Leaderboard

The Bastille Days gig was ok. Load in and parking was a nightmare. Downtown Milwaukee was packed. The Republicans convention started tonight. It's being held here in Milwaukee. We were too loud for my taste. Decent crowd and decent pay, $1,500.00 for two and a half hours. The lighting was right up in our eyes,we couldn't see the crowd. Here are a few pics I took. Daryl

Our gig this evening is at The Speakeasy in Hinckley. Bit different to playing at the Dog n Duck next to one of the big TV's 😊

TODAY! Depped on Sousaphone for the AD concert band at a garden party for one of the band member's 80th birthday. It was in deepest, darkest, poshest Knowle, where the drives are bigger than the flat I've just agreed to rent. Nice marquee in the grounds (!) of his farmhouse (!), a fair few family and friends were there (his, not mine) and we played well (the band is a pretty high standard which not all 'community' wind bands are). The birthday boy is a big sports fan, so we played the old Ski Sunday theme and the old cricket theme (Soul Limbo) while some folk played cricket on the field in front of us, which was jolly good fun. Other highlights were a Mary Poppins medley which rattles along at quite a lick (*and* I got the important tubular bell solo cue bang on, which was nice) and a Sousa Medley which is obviously fun to play on a Sousaphone. Other pieces were the usual wind band rep, Seventeen Come Sunday (every wind band must play this by law), A Sodding Andrew Sodding Lloyd Sodding Webber medley (Jesus Christ Superstar is acceptable) and a piece imaginatively titled Waltz no 2 (Tchaikovsky? Stravinsky? Someone like that) which is a really, really beautiful piece of music (Actually, it's Shostakovich now that I think about it). A record five people asked what the instrument I was playing was (It's a Sousaphone, basically a marching Tuba, named after but not invented by John Phillip Sousa, the American composer and band leader of the late 1800s (I should have this printed on a business card, it would save so much time) and yes it is very heavy) and one woman knew what it was so she got fifty points. Two sets, a sandwich, a glass of very passable red, a brownie and a meringue thing at half time, lots of thanks for standing in, a few viola jokes shared with Colin the Eupphonium player (his best mate's wife plays Susan in The Archers) and home in time for a stiff G&T. Oh, and it's my 50th birthday today *and* I've agreed to rent a tiny flat in lovely Bewdley. Cheers!

Another slightly depressing Friday night pub gig yesterday. I don't know how these places stay in business with so few customers. We went through the motions and it will help pay some bills, but it's tiring sometimes.

From being on this site for a good few years now, what I have seen is that the P Bass is hugely popular, possibly the most popular individual bass. What I have also seen is people turning over Jazz Basses in a search for the ultimate one - pick-up placing, neck profile, binding, blocks, maple/rosewood. Then they enter the realms of active, so again, pick-up choice, pre-amps, wiring. Those seriously afflicted then get into the 'Super Jazz' market. The P Bass user knows a P Bass sounds like a P Bass and just gets on with it (until gas kicks in and they want another one)!

Royal Blues, at The King & Queen, in Fitzrovia. Acoustic night, drummer played a Cajon. It was still a tight squeeze on stage, our line up is vox, bass, guitar, drummer, and 3 backing vox. It went really well, people were surprised when told it was the first gig for the band. Gear for me, Rob Allen Mouse, Swiff Audio wireless, into the house bands mini Markbass combo which fed into the PA.

Well Blue Aran finally delivered my speakers, if you order from them and anything is marked out of stock then cancel that item. They held on to my order until everything was in, literally for months. Anyway here now and I've sent the revised drawings to @Bassybert who will turn them into something presentable and double check everything. I'll start making sawdust once I have the drawings back.

It worked for Sid Vicious...

Took a punt on this Vintera II Early 60's model just under a month ago, the neck shape has took a bit of getting used too, but it's a lovely thing, Fender Ensenada have really upped their game over recent years.

We're playing at the Harefield Hospital charity event later, we did it last year and it was great fun, weather is gonna be a bit suspect, as the 'stage' is on the grounds behind the nurses home we may get damp! just about to load up the car..more news later!

Agreed Dave, Depends on the gig but I finally figured out the audience are not musicians. All they really want is beat they can dance to. It was pretty cool I thought. A decent amount of alcohol induced dancing. It was far from perfect but we had a few good moments. Daryl

Played a school, a primary school. Its the school the guitarist and keyboard player went to, so they don't get money, we do and it is a charity event. Went well although thursday night is not one where I really want to do gigs, but it was 8-10, so it covers the time we would normally be doing a practice anyway, except they pay instead of us! I bought some wireless microphone wireless link things about a month ago, I took them to a gig that we didn't use and hten they went missing. I spent ages going through *everything* trying to find them and the day before yesterday I contacted a few venues to see if they turned up anywhere. Last night setting up, I couldn't find all my mains leads (almost certainly as the last few gigs other people have put them away) and at the bottom of the bag was a small black box with my wirless senders in it! Could have sworn I looked in there. Anyway, tried, them, huge range, no drop out, the singer loves them.

