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Nearly forgot, we had a young audience member who was a BIG fan of 'pinky' on Friday night, and asked if she could hold it. 😊 I'm pretty sure she was sober so was happy to oblige! 😅

Having had a time out for Nick's (other half) wife's (again, other half) 50th, my little Gothic duo have finally returned. I spent the time off getting reacquainted with my upright bass. We did two hours of 80s alternative / gothic songs, peppered with a few originals from our forthcoming EP and debut album. I was bass guitar free so played mandocello, mandolin, guitar on two, upright bass on five and sang. And I bet this doesn't get typed too often but Sisters of Mercy "This Corrosion" on upright bass? Yeah, we went there! The attendance was a little lighter than our regular shows but hands down, I thought it was the best we had ever played in this format.

It was the last night in the old dive , and it closed with the Sunday jam. We had sixty people up to play. It’s moving to a new location so we’ll be back at it when the new one opens. It will be several weeks , there’s still a lot to do there. I’ve been doing the jam for 28 years , and have been gigging in the old place even longer. Bittersweet night , hard to believe it will be gone. Lineup outside , packed house. Wonderful night.

Almost forgot we had a gig Saturday! Stupidly local, less than half a mile from the house for a marquee wedding. Bit of an epic load in and we had the B guitarist- A guitarist is also a sound engineer and was working a local festival so muggins here had to do the knobs and faders. We were in 6 piece configuration so horns on track. Just goes to show how much the audience are hearing what they want to hear- we have a 15 minute country medley and for some reason Mainstage dropped the basic and horn track completely, leaving gaping holes in the arrangement. Did the audience care? Nope, on the chairs singing along at the top of their voices to the bare minimum of a tune, no clue stuff was missing. Rest of the gig no problems, knackered them all out so by the end of set no one wanted us to DJ (part of the contract) so chill out tunes went on, packed up and was home in record time, all of 5 minutes driving.

Good one in Salford on Saturday, a couple of really excellent bands on the bill before us too, it was a fun night. There was one hilarious incident, I fell off the stage during soundcheck and totally wrecked my knee 🤦🏻‍♂️. So it was just a case of standing there during the gig, without any of the usual waving of basses in the air. Probably a good thing.

Someone took a picture of my gear at a gig we played on Friday night and put it on Facebook.

We had a decent night at The Sarah Moore pub in Leigh-on-Sea on Saturday. I quite like this one as it's so close enough for me to walk to—well, I would if I didn't have to carry two basses, Helix, and a bag of "stuff." Load-in is dead easy in this place, and the landlord had kindly reserved the space for us so nobody was sitting there. He also moved the pool table, which had been in the way the last couple of times. The only downside is that it's a rather cramped space for larger bands like ourselves, so I ended up standing at the back directly behind one of the guitarists. It makes me glad the guitars and bass are all direct to FOH with IEMs - I wouldn't have had any space to stand otherwise, and I would have struggled to hear properly as well. We played well, and had a decent turnout. Aside from the regulars, its the sort of pub people tend to go on their way to somewhere else, but we must have done something right and most of them stayed for the evening. Not to mention my wife rustled up a healthy crown of friends too. It was also our super-sub Sophie's last one with us for the foreseeable future, and she did us proud and sung her socks off. Next week Birchanger Social Club

The Zep tribute was back at one of our favourite gigs on Saturday - The Cluny in Newcastle. It was packed as usual with a great audience and treated as well as ever by the staff and tech crew. There were a few technical difficulties, mainly the singer's rack (see on the right in the picture below) containing the receivers for his IEM and mic falling off the two stools it was balanced on at the start of the encore, meaning that his mic stopped working and the sound engineer had to bound across the venue with a new mic so that we could start Misty Mountain Hop again! But apart from that, a brilliant night...

