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The Harley Motor gig was fantastic. I was extremely happy with my playing and performance. We were clicking on all 6 cylinders Daryl

Coincidentally my lot had a gig at the Newmarket Harley Davidson place yesterday. They hold a 'birthday party' every year and we are lucky enough to have been invited to provide the live music for the last three years. We played well and are appreciated there by an albeit quiet crowd who are pretty much focussed on the bike stuff. That is the last gig we have in the diary for this year. That's me on the left checking my phone. I took a brace of Gibson shorties - having tossed a coin mentally I used the Les Paul Jnr DC for the gig and an SG as backup - and was wearing Red Back boots. Drummer Joe's picture.

Brit Club beer festival. Got some great British ales and Belgium beers in. These pics taking just as we set up, but did get about 200 people once it got going. Setting sun straight into stage area with everything, including us, getting really hot. Bizarrely fried my Aguilar tlc pedal which gave up the ghost. I put on 5 bands, I was in four of them. Made sure the last band was the one I wasn’t in so I could enjoy a few ales before having to pack up. Everyone played well, started off with chilled vibes playing the likes of Bill Withers, then Hendrix/blues, punk/new wave, a 80s/90s cover, and finally my mates metal band at the end. Oh, and used my new (to me) Zoom L20 for the FoH and monitoring and worked a treat. So easy to get a good sound. All told, a great day but after playing for four hours and a 12 hour day of setting up and packing everything away I’m having a very lazy day’s rest.

Our drunmer does AI for work. Wish now I hadn't done a silly one of him at his drums. This was his reply. 😳 😂

Last minute Bluesfire gig for the Ex's Club after a private party cancelled. For only a day's notice and against the boxing we had good numbers. Our normal sound guy (guitarist's dad) is in Indonesia so we used a club tops with one sub, and guitarist mixed using a huge Behringer desk. Sound was great. Apparently my bass sounded much better (usually I have to boost my rig as the PA is just muddy bottom end). A very good bass player I know turned up with mates on a stag night (the guy was wearing a Spice Girl union jack dress with very wayward rubber cleavage...) Soon became apparent at least three were bass players... no pressure! Drummer launched into The Hunter after instead of Walk in My Shadow. I confused Spoonful with Crossroads 🤣 We haven't played since January but somehow we hit that spot where the arrangements are loose but we sounded really tight. Lots of fun and do glad we got that gig in.

This stuff is all good fun but we’re ripping off the intellectual property of huge numbers of people doing this. ChatGPT aren’t paying to license this. Neither did they pay Studio Ghib for the manga stuff and a near limitless number of other things they’ve stolen. It’s fun and a I enjoy seeing the results, but ultimately, it’s theft, however the AI guys want to dress it up.

Queer punk gig last night in Edinburgh's Wee Red Bar with two other punk bands. Great atmos, plenty of people dancing, including one of my students from this Girls Rock School term. It was the first chance I'd had to make full use of my wireless rig - at its previous gig, I'd been literally backed into a corner at the Reivers Sports Bar in Galashiels with the 80s band. The stage is tiny and surrounded by railings, which meant that getting a six-piece band on was a very tight squeeze and once the bass player's on, she's staying there. But last night, I was able to wander out front and dance along with the audience. Big grins all round. We premiered a new song, too! And to cap it off, the headline band invited us over to Belfast. World tour! 😅 I took my trusty Sterling Stingray along and it acquitted itself very well through the venue's Peavey backline (I don't know the model - it was a combo with "Peavey' on the front) although it didn't have the clout that it does through my Eden rig. I had been thinking about adding my new sfx Thumpinator to my pedalboard, but then I remembered that fiddling with one's pedalboard just before a gig is officially Asking For It. I had a play with it today and it seems to work best when placed just after the wireless receiver / tuner. Next step is to see how it sounds in the studio as opposed to through a wee practice amp. No pics yet, as we're still waiting for the photographer to provide them, but we had a great time!

