WalMan

Early evening set at Gosport Waterfront Festival on Sunday. The set we’d worked up to bang through to hit the time slot with minimal gaps worked well and finished bang on. No IEM’s and a quick line & level check meant relying on the stage monitors, but with a great sound and backstage team running everything efficiently it wasn’t too much of an issue. Considerably more space than usual and we tried to move around and not be rooted the the spot which went ok - I should probably have used my radio but haven’t for a while now so went with what I know and a lead which was fine. Though the joys of open air and I managed to inhale a fly at one point taking a gulp for BV’s 😳🤮 Genz Benz Streamliner and a BigBaby2 (which was followed onstage by a Big Twin that was sounding nice 👌). Having messed with the settings on the Darkglass in the ‘situation’ at soundcheck on Friday I stuck with what had worked then and I think it was ok out front. Reaction was good and a lot of positive comments followed on Facebook, though I really need to get back in the treadmill based on the photographic evidence!!🫣🤣 A couple of videos that have shown up on FB so far that may, or may not, work : Maniac Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting And so after a couple of days as a weekend warrior ’rock star’ in a couple of hours I have to get up and go back to the humdrum of the day job 😢

Fun night in Bognor at the Hothampton Arms. Great venue with punters up for a good time which always helps. Lots of singing and dancing, but man alive it was hot and airless on stage, thought I was going over at one point. Powered up ready for sound check and the bass was sounding choked and distorted. Tinkered with settings on the Darkglass. Swapped to the Streamliner that I always have set up as a spare (not needed it to date) but no change. Bypassed the pedalboard and all was fine so it was something there but time was getting on so just went for it straight in and without IEM’s which wasn’t great but got us ready and I could check everything on the board again - turned out the compressor control on the SkarBassOne had turned right up. Putting it back to 12 o’clock sorted the problem but I carried on with the Streamliner, which I haven’t fired up for a while. Still sounds great. I love the SkarBassOne pedal, but my one critique would be that pointer on the controls is a notch on an aluminium knob that is impossible to see on stage, or maybe it’s my eyesight as I don’t have that issue with the Origin DCXBass. Part of the second set was a run through live of our set for Gosport Waterfront Festival tomorrow afternoon and seemed to run ok. Another run out for the three new songs which all seem to work well. Still need to sort the harmony lines for all three of us for the middle of the solo in Hold The Line but it still works as a slightly heavier cover minus keyboards running similar to the Who On Earth version. The sets are running well now as well. Keeping chat between songs to a minimum and banging through is great for keeping the atmosphere up, but a nightmare for taking on fluids. The first set had minimal gaps to get to the water. Second set at least had a couple of songs where I don’t come in straightaway and could neck a pint of water. Had a good chat with another member here beforehand but forgot to get his name/handle 🤦‍♂️

Hope I can make it if/when sorted but I shall probably not be able to make it due to an operation on my left ankle in September so I’ll likely not be able to drive

Saturday I was “Anchor Face” Al on the good ship Punk 🤪 All good fun. One rehearsal and a couple of rough play thoughs at home and I remembered/managed to busk through it all watching the guitarist’s hand and catching up quickly when a song completely escaped me. Old skool rig: Hartke LH500 into a pair of BigBaby’s, tuner in the loop and an Origin DCXBass for an extra kick when required, battered FPPR Status S1 that has seen many SEBB’s. I nearly only used one BB then remembered (a) it’s punk; and (b) the band I was depping for has a drummer who really lays in so went the whole hog. Sounded flipping marvellous where I was 😁 I’m not normally allowed to be such an hooligan and ‘twas fun 🤩

Gig with the main band in Fareham yesterday (Friday). A bit quiet to start with but picked up towards the end when the hen party reached peak inebriation - had to step over the bride being comforted and filled with water while sat on the pavement outside on load out. Tonight (Saturday) I am being a Punk Pirate 😁

Big Big Train at the tour warm-up in Eastleigh on 16 September and then Moon Safari at Trading Boundaries in November

Had a rehearsal / run through with the punk band I have a dep for next week. Was (tongue in cheek) accused of being professional because I’d listened to the songs and had a rough idea how they went 🤣 All good clean fun and ran through two sets. Man alive it was loud 😱 I should use my earplugs more often but regularly forego as levels are manageable with most that I work with, but I was glad I had them this time and wished I could find my original stronger plugs at times!!!

