casapete

Yes, if you like the sound of your cabinet when it’s more coupled to the stage. From my experience, using the cabinet on castors does affect the sound, and can reduce some ‘booming’ on more hollow stages. Removable castors do give you the choice of course. 😀

The Wiki page on Badfinger makes for interesting ( and very sad ) reading. Plenty of Beatles connections with them being signed to Apple etc.

Agreed Dave, they did some great stuff. It was quite funny last night - a punter requested ‘No matter what’ which I thought was the Badfinger classic so we played it. As we finished it the guy shouted out that he enjoyed it but had actually wanted to hear ‘No matter what’ by Boyzone ( which I’d forgotten existed) so we did that straight after! Made us think of doing nights where we only play songs which exist in this way, although unsure about whether it’s feasible - maybe just do a featured song title each gig or something till we run out of ideas!

Just back from our monthly outing at The Anlaby Park Hotel ( just outside Hull ), with the acoustic duo. Usual full lounge of punters, with stacks of requests. Tunes played included ‘Highway to Hell’, ’Enjoy yourself’, ‘No matter what’ x2 ( Badfinger tune and the Boyzone one after some confusion) ’Harvest Moon’ and ‘Everlasting love’ which was a bit fast for playing fingerstyle! A good night and a small increase in our fee so happy days. Home before midnight too. 😁

‘Wrong’ side of the river for us last night - a gig in Barton upon Humber with the blues trio. Venue was an old pub, occasion being a 70th birthday for a guy who has seen us a few times. Set up in the main bar area, audience comprised birthday party guests and some locals too. We played 2x50 minute sets, to polite applause from the guests, who you could feel were thinking ‘why did you book a blues band?’ but didn’t want to offend the birthday boy. We had a couple of dancers, one of whom walked over to grab my mic - gave her my best look of disapproval and she retreated. Wasn’t sure if she was a party guest so didn’t want to upset things but nobody touches my stuff, ever! (Used my Sire U5 shortie into the usual Fender Rumble 500 combo.) Finished around 11.15pm, got paid and a quick pack away meant I was home by midnight. Not the most enjoyable gig, but not the worst either. No pics I’m afraid, must try harder. 😊

I’ve been watching Fender Rumble stuff on sale for a few weeks. Seen a couple of 210 cabs being advertised around the £300 mark, yet you can get a brand new one delivered for £339. For the ‘saving’ of £39 I’d rather have a new unused cab, and more importantly one with a manufacturer’s warranty, valid for at least a year ( or possibly more ).

Absolutely this. When I was playing in large theatres, our PA guy used to say that everything changed when ‘The meat baffles’ had filled the room. 😆

That actually used to annoy me! They were wanting to appear so ‘alternative’ whilst agreeing to go on mainstream TV to flog their product. Can’t have it both ways surely? I think it was The Clash who flatly refused to do TOTP, a far more appropriate response for a punk band IMO.

I think in the early days miming was commonplace - often with maybe just a lead vocal being sung live over a pre recorded backing track. Once the programme got established after a couple of years or so though, it went to being pretty much all live performances.

A throuple ? How very modern….😃

If it works Daryl, then why not? Obviously you must all be experienced players who can play around with things until you’ve reached how you want it to sound. And think of all that rehearsal time you’ve saved….😄

Thanks , will check them out. I always try to use parts from the manufacturer where possible, but agree your suggestions may be the best solution. Cheers.

