Leaderboard

Two gigs for me this weekend - a local jazz and blues festival on Saturday, where I was depping with blues band ‘The Alligators’ (hopefully more on that one later). Then last night we played in Scarborough at The Lookout on the Pier ( Milestone acoustic Duo). The usual full house of punters at this super harbour side cafe, where we juggled our two sets of audience requests around a bit to finish at 7.45pm so folk could get off home and watch some football match or other. Nice varied requests including ‘I wish I knew how it would feel to be free’, originally by Billy Thomas and made famous by the BBC as the theme to ‘Film …..’ Other tunes included ‘Take it easy’, ‘Waterloo Sunset’ and ‘Flowers’ (which was a nice change from the more usual older stuff). We declined ‘3 Lions’ but relented on ‘Sweet Caroline’ as as a token footie reference. Not back there now until September due to the influx of holidaymakers, but have been promised two gigs a month from then so all good. (Ibanez PCBE12MH into a Fender Rumble 100v3 / DI into house PA for anyone who’s interested.)

Quick 24hr trip over to Switzerland on Saturday to play bass for US blues rocker Dudley Taft, headlining a blues festival at the bass of the Alps. Splendid! 😃🎸🎶😎👍 Pic is of support band in action....

Satdy night was a pub in Preston we've played before - half an hour trip for the other guys, an hour for me (I live further East), but an easy hour sat on the motorway with the cruise control on saving diesel. Agency gig, and to echo other sentiments, I've no idea why some pubs put bands on, there was little to no interest. Apparently there never is, according to the bar staff. It wasn't helped that the patrons were thin on the ground (tho we've played to much, much less of a crowd) - chatting to the bar staff when we got in they were expecting a quiet night as a lot of people were holding out for a big Sunday for the match. So we were left with 80% hard-drinking 60+ blokes, a smattering of borderline-underage kids in the pool room, and a few bored 60+ wives who'd been dragged out for a brandy and babycham. And lots and lots of tellys... 3rd choice drummer (we're undergoing some Drummer Hoohah at the moment) and we were a 3-piece (percussionist dipped out so we'd make enough to justify the trip), so it was more by the way of a paid rehearsal to bed the guy in to the versions of the songs we play. 2 x 45, one encore (shouted for by the landlord after an embarrasing minute's silence when I'd started to pack up), pack and go. Upsides were the paid rehearsal thing, better money than usual, and an 11:04 finish. On the road home for 11:20 - the landlord had bitched on last time about the time it took us to break down and pack up, so we'd taken minimal gear. Oh, and I got to watch Argentina beat France on the telly, too. The Sonic Precision was really good, and the Stellartone Tonestyler (bought from Ead in this very parish) I'd fitted worked very, very well in a live setting. It's all about dem mids... Sonic P, Stomp, inears. That's it.

We played The Ziegler Winery yesterday 7/13/24, 3-6. Finally a good gig. We were tight and hitting on all 8 cylinders. The sound on stage was beautiful. The crowd got us . Tips were lucrative an extra $50.00 for everyone. Daryl

Played Kingsfest in Emsworth on Saturday for a British Heart Foundation benefit. late afternoon/early evening set that went well. Lots of singing along and a pretty tight set as planned. No IEM’s which would have been nice but stage sound and monitors were ok and good practice for the Gosport Waterfront Festival next month where we’ll also be reliant on stage monitors and no IEM’s for me which is annoying because I’ve got used to them now and miss them. Guitarist started the second half of Final Countdown where he does the horn part a semitone flat and I had to nudge him. Noticeable on a recording/video but most likely gone in the moment live

