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Under canvas at our favourite Dorset glamping site. A couple who had just been touring the South said the Otis Jay Blues Band were ‘as good as anything we saw in Memphis’…praise indeed! it didn’t rain, the wind died down and we got free fish and chips. What’s not to like?😉

Multiband Fundraiser for Harefield Hospital yesterday, due to play for 45 mins on the back of a truck in a field behind the nurses home, winds estimated to be between 20-40mph, but probably no rain..........what could go wrong? Well apart from 1 band not making it, which meant as soon as I got there it was...'quick, set up, we're on in 10' We also played a bit longer to make up for the missing band, it was a great afternoon/evening and even got home before the missus went to bed....happiness all round! You can just make out my TH500 atop a Barefaced 2x10 behind the soundman in the middle, damn thing was so loud the sound guy took me out of the PA totally as I was shaking the speakers so much, and it still held its own......love my Barefaced!

I once got asked by a chap a gig 'What note are you playing?" He was quite obviously well on a chemical journey to some other, very ecstatic plane (it was a sort of space rock/techno band, so not unusual for our gigs). "G! ", I shouted back to him. He danced off, arms in the air, gurning a huge smile, shouting "I f$$king love G !"

We had a gig in a 'brewery'! It's a brewery and an events location where they do beer tastings, Bob Ross Paint-alongs (with beer). corporate parties etc, hence they had an in-house PA that we hooked up to. Sound was a bit 'Meh' as it was a large brick warehouse with steel containers and a high tin roof but it got awfully hot and muggy as the gig progressed.

Tonight: The Rifleman's Arms in Droitwich. Four piece HEAVY rock band with one and a half rehearsals. The guitarist's 4x12 Blackstar (?) stack was louder than a Supernova, the drummer was a metalhead with a double kick pedal who played everything at 200mph. It was SO loud, I couldn't hear my BVs, my VTDI (set to Ampeg SVT on steroids) through my Big Boy amp (Markbass CMD121P) was roaring away at the back somewhere. No setlist, seat of my pants and skin of my teeth. EBMM Sterling, Rock 8th notes all night, I got blisters, tinnitus and a headache. Dynamics: LOUD. Nuance: none. The audience were animals, shouts for Slayer, Megadeath, Cannibal Corpse (!) and Napalm Death. It was BRILLIANT.

Stuff humblebragging, I'm just going to boast. The gig we did last weekend has had so much good feedback face to face and on Facebook. I've even had people who didn't go telling me they heard how good it was. That's never happened before, feels like we have "levelled up" 😁 Must all be down to my bass solo 🙄

How was your gig last night? flipping brilliant! Hurtsfall were playing Goth City 7 in Leeds on the main stage at Boom, opening for Promenade Cinema and Auger. We did Goth City two years ago at a different venue which was good, but this was overall in another league. Sound check was a bit rushed, but we're quick at setting up and as long as our singer can hear himself and we can all hear the drums on the backing track, we can make do. Managed to get a decent on-stage sound just before doors opened. An hour later when we actually came to play, we were surprised to find that not only was the room filling up but there were people right at the front of the stage - normally our singer will try and get them to shuffle forward about half way through the set. By the end of the first song the room was pretty much full and people were cheering like mad - unbelievable! There were a few people done the front who we had never seen at our gigs before, singing along to all the songs - although the very new one had them a bit stumped! Mad applause and whooping and cheering followed the end of every song, and if it wasn't for the fact that the whole evening was on a tight schedule and we'd over-run slightly as our singer has a tendency to waffle a bit between songs, I'd have been tempted to do an encore. I don't like bands that come back to play another song just because a couple of their mates shout "more" - I'm a firm believer that both the band and the audience should earn an encore, and if there hadn't been the time constraints I think in case we'd have been justified. Afterwards we sold nearly all the merch that had brought with us, and lots of people asking when we would be releasing a full album. Both Promenade Cinema (who I'd not seen before) and Auger were excellent, all-in-all a great night of goth-influenced music. No photos so far, but there a couple of professional looking photographers there, so I'll probably be posting some later on.

