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Friday night was The Robin 2 in Bilston supporting the Steve Ignorant band, who are incredible. I used their drummers shells, and it was impossible to get the rack tom into anything like a normal position for me. I played the same kit every night on our tour last year but maybe I'd just gotten used to it. Anyway, I kept missing it but it didn't seem to make a bit of difference. We went down really well with the crowd and definitely won some new fans. Afterwards, I bought myself and the roadie a 9" pizza and a can of coke each, for £11, which is the cheapest gig food I've ever bought, AND it was good! I watched the whole of Steve's set and loved it. We got back to Stoke around 1AM. Driving home from there I saw a tall guy stumbling around right near a main road. He looked really messed up so I pulled over to check on him. When I got closer I realised I actually knew the guy from the local music scene! Obviously I gave him a lift, but unfortunately he lives at the opposite end of the city to me so that added another hour on to my bed time. Bed at 3AM The same line-up on Saturday at Corporation in Sheffield. This time Carole Hodge from the Steve Ignorant band got up to do her guest part on one of our songs (she did it on the record too) and it was brilliant! The venue and crew were fantastic and the sound was the best we've had for ages. I had to pose for photos and sign stuff for people I'd not seen before, so I guess we did well. I watched a good bit of Steve's set again. I'd highly recommend checking them out, even if you don't like Crass. They're amazing performers. Bed at 2AM The Tivoli in Buckley on Sunday. We played there a month ago supporting The Undertones, and the sound guys were the same. We used the exact same gear. Last time sound check took 5 minutes and the result was great. This time there were constant issues with feedback, they didn't like how I'd tuned my drums etc. Anyway, we muddled through and the sound out front was apparently brilliant. We had to hang around to watch Ferocious Dog's set afterwards, and they are sh*t hot musicians, but I really don't like the music, and there was no decent beer at the bar. Next time I'll bring more for the dressing room! Bed at 2AM I'm tired now

I nearly missed this one - Friday I played at The Gifford Arms in Wolverhampton. It seemed like a lot of effort for such an early slot but I really liked the venue. the three piece has only done a couple of shows this year (singer moved away) but three days of spending my evenings playing along with a Spotify playlist and I think we were as prepared as we could be. I had a few issues with the effort vs reward of this show but always good to catch up with old friends.

Not a real "gig" but just a few songs for extended family members at a Thanksgiving dinner (I'm in Canada)on Saturday. My nephew's 15 year old daughter has been playing flute at school for about 4 years and is also taking private lessons. She has played in various school bands and a flute choir(who knew they existed?) and is quite good and is a good reader. When I saw her in the summer I suggested that she should try some jazz charts, she had never played anything like that so I sent her a few charts and some advice and a few links to the songs. After a bit of rehearsal time we played a flute and bass duet(I used my Yamaha SLB 200 and Acoustic Image amp instead of hauling my DB around) for our little family audience and it sounded pretty good, she wants me to send her some more charts and is planning to talk to her teacher about some music. I'm hoping she will get right into it and we are already talking about a flute/bass version of Canadian Moe Koffman's Swingin' Shepherd Blues when we get together in a few months, should be fun. On Saturday we played Gravy Waltz, Perdido, and Four and a couple of others and played them at nice snappy tempos and she did a fine job, I hope she gets into some more jazz in the future. We live a long distance apart and only see each other 2-3 times a year but we are both looking more to playing together. Sorry if it doesn't quite fit the topic but it was her first "gig" other than large bands so I hope no one minds.😊

If there are a handful of things I've taken away from yesterday, it's these: 1. Oh god, the food. And oh GOD, that crumble. ❤ 2. What a lovely, lovely bunch of people you all are. It was like spending the day with people I've known all my life. I could almost get emotional about this. 3. Between us, we don't half have some nice gear. Oh my word yes. Playing @Buddster's lovely '76 Jazz through my own rig was a personal highlight, and possibly a big mistake... 🤤 4. A renewed deep sense of satisfaction with my own gear. Having drooled over everyone else's gear (especially @Kateplaysbass's immensely cool little green number), I was playing my Shuker and realised that I was really listening to it in a way that I don't normally, almost never have in fact, and I've fallen in love with it all over again. I'm a lucky so-&-so. I think we all are, actually. Thank you all again for a wonderful day. I only wish Norm and yorks could have been there with us.

