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First gig of 2024 with BLOCKBUSTARZ Glam covers band doing a fairly small intimate gig at The Cave in Paisley (near Glasgow ) where we know the owner very well thru the Punk band and we agreed it would be fun playing such a small venue. Only holds about 60-70 and it was a busy wee night. Guitarist was suffering with a fairly bad cold/flu bug but he managed to get thru it all ok. Audience were really up for it with many wearing glam gear including the bar staff and a lot of dancing from the start. Just a great night of fun. Made a decent amount from the tickets too. Always one drunk donkey***e who spoils it a bit tho but that's life in bands i guess. Lots of great feedback which is always good. Dave http://www.facebook.com/jackie.mills.9889/posts/pfbid02kQMhsrhZWkWbcnJpMjNn9S3CYT23DsSAdrDDeD9HpGVDWuVVseNRiwZJmrxjd5Mhl?notif_id=1704502340802962&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic_tagged&ref=notif

Got 24 with Glam band with Xmas Sat gig and Hogmanay gig and about 10 with punk band incl 2 biker rallies. Had a lot of interest from agents in England for Glam band from as far as Brighton to Lincolnshire to Birmingham and Blackpool and waiting to see if anything comes from it. Some weren't aware we were based in Scotland and travel would be an issue for us which would affect the cost. Still a few venues wanted us back in 2024 and still to confirm dates with them. Dave

So for Oasis it was Lennon and McCartney?

We’ve got 21 gigs booked for Uncle Jack - there may be another odd one out two that make their way in, but I’m also looking to restart the other band, Sarum’s Lot, with a new guitarist following the recent passing of ours - he wanted us to carry on so it seems the right thing to do. Last year I did 44 gigs, 21 isn’t enough for me, can’t stand Saturday night TV.

Something to be going on with.

I've not done anything on the guitar over Xmas, due to a slight pink torpedo up from me, it's still in York and whilst thats the same county, it's 1.45 hours away so not easy to pop back for it. I thought I've have a look at sanding the original body, this was the original one and I'm not sentimental over it at all. So I've had a go sanding down the body with an electric mouse sander, these are the small triangular ones. I've never sanded PETG before so was interested in how it would work. I thought it would simply melt and deform. I was wrong. PETG is tough, and a small mouse sander even with a P80 roughness paper, wasn't making a massive impact on it. It was certainly roughing tghe surface, but it wasn't taking a massive amount off. I might have a try with an orbital sander. The intention is to sand, fill the gaps in, sand some more and get it as smooth as possible, fill the gaps again, get it even smoother and then try an undercoat/primer, then a few coats of satin black followed by an epxoy top coat. I'm not going to do all the body, just a sample section to test it. I'm just experimenting with different fillers. OOn the right is a Humbrol Model Filler and on the left Vallejo plastic putty. The Humbrol looks like it is a two part, though it's all in the tube. The Vallejo seems to be thinner but we'll see. The Humbrol appears to dry quicker, but thats not an important characteristic to me. Here's a picture of the tests

Think we’ve got 24 booked in for Glam Fever for ‘24. Hoping that works up to about 40 as we get through the year; last year was 37 but we had about 7 cancelled due to illness, pub closures and what not. We seem to be doing more clubs these days as many pub venues are struggling cash wise.

Use memory foam in case you have to do a retake when you're recording.

Think I’ve only got about half a dozen gigs booked in all year so far. Mix of solo, band and depping. We’ve booked two holidays and annoyingly I’ve since had to turn down four well-paid gigs which clash with the school holiday dates. Hope it will even out a bit as the year progresses.

The band I have depped for recently does covers, so I just had to learn their set list and do a couple of rehearsals with them. It has gone pretty well on the gigs I have done with them. i also depped on guitar and bass in a ceilidh band a few years back. They gave me a bunch of sheet music, which wasn’t much use as I can barely read traditional notation. Fortunately, one of them had the patience to go through it with me, identifying the chords and I took it from there, plus several rehearsals. Fortunately, the fiddle player played most of the lead parts. It would be much more difficult with a band doing their own material. As for being known: I go along to our local blues society jams regularly and met the band leader (drummer) at those. The society has an available for depping list that I had put my name down on. He approached me to dep. I also used to go to lots of local folk club sing arounds, which is how I got the ceilidh band slot. Depping is fun IMO. It stretches you a bit and you get to play with a wider group of musicians. It does require a lot of effort but the return is that you improve as a musician.