2nd gig this weekend. Another acoustic gig. It was a private 60th birthday party. I'm sure most of you have done these background gigs. About 100 people with allot little kids running around. What can I say, good hours 5:30-8:30 and good food especially the egg rolls. I got home at 9:00. Blue

Cracking gig at The Crown in Southwell, Nottinghamshire. Scratch 7-piece band, with 2 guitars drums and bass and 3 vocalists. Place was bouncing and we ran out of songs. Post gig grinning pic, I'm the one in the cap. Sound guy is in the red shirt

There have been some great updates on here over the last few weeks - thank you to everyone who has posted in this thread over the last 4-5 weeks. Some of you may have noticed them appearing on the BC Facebook page. I've tended to go for updates that have an 'ooh' factor about them, posts that make you sit up and take notice. Posts don't have to be celebrity based, a relatable story is sometimes just as good! For example an anecdote about arriving at a gig only to realise you had left your bass behind on the pavement outside the front of your apartment (yes, that WAS me). Or maybe an interesting sit in with the band. Keep 'em coming, it's a great way for everyone to check each others gigs out!

Yesterday was The Nailed It festival in Belper, Derbyshire. 65 acts across 9 venues , all free entry. The originals band I’m in, Diamond Bridges, did a 45 minute set at The Nags Head. We opted for a 3pm start because our guitarist had an evening event to go to. The pub was already very busy at 2, as were all the venues I saw. It was the usual setup, back-line supplied, and I had a ratty Behringer combo to play through. Everything worked properly though, the soundman knew his job and we went down well. The upside of supplied kit was that I could use the bus, just a 15 minute journey for me. The whole festival across the town was very busy, in spite of intermittent thunder storms, and I was able to meet up with old friends, have a beer and wander around the venues.

How much are you valued by your bandmates? This has been a recurring theme of mine at recent gigs. Last night I changed the set up and put everything through the pa, no backline for me, just a monitor. The singer gave the sound a big thumbs up in soundcheck, and away we went. Guess what? Not one member of the band asked for bass in their foldback. This isn't always the case - some of my bands love the bass, but last night's bunch, not so much. Audience enjoyed the evening and I got paid.

We were once approached by a lovely lady who asked if we did requests. We asked her what she wanted and she said "oh, anything" and then walked off

Solo acoustic gig last night at a venue I’ve not played since pre covid times. Apart from one gobby punter who seemed to be upset by the fact that I was getting attention not him, it was a cracking night

An audience member once asked if I wanted to go horizontal jogging with his missus whilst he watched; does that count?

Fine Lines played a small, local gig in a tea room last night. We'd originally intended to play outside, however the weather had other ideas, so we ended up inside, albeit with a pair of satellite speakers set up under cover for those who hadn't booked a table. Despite the massive amount of work involved with setting it up (by me) it was a really enjoyable evening. There's something about these intimate gigs that makes it really good, especially as the audience are there to hear us, as opposed to us being a distraction from eating, drinking, or waiting for the main act to arrive. Most of the bass went straight into the PA, the RCF's do a great job handling it. I used the one10 for a tiny bit of monitoring, but took the main feed from the pedal board. We had the first and most likely last appearance of the Jimmy B bass solo during the intro to one of our songs, with the drummist using a glass to replace the more often used cowbell! Obligatory picture of said event below.

I sort of did the signature bass thing a long time ago and what I ended up with probably reflects what I considered my dream rock bass was at the time. Before this came along I'd already had a few Jazz Bass copies, a Westone thunder and a couple of other forgetable budget basses. It also occured to me whether a signature bass was a customised version of someone elses design or a blank sheet on the design board with shape, construction and finish. I opted for someone elses design( a bloke called Chris May ) and I filled in the options based on preference and to an extent cost as back then it took me a while to save up for the whole signature bass experience. Here are a few of my specs: super slim jazz bass profile neck and nut width two octave neck graduated fretting bound ebony fingerboard Pre Cites Brazillian mahogany body and neck, thru slim heeled neck joint Flame maple top and matching headstock with transluscent blue tint German Schaller hardware includiing locking strap nuts Kent Armstrong custom soapbar humbuckers positioned to my spec VTT with master 5 position pick up selector wih tone filtering on each position - all passive I remember at the time being thoroughly excited about the prospect of having my signature bass and even now I'm surprised how it turned out. Almost forty years later it still makes me smile when I open the case and plug it in for a jam. Everything else since has been off the shelf standard as I've never had any urge since then to build or have built another signature bass. It's something i recommend everyone does in their bass playing lifetime. Hopefully you will get a bass you will never tire of.