I suppose I should let the cat out of the bag now. This arrived last Thursday, but I wanted to keep it a surprise for the SW Bass Bash. So there. I was speaking to some folk on LowEndLobster's discord server and someone shared a video of some coverage of Harley Benton's stand at the recent Guitar Summit show in Germany. They were showing their prototype stuff, not set to release until next year and this semi-hollow beastie caught my eye, the HB-50. Looked nice, sounded good when the guy in the video played it. The conversation moved onto whether or not it was long scale and how it might compare to Harley Benton's extant semi-hollow bass offering (the HB-60) so I idly went on to Thomann's site to look at the HB-60. Lo and behold, listed next to it was a B-stock HB-50, only a single piece of stock, hadn't even been photographed. I quickly realised that this was Thomann selling some of their show demonstrator instruments. Long scale indeed, semi hollow, looked like a great mod platform, so... tae me! Enough effin' preamble... First impressions - Good - "light signs of usage" means fingerprints (phew!), looks great, very well made, doesn't feel cheap, fret ends are inboard of the neck binding so absolutely no sharp edges, 22 frets, uses a standard pickup shape (MM) so easily modded, tuners feel fine - turn easy with no play, plays really nice. Bad - pots are garbage (taper is dreadful, like only the last 10% of the turn does anything), pickup switching is lazy and pointless (north coil, both in parallel, south coil - the differences are imperceptible to all but the pickiest of listeners and I'd challenge any of them to hear a difference in a band mix), pickup is too far from the strings so it's a bit quiet and it won't go any higher - screws just come loose. I intend to rewire this. I think the pickup sounds fine - according to the specs it's an Artec of some kind - I wonder if the finished pieces will have their frequently used Roswell pickups instead? But it needs rewired. New pots obvs, but thinking of replacing the switch with a rotary of some kind for series/parallel options. Fixed the pickup height issue tonight - there were a few paltry squares of foam under there, but nowhere near enough to push it up to where I want it. I had spare springs from my Epi Les Paul black and gold nonsense, so I put springs on the screws, now I can have the pickup as high as I want it. Seriously, it was at least 5mm lower than this when it arrived and unable to go higher.

I had to take my 10-year old out for several hours today, to allow my wife some study time. He plays trombone (grade 2), and is curious about other brass instruments. So I took him up to London to visit the Yamaha shop (it’s the only brass store open on a Sunday that we could get to). Knowing we wouldn’t be purchasing, I was a bit sheepish about asking if he could play their Bb/F trombone. But they were SO helpful and welcoming. Not only did he play the £1400 trombone, they positively encouraged him to try a French Horn and a Tenor Horn. This weekend, it seems they’ve been having an event, so they also offered him a free 30-minute music lesson. We went downstairs to the guitar section and he was taught a few chords and, erm, Smoke on the Water (he plays it on trombone in his band) Meanwhile, I had time to try out a couple of basses, including a 5-string that has made me reconsider whether I should only have 4s. And an upright electric which has confirmed that I definitely shouldn’t go there. All in all, a great experience!

Saturday's gig was in a long room, all hard plaster walls, arched glass ceiling and full height glass patio-type doors along the entire wall behind the band. No drapes, few soft furnishings (barring the bodies of those in the audience). The sound was, um, interesting. Certainly didn't need reverb. Went down well and got asked back. Perhaps I should take a pink noise generator next time we play there...

Hey Rich, well said!! As the organiser, I like to avoid getting a bit emotional and mushy about the S-W Bash... but trust me, I could! This really is something special and, like Rich, always leaves me counting my bass-bashing, crumble-crunching blessings - and so chuffed to see that everyone else apparently feels the same ☺️ Mrs Scrumpy is on cloud 9 and likely to remain there for some time.

Well folks, "another one bites the dust"! Just got everything put away and the house and garage back in order 😊. Thanks for all your kind messages, much appreciated. Despite the work involved, we love it too. Sorry that some of the usual suspects didn't make it this year but delighted to meet the S-W Bash newbies. Particularly nice to have the chance to remember and talk about Si ('Norm') and Keith ('yorks5stringer'), thereby ensuring that they were with us in spirit. Once again, special thanks to Stevie and Phil for giving us the benefit of their knowledge, this year in the shape of the amp shoot-out. Watch this space for image from the day. Mike, Mrs Scrumpy and the Scrumpettes

In the covers band, our (very very good and reading) drummer has a visual tempo 'click' on his iPad around his dots, so we're always in time. I've found that it's best if the whole band doesn't get the click, even with backing tracks; it's more natural to play to the drummer, and a really good drummer will also push and pull around the click, so you can even get the more natural variance in there, too...