Well, whoops - I bought one, and im very glad I did! This is an amazing instrument. It feels great - I cant describe it, just really well constructed and "Premium" (which youd expect considering the price...) Even the rear of the bass has been bound at the edges with the classic Ric checkerboard finish. The bottom string using the neck pickup is thunderous bottom end, its like an EB2 on steroids. Then one flick to mid position and youve got a honky sort of vintage 70's tone... lastly on full bridge pickup (with a pick, preferably) you've got a sound very close to the classic 4003. A very versatile instrument indeed! The case is somewhat bigger than the other vintage case I have for my 4003 BRG but thats to get the wider body in... speaking of which this might be short scale but it doesnt FEEL it. Reason? The body is basically a 360-shape body so its mahooosive, so the bass itself is pretty much as long in total as a 4003. So if you are put off by shorties, maybe try one of these first and see what you think - its not dinky like an EB3 (which puts me off using my SG Bass). Oh yeah, and theres 24 frets so dusty-end widdling is very much catered for here! There's a great deal of "give" in this neck, absolutely no effort is required to bend strings on this unlike nearly all my "early" Rics. The independent dealer I bought mine from had FIVE (!!!) of them in stock, i picked up the one which was the lightest (got to start thinking about my back now, haha) which coincidentally also had the nicest wood figuring under the finish on the body, as well as the darkest fretboard, which I like.. particulaarly in contrast to the crushed pearl sharkfin inlays. Feel free to ask any questions... this one is a keeper!

We played at a pub with a loud obnoxious drunk last night (before the football).. 'Been doin' music for years mate I know what it's all about...' Yadder yadder yadder... 'You can sing....' to the singer 'You know that's got wheels..' to us loading the van with a drum case over shingle. All very slurred. He also took offence at me sitting down like I should be doing some sort of Christina Aguilera dance routine for him? One of those typical annoying tw@ts at a gig, not had one for ages, glad I didn't bite.

We got some pics from Sunday.

I think P basses bring out the anti-fanbois more than the fanbois personally

Wedding gig last night for the daughter of one of the guitarists. As such, the band and partners were graciously invited to the whole day, which meant a rather early start in order to get in before all the guests arrived to set up followed by a very long day. Out other guitarist, who usually sets up half the mildly complex PA was also unavailable for this one as his wife gave birth to a baby girl the day before. We’d planned for this with my brother stepping in for him. He’s depped with us several times before so I knew he’d be okay, but this was his first experience of gigging ampless, relying totally on IEMs. I’m not sure he totally loved the experience and now wishes he had bought new foam tips for his old IEMs that he hadn’t used in years, as the silicon tips didn’t seal that well. I was also anxious before hand and got a little stressed during set up as I knew I had to wire up most of the PA more or less on my own. I think going forward, we need to give everyone individual tasks to do to make this process easier and quicker. The set was handpicked by the bride and groom (not something we usually let happen), but we agreed it just this once. They love alternative music so we got to play some heavier numbers with a few classic bangers. Luckily for my brother, it was a shorter single set of around 80mins rather than our usual couple of one hours sets as they had also booked a “superstar dj” who rounded of the evening with some old classic and modern metal. Totally broken by the end of the night and had a well deserved lay in this morning.

Speakeasy gig last Saturday for Southern Frontier was a stormer. Place was full, although it's only a capacity of 70. There was some mighty shape throwing by the crowd during set 2. Country Roads always gets everyone singing and we've added MIFLAW (clue, Shania Twain song) as last song for set 2 so everyone was up and grooving. Threw 3 originals in this time which were well received. My goto gigrig of Mike Lull P4, Handbox R400+cab and Thumpinator did the bizzo. The drummer from my previous band turned up and was genuinely complementary which was nice.

Or maybe Alan will send me a WIP picture and I won't be able to resist...

