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Last night with BLOCKBUSTARZ Glam band in Bishopton Social Club turned out a fantastic wee night. When we arrived we were quite taken aback by the size of the venue. It was small with only 8 tables seating around 40. It apparently holds 80. Manager said things have been slow but he was surprised at ticket sales being so poor. Anyways it didn't look too empty so we just went for it and the audience were up for every bit of it. This was THE best audience interaction we've ever experienced. Enough so that when the singer was introducing the band he mentioned it was my birthday and the audience erupted into a "happy birthday" to me. When he mentioned its the drummers next week they did the same all in great humour. For a laugh he said the guitarists was in 2 weeks and off they went again and then Lynn's birthday was May and off they went and finally our singer Mikey even got a "Happy Birthday" too because they thought he was missing out. The whole night was like this. Not a lot of dancing first set but when we came back 2nd set they had obviously been lubricated at the bar and were up from first song. When we joked about what song we were doing next they responded by cheers or disappointed "awe's" when we didn't do an Osmond ballad, but just a great fun night. One of the best nights i've had as far as audience participation goes. Great positive comments at the end of the night too. Had one guy come over at the end and asked if i was the bass player and when i confirmed yes he said it was the first time he'd seen a bass player play the proper Jean Genie bassline with all the runs and fills. He was a guitarist himself. Organiser told us we were the best band they'd ever had in the club and those that never showed will regret not being there, but we have been asked to come back with date to be confirmed. We even had the honour of the amazing DJ Celebrity in Scotland Mr Tom Russell in the audience and at the end he couldn't be any more complimentary. "Band was very tight, obviously well rehearsed and compared to other Glam bands i've seen, far superior." Our Sweet covers were superb but unlike tribute bands we were covering just about every Glam band. His mate has provisionally booked us for Jan 2026. When we asked about the venue and if PA and lights etc his reply was "i want you to replicate exactly what you have tonight" so i'm guessing he liked it 1 hour drive home so not too bad. Was home for 2am. Usual gear. Sandberg VM4 into Shure wireless, Keeley comp, Mesa TT800 and Mesa SW210/115 cabs, platform boots as standard. Dave Not from last night's gig but the boots can be seen.

I had two gigs yesterday, first one with the acoustic duo and then later with the blues trio ‘The Alligators’. The duo gig was a 21st birthday party for the daughter of a couple who had come to see us at my local boozer on Thursday. The venue was a large pub in a village just east of York, playing in a long room with about 50 guests of all ages. Lovely people to play for, and a set of requests that spanned the generations - ‘Strangers in the night’ and ‘Fly me to the moon’ through to ‘Fields of gold’ and ‘Watermelon sugar’. Played for nearly two hours with only a short break, finishing at 7pm. When the lady who booked us came to pay me she had also bought us a bottle of wine each too, such a nice gesture. I quickly packed down and set off to gig number two, some 30 miles away in Hornsea on the east coast. Venue was ‘The Green Owl’, a modern cafe bar in the town centre. We’d been booked to cover for a cancellation by another band so didn’t know what to expect. When I arrived it was heaving with people, but fortunately we had a good amount of room to set up. The band are quite loud so I need to wear earplugs which often compromises my sound. Strangely in this room it was fine and had my Rumble 500 combo set in just the right place to hear a nice balance of everything, along with my passive Precision Lyte. Two sets of largely unfamiliar blues stuff went down well with the punters, and we managed to get through ’The Hunter’ by Free / Albert King which was requested by a friend of our guitarist. The encore was for the landlady - she asked rather bizarrely for ‘ 2-4-6-8 motorway’ by Tom Robinson which we attempted by blagging the lyrics with prompts from her! Overall a great night, and we’re back at this venue in April. Got in around 1am, absolutely knackered. Quiet day to recover today.

An odd weekend - On Friday evening I went to a little studio in Nottingham and played for the first time with a similarly aged keyboard player and drummer on some original tracks (sort of funky jazz with a dance beat). It's always interesting creating baselines to go with other people's music. I was particularly pleased with one track where my line made the track sound quite Flecktones-esque. (Not that I'm comparing myself to Mr.Wooten!) I was all set for a quiet Saturday evening when an old school mate Drummer (can't believe it's 40 years ago!) asked me to go to a local reopening of a pub with his son and daughter in the band and do a guest spot. Nothing too challenging, but I did have to figure out Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" on the spot - never played this before!