Monday was good as it was a run through with our old drummer and my buddy in rhythm of 40 years. We’re like an old married couple and work off each other with a nod - it has long been alleged that we share the same brain when playing 😁 Last night was a run through with keys and guitar for Friday’s dep (drummer delayed return from hols and 🤷‍♂️re the girl vocalists). No great problem as we just ran the basics - tops, tails and odd arrangements or key changes - and got my IEM’s connected to the desk and a working mix running with the Soundcraft ui as I couldn’t get Mixing Station to work with the stage box for some reason.

I watched this auction when it popped up on my auction watch on iBidder. A few things looked interesting and I considered the PJB but it all rushed off to more than I wanted to pay, particularly bearing in mind the additions for buyers fees.

years ago my partner in crime in the rhythm section had a set of sound edge hihats and a “knowledgeable” drummer punter told him “I had a set that went like that and I sent them back and got them replaced “ 🤦🏼‍♂️ Worse. Barefoot shoes but comfortable 😁 Post Covid one of the venues we do went to a lower flat fee and bucket and it has actually worked better for us. One of the barmaids circulates with said bucket and I believe a contactless machine early in the second set when punters are suitably oiled and enjoying themselves, not utterly bladdered. As I say we’ve been better off generally on this basis with the only potential issue being we have no audit over the bucket and accept what comes our way. That’s always a round number, which could feasibly have been rounded up from bar take, but I know of a number of bands who have come away from a busy night with less and feeling shortchanged. Maybe we’re all just too polite as Brits to push back

Played Kingsfest in Emsworth on Saturday for a British Heart Foundation benefit. late afternoon/early evening set that went well. Lots of singing along and a pretty tight set as planned. No IEM’s which would have been nice but stage sound and monitors were ok and good practice for the Gosport Waterfront Festival next month where we’ll also be reliant on stage monitors and no IEM’s for me which is annoying because I’ve got used to them now and miss them. Guitarist started the second half of Final Countdown where he does the horn part a semitone flat and I had to nudge him. Noticeable on a recording/video but most likely gone in the moment live

Slightly sad but true, and there's only so many venues that I know of where the punters are for whatever you throw at them We still operate to a one man veto that can frustrate at times, but have managed a set of covers that seem to work, particularly the second set now. To think that 15 years ago we used to end sets with "White Punks on Dope" that used to go a storm (once punters were educated in the joys of The Tubes ) and 30 years ago we were doing many of the same venues with only a cover in the encore and otherwise originals throughout.

eXTC at The Factory this coming Thursday

Keep at it. Baby steps and do all your physio! My smashed right shoulder 21 years age knitted, and the replacement of the left a couple of years later is still in and working, so it can be done and all the best.

As we're mainly pub sized gigs, generally not huge, there's a bass drum mic but nothing else. I picked up an inexpensive boundary mic from Studiospares and chuck that on the floor behind the bassdrum and under the snare & hihat and have that as a simple ambient purely for my IEM's which works fine for me - and better than fannying around finding somewhere to site the Zoom H6 to do the same thing.