I've only gone and got the position. Great set of blokes, 58-62yrs old and I'm the oldest. Best get those Duran Duran albums out. Thanks for your kind comments folks.🙂

Howdy BCers! I'm going to tell you a story, make yourselves comfortable.... When the Gibson Les Paul Junior Tribute DC bass (catchy name) dropped, I fell in love! Which felt weird, because at heart I am a 34" 5 string, dual pickup guy. But it looked and sounded so cool! Knowing it wouldn't be a main bass for me (and being perpetually skint), I decided I couldn't justify buying one. Then they were promptly discontinued, which made me want one even more.... Not many around on the used market, prices were high, and still my rationale for NOT buying one existed.... But I felt an itch I needed to scratch... Hmmmm..... So, I set off on an odd quest of sorts, to keep my eyes peeled for a pretty unusual bass, but open to any options, provided they met my parameters: •32" scale, preferably •Double cutaway •Single humbucker, preferably •Cheap, as I knew this would be a 'project' bass for fun, and likely not a main player. Pretty niche..... I looked at various things that came up, but nothing really ticked the boxes, UNTIL I spotted an Ibanez GAXB150! Now, I've had the guitar version (GAX30) for many many years, from when I worked in guitar shops, and knew that this whole range punched way above it's low price point. Excellent playing instruments, with surprisingly good stock pickups. I won the eBay auction for the princely sum of £73, which I considered a bargain. It's clearly not been loved particularly, but after a clean up, fret polish, lem oil and re-string, it's absolutely phenomenal! I haven't even needed to do any setup on it, low action, amazing neck, and sounds killer! I do think I'm going to rip out the toggle switch and install a conventional tone pot for more subtle sound sculpting. The toggle basically has a couple of different caps attached, so you have the choice of really bright, really dark, or bypass direct to the jack. The stock pickup is great, it's a DX4, which were installed in the BTBs of the time, and clearly the older SRs had the active version (ADX), which were hugely popular (these remained in the Fieldy Sig long after Ibanez stopped using them in the rest of the range I believe) HELP ME! I want to refinish it, because let's face it, it looks a bit boring, but I can't decide what to go for. Initially I was going to refinish it in TV Yellow, and make a black pickguard (like a classic Les Paul Junior), but also seriously considering Purple flake 🤣 Any suggestions from you guys are very welcome, as I'm struggling to see beyond those two options. Thanks! 😊👍

Majority of our jackets are made by the guy who used to make the outfits for Glitter Band many years ago so proper Glam gear we use He's currently putting together a special order one for me. The others have been jackets he made for presentations showing his clothing. He then sells them to us as he's similar size to most of us in the band. Our drummer knew him from his Glitter Band days in the 90's Dave

I keep advertising for dep opportunities on Facebook and join my band, but limited success so far. I got offered a couple that were subsequently cancelled, and then one on a date that I couldn’t do. I am going to start going to some local jam nights to see if that leads to anything. These are well out of my comfort zone as I like to be prepared and rehearsed before playing, and am not at all comfortable with jamming and improvising, but will give it a go and see what happens.

I’ve got about eight lined up with the blues band and can expect more as the year goes on. The guitarist is young, final year of degree and in an indie band that's taking off so I'm grateful for what we get. I only started looking for deps late last year and have done four across two bands. I really enjoy learning the extra songs without all the commitments. one lined up this month and another cancelled as their bass player became available. Hopefully I will get a few more. The route in is a combination of playing at jam nights and putting it about on Facebook. The new rock covers band has a maiden gig at the start of March and again I'm hoping that goes well and we can start getting at least a gig a month in the diary. A friend is restarting a band he had 10 years ago with the aim of doing a small number of originals gigs (very Krautrock, so new for me!) So that vould be fun. My personal target is to do 2-4 gigs a month but have a decent number of free weekends. Last year was very stop and go with a couple of dry months and a few with lots of gigs. And then I'll do some jam nights as well, which are great fun as zero pressure (except the day they made me drum...)

