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Did a cool gig in Chelmsford town (city?) centre last night as part of their Sounds Good festival. A real eclectic line up of acts - we were closing our stage and preceded by a singer/cellist with guitar accompaniment which was ace. Their cover of Smooth Operator was v cool, as was their original work. Katy Hurt and band hadn’t even seen each other properly since August because of various things so it was a bit under rehearsed but we had great fun. Stage was great, sound guys were lovely, sound on stage was awesome (and oh my god the Handbox WB-100 is a SUPERB amp, sounded ace on stage and sound men loved its DI). TBH I feel I played pretty average at best, but I got through it and just simplified some things I’d normally actually over do… I was channelling my inner Negan with my clothing choice so everyone was lucky I wasn’t brandishing my bass line a baseball bat covered in barbed wire* 🤣 *Walking Dead reference for anyone going 🤷🏼‍♂️

Just back home from playing a great gig at the Anchor in Burbage, Leicestershire, depping with function band Superbad. Looked like a regular village pub, but it seemed to be THE place to go on a Saturday night round these parts. Place was rammed, with a wide range of ages too. Travelled light, using just one bass (Yamaha BB604), a Markbass head and two MB traveller cabs (tho it occurred to me afterwards that my Ashdown head is the exact same size as my pedal board, so I could have taken that and plonked the pedals on top.) Next time maybe. Resisted the urge to stop off for a McDonalds on the way home. Got home to find leftovers of a Chinese takeaway in the fridge instead - jackpot!

Last nights gig with Emergency Exit punk covers was at The Riverside in Dumfries. The band has been playing this venue for 7yrs now (3yrs with me) but unfortunately due to noise complaints from locals that moved in recently the venue has suffered from noise complaints and the owner Ann has finally had enough and has decided to retire so i think that will be the end of live bands in this venue. She retires next week so we were privileged to be asked to play for her. Sad moment but she had been to court so many times in past 2 yrs with it and won because she was putting live music on before these people moved in. Decent turn out and very enthusiastic dancing around the bar and conservatory areas. 1hr drive home so that was easy too. Guitarist had a senior moment when he started Teenage Kicks in Db instead of D and he just couldn't get out of it and it was a disaster moment but we just made a joke of it and the audience appreciated its live music and sometimes we have senior moments. We did cut it short tho. Band has a meeting this Thursday to see if we want to continue doing the punk covers band as venues that will accept punk are becoming less and less and the audiences are dwindling from 3 yrs ago. Its odd because any time we play we get a great response from all generations and age groups. Original member from 78 is doing a Ramones tribute too and is thinking its maybe time to call it a day. I'm 50/50 on it mainly because i like the people in the band and i really quite enjoy playing the songs. They have a lot of energy especially the SLF songs which have become my fav songs in the set. Will see how it goes. Dave

Long drive yesterday but the expense was offset by there being two gigs. First one in a 'cidery' which was basically a cider farm with a building converted into a kind of cafe bar. Lovely atmosphere, friendly folk, polite rather than enthusiastic, but they enjoyed it. Then a 45 minute drive to the second gig which was a private party somewhere near Stratford on Avon. They used a field on a caravan park and set up a marquee for us. It was in truth a little late in the year to be playing outside but we started early (7pm) so didn't lose feeling in our fingers until nearly at the end of the set. Despite the distances involved I was home before midnight, which for me is a win.

Snap! If he drives a car like he drives a mixer he would be banned! On to Friday's Gig. Annual Bowls Club Supper Dance. The less said about the supper the better. The audience were not the youngest we have played to as you can imagine but they were up and dancing from the start. The main lights in the hall were on all night so it was a bit more like a rehersal than a gig but we mostly had fun. Usual set up for me Fender Aerodyne Bass, Bugera Veyron amp, Zoom B2 Four plus Cand Heat Cables made by my very own hand🤩

Nice fairly local gig for the glam lads last night. Wasn’t expecting much as it was an early start (7:45) and the pub was fairly empty when we went to the change room (read kitchen….that’s why all my stage wear smells of chip fat) however we came on to a full pub of enthusiastic punters. Had a great night and it was a fairly early finish, I was home and feeding the dog bits of my cheese sandwich before 12. First proper gig with the new to me Sterling Stingray shortscale; struggled a bit with the sound (couldn’t get that nice ‘fullness’ for some reason) which I never do with my Sandberg Lionel’s. Still, there’s always room for improvement on the eq.

