Leaderboard

So second gig of the weekend at the glorious Old Fox in Felling (on the Gateshead side of the river Tyne close to Newcastle for those born in the south). This is a proper music venue pub, with live music on four or five times a week. The Sunday afternoon slot is a coveted slot because you are almost guaranteed a full pub, and a full pub of music lovers. This could not have been more different to our Friday night gig, and we all played so much better. Our usual eclectic mix of country, Americana, and blues went down a storm with the enthusiastic crowd. Gear-wise, my trusty old Ashdown ABM 1x15 Neo combo, EBS Stanley Clarke, MicroThumpinator, and my fretless Tony Franklin Precision and NS NXT EUB. More compliments on the sound so I must finally be getting to grips with the old PA malarkey (I’ve only been doing it for twenty plus years 😂). A busy three gigs in eight days have bedded new guitarist Steve in nicely (for a band that only plays around 20 gigs a year).

Well just home and having a coffee and biccies after a wee gig in The Cave in Paisley near Glasgow. 1hr motorway drive so an easy one plus a 6-9pm spot makes an early home time afterwards. Its a regular for Emergency Exit punk covers band and when we sound checked we had approx 10-15 peoples in. Within a few songs it was busy. Lots of applause and people bopping away around the pub and lots of people staring at us (i'm hoping in awe but maybe disgust ) Went down well, we played well and a few good comments at the end about my bass playing. "f***ing brilliant bass playing mate" . Used the Sandberg MarloweDK tonight into my Handbox WB-100 and Mesa SW210/115 cabs. Was sounding pretty good. Dave

Last weekend we did an afternoon set at The Bull in Horley for their annual bands and bbq event. Was disappointed to realise that we started at the same time as the FA Cup final kicked off but it went well including easing our new, soon to be, lead vocalist in with half a dozen numbers. Plus a photographer snapped a nice pic of my bass (and me!)

Just sitting at Warwick services putting some electrons in the car after an epic weekend. This playing music malarkey is quite fun isn’t it Friday and Saturday I was at Epsom Derby in the Family Festival area, playing 5 sets each day with Boogie Monsters, playing on the main stage entertaining the kids and adults who were gracing us with their presence. Friday was cold and a bit wet to begin with, so my fingers started blistering pretty quickly. I switched over to playing with a pick which was somewhere between a disaster and absolutely fine depending on the songs we were playing… but is was great fun - all the crew are brilliant and I hope we get to go back for a third year next year. Saturday night I then played with my pub rock covers band, Wednesday’s Child, in Dorking. That was ace. Loud, sweaty and raucous. One of my best mates from school, and a lurker here I think, was in attendance as was @reggieboomboom . I don’t think I embarrassed myself too much, certainly nothing like some of the Epsom playing 🤪 Got home 1am. This morning I got up 7am to drive to Liverpool with the drummer from Wednesday’s Child, who’s also Katy Hurt’s drummist. We played a very civilised but great fun gig at Strawberry Fields. Was a short but sweet set but we all had fun and I got to meet @jimmyb625 at the end which was ace. Lovely guy, great to meet you! Hopefully home by midnight ready to come back down to earth with a horrific bump with a full 5 day week at work, then another gig next weekend. Wouldn’t change it for the world. (Except maybe the work bit… )

Does this cut your mustard? It's a cheap Harley Benton Beatbass fretless 😁! I fitted a very cheap piezo pickup (not a bass specific one) that I found in the shed, and ran it through an upright IR in Helix. Annoyingly, it sounds more convincing than a pickup on my real upright...

Played with my blues power trio The Andy Wales Blues Band at Leicester’s Riverside Festival on Sunday. Two-day festival but we lucked out by getting the hot sunny day yay. Took my Markbass LM2, 1x12 and 2x10 traveller cabs and my number one Yamaha BB604 which was punchy and growly. No pics yet as I lost track of everyone who I knew in the audience immediately afterwards so I couldn’t ask. Thankfully one kind soul sent me this which gives a rough idea.

Stingray Special 5 H. I've been after one of these for quite some time, and have been hiding away a few pounds each week in readiness... When this 2018 one came up recently on FB, I took the plunge. Really like the dropped copper colour and (not original) antique perliod scratchplate. I have been tweaking a few things today to get her set to how I would like. I will take her to a gig on Saturday and she can have a run-out on a few numbers.

Got my paws on a Status Eclipse 6 string last week, from 1994 I believe, one of the wooden neck varieties. Needed new strings as it came with flats which didn't really suit it, and a fairly robust set up, don't think the truss rod had been adjusted for some years. Everything all settled down now and it is quite an amazing instrument, really good solid fundamental bass tone, fits in a variety of styles and situations, great B, and the option of going high if one feels the need. Heavy thing though, thank goodness for comfort straps!

