casapete

Isn’t it just? The minute I walked in I was taken aback - one of those places that you could use for so many different things - all sorts of live music, theatre & performance, as well as a banging venue for a great party! Shame it’s 40 miles from where I live though.

Two gigs for me this weekend, both on the East Yorkshire coast. Saturday saw me playing with The Alligators blues band at The Black Lion in Bridlington’s historic old town. Quite a large pub at the front, with an amazing room at the rear that is concealed from the pub by large velvet curtains. There are raked pews that lead down to a dance floor area, and the stage is like a small theatre, with a a large dB PA that unfortunately we didn’t get to use. Easy get in from a side alleyway so it looked like being a great gig. Unfortunately there was a distinct lack of punters, but we still gave it our best to the small groups of folk who ventured in. A great sounding room, and I used my usual passive Precison Lyte / Rumble 500 combo which I’m really enjoying. Finished at 11.15pm, quick pack down and home by 12.30. Sunday early evening I was at our regular haunt in Scarborough, ‘The Lookout on the Pier’ with the acoustic duo. A beautiful day meant the town was busy, but we got parked ok and set to go by 6pm. The venue was rammed with diners plus a few guests seated at the back. We played our usual request format, and tunes included ‘Samba pa ti’, a couple of Simon and Garfunkel things and ‘Copacabana’ which I’d forgotten how much of a workout the bassline was! We both were given a nice tip from a visiting celebrity couple who remembered us from a gig there a couple of years ago, and also received an enquiry to play at the local yacht club from a couple who’d arrived at the gig by yacht - who’d have thought that in Scarbados! It was one of those gigs where it all gelled - great venue, audience and our playing, so much so that I genuinely could have played for another hour or more. Still, home by 10pm to pizza and wine.

Thomann recommended as ‘a perfect fit’ the Hagstrom case Viking bass. Tweed finish and on their site to orderfor £136. Also maybe try Gear4music with your problem - they are quite good at finding cases for instruments and stock a fair few.

I saw Elkie in the late 70’s with a Geoff Whitehorn too, great band. I sold merch for her / A&M and got to meet her afterwards. She played Hull a few times earlier in the 70’s with Robert Palmer and Vinegar Joe, but I was a bit too young to get in the club they played at. A few of my friends said they were amazing gigs though.

I saw Thin Lizzy at Bridlington Spa in the late 70’s, and they were really good but just not my kind of thing. Got tickets from their record company when I worked in record retail, so around that time I went to loads of gigs I maybe wouldn’t have paid to see and that was one of them. Possibly one of the loudest gigs I’ve been to probably didn’t help either, my ears were ringing for days afterwards.

I prefer Seger’s version, more dynamics / groove and ‘soul’ to it. The TL version sounds a bit like a pub band to me…. ( runs for cover………)

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.

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.

This has been a massive thing for a long time now. People buy trainers from all over the world just to say they own them - a bit like the current vinyl resurgence. A friend of mine has been buying and selling ‘rare’ trainers for decades , and there are many specialist shops that do this too. It’s a bit Spinal Tap though - ‘don’t touch them, don’t even look at them’ etc. Like vintage bass fanatics, probably mostly a male pursuit as well.

A few years ago I had an Ampeg flip top combo that had a natty tilt back leg, same as in this pic.

In the motor trade in the 70’s it was appropriately known as ‘hearing aid beige’….😆

The Bass Gallery recently had a black reissue by Fender Japan in stock for £1050. Apparently they were only made as a ‘Custom Edition’ for a year, and had a 3 band eq ( similar to the 90’s Precision Lyte Deluxe model ). Don’t know if it mentioned the weight, but every P.Lyte I’ve encountered has been less than 8lbs. 😊

Two set ups have changed my playing scenario significantly and meant I could carry on gigging well into my err….mid 60’s. First one was getting a BF Compact, one of the early models. I ran this with a GK MB800 and it was a game changer! So portable, loud and great tones. Still got the cab. Then more recently I’ve been using Fender Rumble combos. Use a 100 with my duo / small gigs, and the 500 with the blues band / bigger stuff. Both are amazing things - everyone who picks the 100 combo up thinks it hasn’t got a speaker inside! I just love the sound these combos kick out, so easy to dial in ‘my sound’ with no messing around. Bass straight into them, DI out to the PA where needed, job done. Had these lightweight options not been available, then I honestly don’t know if I’d still be gigging.

That sums it up for me too. Along with this, I also like to know that there is a constant part of what I’m doing that I’m in control of! Done so many gigs where the engineer / house monitors haven’t been up to scratch, and every time wish I’d insisted on using my own stuff. I don’t play stupid loud, but just like the authority and familiarity that using my own gear brings. I don’t have any problem with others using IEM’s / no amp, it’s purely a personal choice. Having played in bands for over 50 years and still having pretty good hearing, I’m unlikely to ditch my amps now though, especially as good kit has become so much lighter and easier to use than ever!