Uncle Jack played at The Foresters Arms in Andover last night, it’s one of those venues that can either be really really good or indifferent, with punters disengaged - thankfully last night was really good! A good sized crowd continued to swell as the evening went on, the gremlins that seemed to plague my IEM’s last outing didn’t manifest so that was cool, and gratefully no excessively oiled up punters spilled beer over kit - so all in all a great night. We all played well, the singer (who is depping for us from the second band I’m in) is starting to enjoy himself and is familiarising himself with how we’ve changed certain song structures - it’s probably the first gig I’ve really enjoyed in the last 4 months with that band😊👍🏻 A little snippet taken by our rhythm guitarist: https://m.facebook.com/groups/49274076451/permalink/10159806882926452/

I was in a Creedence Clearwater Revival tribute that was once asked if we knew any covers!?

I just bought myself a Squier Classic Vibe Bass Vi and made a little setup 'How To' article on my blog that may help a few people out. Great little instrument and pretty solid all around. It could be upgraded with new hardware, but it isn't actually needed. Therefore, if you are on a tight budget this may help you out a bit. They suffer from intonation issues from the factory and this fixes those problems nicely. Hope it helps out a few people, as I really enjoy it as an instrument and it is a lot of fun to play. How to Set Up a Squier Bass VI

I don't always post in this thread, but last night was a little notable as well as being a great gig. The reason it was notable is that on Friday morning I woke up in a hotel in the Malaga after a couple of weeks driving around Spain. We checked out at midday, then had to wander around the city centre in pretty intense heat for four hours, before retrieving the hire car and driving to the airport for our late (and slightly delayed) flight. We got to bed just before two in the morning. About fourteen hours later, I had to load the car and drive ninety minutes in the rain for a Led Zep tribute gig at the Waterloo Bar in Blackpool. It turned out to be a good night at a great venue with a decent sized and enthusiastic audience. We haven't played a gig for a few weeks and it was the only the singer's second show with the band, but it sounded really good playing to a great crowd. I hadn't picked up a bass in anger for a couple of weeks (apart from my mate's not so great little Hofner bass in Spain), so it took a toll on the old fingers, but all in all a top gig. A decent payday as well, which was nice coming back from holiday...

Decent one yesterday evening. Back on Canvey Island (again) for charity gig in aid of the awesome Indee Rose Trust. Held at Concord Rangers FC, there was a memorial football match on in the afternoon for a local legend, followed by evening entertainment, raffle and auction all to raise funds for the charity. We arrived during half-time and it was chaos! I really didn’t expect such a huge turnout of people. We also thought we were going to be in the main function room of the club house, which is a decent size and carpeted, but that had been booked for a 50th party (and nobody told the organisers of this event) so we ended up on the other, smaller daytime bar. This was fine, but was constantly busy all the time throughout load-in and setup. So we were getting under peoples feet and our own. We also had to manage the sound on out own as our soundman has just had eye surgery and wasn’t fit to work last night. We also had a message a couple of days before from Jenny, one of our singers that she had laryngitis! But was still hoping to sing - besides, she was the one who got us the gig as the event was being organised by her friend’s family. Anyway, we had a great sound dialled in from the gig, just a slight tweak to the sub level and the IEM mix and we was good to go. The crowd was on it from the start, likely due to spending the afternoon drinking! Jenny’s voice held up here and there. Our other singer, Liam helped her out as much as he could, jumping in with parts he wouldn’t normally sing, as did I by covering some of her harmonies, and there was a couple of setlist adjustment on the fly. The place was buzzing, and heaving and we played well. Pretty much the whole room singing along and loads of dancers. A particular highlight was Tina Turner’s “(Simply) The Best”. We’d been asked to learn it as it was the favourite song of the chap whose memorial charity event this was for. And we’d never played it as a full band until the gig. Jenny’s voice just about held out for this one, and everyone else had done their homework and it sounded great - we was all grinning at each other during the song. I reckon this one will be a keeper. It was also an early start, around 6pm and we was home by 10.30… which was nice. However, our singer Liam overdid it, by singing more that he usually would, plus being roped into comparing the raffle and auction - the latter took nearly an hour! This would have been fine usually, except we had a rehearsal today as we have a wedding gig in a couple of weeks and it was the only available time we had to get a rehearsal in, so I had to provide a few guide vocals today, as well as trying to remember how to play several songs we haven’t played in ages! Lastly, this is the second gig we’ve have the IEMs properly sorted out and sounding great, and didn’t need the backline FRFR speakers. So we’re planning on leaving them at home for the next gig and going properly ampless.