The second of two gigs for the Dissidents and it was something of a mixed bag. On paper it was a rip roaring success but I must confess that I let the little things get to me, which I don’t normally do. A great start, in that my neighbour’s cat once again tried to come along. She’s a lovely little cat but I can’t see her making old bones - far too risk adverse. I managed to depart on my own and pick up the keyboard player. The venue was Tufnel Park’s Aces & Eights. The sound guy was great, the promoter was super friendly and we had sold out. Despite my fully charged wireless packing up during the first song, it was a great show. Relaxed, friendly vibe and we played well. I had a fair few old friends who I hadn’t seen for years come down and it rounded off what should have been a great night. The problem came around doing the merch store. We shifted 10 CDs, which is good going. However, I had one wannabe haggler, one drunk lady who inexplicably thought I was keeping money from the singer (it’s called being the sober sensible one!) and then one idiot who was actually really rude a couple of times to me. Being pragmatic, this doesn’t normally happen and the problem is clearly them, not me but it did kind of take the shine off of things. I am usually okay with idiots but I must confess that it definitely touched a nerve. I think going forward, we need to split working the merch more and I need to work out why my usually much thicker skin wasn’t so good on this occasion. Bizarre as I am letting a total of 2 minutes cloud what was an otherwise fantastic evening.

That's exactly what happened. I agreed to wait until after the next gig and take it from there. The band have been really understanding about it all. After the gig i realised how much i enjoyed it and decided it was better to stay with it. Band were over the moon about it and were not looking forward to searching for a replacement. As they said its not just about technical ability, its being a good fit for the band on a personal level too. I can't deny its a lot of fun, both on stage and off. Dave

2nd week in a row playing at Market House in Maidstone on Saturday (with a different band). Not quite as good as last week, it was quieter but picked up for the last hour and so ended well. Had to ditch the IEMs half way through and go back to my ear plugs. I think it was due to having to stand so near to the PA and these were drowning out the IEMs. I keep thinking about getting a Quad Cortex, but then talk myself out of it with gigs like last night with drinks getting spilt near the equipment. This venue has a good barrier between the crowd and band but still doesn’t stop the flying drinks! . I used the bare minimum equipment of bass & amp last night and I thought it sounded good. I just changed the drive setting on my amp for the heavier songs. ive next weekend off before 5 gigs in April.

I was back up in deepest darkest Northumberland in the Coquet valley with our acoustic Americana trio. Lovely old pub, very cramped but packed with locals and friends of the band, and a thoroughly enjoyable night. The drive to/from the gig was challenging due to the rain, flooded roads, and fog - thank the heavens for four wheel drive. This is the sort of gig this trio was created for, and last night didn’t disappoint. Oh and my double bass fumblings received praise from a couple of audience members who are also musicians, and we were rebooked for what will be our third gig there this year. Job done 😎

NBD! I have been longing for a more high-end instrument for a while, never really owned anything more expensive than £500 (that is my used Sterling shortie). I have considered various Fenders for a while, but then... things happened out there in this volatile world and I rather decided to buy something made this side of the pond for that price instead. I wanted to design my own Sandberg shortie, but there's like a 1-year wait time for manufacturing the custom design... Enter Thomann, who happened to sell EXACTLY the config I was after! Blue-burst, matte, short scale, black hardware, precision, passive! AND it was like £600 cheaper than if I do the very same custom config myself. Only thing I'm missing is the roasted neck, but hey you can't have everything. 😁 And the wait time was "only" 3-4 months, they estimated an early April delivery, so I reserved it and started saving up. "Unfortunately" it already became available in late February and got delivered since... Before I could sell the Sterling that was supposed to partially fund this. 😅 So it's here and I just can't get enough of it. I don't even know what's so good about it, it just works. Everything feels perfect to the touch, everything is consistent and controlled, the neck is just incredible. The setup is lovely, although I prefer a lower action, this somewhat higher one still works for me... so for now I keep using what the experts decided on. They plek these things, and it shows and feels! While I always believed "an electronic instrument has a feel too that effects your playing", I never really experienced this myself until now, even though I have briefly tried expensive basses before. Seems like something in this Sandberg really connected with me. 😄 People say this feel is (at least partly) due to body resonance. I am not sure that's true in this case, I would say the Sterling is a more resonant bass, it resonates to a level that actually starts to bother me. It's more like the overall, smooth and close to perfect feel for me in this case. It's got a very very bright, modern P sound, so I sometimes have to roll down the tone a bit, which is very unusual for me. Planning to put some flats on later. The passive pickups are ridiculously loud. I got a VU meter in my compressor which shows the incredible volume difference compared to my passive EMGs in the Ibanez. It's almost like an active pickup. My pedals react completely differently due to the volume being that much louder (like a touch-sensitive Prunes and Custard). Previously my Ibanez and Sterling could run with relatively the same pedal settings to get to a similar sound, but I need a complete redial for the Sandberg! 🤯 The only ❓ in the whole package is that weird, overcomplicated Sandberg bridge. I am already dreading a bit when I decide to lower the action... 😅 Now I just need to sell the Sterling, that's still available 😅