Nice gig tonight at Leamington Tennis Club for their 150th anniversary. I took my new 5 string P Bass out and it was a real joy to play, great tone. Band played well, people danced, we got paid and got another gig booked off the back of it. So a result. Downside was it was outside and it was freezing! So cold that I had to order a coffee… Rock and Roll! 😂

A long journey down to Fordingbridge yesterday to play the Hart of Martin mini festival thing. Had a good laugh, a couple of huge brain farts, so far from my best performance ever, but we enjoyed ourselves. Second year we’ve made the journey but probably won’t do it next year - just too much driving for the small crowd and little or no money. IMG_5332.mov

Decent acoustic gig. No BBQ Ribs. Bastards ! Daryl

Long day doing a fundraiser for a theatre company I’ve played loads with. It was a pick up band, so one rehearsal on the day, matinee gig and then evening. It was a community do so the musical calibre was of variable calibre and the inexperienced md, despite working very hard on the charts doesn’t have the technical chops to write with the correct musical grammar, which is a proper headache when songs in Bb minor are written in A# for example. The occasion was a 60s singalong- let’s see if any takers can recognise these two groovy classics. Anyways, lots of discussion and teamwork and we managed to put a show together, did about as well as I could do gluing tempos together between a lower section brass band drummer and an enthusiast dancer with a tambourine, off for a lie down and looking forward to a regular gig next weekend.

The gig with dep drummer went ok. Interesting using house pa but Nick used his desk to eq it out with white noise which was impressive. Often the Ex's doesn't start to fill up until 9 (the Alley being a rather sterile box with the lights on), but we had punters arriving from 8 which was a good sign. In the end it was rammed and our second set got much dancing. We used their lights plus ours so although pretty basic stuff it looked good in a Christmas Tree sort of way! Obviously a few Interesting endings etc with a dep, but aside from almost everything being a bit fast to groove well, it went really well. The band WhatsApp is buzzing after two really good gigs 😎 feels like we've caught our stride now. 20240914_204823.mp4

Played some punky ska at some seaside pub in Dawlish for a music festival. Went down really well. Backline was interesting, Orange guitar valve head into some Ashdown combo speaker and 2 x10”, actually worked well and sounded quite nice. Also the first outing for my 6.4lb Spector…no back ache today, hoorah!

I know one of their road crew well, and he indicated - in confidence- that Navarro had hidden Farrell’s Werthers. Not the first time hence the handbags

Second night out for new amp (full NAD thread to follow) and whereas the previous gig’s sound had been great, last night’s first set was plagued by a pronounced boom on the pitch of the D string. No amount of amp tweaking fixed it so in the break I had a look at the PA. 3 of the 4 vocal mic channels had some bass boost applied. I pointed this out to the BL (nice enough bloke but a PA dunce!) and set each one flat - problem solved. Seems they had been picking up my bass guitar and amplifying it, causing that one frequency to ‘ring’. I had done a 5-hour rehearsal that afternoon so I spent the rest of the night craving my bed. Think I’ll avoid that combo in future!

Played a pretty wicked venue in Southampton yesterday - Papillon. All day doom festival Abyssal fest, hosting some awesome bands and a great vibe all day. Performance was really enjoyable and seemed to go down pretty well. 10/10 fun.

Hello Maude, The US ones are awesome machines. I've got one of the two pickup ones (the Curbeck its called I think) and that has the same pickups as your one. The woodwork on these is phenomenal. I read somewhere that they were called 'the poor mans Alembic' because the workmanship was so good. I'll put a meter on pickup out of the Hondo and see if its still a thing. Incidentally, my Curbeck has been signed by Victor Wooten. Thats how it came to me and I don't know why or how, but its a nice thing.

The Spurs , our little mostly instrumental Mexican band did an outdoor last night on Agricola St. We set up in front of Carlo Auto Service , close to the street. They’ve been doing street gigs there for much of the summer. Perfect night , the weather cold not have been better and many of the passerby stopped to enjoy , wound up with a lovely crowd. Very strange but enjoyable night , it’s always a joy to play that material. Ended at nine pm , not late returning home. Bonus! edit to add live photo

So, *not* been caught stealing then?