Oh bugger

Love mine - they're my main basses now for the punk band (shortscale makes me look a bit taller as well 😆😆)

A Bastion of Boss

I was in Glasgow this weekend, and as is customary a trip to the various guitar shops was in order. First visit was Merchant City Music. I'm OK with my Reverend Triad, but I gave a Squier Rascal a go. I'm not generally a fan of short scales, but the Rascal wasn't awful. What helps it is the geometry - the bridge being away from the body edge by a few inches moves fret 1 more into the position where I would expect it. But sonically I'm still not convinced that the Wide Range humbuckers are the pickups for me. Anyhoo, on to Guitarguitar. Tried a couple of Ashdowns - they were OK but the one with the single, central humbucker was a bit woofy sounding for my liking, and the bridge pickup on the PJ one was so noisy, it really put me off. Nice feeling necks, interesting looks, but again wasn't doing it for the old lugholes. Then I spotted a second hand bass on the wall, an example of which I had previously owned and sold, but in a more interesting finish than the one I had (which was white with plain black pickguard). I guess because G&L seem to be off the radar of most folk at the moment it was priced very keenly. In almost as new condition - the film hadn't been taken off the pickguard - the only blemish is a small finish chip at the bottom/back of the body. A quick razz with it, nostalgia kicked in and I caved. Does anyone like these shaggy dog stories? Or do you just want the pics? You know the drill with these - Split and single MFDs, two volume controls, that's it. I'm very happy to have an SB-2 again, that'll hopefully stave off any thoughts of getting an SB-1... Guess I should really sell something now

Pic from last night

Go on then, all this talk of 1100s', and as it's sat there looking at me after Thursdays rehearsal. 😁

Where did the teacup full of dry catfood come into it?

You can now upload a photo to Chat GPT and pompt it to generate an image based on that image including adding musical instruments and specifying the person in the image to be shown as a puppet. eg I uploaded a headshot and entered the prompt: So let's see your you as a muppet. Here's mine

The Harry Formally Known as Prince

AI Jaco only needed three strings, that's why.

LED Orchestra?

Transitioning Vamp

Yes, been there - not with your band leader, obviously 😀 - but in a pre-Covid band it became increasingly the case that a new (to us) song would appear in the set as the singer/guitarist uttered the classic "It's in 'C', follow me". Often it wasn't in 'C'. We realised after a few months that he was introducing songs from his solo set into our set. Shortly after, we all left him. 😂

Just Stop Midnight Oil

Oh very well. It was me all along!

How about starting a separate thread for the ethics of AI and keeping this one for the silly pics of BCers as puppets?

Perhaps the case if you are playing large stages where everything is routed through the FoH, but for jobs in average-sized bars, function rooms, etc, amps are very much alive.

Energy Saving Lightbulb Orchestra

Next up.... I'm not really a Jazz kinda guy, but I can forgiven them when they are sporting a maple fretless Precision neck. This combination works very well, neck and body seem to suit each other 👍

Very late to the party but yesterday an MJ5 arrived from Thomann, in vintage champagne- basically their version of shoreline gold. Some slight marks on the scratchplate and neck pickup but no issues with much else. It has the roasted maple fretboard- is the protector that comes it with strictly necessary? Gigged it twice already. Last night we had a tricky room to play in and I couldn’t really get a handle on the tone I’d set up, especially coming from a G&L ASAT which has been my mainstay for years, but tonight was much better. Sounds great, completely different flavour but enjoyed it. Also, much lighter and very well set up straight out the box. Got to get used to the pickup pan working the wrong way round and my fx patches are going to need a tweak, but it’ll be fun.

Besides the IP theft each query takes a tonne of energy to process. Like a Cummins diesel rolling coal compared to a lean euro6 for a regular search engine query.

Yeah it was great fun last week. Currently on tour in Germany with a different band. Also great fun.