Nice event, however not a great gig for me. It was very loud and I couldn't hear our guitarists. I'd been practicing all week and I had a bad night. Hopefully I'll be better next weekend. I've attached a few pics. Daryl

I had exactly the same experience with a band I was in. Often there'd be a request after he'd asked, and he wouldn't (or more likely couldn't) play it which made things worse. His arrangements of songs we played regularly were based on whim and his response when we spoke to him about it was along the lines of 'I don't care because it's you that look bad, not me', usually with an annoying laugh. We dropped him in it one night when he decided in the van on the way to the gig to change the set order so that he could start 'Knocking on Heaven's Door' solo on stage. The rest of the band were expected to join him after the first verse and chorus. We waited in the wings as he began far too fast. We could see the inevitable approaching, and his 'Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door' in the chorus was delivered staccato about four or five times faster that even Axl Rose could manage. We waited for him to finish the whole song, giggling like schoolkids, so the bemused looks from the audience were his alone, and then joined him. We all left him en mass after he started a rehearsal session with a white board showing how much better we could be if we followed his 'masterplan'. 🤣

A ‘charridy’ job for the Glam lads last night supporting Leukaemia and bowel cancer charities. We were asked to finish the night off but for various reasons we asked to be penultimate. Didn’t get a sound check as time was tight and we were rushed on….consequently I struggled the first few songs as there was no backfill or monitoring on my side of the stage….still the show went on and apparently it sounded fine out front. A fairly full gig list until the end of May now…onwards and upwards.

Last night it was the Bendricks Rock gig at the Earl Haig. We had a good one. A venue where people know their music and expect good bands. Not quite rammed (apparentlyfor my brother's band lastweekbthey had to tske allthe rables out!... they arecrhulars though and this was our first time). Even so it was pretty full. Loads of banter, dancing and vocal appreciation. Lead guitarist switched off instead of standby on his valve amp so when he switched on for encores the fuse blew. We only realised after starting superstition so it was a bitof an improvised jam. My Joyo XVI helped thicken up the sound. We'd forgotten a vocal monitor so the rhythm guitarist's spare, a snall peavey, was used. We pressed it into service for our final song. As well as very happy punters and venue, we got some nice comments from a fellow bassist as well as a couple of local guitar legends. We left very happy that the recent sequence of gigs has done a lot to establish a fan base for us.

I'm thrilled to share my 1,000th free transcription, featuring Herbie Hancock's masterpiece "Just around the corner" with Freddie Washington's stellar bass performance. Herbie Hancock - Just around the corner | Freddie Washington

I used to be in a club band where the singer would ask if there were any requests, much to the despair of the rest of us. He would also ask if anyone wanted to have a sing, causing additional despair. And we had to be pretty alert when playing, because he was liable to rearrange a song on the fly, or randomly come in after seven bars on what should have been a 12 bar solo.

1994 LPB-2 Deluxe in Heritage Cherry Got some Gibson Speed Knobs on it…sounds very un-Gibson with Bartolini Humbuckers and TCT preamp. Like a very angry stingray…but can do a nice modern clean hi-fi set of sounds too. Lives on a low slung strap now. Ace.

Well, to answer my own question, I tried the 3 they had at Wunjo’s in Denmark St yesterday, and walked out with one. I was very impressed, sounded beautiful, and the weight, feel, sound and build quality were very consistent between the three. Also a shout out to the excellent and patient service at Wunjo, even on a busy saturday. They currently have the Casady fretless at £649, which is cheaper than anywhere else I can see.

Lovely, gotta admit that the Lionel is my favourite gigging bass. In terms of shorties the Ray and Lionel is a combo that’s difficult to beat…..great minds think alike (fools seldom differ?).