Get a GR Bass One 800 instead and don't look back! 🤣

You can guess where the band's second gig was

Saturday saw our (Rascallion's) third appearance at our local charity outdoor festival, Anderby Rocks. Shan't bore you with the details of why the first two bands who were due to appear had to be replaced by a solo acoustic singer and an acoustic duo, but the upshot was that after the acoustic duo who were scheduled to appear before us had finished, we ended up being the first full band on, which actually worked in our favour in terms of setting up, though it still didn't mean we got anything more than a basic line check - luckily the regular sound crew working the festival know their stuff, and after one minor burst of feedback early on, quickly gave us a superb onstage sound and, as confirmed by my Better Half who's fussy about volume in particular, the sound out front was equally good, balanced, and just-loud-enough. Just to add to the fun, we'd not managed a full rehearsal this week after our frontman went down with the lurgy on Monday. It had been touch-and-go until Friday morning whether he'd be fit enough to handle the vocals and harmonica, but luckily he'd recovered enough to do so, and apart from a couple of minor on-the-hoof rearrangements which we managed to catch and cover hopefully without anyone noticing, everything went well. Not much in the way of dancing to report, though a few folks did stand up from their camping chairs and jig around a bit towards the end of the set, which to be fair is all we ever tend to get anyway. At least the weather, which had started off alternating between drizzle and light rain, finally got its act together and it stayed dry throughout our set, not so much of a concern to us due to the solid tentage covering the stage, but great for the hardy souls in the audience, bless 'em. In the rush to set up, play, then get off, I didn't manage to grab any rig photos, but I used my trusty MIJ '51 Precision Reissue --> Thumpinator --> NUX tuner --> Ampeg OptoComp --> Ampeg Scrambler --> Ampeg Liquifier --> Ashdown 12-band EQ (pre-shape only engaged) --> Trace Elliot AH200 + BLX-110 cab --> DI'd into PA. Couple of photos from the event FB page...

Saturday, Played 9-10 at the Hanbury Arms with Bluesfire. One of two pub venues in an 11 day arts festival. We had over 100 people which is good for what is basically a beer gardens and marquee. Plenty more people out of sight down the slope between us and the pub. Very responsive music-loving audience. One woman told Al that when she was down the slope she thought there were give or six of us, not three. A lapsed guitarist budy telling everyone the gig was 'exceptional' which was nice. Al ignored the setlist and just called what he thought people would like. Best one for a while. Got back to the club in time to catch the bands last four songs. Today, Bendricks Rock at the Llandovery Bike Weekend for Blood Bikes Wales. The event is 10-4 and wew were on at 11:30. Left at 8:00 to pick up vocalist! Better attendance than I expected, nice but simple setup with vocal PA and plenty of space. And a proper if brief soundcheck- the only feedback was for me to turn up. Don't mind if I do. Purple, Zeppelin, Cream and Sabbath all went down well, our setlist was not long enough so we added two extras and then an encore - What Is and What Should Never Be. Tricky and with the potential to be a car crash, but we nailed it. Our endings were a big sloppy, but our best playing so far and a great reception. Watched a couple of the other acts. Drive back was extended by 30 minutes due to a "diversion" and a crash blocking the a470. Got back and somehow found the energy to catch a train to the far side of town and catch my brother's band Stonehouse closing out Cadstock to a couple of thousand people.

Hurtsfall played on the second day of the Leodis Requiem Festival at Wharf Chambers in Leeds. It was an all-dayer with 8 bands, we were in the second half starting at at 7.30 and the first band to have a 45 minute time slot. This was the fourth time I'd played at this venue and it's a bit of a strange one. Unless the bands are actually playing there is hardly anyone is in the room, they are all either in the main bar next door or in the garden at the back, so it's always slightly worrying when we're setting up with just the PA engineer and the festival promotors in attendance. However it does mean that it's possible to do a proper sound check without giving anything away. Luckily for us just as we're due to start the room fills up with punters. I don't know if it's that I had a different perspective from the stage compared with being an audience member, but it did feel as though we had the the biggest, most attentive and vocal audience of the 5 bands I saw. Simply announcing some of songs (one of which is so new that the only way people would know it is if they have seen us play in the last 3 months) brought cheers from the crowd. Didn't sell much merch but AFAICS none of the other bands were doing at any better. I did manage to get a festival T-shirt in small for me, as pervious years they've always sold out the day before my band played.

He hasn't got back to me yet. If I can get it, he'll be bringing it over from the UK as he's visiting me next month. Will keep everyone updated and take pictures if it works out. I hope it does 👍

When I arrived at his place, clutching both TIs and La Bella's, the wiring was done. What a sight to behold

Had a message from Mark this morning, asking for strings as he's about to start cutting the nut. Oh my, it's gorgeous.

