casapete

That looks like a no brainer! Should do the job just fine, will be interested to hear your thoughts.

Here's my rig! Duo gig in a village pub marquee. Could have managed without the Rumble 100 combo but I like to have it there just in case it starts to get a bit lairy volume wise...😅

Old heavy amps aren’t popular these days so there are plenty to be had. Have you checked Gumtree? Don’t know where you are situated, but there are a few Peavey combos on there at the moment. Facebook Marketplace also has lots of stuff that fits the bill. Not far from me someone is selling a Peavey Mk1V 210 watt head for £80, great amp! You can often get Peavey 1x15 BW cabs for around £60 too, which would be a killer rig for the money.

Played in a lovely Yorkshire wolds village not far from Bridlington last night. The acoustic duo gig was in a small open sided marquee in the grounds of a pub, with the audience sitting both inside and outside. Lots of people with dogs and kids running around, usually a pain but this time not a problem for some reason. Two 60 min sets starting at 6.30pm, loads of requests which we managed to play, and finished around 9pm. It had started off sunny and warm, but by the end it was getting chilly and our hands were a bit numb - feels like summer is suddenly on it’s way out now. Home by 10.30pm so an early one for me. Will spend an hour today sorting out my cables case as the pack down in the dark was a bit rushed, and no doubt everything covered in grass etc!

An evening of Aretha Franklin stuff tonight on BBC4, starting at 8pm with a special from the Proms with special guests.

Must admit, after playing it on every gig with my band for 11 years it does start to get a bit meh. Then again, I see the reaction from the audience and how much they love it and it helps me no end.

I've taken two breaks from gigging in 45+ years - first time for a year when my wife was expecting our daughter, and then later the Covid years. By the time my daughter was born I was actually missing it a lot, and then a few months later got offered a place in a resident nightclub band which I loved. The Covid 'break' was much different - an enforced hiatus which made me both sad and a bit angry at the same time. Now we're back doing it again I still love gigging but realise I'll probably be contemplating how it's going to work out as possible retirement looms. Can't see me ever giving it up completely though, at least not while I'm able to manage it. Edit - just realised after reading the post above that I did have a few weeks off after breaking my shoulder. Started gigging ASAP afterwards though, playing keyboard bass as I couldn't manage my Stingray for a while!

Played at a birthday party on Monday with my country band The Fork Handles. Lovely pub on the outskirts of Sheffield owned by an old friend of the band. It was one of those gigs where the guy booking us loves what we do, but the rest of the audience were in danger of not 'getting it', so we tried to keep it as commercial as we could. First set went okay, but by the second set the audience (and some of the band..) were more suitably refreshed so plenty of dancing going on. We played stuff they knew, like 'S.H.Alabama', 'Copperhead Road' and finished the night with the Stones song 'Dead Flowers'. Must admit, as I wasn't driving (rare for me) I did enjoy a few pints of Beavertown Neck Oil which was on draught, and very nice it was too. Due to this I forgot to organize any pics, so just took a shot of my Dano Longhorn with GKMB800 / Barefaced Compact. Haven't used it for a while, so it took the first couple of songs to get used to the short scale but soon got into it.

I have a JBL EON 10 powered cab which is great for a monitor. Small and sounds fine. From my experience the stand mounted models like the Behringer are okay but don’t sound overly pretty. Mate of mine has an Alto powered cab which also is great for a small floor wedge, and not expensive either.

I think whatever you choose to do, any movement needs to look natural and reasonably spontaneous. I don’t move around much, but when playing on larger stages there is the need to use the space a bit, even it only involves walking around a bit. This can often be difficult as I sing a lot of BV’s, so inevitably have to be on the mic a lot ( and don’t fancy a headset mic thank you.) Most important for me is looking like you are enjoying yourselves and want to be there, whilst making eye contact with the audience a lot too. Hate to see players staring at the floor or the neck of their guitar all the time with scant regard given to the audience. My old function band were often (rightly) accused of being static. Someone in the band knew a dance tutor so we arranged a meeting in my local village hall to see if she could help us with our , err....presentation skills. Needless to say she couldn’t get us to loosen up enough to change things much, and we realised the best thing to help on gigs was a few beers before playing, although often at the cost of musical perfection.😆

The times we’ve walked past that bandstand and wondered if it ever gets used! Looks a great place to play Mick.

Johnny Walker just playing this by Ry Cooder on his Radio 2 show - wonderful.

