don’t think we even made it into double figures. I’d say that if you got one for under a grand then you picked up a real bargain!

I own a couple of Ritters and have 2 more on order. For me it’s the playability and feel. I can play stuff on my #1 Cora that I simply can’t play on other basses. I can come close of course but not quite in the same way as my Cora.

Send the line level out to a power amp, or the effects return of another integrated amp.

That's fantastic! And of course everyone else will also be thinking "Wow, that was good I'd better up my game and make sure I don't let the band down", so you'll all get better together. Let us know when you're playing!

Sounds like you've struck gold there, dude. In my experience it's like herding cats. Enjoy!! 😁

100% definitely not Sunbeams. As said above, brass ends and no silks. Might have been a returned set whereby the original buyer wilfully or accidentally put the wrong strings back in DR box? Either way, I would return them

Now that's a result!

And to think that they chucked out Oliver Wakeman out of the band to get Downes back… now there’s a properly good keys player. Has anyone heard the “From a Page” album they (well, “he with their blessing”) released a few years ago? He took the nearly complete 24 tracks that they abandoned when he was sacked and finished them off. There are a couple of really good whole band tracks on there plus a couple he admits were being worked on with band members at the time but are more like band-enhanced solo tracks. “To the moment” and “The Gift of Live” really stand up. And Wakeman can really play (a lot like his dad in style, really). If you’ve not heard it, the album’s worth checking out. Includes the Live At Lyon album too, which has Wakeman Jr on keys.

I was 13 or 14, playing trumpet and at the Royal Festival Hall (I played Mozart's Alleluia as soloist). This was a Newham Academy of Music thing and one of a series of annual concerts called "Newham Goes to Town". I remember being very nervous before the solo, but as soon as I started playing I was fine and the music took over. What an experience!

'Chops' don't matter in a shop. You are playing for an audience of one - you. See if the bass feels right and works for you. Buying a bass should never be interrupted by feelings of inadequacy. Go for it and enjoy what's out there.