Can I play? ..my Trace rig:

The originals band is intended to perform the BL's songs live, while he records them solo and gets a production job done on them. Last night's gig was to promote his first single. We were at The Yard, Coventry's premier LGBTQ+ venue (according to their website). The drummer is also a sound engineer and had just taken delivery of 90% of his PA system, the FOH tops and subs being the missing components, so I brought my Alto TS408s and we used those for monitors and his DB Technology wedges for FOH. All set up and ready to go with Robert having a little tinkle. I was playing a Sei Original 5-string fretless through a Zoom MS-60B into a Tecamp Puma 900 and GR Bass AT212 cab, footwear was a pair of unbranded slip-on memory foam trainers, Ebay item 185202385506. I made a couple of cockups but it all went well, we got a very good reception.

Lots of progress in the last several days. The "raw" pics are after final sanding & right before prep for finish - and the "finished" pics are after the first coat of oil finish. I chose to go with a satin finish as opposed to heavy gloss. The oil finish really makes the grain in the maple and walnut pop.... The pickup pictures are the "molds" that Mark & team use for the pickup covers.

Newest member of the family. Ibanez AGB200

That's a great review BBS. My Sandy story is pretty much the same as yours. I agree that these great basses just immediately feel 'right', kind of like they're made to measure rather than off the peg. As you say, much of that must be down to the Plek'd neck. I'm on my second one now after selling the exact same bass you've just bought, immediately regretting it, and buying the gorgeous Cali II SL TM as pictured below. Just like you did, I had designed my perfect bass on the Sandy configurator, choked over the cost and the 12-month wait, then found that Thomann had a much cheaper one in stock with everything I wanted - except for the roasted maple neck!! First thing I did was to fit my fave La Bella flats, decide that a slightly lower action would probably suit me better, note the complexity of the bridge - and put the job on the back burner 🙂. Luckily, when I drop-tuned to Eb to suit the band I was in, everything felt spot on so I stuck with the original set-up. Now I'm back to standard tuning though, I probably will lower the action a bit. I've also been considering a pick-up swap to the superb Aguilars that are OE on my Vox Starstream but not sure it's worth throwing over £400 at what's already such a good bass. If I ever did sell it, I wouldn't get the money back.

Wish I had your level of versatility Pete…..I go ashen when someone requests Sinatra at a jam night 😂

Had to build a pedalboard for a new fretted bass project so this is the current iteration. Super simple, just tuner, octave, compressor and preamp/di with a passive Fender Precision. May not settle on these pedals as they are stolen from my main fretless board but the tuner and octave will stay. The Ampeg optical compressor is great with a fretless but I may give a Cali76 a go and see what I prefer with each setup unless I can find a better compressor for the fretted board. A Laney Digbeth preamp is on the cards which I think might sound nice with a fretless so the Samsamp may also stay on this fretted board.

Blues/Hendrix band last night. We had a guitarist friend come up from Karachi for the weekend so we did an impromptu gig. Only a days notice to advertise it but our loyal band of blues fans turned out and it was a great atmosphere. Even had our main guitarist playing his strat behind his head during voodoo. Just need to get him to set fire to his guitar now for the authentic experience!

First two of four gigs for me this week. Tuesday afternoon I played with our duo at a ‘retirement village’ near Hull, the first time we’ve done anything like this. It is a purpose built complex for people 55 and over, with many facilities on site. They have a monthly lunch in an Italian restaurant that features varied sorts of musical entertainment. The guy who booked us saw my guitarist mate playing in a jazz club a few years ago, so we weren’t sure if it was that sort of stuff they wanted to hear. Fortunately ( for me in particular!) they were after us doing our requests thing, and did we get some varied ones - from Django Reinhardt, Tom Waits and James Taylor through to Deep Purple and Led Zep! Always try not to underestimate audiences like this, so we’re mostly ready for them now. The gig went well, with a nice meal before we started too. We’ve been offered another gig later in the year, and the restaurant manager wants us for a private booking in summer so all good. Thursday evening we played at my local pub just down the road. Again, request night format with a fair spread of stuff. Some wag asked for ‘Sir Duke’ and we duly obliged - glad I hadn’t availed myself of the free beers on offer before that one. As we were packing down we got offered a gig for this afternoon at a 21st birthday party near York. We’ve accepted it, but I will have to get on a flyer afterwards as I have a gig with the blues band straight afterwards at Hornsea over on the east coast. Been a while since I’ve done two gigs in one day, so hope my fingers last out.