We returned to our favourite gig at The Sun Inn Beverley with our acoustic duo ‘Milestone’. Just for a change I thought I’d try using an electric bass instead of an electro acoustic, and was very pleased with the results. Took along my Precision-a-like ( no name replica with Japanese Fender pickup) into my Rumble 100 combo with a touch of level into the PA too via the DI on the amp. Sounded massive, with a few regulars commenting on it. As usual we took requests for the whole 3 sets, and did some great tunes - ‘Don’t fear the reaper’ ‘Whole lotta Rosie’ and ‘Stayin alive’ ( yes really!) amongst many others. The pub was rammed, and we did a couple of encores too. Next gig there is October 13th, so can’t wait! ( Pic below shows we have finally made it into the pub’s ‘window of fame’. ) 😆

Decent outing Satdy night in a local-to-the-BL-but-not-me pub we've played before. Dep drummer B (A is seeking gigs elsewhere, C is the best of the lot but he's put his price up, D is...well, D) I like playing with (he's depped before (for a good run) a while ago in the trio I used to be in), tho he's an, erm, forthright drummer, so he's a little louder than the others. Rock solid, tho, and has a seasoned musician's confidence, so he's great to stand next to. No percussion, but we had a keys player who's a friend of the BL, but very Starlight Lounge Michael McDonald for a pub band - in fact, his main living is solo piano bar stuff. When he was good, he was very good (he's clearly an accomplished musician in his own genre), but he couldn't not play on some songs where he really shouldn't, if you see what I mean, and he didn't like the drummer's onstage volume. There was even a Dep Flounce at the end of the evening. He moaned to the BL, who picked up the moan about onstage volume, so I spent yesterday with the tray of Ferrero Rocher out doing my best diplomat impression trying to get them to compromise. Don't think it's going to work. The BL says he doesn't need ear protection with other drummers (and we play in small spaces), he has IEMs but doesn't use them, he has an RCF 12 PA top as his monitor instead. I've told him, anyway... A shame, because we sounded better with Dep B than we have in a while (through my IEMs, anyway), we've got Dep D for Satdy, at a muso-infested place (the BL's local), we're having a rehearsal with Dep D before then to get him fully up to speed.

Me from July bike rally in Tomintoul with Emergency Exit punk covers band. Dave

Last night I was up in Nottingham at Billy Bootleggers for an all dayer festival with my rocky 3 piece. I felt a bit uncomfortable at first as I was never much of a heavy metal guy. I got chatting to some young police officer outside because she thought the cool 50s American car outside might be mine. I said it wasn’t and neglected to offer a look at my Peugeot 107 which was just around the corner. I decided after the shambolic sound of the last show I would channel my inner Johnny Thunders / Lords of the New Church and just go for it! Best gig I think the band has done - loud, sweaty and I felt we meant it. I have one more show with them this year and will be free to focus on my goth duo for this year 🎉🖤

Great comment Dave. At the local level here in the Milwaukee area ticketed events are primarily for signed known touring bands. This is fair and festival country and most municipalities have weekly live music series. All this stuff is usually free to the public. I hate to brag about our local live music scene. There's so much work we've had to turn gigs down because we couldn't fit it into our schedule. This is a tough one, but a good discussion. Especially for new young bands. At the end of the day you want to avoid playing gigs that don't match your band. However, there are exceptions. One being the money was too good to refuse or you're a new young band and you'll play anywhere .Another would be if your networking with an agent that can get you high profile gigs you can't get on your own. And sometimes we get surprised. I was somewhat skeptical on our gig Friday night at The Old Village Beer Depot. It turned out to be a great gig with a respectful size crowd. Allot of " boomers" that still like loud tube driven rock and blues guitar. We're good at that. I get that loud guitar bands are not welcome everywhere. I always say "good loud" is quite different than unbearable " bad loud ". Daryl

It’s computer driven scalping, plain and simple. When people have been hanging online, only to be kicked out due to supposed IT issues, to get back online and find the price massively escalated, is profiteering, plain and simple. Just because it’s legal doesn’t make it moral.

Isn't that just where one would expect to find an Oasis..?

Yep, that's essentially what I do. Although I try not to boost and cut kids; you can end up in a lot of trouble for that sort of thing... 🙂

Added the Micro Tron and got an unplanned blue+black theme going on for the small board.