Having got used to running IEM's I now find that I miss them when I don't use them. Did a dep last week in a smallish room but I was right on top of the bass amp and the sound where I was was not great. Spent the whole evening wishing I'd just taken an aux from their xAir and run a quick mix. Saturday nights gig with my main band was again a smallish room and I thought "it'll be OK I won't bother it's too much faff". I was stuck in a corner with the guitars the other side of the kit and PA a way in front of me. Got to the break and set up a long cable to my side of the stage to go into the Behringer P2. didn't bother setting up the ambient mic and ran one plug in and the other out. Even like that things were so much better!! I could hear everything and BV's were less of a struggle

Saturday night was a wedding, very definitely NOT our usual gig as a rock covers band but the couple had come to see us and knew what they were getting. A cross section of ages but we’re old, so… Got in and set up. Not a huge room and I was worried that it would get loud. Thankfully it stayed under reasonable control and sound was sorted reasonably quickly with no sound check. The good thing was it wasn’t just the bride and groom getting into it and we had a good to excellent response all night. Lots if dancing and singing and ended up running over with a number of ‘encores’. singer from one of my function deps was effusive about our vocalist and how tight it all was, which was nice. Also funny to watch a couple of younger guys in their glad rags stood mouths agape at the widdly harmony guitar solo in Final Countdown 🤣

We often play Chase the Key so I have to be used to learning the shapes and moving

I am lucky that have a pretty good ear so I tend to find the song(s) on Spotify, start out noodling along and work up to a fair approximation. If it’s a well known song that I’ve heard a fair bit over the years I can normally hit a reasonable basic version reasonably quickly before digging in a bit deeper. For last minute deps I’ll usually check out @tomread of this parish https://www.tomreadbass.co.uk/transcriptions to see if he’s done the dots and chuck a beer in his direction. A scan through YouTube for possible hints on awkward bits - though very often what I find is someone else’s approximation and disagree with it 🤣 but it can be a way in. Had to workout View To A Kill recently and the bass on the version I was working was indistinct in places, then I found John Taylor’s lockdown walk through and realised part of the problem was he uses echo in the verses. Still it gave me some quick pointers. When I’m working through a deplist I promise myself that I’ll write down the structure and some hints … and then always end up with a noodle followed by “ok that’s not too taxing” 🤦‍♂️. Last week was a couple of nights on the sofa with a bass on my knee, plugged into the BassRevolt with Spotify on the aux in doing a brush up for a couple of deps on headphones while wifey watched the footie. For prog stuff I’ll go with the play along and find dots if I can - Firth of Fifth was 12 pages across the rehearsal room floor for a while, but I think I have it now.

Generally if in the break it looks like we might run long we agree on songs to be dropped in readiness. What does bug me sometimes is one guitarists inability to look up during an encore to agree with nods & mouthing across stage a follow up from the 3 or 4 available on the list. I can be looking across trying to catch his eye for an eternity, before the inevitable debate at the end of the first song to pick a second, instead of keeping the flow going. Our sets have got a lot slicker in recent months. Years ago in originals bands we would always have the first two or three songs of each set queued. In recent years doing covers that had become far less so, but we now have the first 3 or 4 ready to go for each set, but the rest also run pretty tight - to the extent that I normally have a couple of pints of water on stage and used to get through them, but in recent times have been lucky to get a quarter of the way into the first glass

You have my sympathy!! Smashed my right shoulder body-boarding in 2001, which ended up fixing itself eventually (sort of). Knew it wasn't good when the x-rays came back and I could see the doctors saying oooh that's not good. Was going to be kept in to have it replaced as the left one was a few years later, but then they had a big RTA come in and there were no beds so I was strapped up and sent back to the campsite by taxi in the middle of the night. Left shoulder was replaced around 20 years ago - the start of many repairs. As Nicko says GET PHYSIO & DO YOUR EXERCISES! My left shoulder works ok but could be better if I had really worked at the exercises (and possibly if the physio hadn't gone slightly easy on me). Getting all the muscles around it generally that hold everything together is also important. A GruvGear Duo strap helped out with heavier basses until I got lighter ones I can manage a gig with on a normal strap. Cheaper than a new bass but if you do get the leather strap that runs across the back of the bass between strap buttons for the second strap to loop round. I started with the webbing version but found it not solid enough.