Near run thing last night. We have a weekly Bandeoke at a notoriously tardy paying venue. Sick of their shenanigans the band leader was forced to remind them of our agreement that we receive payment within a week or she could not guarantee her musicians would turn up. They coughed within a couple of minutes of the 6pm deadline so our strike was called off. Turned out to be a great night. Phew.

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5 years ago (this night!) when Fynnius Fogg was awarded a group MBE. WhatsApp Video 2024-07-13 at 17.59.44.mp4 WhatsApp Video 2024-07-13 at 17.56.24.mp4

Not my bass, but this lovely ~1961 P-bass is possibly the prettiest I've ever come across. Paul has had it, if not from new, at least since the 70s. Lovely patina and natural wear, the scratchplate is gently rippled without splits. Paul uses a really thumping warm tone with a bit of natural overdrive through a Markbass combo. Last night he was out with Junior Hacksaw, but he also plays with the legendary Snatch it Back. My partner says most men would be in trouble if they looked at a woman like I was looking at this bass...

After many goes at building a big pedal board with lots of Juicy expensive effects I've finally given up and gone small, compact and functional. Bass - Caveman BP1 Compact - amp. GR Bass preamp in the effect loop of the BP1 compact and used for drive / fuzz only.

Playing a P bass always feels like coming home to me.

From the look of your set list and this post it seems like there are two separate acts within one band - the pub covers and a blues band. No harm in being both, just not at the same time.

Hard disagree on this point! That's maybe how your band works, but it's not universal. Everyone gets an equal say in our band, and everyone has a veto, they're just not d!cks about using it. We're an open minded four piece and are happy to give anything within our collective technical capabilities a go, and let the audience reaction be our ultimate arbiter.

My band fell into that trap years ago. We'd build up momentum and then lose the audience with a lesser-known, albeit great song, that we put in because we like it. We realised in time our job was to entertain the audience, not educate them. Songs like Sex on Fire and Mr Brightside are seen as something of a cliche amongst the cover band community, but, they always, always work, so we suck it up and play them! Another piece of advice we were given by an agent, from feedback they had received for all of their artists from a number of venues was skip the slow songs. Whilst the singer may love to belt out a power ballad, or the guitarist to get lost in a lengthy pink floyd solo, the audience will get bored. Get them up dancing and keep the energy level up.

12 years ago, I got to play Band On The Wall in Manchester. To me, this was about as good as it could realistically get, and it was a great experience. In those days, I was playing guitar. It wasn't about the size of the crowd, I have played to a couple of thousand people before at festivals, it was the venue, and the iconic status it holds. Since embracing the low end, I think I have become a much better musician, have more understanding of theory and harmony, and more importantly, I am having way more fun playing music than I ever thought possible. Today, the band leader has asked us about our availability for dates in January to play at Matt & Phreds in Manchester. I cannot tell you how chuffed I am about this. I have seen dozens of bands here. I was there when BB Kings horn section turned up after the show at the Bridgewater, just to drink and jam. Some of my musical heroes have played there. And now I might actually be playing it myself. It's unreal. Anyway, where are your venues, what have you played, where would you love to play, where would you recommend? Thanks for listening. Rob

It certainly isn't. Some cracking songs in that list though! I have Holiday in Cambodia and For Whom The Bell Tolls on my personal to-learn list, but songs for my bands have to take priority. Our 80s band has an additional constraint, in that we push our USP as covering post-punk and indie material rather than anything between 1980 - 1990. So no cheesy pop, S/A/W, hair metal and so on. This constraint - which we don't enforce too rigidly, BTW - might have cost us a few bookings, but OTOH when we do get gigs we know we're going to get a good crowd. We played a birthday party not long back and this was the set list: 1. Teenage Kicks 2. Somewhere In My Heart 3. Back On The Chain Gang 4. Love Will Tear Us Apart 5. Rip It Up (the Orange Juice song) 6. Love Shack 7. Town Called Malice 8. The One I Love 9. Call Me 10. Suffragette City 11. Happy Birthday (the Altered Images song) 12. Psycho Killer 13. Long Train Running (at birthday boy's request - dad rock isn't really our thing) 14. Dignity 15. The Whole Of The Moon 16. She Sells Sanctuary 17. Don't You Forget About Me 18. This Charming Man 19. Tainted Love 20. Purple Rain All in all, it went down very well. We had people up and dancing almost immediately (although we started long after the party did, so the punters were nicely lubricated) and we got a lot of applause at the end (or they could have just been relieved that we'd finished!). I think having the constraint in place helps to narrow things down when selecting songs, but it just reduces the disagreement problem rather than eliminating it completely.