A weekend of two halves. Saturday night took us to a pub that I am not fond of playing in. It is very crowded, always feels like it is on the edge of something kicking off and has the acoustics of a swimming pool. Turned up, not very crowded, set up, still the acoustics of a swimming pool. Hit on a revolutionary idea I managed to get the band to go along with of 'turning the volume down'. It worked really well, and the sound was fairly balanced (for the venue - only so much you can do with wooden floors, shiney walls, massive tv behind the band and reflective ceiling). Started off and it was notable that there weren't many people there. Turns out that the put has fallen out of favour with the sort of people that are almost kicking off all the time, and instead of 100 people ignoring us, we had 25 people who were really listening. As a result, it turned out that although probably good for business, I enjoyed it a lot more than I ever have there. On packing up, some guy came up positively gushing as how good we were, and finding out where we were playing later. He had danced to pretty well everything since linkin park. Sunday was a club in a local village, I was having a problem with this as I didn't remember the venue at all, but had been assured by everyone we had played it, obviously they were right. A bit of a tricky decide as to how to set up - it was a long narrow shed, open to the sports field on the side, but it was also raining, so noone was going to be out there, so we faced down the room. The first half was pretty dire - loads of people, and there was a TV on the opposite wall we were facing with a load of blokes with their backs to us watching the football. There were people dotted around sort of moving and singing though, so not completely wasted. Then the game finished and the blokes wandered off, and we hit our 'you should be dancing' - 'does your mother know' combo and some women appeared from nowhere and did dance, and then basically carried on the for the rest of the gig, so in the end it went really well. They wanted to pay us extra at the end to go on for another hour, but I don't like doing that, it sounds sloppy and I am already tired, plus it was an afternoon gig, I could be home by 8, so I did and I was

Hello everyone, friends! Today I finished the first set of pickups in multicoil format. I changed the form factor a bit, but kept all the original coil arrangements. I will make the first samples soon, it remains only to install them in the bass.

I can get ballpark on pretty much anything with the Stomp, but, as has been said above, I still sound like me doing it. Once I'd come to terms with that (and the realisation that no-one else is listening that hard, especially not the paying punters), it made life a lot easier.

But is it? Waiting online for tickets originally advertised at £135 to find they’ve risen to a massive £355 or more by the time they got to the front of the queue can’t be right, even if it’s still technically supply and demand. Imagine seeing a bass advertised for say £500, then going to the shop to find they are now £1200 because a few more people have bought one too.

Friday night my covers band, Top Deck, hosted a charity night at The Three Horseshoes in Ripley, Derbyshire. It was for Derbyshire Autism Services a not-for-profit organisation supporting families with autistic members. It’s mostly run and staffed by volunteers who are generally parents of autistic children. We supplied all the PA, back line and lights. To provide a full evening of entertainment we got another local cover band, Paradox, to do a set at 8.15. Acoustic duo Rue Marillo did one at 9.15 and we did 10.15 onwards. We donated the band fee and with raffle and other cash given we’re touching £750 raised on the night. All good fun, even the bouncers were dancing by the end. Apparently, the landlord of another pub in the market place was heard grumbling that he could have provided a bigger playing area and crowd and why didn’t we play there? Well, if he’d responded to any of our messages when we were searching for a venue we might have done. 😂

After a couple of gigs with a dep drummer that were just OK, we were back to full strength for a gig at a local football supporters club, a mere 20 minute drive for me; woo hoo! Ah, didn't sell enough tickets - cancelled. No matter, a pub just a bit further down the road asked if we were available as they'd had a cancellation - excellent! Oh, not so much, by the time we'd said we could do it (and we replied very quickly) they'd already filled the slot . However, all was not lost, a band had double booked themselves for a 60th birthday party at The British Legion in Carnoustie (it appears the guy has a reputation for this) and we were suggested as a replacement. Top gig, nice stage, great sound, lovely punters, who were dancing from the get go and no one commented on the volume (we're not loud, at all), but plenty of compliments. More like that one please. Only downside was that the load in was down a long alley, without vehicular access and my Octave pedal switch decided to be flaky (seems fine now). My JMJ Mustang was the weapon of choice throughout and sounded great, the P didn't even come out of its gig bag. Next Saturday - Stirling Corn Exchange and what looks like another inconvenient load in.

