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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.

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!

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.

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.

A Bastion of Boss

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

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.

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

Oh bugger

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

LED 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 👍

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. 😂

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.

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.

Quorn Loaf

Energy Saving Lightbulb Orchestra

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

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

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

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

Oh very well. It was me all along!

I taught guitar in schools for many years. Here's a few thoughts you may want to bear in mind Dunno about recent changes that might have taken place, but county music services used not to like working with kids under 7. That said, if the student is keen and the teacher/parent is prepared to put in the work (and be patient - a quality you will need in spades), I don't see why not. Just a few pointers if I may: 1. Start small - as in 1/4 size guitars. There's no point in giving her a guitar with a neck she can't get her fingers round, as it will likely kill her enthusiasm stone dead. 2. I would suggest nylon strung at this stage. (tbh I'm not sure you can even buy a 1/4 electric, and even if you can, chances are it'll be poor quality. Most small electrics I've come across have been absolute rubbish.) Then again, times have changed since I last taught, so things may have improved. 3. You'll need plenty of patience (did I say that already?). When you've been playing most of your life, it's very easy to forget that at 5, everything is new. Early progress is likely to be slow and painstaking, and most of the bad playing habits I've had to try and sort out over the years had been acquired early on. 4. If she can maintain interest, you might want to start looking for a tutor after a few months. As I said, a lot of tutors don't work with really young kids, but if you can find a good one who does, that would be worth considering. As always in such matters, this is all just my opinion based on my years of experience. Feel free to ignore any or all of it.

Don’t question my Sex or Gender Pistols

Uber Calloway

Transitioning Vamp

They're very good pickups. There are some things to be aware of. You have to get the route lowered as they're deeper than normal MM pickups. Secondly, and I've no idea if Martin has addressed this as I bought the pickups 2 years ago. I had to wait a long time for the neck as I was one of the first to order one. The channels where you would put the screws instead of being straight up and down were flaring out from the body of the pickup. So I had to have them filed so they'd be able to be properly adjusted. Were you to order from him, I'd ask if he's sorted that issue out. He seemed to be aware of it when I asked, so I'm assuming it's been rectified by now and he's very good to deal with. Sonically, they're excellent and work very well with the Lusithand filters. Plus, having bought a fair amount of stuff from Nuno, I can tell you not only does he really know his stuff, he's also a very good guy as well. In the video I'm playing through a sansamp psa 1.1 into a Vanderkley 2x12. Both pickups are equal and the filters are not even the full way open, nor are they pulled.

What PA do you use Paul, and are you DI’d straight into it with your bass? Am curious as to how it sounds with the system behind the band, looks interesting!

Gotta love a Gibson LP DC bass 😉🤘😎

Looks brilliant Daryl. Would love to have made the trip to see the HD Museum. One small point tho when playing that particular venue its "firing on all 2 cylinders" Dave

Which one's the muppet?

I was just listening to Fugazi today too, what an awesome band and Joe is an underrated bass player, love his lines. Add Break to your list, top tune.

I've got a bitsa bass I made with Herrick multicoils, lusithand preamp and a Klos graphite neck. Happy to say it sounds amazing. I'm just messing around here, but if you're interested. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DI4jCnQCDyb/?igsh=ZzgwNW5reDlzNXl5

I neglected to mention that the band in Brooklyn also prioritizes drinking and smoking at rehearsals…. a further nuisance. The rehearsal actually went quite well. We have a new drummer (better than the last and an old friend of mine with whom I’ve played many shows) and that put the rest of the band on their best behaviour. There was no drinking and only one smoke break. It’s f’in amazing how much more productive a rehearsal can be when everyone is sober and paying attention! I still smelled like cigarettes when I got home but it was better than usual. I’ve known these guys for years and shared bills with them when I played in other bands. I’m fairly new to the group and the drummer just joined but we sound tighter than I remember them sounding in a long time. I think the 3rd will be a good show. I played the Ric, as planned, and plugged straight into the PA as the bass amp in the room wasn’t working. Shockingly, the PA did a pretty respectable job of amplifying the bass so it wasn’t a struggle. The Ric still feels weird. I have a week to get re-acclimated.

Warrior - Wishbone Ash

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.

I'd start with Repeater then 13 Songs

2 answers bb414 soloking

EMG Pickups in a Bartolini shell! Finally! Wow those Tobias Basses are gonna get a nice upgrade “EMG suggests the E4W pickups are a wide aperture big fat single coil type pickup..”

Stub, The Harley Motor can be hit or miss. If there's a big event in Milwaukee there's usually a nice crowd. The Motor and The Harley Museum is mainly for tourists. Daryl

....although what I will tell you is that it is a Warmoth Precision that is so ludicrously underweight that it has a contract with a Paris model agency for the Autumn catwalk season

Mark