First one in a while! 4 Play (still funny? 😳) at the riverside in Sutton bridge. 4 - 7pm so a nice time slot. Actually played well until the getard swapped axes… to one which WASN’T tuned down 1/2 step 😝. Thankfully I play five so I just shifted but what a nob! Good crowd, singing and dancing, landlord happy (pissed, but they normally are in the Fens). Home in time for antiques Roadshow!! As always, Fender Dimension USA V Into GK Rb700 and barefaced BB2. The amp is like “I know the output from your humbuckers is too hot and things are distorting but it sounds so damn nice please can I have some more of that?”. So I obliged. I’m dimly aware that there are “not humbuckers” available… meh. Not for me ta.

Rock and Roll 🙂 Rock and Roll.mp4

I shared the following update with my piano teacher - he has had me reading music (both bass and treble clef) on the piano. Nothing at all complex, but the discipline of reading the music has done me well. And, perhaps inevitably, working on one aspect of my musicianship has allowed me to do better elsewhere. That update: "Well, here's a surprise, for my bass playing. This morning's church service had us playing a hymn in F, with a key change in the last verse, to G. I was used to playing it in G, but not F. So this morning I printed it off in F, read and played along with a recording in F [perhaps 6 or 7 times, while eating breakfast]. When I got to church, I sight-read the whole song, 3 verses in F. Then did it once more, in G. I was amazed at myself, and I put it down to two things: the discipline of the piano lessons; And the fear of failure in front of the congregation!!!" My teacher replied, thusly: "No reason to be surprised. You are quite capable at doing this. Maybe you need to find some confidence in your ability. I am sure in my mind you will succeed and not too far in the future." So, what surprised me, did not surprise my piano teacher! I must say, it was very gratifying to be able to play from the music, more easily than from a chord chart. PS, the hymn was And Can It Be, one of those tunes that have a proper written bassline, including a ladies-and-men call and response.

All seemed very rock n roll until they apologised. w**kers 😆

Makes sense in a US-made bass but doesn't follow for the Far East. OEM DiMarzios were a big deal in Korean-made Hondos & numerous MIJ brands around 1980-ish - I have a Westbury Track 2 & Westbury Standard guitar both with their original DiMarzio pickups, and neither of which have any other DiMarzio electronic components. A tenner says original pots in a Hondo Curlee would be the Korean-made Jung-Poong (JP logo) units that pretty much every MIK guitar has. Anyway - done a bit of digging, & the fact the Hondo Curlee guitars had DiMarzios makes me 99.9% sure the bass does too:

Use of that phrase is now deprecated. I can read music... at a rate of about a note a minute. How does it go again? Oh yeah, Greedy Bstards Deserve Fsck All... I'll figure it out by Christmas, hopefully.

Take the feet off the elf and put taller ones on. Allows air too circulate underneath, runs much cooler. Cost about £2.

Having spent a bit of time now with the Z7-5... it's true! the little allen key for the saddle height adjustment is too small! But I've got lots of teh right ones. Action was a bit high out of teh box, but I brought it down quite a bit and no fretbuzz... this neck is very well made. The tuners are so smooth, a very pleasant surprise after the nighmare with the Ray35. Does it sound like a Stingray? On videos it can sound a lot like one, and I can too, but the preamp is quite different from the MusicMan one so it took me a bit of time, iterative trial and error... To me it sounds a lot like a Stingray with the pickup wired in series, but @neepheid mentioned that his Z7-4 was wired in parallel. I suppose that the voicing of the preamp could account for that. The neck is a thing of beauty, and those rolled edges feel great. The bass is 9.0 lbs, which for a 5-string is not bad at all, I'm happy with that Build, fit, finish... to me is definitely better than a Ray35 that cost a bit over twice what the Sire sells for. And I really like teh Ray35 despite weighing as much as a small galaxy (and sparkles as much ). Now, the knobs... both my passive tone and mid-sweep rings were a bit loose, but easy to tighten up. They're not the nices knobs but I don't hate them either. The passive tone control doesn't remove nearly enough treble so I'm likely to get a capacitor change, but I think it's by design as it seems to reduce treble and emphasise some high mids somewhat. Mids... I'm used to John East's mid-sweep modules. This one has the same function but the sweep is different, so my "hardwire" knob positions don't quite work, so I'll have to play more with it and find the sweet spots/ Bass... it's way too powerful! Turning up a bit was really noticeable. I'm thinking that this with an adjustable HPF could probably work together really well tightening the fat low end. A bit like that 'Pultec trick' in another thread. The Jazz neck pickup is a lot quieter than the MM but I'm sure I could get a much better balance by altering the pickup heights. However, I'm finding some tones that I am enjoying and I might just leave it. With a P/J or an J/MM I always view the humbucker as the main pickup, and the other being there to add to the sound but not really meant to be played on its own (by me, for my liking, other tastes exist ) so in that respect it works very well as it is. Turn down treble (both active and passive, these strings are bright), turn down a *bit* some higher mids, leave the bass alone, and using both pickups, with the balance just slightly towards the J... is a beautiful reggae tone, deep but retaining definition.