Our band members are approx 100 miles apart so travel is something we tend to do. Most are within 2 hrs drive altho Hogmanay drive for our Perth based guitarist was 3 hrs down to Annan. At least the weather was mild altho he had heavy snow the day before but rain washed it away thru the night. We did mention to the agents that if they can arrange another gig that weekend we would be happy to come to some sort of agreement / deal that covered our accommodation costs. One was a festival and we weren't headlining so i was all for the 4hr drive home as middle of summer so daylight up to 11-ish.. Its a tough call tho as i have pets and overnighters are not an ideal option for myself or drummer who has dogs. Dave

...oh, i don't know - it could look worse! 😨

This has returned to me!

We have 11 booked gigs for this year so far. There will be a few more I'm sure.

Love the look of these and often wondered what they are like. How much does it weigh, do you know? I'd say - it's your bass, do what you fancy. Personally I like black with no pickguard, but that's me. When the bug bites deeper for DC shorties, there's a couple of other basses that might appeal. There was a shorty Antoria LP DC that was made for a while, came in TV yellow to start with. They were only about £350 new and, as and twhen they pop up second hand, around £250. If you have a good back the Hondo H1015 was medium scale, sometimes with DiMarzio pup. Fabulous necks on these but also the much maligned 3-point bridge that, apparently, on this model had an inclination to bend. Heavy, though. Usually under £200 on eBay, I bought one for under £100 a while back. Another cheap shorty is this Encore, although if I saw one I'd probably fight you for it Got this one for under £100, weighs just 3kg.

Well, that's it done, rubber feet arrived so I made a final push today. First step, feet on: Then back inside to get things mounted up... And that's basically it! There are a couple of tweaks I'd like to make - the white interconnect between the comp and the Monomyth is nonsense too long, will get a shorter one at some point. Also have an idea to make a back panel for it, just to hide my wires etc. (although that beam of red light coming out the top of it from the PSU is quite cool also!) There's probably room to add a mini/slimline pedal should I ever need to and the PSU has two spare ports so there is a little scope for future expansion. Got a bag coming for it (ordered last year, before anyone asks). All in all, I'm pretty pleased! Also the Monomyth has a headphone out, so I have even less excuse now not to give my basses a random noodle.

Fantastic news. Here, have a 'Well Done' Werther's.

Well, 2023 was pretty much a write off what with the band of 6yrs folding and illness on my part. So back to decent health and missing the gigs, I advertised my services on Bandmix and have a meeting / audition with an 80's cover band tomorrow. Looking forward to it. 👌

…There’s a ‘best’ band member… https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/most-important-band-member-according-to-science/ Discuss

I'm using various ways of amplifying myself depending on band (I'm in 3) and situation. When using a monitor FRFR I use my QSC K10 (not 10.2) on a speaker stand, head/ear height at the side of the stage; the ease with which you can hear yourself/the band is superb, defo zero 'boom'!

Great help above all thank you so much, I’ll update once I’ve run the tests, swaps etc 👍

Speaking of deps. I got this message this morning regarding tonight's gig. " Morning guys! Jim will be filling in for Jack tonight. He has some nerve damage in his arm that should resolve but not in time for tonight's gig." It'll be cool, Jim is our old drummer and knows all our stuff. And me and Jim are really tight mates Daryl

My new Fender American vintage 66

We get a fair bit of that Dave, a fair few enquiries from down south and ooop north but when we price it accordingly based on the travel and/or digs we’ve overshot the budget. Generally we’re happy with 90% of the gigs being within a 50 mile radius.

They’ve got one less now tho 🙄

Immediately forwarded to my band mates. 😅

Even the middle section of Tom Sawyer, I'm forever trying to play one string higher than exists and play notes off the fretboard.

We only have two confirmed gigs so far this year, one almost confirmed, and some vague talk about another couple. I'm still grafting to try and get more but nobody else in the band seems to particularly care if we don't get any more.

Latest picture from Overwater of the build! Nearly there now!

I bought a proper 'F brand' bridge cover for the VM - I'm a happy bunny. 😀

Black Coffee — Ella Fitzgerald

Once you begin taking gigs with more than one band the inevitable is inevitable.

I am in two bands and dep with another. Normally it works pretty well to get the gigs rolling in but occasionally they behave like buses: none for ages and then you get 3 on the same weekend. 🥴

Note to myself: if Bassfinger ever sells a Bass guitar with buckle rash on the back - it isn't buckle rash.....

You seem quite close to finishing it with most of the spend already spent. Where in the country are you? Depending how remote your location, I or the other good folk around the country on the 'Basschatters willing to help other Basschatters' list might well be able to finish it off for you for nowt. I'm in the Derby area - any good to you?