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Better photos from Friday's gig:

My left hand, which I damaged in a horse accident in 2023, has regained a decent amount of mobility in the past year and my main issue nowadays is a degenerative neck condition (which could also have been hastened by aforementioned accident). So a long scale bass is now more comfortable for me (I have been using short scales almost exclusively) ... but it has to be super light. I spotted this Fender Traditional 60s P bass at FenderFever and it stated an amazing weight of 7.6 pounds. I asked them to double check and they confirmed. So I snaffled it and installed a DiMarzio DP122 creme pickup for the full Martyn P Casey of the Bad Seeds look. Very happy with it. No band at present but, when I get back in the saddle (obvs not a horse one), it should be very gig friendly.

My first ‘Ray. Been playing 30 years, always wanted one, only ever tried one full fat US model and a couple of SUBs. Landmark birthday in a couple of months so treated myself. 😊

Sod AI, I think someone's hacked into my home CCTV. 😬

Very, very sad to hear this news.. 😞 Such a talented musician with one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard in my life. Her performances and versions of 'Killing Me Softly' and 'First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' will never be equalled or bettered IMHO. RIP.

Some phone footage of our performance on Saturday...plenty of room for improvement, most obvious being lead vox too low in mix. Psychosapien.mp4

I finally pushed a bit at our seven piece swing band rehearsal last night. One of our members is a music teacher and we can use the music room in her school for rehearsals for free but we almost always leave things where they are in the room to avoid moving the drums. Lately that has had me (DB with my own amp) and the keys at the front of the room and the drummer about 30 feet away at the back of the room with the horns set up between us. It is a terrible way to set up and means that the rhythm section can't hear each other but last night I strongly suggested ( not normal for me) that we should make the effort to move things and it made a huge difference. We have been gigging for about 8 years together and this was the best rehearsal in a long time, when we gig we set up like this so it makes sense to rehearse that way. Glad I raised the issue and so was our guest vocalist who really liked that she could hear the band the way it would sound on a gig. I used to dread these rehearsals but I'm looking forward to next week and will make sure we will set up the same way. 😊

You all look so cool in your gig pics! Any pics of the bands I play in look like entertainment day at the old folks home and we are the residents! 🥴

Bought this German Metroline as just couldn't see past it. Absolutely wonderful instrument in every respect, it's a pure joy to play and is at the very least the equal of the Japanese Metro Modern 24 five string I owned previously. One thing is the fretboard doesn't seem as wide further up the neck as on the Metro and also the Metro Expresses which is something I like.

More concerning is the USA siding with Russia on a UN resolution. I still think we are at a crossroads with seismic shifts going on with geopolitical tensions. It was bad enough with the various right wing governments taking advantage of rising inflation and growing economic inequality but with the USA becoming increasingly authoritarian and isolationist it’s even more precious. John Simpson: 2025 could be year for the history books as Trump shreds global norms https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd0ng4eyr3xo

Sandberg VS-4 through GK MB200 and BarefacedTwo10.

Absolutely. Also, I find that either monochrome or a limited colour pallet helps immeasurably. The other secret .

Thanks. IME there are a number of things that go together to make good live band photos: A good photographer - which should go without saying. An interesting and appropriately lit stage space. Ideally the rest of the venue should be relatively dark compared with the area occupied by the performers Interesting looking band/artists. IMO there is no point getting up on stage to perform if you are not also going to give the audience something entertaining to watch. Otherwise you may as well stick to the recording studio. For me, live performance is as much about the visuals as it is about the music. When all those things come together the results are usually rewarding. Of course I only post the photos I think look good. There are probably an equal number of terrible phone shots of the band looking uninteresting also posted on Social Media. I just choose not to share those.

Hold on, Trump hasn't appointed the new Pope yet!

Some video from yesterday's gig... you can see I was having a lot of fun from about 1/3 of the way through! AQP05IXz-P74jtaQNnMx7cmbBMTK8Je-gpmm6FLmot0YeGxQhH9b9ChaicpHN82BWZfoy8w8tOWJ9LEqck62juxmlcuJfDDjdFLuu_nLJJm_SKkyOA.mp4

For what it's worth I was in The Bass Gallery in London earlier and tried a used Anaconda Ultra J5. I was quite taken with the bass itself more so than the tonal voicing but the brand has definitely grabbed my attention still. Played effortlessly.

Mine is a ‘72, the humbucker adds around a kilogram in weight to it 🤭

Yeh nerds 😂

I wish to apply for Nerd of the Month please. 🤣

I can't believe he couldn't get closer to his original bass sound if he wanted too, I can't get his original sound but I can get closer than he does these days, just listened to a live version of Hanging Around from the 'Feel It Live' album, my favourite bass sound on any record from Norvegicus, and it's a travesty

Our shipment has landed, and they are gorgeous!