I've had a few; we wound up a really good band that had run its' course very amicably and I still see the other lads pretty often and love reminiscing with them (and there are plenty of high-jinks to reminisce about...!). There was another when I fired the singer because he couldn't be arsed to learn, write or arrange the songs and another where the singer shat himself at rehearsal, blamed the rest of us and I broke the band up there and then because the drama and hassle was just too much. The best/worst was not the band breaking up, which happened some time later, but when I first left my first "real" band. I've told the story before, so I'll keep it brief: We'd recorded a demo and sent it around the record labels (this was the early 2000's) and it had received the sum total of sod-all interest, until it landed at Visible Noise, who were the label du jour and riding high with the success of Lostprophets (hmmm, that didn't end well, did it?). They showed a bit of interest and the singer/bass player (I was on guitar at the time) went mental. Suddenly we had to write commercially viable songs, make an album with 14 potential singles etc etc. It all went horrid, from being an almost-credible noise-rock band to some sort of nasty indie-pop-emo bollocks. I tried to register my unhappiness but it fell on deaf ears. I was only a young 'un and didn't know what to do, so at one rehearsal I went for a wee, climbed out of the bog window and got in my car and drove off, leaving all my gear and the band!

Picking a bass to play is the same level of decision to me as picking which shirt to wear. I don't chase tones, I don't feel like I have to play bass X for any particular reason other than I want to. I like how all my basses sound and feel, so what is there left to debate beyond the visual? I enjoy the variety, it's not about having a collection for the sake of having it. In all my bass playing time I have owned 58 basses and sold 49. It's fun, I'm having fun. I'm starting to get a judgy feel about this thread. If you believe in having only one good bass, or pay meticulous attention to the minutiae of bass tone then more power to you, you're not wrong. But neither am I. I'd like to bass the way I want to bass, and you're free to do same.

Played The Navigation in Newark on Saturday night. Interesting place, it's a former wharf warehouse on the River Trent and was nicely full. We're a Country Rock band and it was great that a couple from Virginia USA were in and told us we'd be awesome before we started (gotta love the +ve attitude). We launched into Folsom Prison (the song, not the jail ) and kicked off the evening. Lots of nodding and foot tapping during set 1 which ramped up in Set 2 with much singing along and shape throwing. We finished with the obligatory Sweet Home Alabama (ok, it's not really a Country song but nobody cared) and got loads of compliments post gig. Emma, our singer, had someone tell her she's exceptional.....she is to be fair Top night and we'll be back later in the year. My usual Mike Lull P4 and Handbox rig did the heavy lifting

Against my better judgement that was kind of me on Saturday. It was the wedding of a good mate of mine, the singer in my technically-still-going-but-don't-do-much-these-days hard rock band. Thanks to the excellent Sound Cartel for loaning us some gear, even if I do have the sneaking suspicion that you just felt as though you couldn't say no to the groom. Still, the others were going to do it over my objections anyway, if you can't beat em, join 'em. Anyway, here we are trying to remember some songs we used to play. I think it's clear that I'm rather embarrassed about the whole thing and I'm trying to hide. Unlike our lead guitarist. VID-20240602-WA0000.mp4

Gents, when I say he shat himself, I mean an unscheduled bowel evacuation took place mid-scream; at that point his sense of humour failed and shortly after that, so did mine! Quite how it was anyone's fault was beyond me, but the screaming fit that followed the screaming sh1t put the blame firmly on the rest of us.

People being dismissive and scornful over an opinion that differs from their own? Never! Not on Basschat.

Friday night played a small but friendly pub for the 10th anniversary of the landlady taking over. Not a great deal of space and a nasty hum for a while, eventually traced to the drummers fan that was right next to me. Sound was good but I completely lost the bass at the start of the second set. Coming through the PA, but for some reason not my IEM's. I had had to turn the amp right down for the first set and can only assume that I knocked the master when we went back on, but why it disappeared from my IEM's when it was in the PA was beyond me. Turned the master up and the bass came back but was too loud so initially barely touching the bass (because the sound I was getting was great). Eventually rolled the level back on the bass and everything settled down. Otherwise a good night with a singing, dancing crowd so...

Shitting your pants and then blaming everyone else - was your singer called Donald Trump?

This Saturday, in Gloucester! We're on second, just b4 7pm...