Couple of gigs for me this weekend. Friday night I was with The Alligators blues band in Hornsea on the East Yorkshire coast. Gig was The Green Owl, a decent cafe bar more popular with locals than holidaymakers. Used my P-Lyte straight into the Rumble 500 combo which is now my go-to setup for this band. The Rumble is astonishing both tonally and volume wise - one of the best amps I’ve used. Anyway, the gig went well, with an appreciative audience for us - I’m the only band member not from the area so it’s nearly a complete hometown gig for us. Saturday saw the acoustic duo playing at a lovely big village hall in the Yorkshire wolds near Driffield. It was an early VE Day / late St George’s day bash! They hired a local fish and chip van for the catering (see pic) and by the time we started the hall was full. Some fairly normal requests, with no surprises so an easy gig really. 2x50 minute sets flew by, followed by a quick pack down as my guitarist mate was flying off to another gig, in Hornsea! I was home by 9pm so well happy - these late afternoon into early evening gigs suit me just fine, after decades of getting in at 2 or 3 am.

Platinumfrapp Big Brother and the Private Equity Investment Group The Men They Couldn’t Electronically Tag

This would be a Tier 1 fail, but it was an unsolicited gift from a good friend who will sadly never gig this again and when I visited him last week he insisted that I had it. Ashdown ABM C300-100 combo plus 15" extension cab. One of the very first made, they have a valve and transistor stage and you can blend them together. It's very loud even with just the combo on half volume, so I'll need to take it to church to test the cab plus extension. It's complete overkill to replace my practice amp, and as I play in church through a DI into the PA it won't get used there very often, but I couldn't turn it down as he really wanted me to have it. The EBS Session 60 is now up for sale in the marketplace here. I'll be good and not post a link!

Yes, they were.

Thanks for the encouragement folks and sorry for the slow response! It's arrived and it's glorious! I haven't played a Jack Casady model before, the impedance switch is really neat! Plenty of sonic variety between that and the volume/tone/playing style. ` Hardware feels solid and the pickup sounds really punchy. Plenty of thump and warmth, with great resonance, but very articulate still. The satin finish looks great and it has a lovely vintage vibe. The neck feels really nice and I think I'm slowly getting used to the lack of frets! It sounds just like I'd hoped a fretless would, and neat touch that it ships with Chromes. Thanks loads for all of the tips, the muscle memory's there, just need to keep playing to get confident. Here's a short vid giving a spin after unboxing it at the office, using some open notes to get around! Please excuse the very timid left-hand technique 😂 https://www.instagram.com/p/DIwu7DRqQif/ I'll get some proper photos up shortly! Cheers!

I’m with this ^ And this ^ Plus I’m so bored of web-based shit taking up our lives. Stop feeding the f***ing machine folks

Glitter Band - I'm the Leader of the Team Blondie - Ghosted on the Social Media Bee Gees - We All Win Again

I'm the OP - I bought mine back in 2023 before all you coat-tail riders came in

Those are some crackin‘ looking photos. What venue is that?

It’s not just images. It’s hoovering up all the content on the internet, including written content, music and images and regurgitating it. Plagiarism is, or should be, a moral outrage. We, as a society, are giving access of valuable material for free to tech companies who will then charge us to buy it back, repackaged and recontextualised. Mind you, this is the country where people will happily share their DNA with a company if they get some report that says they’re somehow related to a king etc. Anyone involved in the creative industries should hate and fear what AI is doing today - and could do in the future.

Don’t question my Sex or Gender Pistols

Uber Calloway

Quorn Loaf

Aurally Challenged Leppard

I read the title of this thread and my first thought was “Sounds like a good swap”. 😁

It is an RCF EVOX 8 system which has some sort of voodoo going on that prevents it feeding back (almost always) No idea what goes on but it works. I DI straight into the desk via an eq/drive pedal, turn my hearing aids down a few notches and that is my monitoring as well. It is a good pa, plenty of beans for outdoor gigs like this.

Hi Dave, Bass pre-amp straight into the PA. Works well for acoustic gigs. Daryl