Sometimes things just hit a nerve, somehow, i think, and there's no real understanding of why. Hope this unpleasantness is a one-off and that you're back in the swing of things for your next gig.

We played that one before you came in OR we'll be doing that in set 4. Dave

Requests? Aye, if we've got it, you can have it, we're not an effing jukebox!

Great review BBS. I know some change out the pups to something more old school, to be honest I quite like the extra bite and have no intention of doing a swap out. My Lionel is alder with a rosewood fb so there might be some slight tonal differences. Do change the Sandberg strings I found them harsh on mine and got rid quickly, it’s wearing EB hybrid slinkies Shortscale no (50-105) which seem to suit it. The bridge isn’t too tough, and one positive certainly with mine is once I’d set the action nothing has moved in 6 months. If you can afford to keep the Ray and it’s a good one, I would, it’s always good to have a different tone I tend to alternate gigs with my 2.

By pure chance, I played through an Ashdown Original Evo combo yesterday in Andertons whilst testing out 3 Fender Precision basses, an American Professional, an American Performer and the Vintera Telecaster bass. I'd never seen this little combo before but it sounded phenomenal. I've always loved Ashdown stuff but tended to favour much small class D heads for convenience but everytime I've used them, they've given me a sound I've loved. I'm now super tempted to give the Ashdown Original Evo 300 head a go which is the same little head in this combo. As for the 3 basses, they also played brilliantly but all very different. The American Professional sounded good and played really nicely but didn't grab me as much as the American Performer which sounded amazing. It had this growl and bite that made it super exciting to play and I loved the neck. The only negative was the bridge pickup sounded a bit thin on it's own but combined with the split coils pickups and it sounded fantastic. The Telecaster bass I simply loved, it could be fat and warm to fat and punchy and it was very musical. The gloss neck was beautiful but perhaps a little chunky but still very playable. I'd be very happy with all 3 basses but I came away wanting the Telecaster bass the most.

Whatever else I am, I have never been accused of being fast before! I did one of the Ancestry DNA tests once. Meet grandad.

I feel it's important to ask at this point... When Charlie played the gig... did he use UK subs? I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

Weird one last night with Nine Lives at the Balaclava in Fraserburgh. When we went in, the place was reasonably busy. Started off OK, but then it went through waves of being busy then dead, then busy again, like groups of people were coming in for a couple of drinks then bogging off, but repeatedly. Very strange! Also a drunk guy who was shouting very loud "encouragement" at us, including one time when he yelled out "YEAH, BABY!" which sounded like he was possessed by Austin Powers which nearly had me corpsing. At the end we were playing to one table of folks who came in super late, like 2 songs before the end. They were enthusiastic, so we played a couple of extra songs for them, and even had one of them up with us for a sing song (because you can have fun like that when it's quiet). On the plus side, we added three new songs to the setlist and they all went pretty well, both in the playing and in the audience reaction, so that's good. As for gear, it was the double, triple threat of the Reverend Triad followed by the Greco LGB-700 into the usual Markbass toan cubes. Sorry, shoe fetishists, no footwear pic, but it was a pair of slip on Vans in a red/white gingham pattern.

With thanks to my electronics mate we spent the afternoon flipping speakers: The 4x10 has now been disembowled awaiting it's fate as a piece of furniture, while the 1015H now has three new (to it) genuine TE branded Celestions and is back to sounding awesome! The other two Celestion 10s will be going into the 2103x to get it back up to its original glory, but we need to get a new attenuator built first.

Thanks for the positive comments folks, much appreciated, here's one last song. The previous two are played fingerstyle - on this I song I do an imitation plec thing with my forefinger and thumb - it means I can go between both sounds whenever required without picking up an actual plectrum. Deacon Blue, Dignity. Deeks Unionist - Dignity.mp3

Hey all! Thank you for the replies - I looked into each recommendation. We have decided to buy a kit, cymbals and bass amp, and store them at a friend's house in Brussels for future trips. So all good!

Quite a few have made the mistake of thinking because it looks a bit like a P it’ll sound like one. I’ve never been too keen on the P bass sound on stage and prefer a hotter set up (hence my other basses being EBMM and Status) so I appreciate the more aggressive take in the Lionel.

This is the sort of band that makes it worth getting spruced up for a night out. Keep up the good work all ye.