I’ve never been in bands that rehearse say once a week or something - couldn’t see the point. I think some people see it as a bit of a social too, but I don’t really want that. If the band is gigging regularly I think that’s probably enough - certainly been that way for me. When you say you haven’t rehearsed for 5 years Daryl, does your band still introduce new songs and then do them on the fly at gigs? Or has it been largely the same set for that period? My last band ( a touring tribute ) used to rehearse in December when we were quiet, in readiness for the following year’s dates. This gave us chance to maybe re-jig set lists and swap in a couple of new tunes and it worked well. If we had anything that needed ironing out we’d do it at a soundcheck to save having to organise a separate rehearsal. There were eight in the band, from over quite a wide area so this made sense for us. ( My acoustic duo have never had a rehearsal in over 30 years!! ) 🤣

We had a rehearsal last night with our blues trio ‘The Alligators’. Only my second one - been gigging with them since last June! Got a few things topped and tailed, as well as sifting through some ideas for new songs to be introduced into the set. Used a Sire U5 short scale into my regular Rumble 500 combo, sounded great. I think it’s my new go-to bass for this band now, going to use it on our next gig a week on Saturday. Was really cold in the rehearsal room though, so I didn’t feel warm until I got home. Not overly keen on this rehearsal lark.

I’m in a similar situation, only mine is a Sire U5 short scale. Used it in rehearsals last night with our blues 3 piece outfit and both of the other guys commented on how well it sits in the band. Slightly OT, does anyone know who to contact regarding Sire spares? May need another tone knob for mine. Cheers.

Amazon currently have sets of D’Addario EXL170S strings on offer for £12.95. These are short scale, gauges 45/65/80/100. I bought some on a similar deal last year and they are fine. 😊

Not true I’m afraid - of the seven studio albums released by Macca in the 21st Century, some or all of his band ( Abe Laboriel Jnr, Brian Ray, Rusty Anderson and MD Paul Wickens ) appear on six of them. ( The 2012 album of old covers & standards is the exception, featuring many guest players but not his band). Saw them at Manchester in December and was blown away by their talent. 😊

Looks like him. He was on the tour at the York gig last week.

Interesting - we must have 3000+ tunes on it, and it’s never failed at all. Although we only use a couple of iPads with the duo, my guitarist pal uses a few iPads with forScore on his many gigs with varying band sizes, and I haven’t heard him saying he’s had any problems. ( The version we use was the paid for one, I don’t remember there being a free version but then again we’ve used it for years so thing may have changed.) 😊

Afternoon / early evening gig at The Imperial in Filey with blues trio ‘ The Alligators’. Small venue with no stage, but reasonable amount of room for us. Took my recently acquired Sire U5 short scale straight into Rumble 500 combo. We haven’t played since December, so nice to get back to it. I made one or two stupid mistakes but nothing to scare the horses. We’re having a rehearsal this week ( my 2nd with the band!) so hopefully we can refine some bits here and there. Anyway, the gig - comfortably full pub of people who had come out on a rainy afternoon to listen, including a lady who reckoned we’d played ‘Black Magic Woman’ for her before somewhere and asked for it again - the BL couldn’t remember it - so we did it for her anyway. Two sets of around 50 mins just flew by, and a great response from the audience. I love doing Sunday afternoon gigs, and even an hour away for me still home before 9pm.

Great idea - I did that when I broke my shoulder a few years ago. Bought a Roland synth with okay bass patches and sat down at the back of the band most of the time. Very liberating actually & I really enjoyed the experience, although the fact that due to not being able to drive at the time and was able to avail myself of the gratis refreshments on gigs may have clouded my memory. 😁

We had a similar Transit back in the late 70’s, only ours was an ex-ambulance. Our guitarist bought it at an auction and it was still kitted out with some medical items inside, much to our hilarity. The blue lights and most of the exterior local health authority decals had been removed, but it still looked like an ambulance. Went quite fast when it was going, which wasn’t very often. We got used to breaking down on the motorway, and regularly had bets as to what the problem was this time whilst waiting for the AA to arrive. It drank petrol at an alarming rate too. IIRC didn’t early Land Rovers have manual windscreen wipers too? May have dreamt that though.

We’ve used forScore with my duo for years with no problems whatsoever. A one time purchase , think it’s around £15 but well worth it IMO.

Definitely a good call, hope you enjoy still playing bass at home / recording etc. All the best.