Orchestra have conductors; they don't have a 'click'. Modern music has drummers; good drummers don't need a click. Exceptions for passages with synch'ed samples and the like. Drummers have been playing for rehearsals, 'live', and studio work for generations without aid. Yes, of course it can work, but it's far from being essential. All musicians should play in time, anyway.

Here is a photo from a few years ago on the first gig with my new bass.

A double header for the Zep tribute this weekend. First up was a gig in St Helens on Friday. A slightly strange venue, a very small theatre with a seated dress circle and a decent sized stage. We were a bit rusty and had one of our old keyboard players depping (who was good), but not a bad gig. Quite a reasonable crowd in the end, despite initially slow ticket sales, so all in all a pretty good night. Saturday night was at the Cluny in Newcastle, one of our favourite venues. We had Phil Manchester (aka Didge Digital from FM) depping on keys and a big step up by the band from the night before in terms of performance. A packed crowd who were great (as they always are in Newcastle), a top performance and a decent payday. A 100 mile drive home (for me, longer for some of the rest of the band), but an awesome gig…!

Just had a quick look through the pic's and here's my 'best of':

Another Saturday night gig, another North Dorset Carnival at Gillingham this time, so another early start (5.15) for me to get into the town before the roads closed at 6.30 for the procession at 7.15. Set up in the Royal British Legion, again a bit squashed with our temporary 6-piece line-up, but all neatly done - sat around swapping stories until we were on at 9pm - 10pm, then 10.30 to 11.40. Very good post-carnival crowd, some a little bit wobbly after too much cider, but no aggro and an invite back to play back at the club again in December. Our dep singiste did extremely well to cover all the material our regular lady does (she's away on a cruise somewhere), nice to know that there's essential backup in case of future emergencies. Back home to West Bay at 1.10 am, head still buzzing; nice that our Persian Cat Nunu was so glad to see me that he immediately deposited an epic present for me in his litter-box before I could even grab a cuppa... a sign of real love or an adverse comment on my absence perhaps? No pix of the gig unfortunately, but here's the glare I got when staggering in!

This is my current board for my grunge/rock band and session work. Looking to replace the sansamp with a origin effects bass rig and maybe add a HX stomp too!

@neepheid glad you made it back. Very nice to meet you and your collection of basses. Thanks to Mike and the family Scrumpy, and everyone else involved in the organisation of the day. Nice to put faces to names. Never ceases to amaze me how different we all like our basses. Sound, string hights, shape etc. How one person's setup can be unplayable for someone else. But it was a great opportunity to try different instruments you'd never have a chance to try. Thanks again, was a grand day out.

Thanks for asking - I made it home in one piece. Just want to echo what has been said already - thanks to our organisers/instigators-in-chief, to our wonderful providers of food/tea, and thanks to everyone for the warm welcome. I had a lovely day, got my hands on some tasty basses and had some great nerdy chat with a bunch of you. Now, bed! Good night!

Overall a good gig . However, initially unbearably cold ( 50°) and windy. When the wind died down it was tolerable. You can't tell from the video but we had an awesome crowd. We used our new digital mains. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid09zVbFaLXvdsnR7F5Cz3rtyGoEK7Z2tDpgMM3sBgxomBTxcSC17W9txgfrUVHvjaQl&id=1470144703&mibextid=Nif5oz https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02xk521A7V9AF4K2xkYgBx4wJo2XxHMktNjMXFnwRDLDTRVogGGcWPym3PAzzoUwkgl&id=1470144703&mibextid=Nif5oz Blue

Epic. That’s how last night’s gig was. We played our debut gig for the Cow & Telescope in Southend, one of the cities premier music venues for cover bands. So much so, you need to sort out dates about a year in advance. We’ve been trying on an off for some time to get in there so we were dead excited to finally get the opportunity. We brought a sizeable crowd of friends and family with us who along with the colourful regular were ready for a party from the get go. We were told that most bands on their debut at this pub usually pull 50 punters at most. Apparently we pulled in excess of 170 according to the doormen. Not far off some of the more established top tier bands on the circuit. Indeed, the buzz from the regulars was that we was just as good as those particular bands. The boss and staff were very happy and want us back next year. So yes, a great weekend!