Mate of mine gave me this at a gig last night - copy of our advert in the Daily Mirror on Friday. Has all our gigs on for rest of this year.

Played at a party yesterday, depping with some old friends. It was in the garden of a cottage in a small village in Holderness, and is an annual event where everyone knows each other and really enjoy themelves . A lovely do with great punters and ace food and drink too! Used my bitsa Jazz bass, with a GKMB800 into my old 'Loud Inc' 4x10 cab, which still sounds as strong as ever. Glad I didn't sell it on when I got my BF Compact, as occasionally it's great to have a change. The band play 'Dad rock' stuff which always goes down well with the gigs they get. The drummer is John 'Cambo' Cambridge, who played in David Bowie's early band 'The Hype' and then on the 'Space Oddity' era stuff. John actually introduced Bowie to Mick Ronson following playing with Mick in top local band 'The Rats'. He's a top bloke, great company and a wonderful drummer so it's always a pleasure (and an honour) to get to play with him, even though I've known him for over 40 years. ( John has recently written a book about his early days with Bowie and Ronson - for anyone interested it's called 'Bowie, Cambo and all the Hype' , is available in paperback and a fascinating read.)

Great looking bass and interesting write up, I’ve fancied a Reverend bass for ages, yet not played one as they are still quite scarce. Any idea how heavy they are? Saw Sheryl Crow’s bassist use one at Glastonbury and was hooked.

Just get a Fender Rumble! Cheap as chips, sound great and easy to find s/h. Then treat the family using what you would have spent on the expensive stuff.

On BBC4 tonight (Friday 19th) there is some Stevie Wonder stuff. Starts at 22.40 with ‘Stevie at the BBC’, followed by the ace ‘A Night of Wonder’ at 22.40. Probably on iPlayer for a while too I would think.

Always liked Hall and Oates. Seen them a couple of times live and they were absolutely superb too, especially with their late bassist T-Bone Wolk. (Enjoyed the 'Daryl's House' series of videos on YT in case you've missed them.)

I’ve used GK amps for years and generally love them. However I only just manage to tolerate the tone controls being configured the ‘wrong’ way round, i.e. treble on the left through to bass on the right. This has been the case which started with my favourite amp, the 800RB, then on to the RB700/1001 series and even the little MB range. I notice the recent Legacy 800 model has addressed this now, so may have to look into getting one, if only to solve my ‘problem’. Not sure if any other amps have been the same layout? I think the many years I spent before my GK period ingrained me into thinking Bass to Treble / L to R was the correct and intuitive way.

Wonderful stuff in these uncertain times.

This! 🙂

I’ve been on both ends of this situation and know what it’s like. Rehearsed a few times at my folks bungalow when in my teens. The neighbours were a lovely lot who got on with our family, but eventually had a word with my dad who wasn’t aware of the noise as we always rehearsed when my folks were out. Scroll forward to fairly recently when living in our last house, end of terrace Victorian. Shortly after we moved in, there was the sound of what appeared to be someone playing drums in our kitchen. Literally couldn’t hold a conversation or hear the TV above it. Popped next door to have a friendly word with the parents of said drummer, and they were quite defensive, saying he was studying music at college and needed to practice. Reluctantly agreed to certain times we were prepared to put up with it, which of course were soon forgotten. Eventually had to threaten them with alerting the Council, and they took up my recommendation to get the lad an electric kit. We could still hear him rehearse but nowhere near as bad as the acoustic one. Oh yeh, the parents snubbed us for the next 10 years too, as it was our fault obviously. In fact they were one of the reasons we moved recently. Now live on the edge of a village where quiet is the norm, which suits us fine. I have a well insulated room where I can make some noise if I want, and mentioned to our neighbours to let me know if I ever bother them - so far no problems. If I wanted a full band rehearsal then I’d book a rehearsal room somewhere rather than risk good relations with folk nearby. Only noise that bothers us is the daily early morning cockerel opposite, but we’re happy to let that continue rather than rock the boat. I think everyone is entitled to reasonable amounts of quiet wherever they are, although understand it’s all relative to the neighbourhood and it’s location.

Yup, me too. Because they sound reasonable people I’d be willing to consider other options.

Must admit, I think I’d be looking around for somewhere else to rehearse where nobody was affected by it. Or even just try headphones in the summer months? Less grief for all concerned.

Beat me to it - going up a gauge should sort things.