Last night it was a long trek to Llandovery for a pib gig on the first day of the sheep festival. The singer was picking me up with the pa but due to a local incident we left late on the 1 ½ hour journey, this meant only 30 minutes to set up, but the three other guys were already sorted which meant ok but no soundcheck. It was a half-timbered pub with about an inch of clearance above my head! No pogoing! I bet @Bluewine doesn't play nearly 800 year old venues very often! Pub was full and the audience was mostly older people and our very rock setlist went down well. We even had people singing along to War Pigs! One oddity was What is and What Should Never Be, which fades out gently and was met with stunned silence, very disconcerting. Yet three people came up and said how much they appreciated it! My first three-set gig, we played from eight to 11 with two 20 minute breaks. The last set was more dancy with "those songs" Dakota and Sex on Fire. Superstition went down very well too. A fair few new songs for us, Motorcycle Emptiness didn't get dancing but virtually the whole pub was singing along. Finished with Everlong as encore. We got free drinks on arrival, at the end the bar manager fetched us another free round, paid us more than the agreed fee and asked us to come back. Lots of good feedback from punters (also one said he'd come after seeing our Facebook page). So we were pretty pleased with how it went. Tonight a normal 2-set gig, with the drummer from my other band standing in. 😁

NBD just in time for my birthday next week. Here’s my first Fender. Got the American Vintage II 60s P. What an eye candy! Love it so much and loved it even more when I put on some La Bella 760FL. My first bass was a Squier Affinity Pbass when I started learning. Ended up going back at it. The Pure Vintage 60s pickup is amazing for my taste. Love the bottom end, nice warm mid-range tone and not to harsh for me. Here are some quick soundclips I've recorded through my focusrite. Pbass>Cali76 bass comp>Capo (Tone around 50-60%) Vultures: Vultures.wav Disco Yes: Disco Yes.wav Beautiful Daphne Blue P happy kid 13 yrs old me with my first bass on our first big gig @Dubai Original Music Festival

I know these divide opinion but i managed to get a good deal on it and 24 inch scale left handed guitars are very very rare, at least affordable ones are. It is so easy to play. It does rest nicely on a strap and is comfy to play sat down (even without contours).

We have an outdoor gig this afternoon, I will be using my practice gloves for this one.

A few thoughts on the new multistep for live use after some gigs with it - It's so easy to scroll through the different fx within a patch. I never felt like it was too tricky to hit the scroll buttons on stage, or to see what effect I was scrolling to. The tuner is great. Very low noise. I only really use the following effects live: The ztron filter is great - I actually prefer it to the analog filters I've been using live. The analog octaver is also good, especially after having low expectations reading some comments. Maybe it misses the last 5% mid-warmth of an actual analog pedal, but I really didn't miss that, especially when playing live. I don't think I'd have really noticed a difference if I hadn't done side-by-side comparisons with a couple of octavers when I received the Multistomp. Compressors seem OK - haven't played much with p compressors before, but on low settings these seem to add a nice bit of thump in an IEM mix. And as a bonus, load in now entirely fits in one hard-case, which has been weirdly satisfying. What a fantastic bit of kit. Given the the eq, reverb and mod available, it's amazing it's so cheap. HPF and LPF alone often cost as much, let alone a versatile eq pedal. My only nagging worry is the long-term reliability, but that's based purely on unearned cynicism towards digital fx - it seems more than rugged enough.

If weight is a problem get a separate head and cab.