Also played at St Mary’s Chambers on Friday in Rossendale. Decent enough - rougher than I’d have liked as we’ve been away on holiday for 2 weeks and the guys haven’t rehearsed (fair enough 🤷🏻‍♂️) photos by our very own @Dankology

It was blummin great - Played Middleton Arena supporting The Chameleons. half seated (full) and half standing (filled up as we played) so probably 200-250 people watching (think 550 tickets sold). Tried some new tunes. Hired bass rig was a fender rumble 500 combo - very decent little amp - would’ve preferred my own rig, but it was a shared bill and a second kit was on stage floor in front of the riser for the chameleons drummer. Took the Casady and the ripper - but stuck with the ripper to cover all ground. Just “home” as far as my basses are concerned. some good feedback too…

How was my gig? Bloody marvellous thank you. Last night our little southern rock tribute played main stage at Stormin the Castle bike rally in Witton-le-Wear County Durham. This annual bike rally is probably one of the largest, and features two live music tents, both equipped with professional sound and light. We were second up on the main stage and technically supporting Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons (Phil Campbell of Motörhead fame). The PA was a massive RCF Line Array and both the FOH and monitor desks were Digico (for any fellow PA gear sluts). I decided that as we had a pro engineer mixing monitors that I would use my IEM’s and I am so pleased I did. I could wander around the rather large stage without suffering any loss of sound quality and also I’m not suffering the post-gig tinnitus this morning despite it being rather loud. Highlight of the gig, well there were many. The tent was full of enthusiastic bikers from the off and stayed full to the end with lots of dancers and singing along. We played rather well even if I say so myself, but the ultimate highlight was when the FOH engineer came up to me after the gig and said he loved working with us and that we were the highlight of the weekend for him😎 There were a number of pro photographers snapping away in the pit so I’ll update this post later with some better action shots but for now here’s a quick shot from the pit as we arrived on site.

My first bass build was an adventure! lol My second DIY build bass project was scuppered by a fire in my flat. I set out to collect the bits and bobs needed to start again. Over the past few months I've been pondering how to move forward with Phoenix (Yes, a rising from the ashes reference lol) I've a block of wood (Idigbo), headless tuning system, pickups, truss rod, yada yada. My aim is to go for a 30 inch 5 string fretted neck ... but building this is way beyond my skill, I could find nothing suitable on the internet (I seek a 18+mm bridge string spacing) and the cost of a bespoke neck is beyond my reach (I checked!). Stalled! But then I got to thinking and realised that were I to get a Ibanez TMB35 I could use the neck as the basis of a mod (Is it a mod!?). A couple of days ago this arrived ... And so ... the plan (As it is) is to use just the neck, modify the headstock for the headless system I've got (NOVA system from @Andre_Passini) and build a body from scratch. I'm still toying with how I can convert it to a zero fret setup. I'm writing this "diary" is for a couple of reasons: 1) To share what I do in case it may be of interest to others. (If only to warn against what not to do!) 2) As a place to ask the the many (many) questions I have around this journey, to seek the wisdom and experience of the BC collective mind. This project is likely to take a long time as this year I have been experiencing major fatigue issues, but it has started! And so to my first question ... How to determine if a bass will be well balanced? The stock TMB35 has hideous neck dive! The one I've acquired had some lighter weight tuners fitted, but she still dives. Using a headless system (And some neck reshaping I plan) will reduce the overall neck weight, but I want to try to use the lightest body weight I can. When I 'hang' it from my finger on the top horn the TMB35 is body heavy, but with a strap on it is not. How does one figure out the balance of a bass before building it? Sam x

Hi there. I recently bought a new bass (sterling 34 hh). I used to play a lot when I was younger. I memorised most of the RHCP and RATM albums. After 2 kids I’m apparently choosing to exercise my midlife crisis by attempting to relearn bass. I have an orange crush 25 practice amp but I’ll be looking to upgrade amp and pedals when my funds recover after buying the bass. Also, I’m incredibly hard of hearing but refusing to let that stop me A friend recommended this community and I’m really looking forward to delving deeper.