You could have been really mischievous and caused all sorts of trouble for them by telling him to f**k off and slag his mum off. 😆

as I mentioned earlier, they've got their own sound guy, so to a large extent they get the sound they want, I know different venues have their own characteristics but a decent sound man should be able to cope. I once went to a festival about 15 years ago and the sound was awful all weekend, all thump thump bass drum, the Ruts came on and their sound was spot on, Segs Jennings' bass sounded awesome, I even messaged him about it and he confirmed they had their own sound guy

I was in a band that we abbreviated to FFS. After a few years, Franz Ferdinand and Sparks combined for a while, calling themselves.....FFS! There was no misunderstanding as to which version you were getting when we struck up on a Saturday night. However, our keyboard player did have to shave their moustache just in case (she really wasn't happy about it though.......)

Stranglers without that bass tone are not Stranglers, certainly not if they're doing tracks from the first three albums which I'm guessing they are, it would be like Rush without Geddy's voice... Venues seem to want all performers/performances to conform to this audio algorithm these days, to the point that I wonder if there's anxiety among venues that any deviation from the usual thump-gap-highs model will be seen by the vast majority of punters as poor quality sound; lets's not forget that the vast majority of under 30's have only experienced relatively poor quality sound in every application from domestic audio to large-scale venues......

Yes, that's great news for us Saturday folks. I've got a bit of a drive but am hoping to get there good & early. And this is great news too. I have been itching to get my hands on one of your instruments for years. Security! Eject this man from the forum!

Well, a very nice man from the basschat came around and played my Combustion to a standard I don't think it's ever been played before and bought it and took it away. I reached out to Bass Direct and begged them to plead with Dingwall to build my bass now I was without a fanned-fret bass and apparrently they felt sorry for me and are making the body this week. Hurray! The idea was I'd have it for Christmas but now I'll be happy with NBD before Easter!!!!

Played the venue part several years ago supporting Balaam and the Angel who had a rather Spinal Tap moment when after setting up their drum riser and drums the road crew realised that it was now too close to the venue's ceiling for there to be enough room for the cymbals!

As discussed in another thread, I have discovered another band had been using the same name as my recording project's band name, and although that other band has little digital footprint, they were using the name first, so I have decided to come up with a new name for my project. Thinking up good band names on demand is not easy, good ones tend to come in a flash of inspiration out of the blue when you're least expecting it. I have found a few existing band name generators online, but I have not been successful in finding a name that I like using any of them. I have now built my own band name generator, which I hope will work better. This generates two word, three syllable names — which is my preference at the moment as this format tends to give many of the best sounding names, - eg Aphex Twin, BadFinger, Black Sabbath, Bon Iver, Cocteau Twins, Deep Purple, Depeche Mode, Dirty Three, Fearless Flyers, Flaming Lips, Foo Fighters, Funk Brothers, Gentle Giant, GrinderMan, Honey Cone, Human League, Judas Priest, Killing Joke, King Harvest, Led Zeppelin, Low Anthem, Mars Volta, Matching Mole, Mazzy Star, Mink DeVille, Mountain Goats, New Order, NewYork Dolls, Nitzer Ebb, NineInch Nails, Primal Scream, SandPebbles, Sex Pistols, Shocking Blue, Small Faces, Soft Machine, Status Quo, SugarCubes, Taj Mahal, Thin Lizzy, Tin Machine, UK Subs, UnderTones, Van Halen, WaterBoys etc... The link to my generator is at the bottom of this post. Click the red button to generate a list of twenty-four suggestions for a band name and click the icon next to any name you like to copy to it the clipboard so you can paste it into your own document. I've just finished coding this and already have a few possible band names copied into a pages document just from testing it. If you are interested in how it works, you can view the page source to see the code and word lists. Everything is self-contained on the single page with zero external resources used. If anyone wants to contribute additional words I have left out, or finds any 'inappropriate' words please let me know and I'll make any changes needed when I update it. This has been designed to work on every modern device including phones and tablets, however I have only tested it on my apple kit so far. Link to the band name generator -> https://names.bandrocks.co.uk/

Mine -

I’m currently putting together a Precision with a Dimarzio DP145 (with series/parallel switching), and I’m rather excited 👍

Tommy The Cat - Primus

Tomorrow if I manage to get the photos ready

Achieved....just for the number of CD's alone! 🤣

I'm getting on great with mine, thanks. Some YouTubers would have you believe that's not possible... all that stuff about the sitting on the lap thing is utterly irrelevant to me because I play classical style when I'm sitting down (as in legs apart, bass goes in the space resting against my right thigh and the bottom of the body resting on my left leg, not the right). Used it live a few times and it's performed brilliantly. Neck is lovely as per Sire usual, generous roll on the fretboard edges so it feels smooth and very premium. Preamp is fine for me, and yes, I believe the neck pickup is noise cancelling (as in two coils side by side). As I've already mentioned, the only things I've done to mine is change the knobs (because I really disliked how lightweight and cheap the stock ones felt) and had a clear pickguard made for it to let more of that glorious burgundy (mist) colour through! RE: the pickup balance, I get what people are saying, except I don't find it's so pronounced on mine, perhaps pickup height might come into play? However, I've found there's a sweet spot on the pickup blend knob just past the detent favouring the neck pickup which sounds great. One final thing - you might not need extra long strings if you want to string through the body - the strings disappear up quite far into the body so you only need about an extra cm of speaking length on the string to carry it off. I used the stock D'addario XLs which came with the bass and re-strung it through the body and it made it over the nut before the taper kicked in.