Not long back from a fun afternoon at Ellon Gala. A truck trailer gig, yes - haven't done one in ages! It was dry, was sunny when we arrived but clouded over a little later. Wasn't super busy but part of the reason was that the bar area was away from the stage a bit and folk weren't allowed to take drinks out of the assigned area (licensing reasons, I presume). We heard later that folk in there really enjoyed our set, so that was good. It was just fun to play outside though and I think we did well. Remarkably it went pretty much to schedule, only started 5 mins late and had to chop one song from the set - I'm gonna call that a win! Bass was my Wunkay, through my trusty tone cubes (Markbass Mini CMD 121P IV and New York 121)

Rather by small increments and then it was done. Having said that, we’ve not actually, officially split up. We were unable to commit to some gigs due to the lead singer’s availability being torn between several outlets, then Covid hit, we did an outdoor livestream, I moved to to Scotland and the keyboard player moved to Blackpool (we were a London/Surrey based band), so being a working band became moot. I still love all those guys and hope we might play the occasional reunion gig. In fact, I was listening to our demo on the way home, last night and I was struck by how good we were (IMO of course). Here’s an example:

Supremely amicable. We knew that 2023 was going to be the last year due to geographical differences. So we booked all of our favourites venues and had a bloody whale of a time. Played some of our best shows and went out on a real high after 13 years. We're all still good mates, the WhatsApp group is still lively and we're all meeting up in Coniston in August for a bit of a reunion set at a little local mini festival.

Got a series of videos coming out over the next few months. Here's the first, just for fun. Audio mixed by me too.

If you subscribe to basscentric You Tube channels you should have seen this beauty by now. Man alive, how I could have used this a few years ago rather than trying to build tone off a variety of guitar distortions (GT2), BDDI/VTBASS stomps and ABY boxes. Sadness is that while the XO will integrate with most boards, the new Tech21 XB driver stomp will/should be a one box solution.

In fully working order, original box, charger , paper blurb. Collection from West Oxfordshire

I’ve taken a leap of faith and ordered the EICH T900 black edition !

Vaseline Alley ～ Rod Stewart

I received an update this morning - I will share the comment from the luthier, and the photos, and let the images do the talking: Opposing quartersawn grain

I took a trip over to Liverpool, to see @Mertonplaying with Katy Hurt at the "Black Deer Live" Liverpool show. Really enjoyable afternoon and they sounded great. The support band "Motel Sundown" were really good as well.

Every now and then I get the urge to acquire a Keytar, even if only an inexpensive one. But then I remind myself that, a) I have no real use for one in a band context, and, b) I'd look a right tit playing one.

I'm sorry to hear that - mind you I hope you symbolically sawed one of your guitars in half on stage instead of leading worship to make the point, as one of the (ex)worship leaders at my previous church did. Many years later I still very much respect him for doing that!

I’ve only left 2 that then folded, other than that replacements found/bands carried on. 1 - glam/heavy rock band. We’d been together for about 7/8 years, different lineups etc. We were gigging 3 maybe 4 times a year at that point, not enough for me so I went elsewhere and got a position in a regular gigging band doing punk covers. As they had a full calendar they had to be my priority. 2 - the punk covers band. They’d already been around for a while, we managed a few years, split for 6 months, reformed but it wasn’t the same. The guitarist could only do 4 gigs a year with 2 rehearsals for each gig due to his wife telling him this (turns out he and the drummer were forming another band which she seemingly didn’t mind, or more likely the afore mentioned limits were nothing to do with her at all). As such where we were super tight & good we became average so I left and the band folded. From those ashes the singer and myself formed Knock Off, the most successful musical thing either of us have ever done.

Walking bass?

Bands first gig yesterday. Daytime special at Warminster Bandstand. It was a tad breezy which cramped us all up but it was a fun gig to set the scene of others to come.

I've had various band break up scenarios from amicable to bitter break ups. One band i left was down to the BL who only wanted to rehearse. I was angry about that one as i had made it clear from outset the travelling of 80 mile round trip over winter conditions and country roads i wanted to recoup my costs thru gigs otherwise there was no point joining. He assured me of plenty of gig opportunities in the area. Had one band that had got together to play classic rock like Deep Purple, Rainbow, Whitesnake, Sabbath, Metallica etc and we had worked hard on the set list when the weaker of the guitarists with the least experience asked if we could do his local event in his village. We all agreed and after it being confirmed he comes back and says we need to change the set and drop half of the heavier songs for pop rock songs and chart hits. WTF was my response and said "Not for me" I said i would play the gig but i'm not staying in a band that wants to change 50-60% of its set list to accommodate a venue. They managed to get someone else. I didn't really fall out over it but it was an odd one where the least experienced guy was all of a sudden making the decisions on what the band should be doing. Not sure why the others just seemed to go along with it. And last but not least this is more of an audition thing but thought i would share as its funny. I went for an audition with a Celtic Rock band. When i was setting up my bass gear the two female violinists told me the previous guy was a perfect fit for the band. It thru me a bit but the guitarist and myself got on really well during the audition and i think i had won him over. Anyways i didn't get the job and it went to the guy the girls "liked". Now the funny bit is that approx a year later they contacted me to see if i was still interested in joining and the job was mine. I had a good laugh at them and said NO and explained about what the girls had said when i was setting up and i found that extremely rude and i wouldn't work with people like that. I also had my current Glam band just started so was sorted for bands. Anyway that's my best ones.