Amazing Dingwall Z3 that arrived this morning from Bass Freaks in Belgium. Can't stop looking at it!! Its a work of art. Dingwall Z3 Body: Swamp Ash Top: Maple Burl Neck: Wenge Fretboard: Wenge Pickups: 3x FDV Luminlay fret markers, side dots and Dingwall logos Finish: Green-Yellow-Red-Brown-Black sunburst

To Scrumpymike, Mrs Scrumpy, The Scrumpettes, fellow Bass Bashers and anyone that I have missed out - I had an excellent day, loved the multivarious gear, loved the crack, loved the scran, and loved the raffle. Lovely.

I've just been googling the Warwick Gnomes and have found how ridiculously cheap they are. Bah, GAS again. Curse you, Bass Bash.

From a gig last weekend. Just got the pedaltrain nano and a new cioks 4 last week. I do feel that the rockboard form factor is way better than pedaltrain, but this size is perfect so I'm happy. My last psu was cioks dc10 and it's hard to believe how small and light the new one is. I'm planning on switching the tunet and chorus for a plethora x3 at some point. This covers pretty much anything I need to do, wild or vintage tones, presets for every band. Love it.

Last night in Edinburgh's Wee Red Bar with the Girls Rock School showcase. This one featured some of the students from the spring term that I'd helped teach. Girls Rock School is primarily about helping women build confidence rather than become festival headliners, but they put on some pretty impressive performances. The punk band I'm in was supporting the main act - here's a song from our set. Includes profanity. I Like Fucking.mp4

Personally I see this more as turqoise type of color, but they called it blue at Modulus.

Great pics! Eating outside? EATING OUTSIDE??? And...is that SUN I can see???? MrsAndyjr1515 is still testing Covid positive. Mind you, she must be getting better - she's started b*ll****g me again. This time it's for not catching it (yet). I'll admit, it didn't feel right, not getting shouted at this past week Anyway, looks like it was up to its normal splendid standard. Count me in for the next one - missed you folks

The last time any 'crack' appeared at a Bash was the year you dropped your trolleys and mooned for the group shot ☺️ Sorry you missed such a craic-ing Bash yesterday btw ☹️

Banana Splits ～ The Dickies

So, by all accounts, I've ended up modding all my basses, not from boredom but just because I can never get what I want. So my oldest and most loved bass is a 1986 ESP 400 Series Jazz Bass that I bought from new in 1987. The best bass I have ever owned and I found out, came from the same factory that Fender Japan basses were made. It probably accounts for why Fender parts are interchangeable and has exactly the same headstock etc. Anyway, a year or two after owning it from new, I had a set of Bartolini's fitted which transformed the bass. I then about 12 years ago, had Jon Shuker make an amazing ebony fretless neck for it which is where it has remained. Its got 36 years of battle scares but its still amazing and gets played to this day. Next is my Fender FSR 70's Mexican Precision that I bought new is 2018. Being a lover of 70's natural Fender Precision's and a huge Sting fan, I got Jon Shuker to make a high gloss fretless maple neck which again is where it has stayed and it has turned out to be the best sounding bass for recording. Next is my Fender Japan 62RI Precision. An absolutely lovey bass to play but I felt there was more on offer if I changed the pickups. So as my Fender FSR 70's Precision as above came with Fender 62 Custom Shop pickups and sounded so good, I had a set of them fitted to it along with new pots and it sounds fabulous. I also changed the pickguard from Tort to Black.

Having a Break from the modding... 🤣

My previous band used to do this, but not for the reason you state. We played pop metal with female vocals, and our album prominently featured a lot of synths and a Hammond organ - but we didn't play with a live keyboardist, so we had a backing track with all the keys and some backing vocals. We rehearsed either with a clicktrack (which only our drummer would hear through his headphones) or to the drum tracks from our album recordings if our drummer couldn't make it to our rehearsals. We sounded tight as f*ck! We often played live with in-ear monitoring, and would have the click track in all our personal mixes (which added a funny bonus: we replaced our drummer's count off with four clicks up front on our in-ears, so we would all start our songs perfectly in sync and our audience would have no idea how we did it).

Not always. Some songs need the push and pull of variable tempo. Whenever The Terrortones were due to do some recording we would run through all the songs with a click to work out which benefitted from a steady tempo and which didn't. Generally it ended up being about 50/50. We did try programming a variable tempo click to cover the changes, but could never get the transitions to feel right and TBH it was more trouble than it was worth. What we did find very useful was every so often playing all the songs at a much slower speed - usually around 75% tempo, which worked wonders for generally tightening up the playing as a band, and particularly effective when your slowest song was around the 140BPM mark. Also I currently play in two bands that use backing tracks live; one with a drummer playing to a click, the other with programmed drums on the backing. The one with programmed drums has several tempo changes within the course of the songs. This is down to the way we write, as I tend to work out most of the song just by playing the bass line, and therefore I'll unconsciously introduce tempo changes between sections because that's what feels right.