The intro is the easy bit!!

A young Russell Crowe plays bass

Used the venue’s backline last night, never tried a Blackstar bass amp before but it sounded great! First time using IEMs too, made a big difference!

Why a tiny little fiddly thing that needs expensive parts? well this is it compared to a 1590a size pedal - slightly wider - untill you plug something in and here is it compared to a 125b side - think standard size for a walrus pedal so it can take up way less space than a larger pedal. I think if they had side jacks that clashed you could fit two of these in the space of a 1590b MXR size enclosure. That’s with EBS Gold cables too! the downside is fiddlyness more expensive parts and probably not being able to use just any patch lead!! That’s EBS gold cables and a Cioks power cable.

Oh yes it is 😉 I'd take that over a Fender.

In 40 years of using programmable multi-effects and synths I think I've only ever used a few factory presets which still needed adjusting to work in the context of what I wanted to do and I have never paid for any. Line6 recently shared Peter Hooks "Salford Rules" Helix Preset, and while it wasn't bad, I think I preferred the version of his sound that I had programmed myself. The Helix and HX series of devices are simple to program. Simply start with a blank Preset or if your device doesn't come with any pick one that you'll never use and wipe it. I spent half a day going through all the Presets that came with my Helix when I bought it and decided that none of them were remotely what I wanted to sound like. Then start adding modules as if you were populating a pedal board with pedals. Work on each one separately until it's producing a sound you like and then tweak them to produce the combined sound you want. You'll stillness a technical rehearsal or two with your band to fine tune everything, but other than that it's easy.

Bedford Esquires on Saturday with For The Hornets: Venue: We’ve played there about 6 years ago. I arrived early and started setting up on the exact spot as 6 years ago near-ish the bar. Barman: “Whoa, what do you think you are you doing?” Me (paraphrased): “I’m setting up. Now look here son, I’m not sure if this is your first day, but I’ve played here before, and this is where I set up” Barman: “Mate, this is the bar. You’re playing here….” He opens a door to a bustling live venue, already filling with punters. Turns out we hadn’t played there before… we’d played the BAR of the venue!!! Wow, that was embarrassing. Sound: Sound was incredible. As were the lights. Easy peasy sound check. Gear: I borrowed a Mesa Boogie Subway 4x10 cab – 1000w 4ohm. About £2ks worth. I want one. Promotor: ADK. Amazing promotor, they spam everywhere before the show. It was a great crowd. Additionally they have 4 GoPros set up around the stage and transfer you all of the footage, and the sound desk recording in the morning. Excellent touch. Last pic is a screenshot from the GoPro on my side of the stage!

Last nights ‘gig’ was an appearance at the Black Horse Sunday Sessions - a buskers night in Boldon Colliery that features guess artists and last night it was us! Lovely old pub that was packed with music lovers and performers, and really well run by two stalwarts of the local music scene up here in the north east, Paul ‘Big Red’ Randall & Paul ‘Chumsy’ Chambers. This is the second of such nights we’ve had the pleasure of playing and I’ve got to say I love them. For the gear heads I was playing my Boosey Hawkes Excelsior ‘Lilly’ through the rather marvellous EBS Stanley Clarke preamp and SushiBoxFX ‘Finally’ valve DI straight into the house PA. Sound was run by fellow bass man Paul Chambers who got me a great natural tone.

Lighting can make a band look bigger than they are. See the pic below. There were probably 5 people in the room. Daryl

Great gig at the Earl Haig with Bluesfire. Numbers a bit down but somewhere north of sixty, not bad for a £3 cover charge on a really foul day (westher warning - wind and yellow rain 🤣). The big room with a proper stage and lights, but the lighting and smoke meant we could hardly see the audience (they could see us). We had a good time, played Spoonful - it was in a film I watched on Friday night, under the influence of jack Daniels and hobgoblin, I suggested it. we hadn't ever played it before, but we managed to nail all the stops and it was nearer to Cream than Howlin' Wolf. Some dancing (we aren't dancy) and at the end one woman assured us we were the best blues band she's ever seen 😎 Plenty of compliments for Al's guitar playing. Nice to see a friend who's a pro level musician there... and he was telling my SO how important it is I buy a real Bongo not a Sterling one 🤣 Used the Sire P10 for the first set and AVII Precision for the second. Took a while to get a good sound with the sire. The P... just plug it in. Video screenshot 280 views already!

Enhanced pic from our gig on Saturday: Warwick star bass fretless > tuner> jhs pulp n peel comp> house peavey 300w 15" combo. Rattly, mid Focussed and loud enough on the small stage but pa support was massive adding the required weight for the ska and reggae set. Katana perched on top for the guitarist sounded good too.