Well, my take on it is: - They are both fine to use - The best time to put a zero fret in is before the neck is finished, during fret slotting and before a nut slot has been cut. To convert a nutted neck to zero fret is a lot of work for questionable gain - and it would have to be done properly and accurately (and you still have to cut an extra slot for the all string-spacer-nut unless like, in this case, it is a headless clamp being fitted which is self-spacing!) - One advantage of zero fret is that you get spot on 'nut height'. But a good nut slotting job can match as near as makes no difference. - Another advantage of zero fret is that you get very little energy loss of the string's vibration for open strings - but I defy anyone to be able to tell the difference between that and, say, a brass or bone nut. - One disadvantage - maybe less so with basses - is that for some weird reason, the zero fret tends to wear quicker than the other frets - and any differential wear that way round will lead to string buzz. It is not unusual for a zero fret to have to be replaced after a couple of years hard playing (though that is not a difficult job)

Zero fret is just one more ordinary fret to the fretboard. There still is a nut like thing keeping the strings in place in a bass, if the tuners are at that end. https://bassbros.co.uk/sold-basses/1986-vigier-passion/ Headless needs only that zero fret and the headstock, because the distance between them is so short.

Superb stuff @msb Great crowd and at least its moving to another venue rather than "the end" of a great gig. Dave

That Don't Impress Me Much - Shania Twain

Was it a bit like this.... ....except more so?

Love a cream DiMarzio on a P bass. A real Martyn P Casey (of the Bad Seeds) vibe. Very nice score Karl

I've always loved the look of this @Pea Turgh I'm a lazy so and so when it comes to finish and the corners and handle set it off really nicely reminding me I really should take it more seriously. You've even made the round grille look like it belongs rather than the afterthought it is on my cabs

Think that’s what happened to my son, when it finally got to him they wanted £750, he said he doesn’t like them that much

So, the government are going to look into things... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20r26p7d0ro IMHO, the dynamic pricing is pretty disgraceful; imaging queueing for hours and then finding the price had trebled! It's manipulation, playing on the gambling & auction fever psyche.

I took a pic of what we using for main and subs. We use the RCF stuff for smaller gigs. Daryl

I'm at a wedding right now, quite drunk at the moment, and I just want to say a big FU to wedding DJs. Yes, you have place but please not at any event I attend. I would like a good band please.

Yep you need to match the band to the venue. We did a Hogmanay gig and a similar thing was heard by singer in the loo about hoping this lot aren't one of those loud rock bands with screaming guitars all night. Luckily most people that bought tickets checked to see who the band were and came dressed in Glam gear as the venue didn't say what kind of band we were on their adverts altho looking at us in Glam gear is a bit of a dead giveaway. Dave

Not quite on @JPJ's epic scale but: Social Club on Dorset's Coast, Mudeford just east of Bournemouth. Our second gig there after a two year break, we went down well the first gig but the old Ents Sec wanted a "refresh". New committee comes in and we areback and boy did we rock the joint. Rig was my usual, Marcus Miller M2 Bass, Bugera Veyron 1001M Amp, LFSys Monza Cab, Zoom B2-Four. Fp vocals I use a Sontronics Solo through a TC Helicon Mic Mechanic 2*. You can see the heavy curtains I mentioned above in the background. *MIc Mechanic has reverb, echo, a bit of built in voice EQ processing, bit of this a bit of that and up to 0.5 semitone pitch correction if needed. Of course my voice does not really need it..... The PA is the singers. I disown it completely.

If I had to switch between Duff and Jamerson I'd be having serious words with whoever puts the set list together 🤨

The Old Village Beer Depot Gig was pretty good. We had around 100 people show up. Daryl