Another nice local gig in Rotherham last night. A well run and packed social club with a verrry compact stage. The audience were up for it from the start, I was just about sat on the drummers lap 😂 The club was full by the time we’d got the gear in which compromised the sound check somewhat but we managed. It was a 3 spot gig which is unusual for us but it made the night go quickly. That’s the last local one for a while, next week it’s the seaside - Withernsea.

Yeah def similar - we’re possibly a little more raw live but I’d say we compliment each other quite well. Katy’s got a fantastic ear for a catchy hook. We’re down in Sutton on Friday, albeit a bit of a trek for you. Will keep you in the loop for future gigs edited for spelling mistakes and now to add a cool pic:

Thank you turned the bass over to begin undoing to see if bad connection lokked at 9v baterry did the tongue test nothing put new one in up and running thanks again for your time 🫶

We travelled to a reasonably new venue last night, The Foundry in Brecon, and very nice it is too! Easy load in, helpful and very pleasant owner/soundman, decent little room (maybe 140 capacity?). First up were some crazies - Anoise who had stand-up drummer, dancey backing tracks off a laptop and bassist triggering fx and playing dubby stuff. They had a dancer dressed firstly as Mr Blobby (Mr. Bezzy!) who stomped about while the band made who knows what sort of racket, complete with costume changes. And they'd brought 90 balloons, all blown up by the band which were scattered hither and thither. Huge Fun and recommended! Then we were on, unfortunately, the guitar cab was next to our drummist so he couldn't hear many of the cues he needed but we muddled through. In fact despite me not being able to hear me (the usual "everyone needs to turn down" during soundcheck then I'm the only one that does it, but luckily I can play all our songs without hearing any of it...) there was jumping about and gentle moshing and obligatory balloon football form much of the 50-odd people there. The Anoise bass player even jumped up on stage at one point to tell me I had "amazing technique" - while he probably wasn't wrong (🤣) he was a touch inebriated. Excellent fun had, and those Brecon folks are Madferit! And I used my ACG Recurve with Helix into Marshall Jubilee and Markbass 2x10. Must turn it up a bit next Thursday for 999 support in Birmingham! Finally we had Dropping like Flies, long established South Wales punkers and a proper bunch of comedians - their between songs banter was worthy of Frankie Boyle, but a bit more risque! and they were tight as a gnat's with great sound and good bunch of songs.

I’m rehearsing in addlestone all of November so will definitely pop down to this, can’t wait!

I very much regret not attending this year, I will definitely be at the next one!

First thing that came to mind was an epiphone Thunderbird, but actually I regret always trying to “trade up” to better basses. Looking back with what I know now, some of those basses I traded were far better for gigging with than the high end boutique gear I ended up with and subsequently sold.

Penultimate Jump the Shark gig was a weird one. The Railway in Royton, usually a great gig. It was busy (not as packed as usual) but the crowd didn't seem as into it as normal. As a consequence we never really got into the top gear you find when you're getting a great reaction. Sound gremlins meant I had half an ear out for feedback all night too, which probably affected my ability to relax and properly enjoy it. Rig was my Ibanez sms1005, Ashdown RM 500 and TKS 212, which sounded reliably great.

Long day yesterday. Left Surrey 10.30am, drove to Manchester (well, Steve our drummer did, I sat and talked in the passenger seat), quick lit stop via Nicki McBrain’s Drum One and onto Gullivers in Manchester for soundcheck A self-promoted Katy Hurt gig with Gasoline and Matches providing first class support. (Great songs, vocal harmonies, guitar solos, musicianship, lovely people). Not a huge number of ticket sales sadly - that’s the problem with a last-minute self-promoted gig 😆 A fair bit of walk up though, so the room’s atmosphere certainly didn’t feel lacking by the time we hit the stage at 9. Just under 90 minutes later we’d had an absolute blast, played two new songs which went great given we’d only run them both once in soundcheck, and the crowd were marvellous. Used my Zoot P5, TE Elf and Barefaced Two10; onstage bass was immense and the lovely sound guy did a superb job with monitoring and FOH. Finished up, packed away, back on the road 11.10pm and home 3.15am. Very glad when the boss decided to get up at 7.30am to make a cuppa and then sit in bed noisily drinking it 😒 But a great day! Roll on Friday 13th in Sutton for more of the same, only significantly closer to home 😎