I have done a few things including supporting a workers demo at a local depot, I have also petitioned my workplace and got them to take Amazon off the approved supplier list and then contacted Amazon to let them know that has happened. At a yearly spend of around £80,000 it was never going to make them cry but if enough people do the same it could have an effect. I also attempted to get my local MP involved in their tax avoidance but as he was more interested in groping interns it didn’t get very far. There are also local groups around the country trying to get local authorities to move away from using Amazon and I been involved in one of those. It seems small things but they can make a difference, there is a long history of companies making ‘ethical’ changes that were based on consumer pressures. I guess the difference is that the world has never seen anything as big as Amazon and so far they are happy to do a big FU or make tiny gestures. For me it started when they conned a charity I volunteered at out of £2k when dodgy goods were supplied through the marketplace. When you have seen disabled kids washing cars to raise a few quid and then see it stolen it gives you a reason to get involved. From that I found out how dodgy they were across all their business dealings. Thankfully a brilliant UK company StanelCo heard about what happened and helped the charity out.

This is the fundamental problem. The UK tax system needs to treat multinationals companies as a single entity and tax accordingly. This way they would not be able to create complex group structures that are a smoke screen for paying tax. The same thing applies to zero hours contracts. Simply ban the practice on UK soil. The gripes against Amazon are valid but Facebook, Starbucks, Apple and a vast number of other multinational companies do exactly the same thing and only get away with it because the tax system and labour laws let them get away with it.

You are the expert Daryl! 🙏 I was thinking of Nashville and New Orleans where there are bands who I was told get tips only. In NO I learned the importance of the bass solo in the penultimate song - it let the guitarist circulate with the tips jar!😂

My originals band, Diamond Bridges, played a set at yesterday’s Nailed It festival in Belper. It’s a great little one-day event with music in eight pubs across the town. All within 15 minutes walk of each other. The ethos of the festival is very much original music only. Consequently, there’s a lot of solo performers and duos but all of the larger pubs had at least a couple of bands. We had the 9pm slot at The Cross Keys. Slightly shonky shared drum kit and back line but a good Bose PA and a sound man who was on the ball. Hectic turnaround and no soundcheck, but such is the life of a small-time originals act out in the provinces. Very busy pub and appreciative audience. We even managed to come home with fewer cds than we took!

Old Masons Arms just south of Leeds last night. Second Glam Fever gig with the new dep drummer and things had tightened up considerably thankfully - he did a great job and we had a blast. We've got him until the end of September when we take a month long break to allow for any hospital treatment I might need, then a new drummer starting in November who knows the crack. It was a hot and sweaty one - just the sort of gigs we enjoy with lots of dancing and whatnot; it was nice to see a fair few faces from bikers rallies who'd travelled far and wide to catch us in one of our rare visits to this locale. The 'tip bucket' was nicely full at the end of the night!

https://www.spectorbass.com/series/euro-cst-series/ Interesting. Ash rather than maple back, poplar burl top, ebony board, lovely abalone inlays, EMG X pickups and a new Darkglass-designed Spector preamp.

A message I received from Paul Jefford, Strings Direct: Hello Mick A few years ago I took a phone call from a customer… who was banging on about Amazon and comparing us with Amazon. He asked… ”So why on Earth should I deal with you instead of going to Amazon?”. Good question I thought… why should he buy from us? My reply was off-the-cuff but honest and legitimate: “Well, the fact that you have called me and spoken to the director of the company on the phone is the first reason. Try calling Amazon and asking them a few questions... or asking to speak to Jeff Bezos”. “Being a family-run business for over 25-years now, we care about our customers and our reputation is our business, and when we get something wrong (which we do, believe me!) we take it personally and rectify it”. “We have on-site string experts and guitar techs who can answer pretty much any guitar-related question you have”. “We've built rock-solid relationships with the world's biggest strings brands and get our stock direct from the official suppliers, and - I’m not gonna sugar coat it - there is a counterfeit guitar strings epidemic on sites like eBay and Amazon, so if you see a set of Ernie Balls for £4 with free delivery it's odds-on they are cheaply made strings in wolves clothing”. With us there is no guess work – we are selling the real deal”. Look, I’m no salesman and honestly, I hate sales spiel but I was quite proud of myself by the end of that call. It goes without saying that the guy ordered then and there! I still speak to him now when he calls up... nice guy! Thank you, Paul Jefford Director Stringsdirect.co.uk

Yes, I know - mandatory! That Bassmute looks a bit compimicated to me. I'm still using the bit of old acoustic foam that I nicked from a recording studio in 1989. I should have nicked a few more bits and started my own company - "ToneFoam" or something...