After many years of electric duty I debuted my double for yesterday’s service. Most of the band were away leaving acoustic guitar and keys, so a good chance to try it out… Dreading the feedback monster, I used a dpa4099 mic and Acoustic Image head with polarity reverse, low cut and notch filter. Rehearsal went fine, but in the service itself the dreaded rumble was felt and heard, and I had to mute / unmute a few times to break the cycle. We use IEMs so all I can think is that the congregation singing in the direction of the bass must have hit the resonant frequency and set it off! For the second ‘set’ of two songs I moved the mic from the f-hole (where I would normally place it to record) to over the soundpost, and that solved it. Will definitely bring it again - the soundesk team noticed the lack of sustain and highs when playing pizz vs the electric, but I had some kind comments on the bowing, which was a relief as it was the first time I’d bowed in public!

Nice organ!

YESTERDAY! Another 'two gigs in one day' Saturday, with different bands this time. First up was the Jones Jazz Orchestra at Church End Brewery somewhere near Nuneaton. Nice place, lovely half of Stout (Stout Coffin 4.5% ABV), decent crowd, very relaxed afternoon. We played a set of 1940s stuff, as we'd been rehearsing for a 1940s event that got cancelled (at an RAF museum in Cosford that shall remain nameless). First gig for the new guitarist who was ace and a new singer who looks about 16 but can really do the business. (He was on BGT with a D-Day themed act a few years ago apparently (presumably when he was about 14)). We played well, sounded good and had a laugh. The brewery owners loved it and said it was the best attended and most enjoyed event they've ever had, so we're looking forward to a return booking. Highlights were a fantastic uptempo Jeff Tyzik arrangement of 'In the Mood', the guitar countermelody in 'Mood Indigo', lovely Emily's vocals on 'Anything Goes' and of course, the Trombone solo in 'Sweet Georgia Brown'. Played the P w/DTFs (the upright is in need of repairs) -> amp board (Thumpinator -> VTDI) -> MB802. Then it was hotfoot to the Bescot stadium in Walsall for Azura (4 piece covers band) at the Midlands Football Awards. Everything was set up by the time I got there (devestated!) so it was a very quick set my stuff up and a 30 second soundcheck. Corporate type affair, dinner and awards with lots of waiting around for us. We had a dressing room, so we sat around and twiddled our thumbs for about three hours... they fed us, so that was nice. First set at 915 for about 45 minutes, not much crowd interaction... one table seemed to be enjoying it and we had fun. More waiting round, back on about 1030 for a brief half hour set to a half empty room. A few dancers up, which is always nice, I went for a wander in the last song - Lekato wireless XLR for IEMs and Subzero wireless bug seem to be doing the job. StingRay -> small board -> amp board -> MB802 Load out was a bit of a faff, we were on the first floor and the lift was tiny... all sorted, back home about 1 for an M&S cider (5.2% ABV?) and a fuss with the cat. Long day, but it's always good to be out playing and the evening do was a good payer, so... pretty happy all things considered.

Space is deep - Hawkwind

How did it go? Well, there was dancing and whooping and clapping, but what it sounded like is a mystery. The venue has its own PA and the management set the levels via a tablet (except the bass, which no one told me to turn up or down) and the PA was too loud for me, painful at times, even with earplugs and I had to strain to hear my rig, which was right behind me (very small performance area). Turning on the VTDI added some top end that helped but I didn’t want a driven signal for all the tunes. Once we stopped playing, the place emptied, so it’s nice to think they stayed for us. Usual incomprehensible conversations with well oiled punters before the last set, I nodded and smiled.

Just back from the Wannasee Festival in Hertfordshire, playing with tribute act Elton Joel. Frankly enormous crowd - cool view from the stage! The rain held off and we blasted thru a windy 45-min set wedged between Elvis and the Bon Jovi Experience. Back of the net 👌. Enjoyed that.