Ones I’ve played that I wanted to: 100 Club Hope & Anchor Dingwalls The Garage Underworld Electric Ballroom Rock City Nottingham Rebellion Festival (Blackpool Winter Gardens) Ones I’d still like to play (but doubt I’ll get the opportunity: Hammersmith Apollo Whisky A Go Go And I would have loved to play CBGBs, The Marquee & The Astoria but all now gone.

I had an old one for a while; it's common for them to lose the "S" on the tailpiece. The RM shop also did a reissue 10-15 years ago and they really hiked the price (£899.99, I think). This is a 1970 RM catalogue which matches the one in the pic. I think 1970 and those tuners makes it Italian (Eko).

It's discutable, but only if the intention is to make money. It's not ours (we play for free, and only when invited...). Not all bands are in the Entertainment Business, nor want to be. Some are happy doing things a different way, and so are their audiences.

And if you have the CORE, it's version 2 you want. Just lost an hour of my life trying to update to version 4 for the GT-1000

This is now spoken for.

Come, time will.

Here we are. Now two cheap preamps, a Rickenbacker Y cable and my friend's Rickenbacker. Bit tatty but not as heavy as I expected. Cheers for info @VTypeV4 and @bremen

Pitlochry is probably my favourite place for scenery. I love the drive along that section. The A9 north of Perth to Inverness is literally average speed cameras the full route. To be fair the section from the Queensferry Bridge to Perth isn't too bad and you can make up some time on it but you do need to be very aware of police cameras along it too. I'll use cruise on my way up to a gig but when travelling at night after a gig i prefer not to use cruise. I just feel i have more control of the car without cruise plus the more i'm doing and keeping check off the more it keeps me alert. I actually prefer twisty roads after a gig as i'm more focused. Once i hit motorways i get bored easily and that makes me more tired. I took a test drive up to Tomintoul 2 weeks ago just to see what the best route was and the A9 makes most sense. That particular car didn't have cruise but it is way better fun to drive. I'll be using the Volvo V90 today for the gig so its pretty comfy on long hauls. It is funny as you mention there's always someone going a lot faster than me when i'm sitting at the speed limit. I often wonder if they got done for speeding ? Dave

They've both made more people happy, sold more records, made more money, and seen more of the world by playing bass than I ever did.

Today i have a biker rally gig for not a lot of money. Its a 4hr drive each way and i'll maybe break even not including the fact i still need to eat at some point. Its an earlier start so hopefully finished and packed up by 10pm. Home by 2pm ish. Not looking forward to the drive on way home altho my wife will share some of the driving. You need to stick to the speed limits as we have average speed cameras all along the main A9 route. Mostly 60mph with occasional dual carriageway sections of 70mph. Get stuck behind a tractor on this road and your journey soon becomes 5hrs. Part of the route is a tight twisty mountain passes. Gorgeous scenery tho and one of my fav areas for holidays. Dave

Just received another work of art loom from John. I have now lost count of how many of my basses have his workmanship inside. As always, great communication, superb loom, fair price and brilliant service. Thanks again John 👍

A good jazz bass is a good jazz bass! I've played affinity's that were better than some USA standards I've also played.

I don’t move around like Flea but not always a standing still guy either, and never had an issue in over 45 years with Grolsch type washers or the Dunlop Lok Strap washers. As you point out there will always be exceptions that prove the rule. I’ve been in bands where people have had Straplocks fail too, c’est la vie. 🙂

I think I have a solution. My wife has some family up there, so we're going to visit them cheers folks

We mostly play the music that was popular in the US when we were young -- rock, r&b, a bit of jazz from the 50s through the 70s. Since we play mostly to senior centers, senior residences, etc. it's also the music of their youth.

An evening staring at my board led to the standard temptation to change drive pedals………(I have two slots I like to switch about ) so off goes the Sunn No and Hm2w and on goes the Cave Bear and Broot!

Has to be among one of my favourite Peter Tosh tracks, pick myself up, and this is such a great video

Bash him over the head. We all have to play songs we wouldn't necessarily listen to in order to entertain, it's the job, innit? It's not about him, it's not about what he likes, it's about the punters. Give the punters what they want, simples. He needs to get that through his thick skull, otherwise every time I've played "Don't Stop Believin'" through gritted teeth has been for naught. People have been sacked from bands because of this stick-in-the-mud attitude before, and just because he's BL simply means he could end up bandless.

They have come on in that you can specify what bridge you want. One thing I never saw an option for was "Screws Cheese / Metal", that would be good.

just added a Thumpinator, decided to go 3@1 > thumpinator > cali76 > jive > warped vinyl > bassrig