Don’t need this crap on basschat. Keep it on TB

That article was from a well known outlet which is why I selected it, but the practice mentioned occurs at Amazon, and sadly other large warehousing places as well. Lots of well documented cases and hundreds of links e.g. https://www.quora.com/Do-Amazon-warehouse-employees-really-have-to-pee-in-bottles But it’s not just limited to that, it’s the dehumanising effects of many of their working practices that have no place in the 21st century. Most people are aware that they ‘aren’t good’ but choose to ignore that as they wish to keep getting stuff cheap. Morals and principles don’t always come cheap.

My 3 with roasted jazz necks. Just put fenders new oval flat profile neck on the pj.really comfy

18 with a BLT. Pete Wingfield

Dead thread resurrected 11 years later 😒 🤔 Newest build, finished yesterday, not even strung yet. In fact, I still need to buy the bass strings! So, it's a baritone/bass combo (2 bass strings above 3 baritone strings. Strung, or will be, with the A & D bass strings, and the A, D & F# strings from a baritone string set. However, despite the strings used, it'll be tuned G, D, G, d, g. Here's the wee beastie...

From what I understand the tipping culture is different for you guys. In the States you can walk down Main Street and ask anyone for a tip for doing nothing.lol On the serious side we've had gigs ( not many) where there was over $900.00 in the jar at the end of the night. Daryl

Although I never had a bucket list of venues as such, I’ve done almost all of the big festivals in the UK and Europe several times over, done pretty much every toilet venue in the UK and every pïśšhouse in London too. Done some fancy places like Sadler’s Wells, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Ally Pally, Tatton Gardens, Royal Festival Hall, Bloomsbury Theatre and stuff but the one place I always wanted to play was the Royal Albert Hall. Came close when I was depping for someone who was on the bill for the Ronnie Lane tribute concert there, but the band got bumped off the bill so that Midge Ure could come on and play instead : ( Even though I don’t play live anymore I’d change my mind in a second if RAH was a possibility 👍

I loathe and depise amazon . Working practices , anti union stance etc etc . Never have and never will buy anything from them . BUT . It is sharp business practice as people are lazy and money/value oriented . My major gripe is that customers expect every business to be the same 24/7 , feedback etc and answering emails at all hours of the day . My business consists now of 2 people . I am not going to answer emails at 0330 on a sunday . We are doing fine by the way 😁

This is the lesser spotted Jackroadkill in his natural habitat.

There does seem to be people taking this (frankly pointless) moral stance against Amazon, based off taxation, work conditions, dealing with suppliers etc. To be brutally honest, customer is king. Why should I pay £55 for a set of Elixir Nanowebs from Strings Direct when I can get the same product for £15.00 cheaper from Amazon? Same thing applies pretty much everything that comes in through my front door and they'll always be the first point of call for pretty much everything we buy. I honestly couldn't care less if Jeff Bezos doesn't want to contact me about my choice of lawnmower or water filter, it's all about how much you pay and how fast you can get it. If employees are disgruntled at the working conditions, then leave. That's their prerogative. Look, I used to by an awful lot of books from a two independent booksellers and was frequently told that once the independents shut down the book market would crumble. What actually closed their businesses was the council hiking fees rates and the collapse of the net book agreement (which kept books at an artificially high price). The book market hasn't crumbled, far from it, and in part Amazon is keeping many publishers in business. Elixir don't care if they sell into Strings Direct or Amazon, sure they'll make less money selling to Amazon, but they're selling way more that they would through Strings Direct. As a society we're conditioned to sneer at success; it doesn't matter whether it's Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Jobs/Wozniak or any number of entrepreneurs. These people got to where they are because they either had an idea or the tenacity and drive to make their business succeed while others didn't diversify and fell aside. Sure they ruffled a lot of feathers, but as my mate's dad used to say, "that's business, you won't get anywhere just sitting there with your thumb up your a$$." Nobody is getting all tetchy about the people who own and run Samsung or Sony or Walmart or Vitol or Cigna Health, because they're not in everyone's faces or trying to put rockets into space. I know this all sounds cold and harsh, but if you want to spend 30% more for the same product, then knock yourself out.