Buy an old 80's hifi amp or receiver (anything from 2x20 W is good enough) and two used small hifi speakers. There's your cheap, quality sound.

Played at The Pheasant as part of Worcester Music Festival last night... We were told to bring minimum stuff as it's a long narrow venue, so I brought the ACG and Helix to go into the supplied Ashdown 600 and 2 Laney cabs. And I couldn't get any sort of clean sound! Whatever I did it was distorted, and not in a familiar Ashdown growl sort of way; with my usual BBE/Crown set up, or my Marshall Jubilee, I get an almost creamy but meaty slap sound until I hit the Helix drive button when it's growl-time. So after quite a while of fiddling with eq I discovered it sounded less-bad with Helix growl also engaged. And it sort of worked for a bit - 1st couple of songs, OK, then an old mate who'd come up from London especially to see us signalled I should be louder. I turned up a bit and it was too loud, and not only that but there was a horrible crackling every time I moved and was too loud - had to play extra-light-touch so as not to drown everyone out. So unplugged both ends while our singer did some bants, and all was absolutely fine. All sounded great - our drummer said afterwards how good the bass sound was. However, there was a decent crowd (100ish, which was pretty full - twas difficult getting our our bass player's cab out!), and I don't think any of them noticed my bass-centric woes as they stood there stroking their chins. Though my London mate jigged wildly, and there were some young folks (they exist!) also having a wiggle, which was nice. Not only that, but we were all collared individually on the way out and told never to come to Worcester again or there'd be trouble. And that they were looking forward to seeing us on 2nd November... No pix yet, but as most of the band are doing holiday stuff till then we do have our gardening leave photo.

Have they decided on the new member yet... or are they still making their minds up?

There is fast, then there is... saturday.mov Quick, go and purge those thoughts!

Gains Conviction 👍

A really great British session bass player passed away last week, the brilliant, 'Herbie Flowers'. Herbie played on so many session that even he couldn't remember them all! The bass lines that he's best known for are from 'Take A Walk On The Wild Side' and 'Space Oddity.’ Like lots of session players, Herbie Flowers wasn't really in the limelight, but he played right up to his death and was also heavily involved with education, helping to set up the music college, BIMM in Brighton, England. One of the albums that Herbie played on was, 'Tumbleweed Connection', a country album by Elton John that was released in 1970. His bass line from the song, 'Country Connection' is really great. It's so inventive and shows some of Herbie's Jazz influences in it. I set myself the task of transcribing and recording it in one day, which was a challenge. It's the type of bass line that I could really do with practicing for a few days to really nail the high melodic licks perfectly. So, here's my play-through video, warts and all. It's my tribute to Herbie Flowers. There’s a link under the video to my full transcription in notation and Tab. Enjoy!

A bit late on the topic but just in case anyone has the same problem. My MB started making a loud rattle at some frequencies back on a gig. This was about 15 years ago. Tried to fix it at the time to no avail. Up in the attic it went, into the section marked "crap". Time passes and I've learnt a bit more about fixing things in the intervening years. Decided yesterday to see it it could be saved. Trying it out, traced the rattle to the rear panel - it was vibrating, but it stopped if I applied pressure to the panel. Opened it up. Behind the speaker GK had mounted a rubber amp foot on a post screwed into the rear panel, topped off with silicone, presumably to deaden the vibes. This rested against the speaker magnet. The solution seemed to be that if I could increase the "push" of the speaker on the foot/post, it would transmit this to the rear panel and stiffen it with outward pressure so it wouldn't rattle. Off to Screwfix, got a rubber tap washer about 5mm thick to use as a shim between the speaker and the bracing post. Remounted the speaker,which obviously was now a much tighter fit. Plugged in and voila! No rattle. Job done, amp returned to service. If only I'd had the wit 15 years ago. Never mind, feeling very Moneysupermarket. PS pretty certain the silicone is useless - tried it back in the day, but being soft it did nothing.

That is supposedly Son Of A Preacher Man. I had to just use another transcription I found online for that one which lead to a minor iPad calamity swopping charts, but that ☝️is gobbledygook.

Zooming in to see the headstock, I noticed the name Paul Lemmon scrawled on something. Looking the name up, I found this: Looking at his home page, I see that he takes scraps of old crap and arranges them into things that are difficult to look at…