Alright let's not derail this thread any further (although I really enjoy all the VI talk). I'm going to take the 1970 Jazz to a gig tomorrow and the 1966 Jazz as a backup. I've never taken two vintage Jazzes to a gig (because I've always only had one) so I feel pretty fortunate.

I can do everything I want on a 4, and all mine are real basses

A couple of additions to the main board, with the GLXD appearing and covering wireless and tuning duties. The Origin DCX is new. I'd only just put it in the board and didn't have any time to mess about with it, so just used some sample settings. It seemed to be ok, although I need more time to figure it out.

I generally play in a 3 piece (other band is essentially a 3 piece with the 4th member being the vocalist), I'm pretty sure if they couldn't hear me they'd be stuffed! We do however regularly use dep drummers and I have to say that if they aren't listening to me and the guitarist and reacting to how we play a particular song (is that valuing us?), they generally don't get asked back. The drummers who know what they are doing and listening for nuances are the ones I want to have in a band with me.

Had an afternoon gig today and it was the first time I gigged my Mikey Way Jazz for part of the set. I fitted it with TI Flats to contrast sound-wise with my Spector Bantam which is very clean, almost hifi sounding. I played the Spector 75% of the time (such a joy to play) but I am very impressed with the Jazz and is a lot livelier than my 72 Jazz which is quite dark sounding. It sparkles too which is a bonus. We used the opportunity to try out five new songs and three are definitely keepers based on how the audience reacted. Back to evening gigs next week which I'm looking forward to. It feels a bit weird packing up and heading home while it's still light!

I only change basslines for three reasons: I’m unable to establish what the exact line is in the first place so will play my interpretation. If doing vocals at same time and the line is too complicated to play whilst singing so I’ll simplify. I’m simply not good enough to play it, so again I’ll simplify.

I never actually got the chance to see Giggy Pop ...

Dons tin hat…

It's a good job that all 5-strings are absolutely identical so that if somebody tries a 5-string and doesn't like it because it's not comfortable, they don't have to try any other 5-strings before deciding never to use one again. And if you never play any notes below bottom E then a 5-string is completely pointless anyway.

I have a bit of an addiction John. I just enjoy putting ideas together and seeing how they work. I guess it's adult Lego/Meccano 😁 Fortunately, Mrs Glambass is wonderful and tolerates my interest with only an occasional roll of her eyes.

New PSU to hopefully remove the distressing hum from gig the last. I might need a bigger board though...

We use RCFs for our smaller profile acoustic gigs. No amps we're all DI. They are great ! Blue

So how much did you charge then? 😂

"Requests can only be considered if they are submitted in writing on a fifty pound note"

In the punk band I was briefly playing guitar for we had a drunk lady continually shouting for some Irish music. So we said we’d play some for her, cue Suspect Device by SLF.

The reply "We don't play that song, but the next one has some of the same notes in it" is often acceptable to a punter making an unsolicited request.

I like Julia, shes great. She hasn't fallen for the traps of being a youtube star and changing looks and creating content for no reason, or trying to be crazy to get views. She simply gets on, plays and does an amazing job.

I gigged with only one string before. You're all bourgeois swine.

Any strings is pointless the more you think about it. Life is suffering.