If I didn't buy from Amazon, I'd buy very little, as there are very few outlets for many items locally available to me. I also buy from other web outlets, such as Thomann for music stuff, PB Modelisme for modelling materials, Berlin Packaging for glass jam jars, and many more. My only criteria would be to not knowingly give my custom to any Israeli company. Of course, I also shop locally, as a preference.

I never buy from Amazon as they are a dodgy company in terms of how they pay tax and treat their employees. But also, I want to have independent shops where the people know what they are talking about and where customers are important to them. The only time I will ever buy from Amazon is if they get exclusive rights to life saving medication one of my family needs, otherwise they can FRO.

80% of The Inevitable Teaspoons played at Drummonds in Aberdeen last night. Our sax player guffed up his dates and realised he had a wedding to attend (not his own, I must stress!). So to be honest I wasn't feeling it going into the gig. Isn't it funny how sometimes the gigs you're not looking forward to end up being great fun - maybe because there's nothing to lose and it takes pressure off oneself. So when we arrived for soundcheck, we learned that the support act had cancelled, so the whole night was ours to play with. We ended up playing for 2 hours (with a 15 min break) which is rather unusual for a no-name originals band such as ourselves, but we had enough material to cover it, and threw in some covers to break up the relentless cycle of "tunes nobody knows". It wasn't super busy, but we had folk up dancing nonetheless, so I guess we were doing something right! I expected it to be a bust, but it ended up being a really fun night! I played the G&L Tribute LB-100 into the house amp which was some sort of Ashdown ABM head into some sort of Trace cab. Sounded good, but it was just for monitoring, FOH was handled by the venue's sound engineer (who did an amazing job - I had a wander out front cos wireless and it was sounding great).

Played at The Victoria in Swindon last night with Phantom Droid and Thrakian (we're Hora). It's a cool venue. Decent size live room, good sound, very competent sound tech, good lighting, smoke machine 🤘 Despite growing up in rural Wiltshire where Swindon was the closest big town, I'd never actually got my act together as a teenager to play there. So, it was nice from that aspect too. Really good fun. I did have a few flubs though. I blame that on almost having a migraine on Friday. I'm still not 100% and my wife didn't really want me to go out. I felt like sound check actually helped my head in a weird way though. Very strange. Gear: Combustion, GX-100, Mojo Mojo, Bass Big Muff, ABM-600 into the Hartke cab that was there.

A bit late to the party here, because the gig was on Tuesday, but hey.... We played a tiny little pub in Shrewsbury called The Yorkshire House. The other band brought the PA; well, sone powered speakers and a desk, but no monitoring. They also brought instruments and drum breakables but nowt else, so we lent them our amps (the smallest ones we own, to save space), mics, mic stands etc and were good to go. It was very hot and sweaty, the sound was crap and we had to do the best we could to hear what was going on, but other than that it was great! We went down really well, received lots of compliments from the surprisingly large crowd, and have the landlady wants us back later in the year. What topped it off for me was some friends coming down from Manchester to see us play and really enjoying themselves. Obligatory glory shot: My gear was my usual three basses (2x Player P and nasty Squier plywood J-type), pedals and the big Eden was substituted for my Ampeg PF500. Cheers, JRK

Emergency Exit at Tomintoull bike rally. Left the house at 2pm got there 6pm with a 15min stop at Costa coffee in Aviemore. The organisers of TMG Bike rally gave us 50% more than we originally asked to cover our fuel costs as well so all in all it turned out to be a worthwhile gig. Busy, plenty of dancing and full floor by the end of the night. Lots of people telling us good things at the end when i was packing up the car. Luckily my wife took a spell at the driving and that made a huge difference on the 3.5hr drive home thru mist, fog and heavy rain. Only good thing on way home was not a lot of traffic but weather kinda defeated that advantage so no real time gains made once we got past the average speed cameras on the A9. Used my Godin bass into Shure GLXD wireless and into Handbox WB-100 and Mesa SW210/115 cabs. No PA support but from what i was told it sounded good out front. Dave Just a wee update with some pro pics from this gig and thought i'd share some.

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.