cheddatom

On 27/06/2025 at 20:22, Happy Jack said:

I'm using Timetree but most of the musos I play with are technophobes so actually it's only me using it.

 

I've had problems with shared Google calendars, because of course you have to log out of your own Google account in order to access them.

 

At least, that's how it used to work.

It's never worked like that. You share the calendar with your own google account, and it appears (or not if you like) overlaid on your own google calendar. I have loads on mine

A jubilee clip came off a pipe under the bonnet of our old band transit. A lad fixed it for us with a ratchet strap from his pickup. I assumed the boss had had it fixed but I asked him about it a few years later and apparently it had sailed through 3 MOTs before he swapped it for a new transit

couldn't you have a little lamp on the floor pointing at your pedals and set list?

The album is out now! Streaming links here: https://headsticks.ffm.to/thebestthingontv

CDs, Vinyl and bundles here: https://headsticks.co.uk/shop

And the only other video we've managed to do so far...

On 01/04/2025 at 21:41, binky_bass said:

Still don't get it... Doesn't sound like anything particularly remarkable to me! 

you listened to Vulfpeck and didn't find anything remarkable about the bass playing? Wow!

Very late here, last week we did Wednesday 6pm and Thursday 9pm at Bearded Theory Woodland Stage. It's a big festival and really suited to us. I camped over for the weekend after the Thursday set which was loads of fun. Great crew, great sound, great crowd, doesn't get better

Sometimes you just have to leave before the end of the gig. I think there's a polite way to do it. Say bye to the band(s) before they go on if possible. Should be common courtesy really. 

I'm on drums in Headsticks but our bassist is awesome. He's playing a Fender American P into an Ashdown Rootmaster into a Barefaced stack. Impeccable timing, tasteful fills, a proper bassist's bassist. The full album is out 1st June but there are a couple of singles out already. Here's God Song featuring the legendary Steve Ignorant in the video

P.S this is recorded, mixed and mastered by myself and I always welcome any constructive criticism

6 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

it's certainly a young man's game, there's a lot of truth in the saying "if you've not made it by the time you are 30 you're not going too"

Our latest guitarist is 22, brings the average age of the band down to slightly under 50 🤣.

it's hard work gigging all over the country, I guess that's why there's personnel changes invovled with some bands, I don't think Headsticks have had that problem have they?

Yeh, same line-up for almost 14 years now! I think the main reasons we've done relatively well are

1. We're all pretty flexible with our jobs so we can finish early to get on the road and take random time off etc.

2. Our frontman makes and sells merch for a living, so in the early days, he'd sell the merch to the band on credit giving us time to build up cash. He's also constantly changing designs etc. so merch became a big thing for us, and brings in the cash to fund the physical product.

We've been keeping the diary pretty clear the last year or so hoping for more support slots to bigger bands akin to BigRedX. Unfortunately it's not paid off for us. The one offer we had was a full tour for £80 per night. We're too old to be sleeping in the van so it'd cost us circa £500 a night for hotels, fuel, food etc. Worth the risk in some opinions but we didn't take it in the end.

1 hour ago, PaulWarning said:

surprised that you're not getting playlisting or airplay, I last saw you at at last years Bearded Theory, you had a decent crowd, I guess the fact I see you get on at smaller festivals has skewed my judgement, just looked at your plays on Spotify, and yes they're not that great.

You do do a lot of gigs around the country which is good for album sales, Verbal Warning have been stained by doing mostly covers gigs locally, we struggle to get any originals gigs these days, one comment for a local promoter when we asked about a support slot for a punk gig (999) he was putting on "Why would people pay to see you when they can see you for free in the local pub?" 

There are some local originals bands around but they struggle to get any gigs at all, a conundrum for sure

Yeh it's frustrating Paul. Bearded Theory went great, then they put us on on the Wednesday afternoon this year! We played Beautiful Days a few years back, went down a storm, never asked back. etc etc. I think maybe we're just too old to really get anywhere. Anyway, it's good fun and pays for the beers!

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

 

Thanks!

 

We've been toying with the idea of a vinyl version of the album, but as we'll be funding it completely ourselves, it's difficult to justify the cost when it's 2-4 times more expensive than CDs depending on the quantity and packaging. And as I said previously I still have 300 copies of the Terrortones album that right now are unsellable, plus the fact that for our audience CD still seems to be the most popular format.

Extensive gigging for decent fees means we've always had the cash for physical products. We're a very lucky band in many ways!

1 hour ago, nige1968 said:

 

Pick in pic

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5ylnyrydl0o

hah, nice one, I should probably go see it for myself, it's only round the corner!

Just now, BigRedX said:

 

That's excellent. Can I be cheeky and ask you who you are using for the CD and vinyl production, how many of each you are having done and what it is costing? You can PM me if you don't want to share that info in public.

The album is going to be distributed physically through FOAD Records, not sure what the deal is there but I think they made the vinyl. 100 each of 3 colours. 

CDs are through a company called Birnam https://www.birnamcd.com/

I'd guess we went for 1000 of them and it'll take 18 months to shift them all - that's been the case for the last few albums

I'm not sure about costs sorry, as you can tell, I don't get involved in that side of things.

10 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

 

Yes, I'm prone to doing this, too; luckily our singer (and the rest of the band...) know how to keep the 'beat' in their heads, and don't rely on the drums to bring themselves in. I could fold up inanimate, they'd all come back in on time..! 

The guitarist and bassist are fine, obviously, it's just the frontman who has an unusual sense of time. We often have to follow him if he skips half a bar etc. but keeping the drum fills simple, with snare hits on the backbeat, tends to help a lot. 

9 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

I suspect we're talking about bands that are a lot less successful than Headsticks 😊

Hah, we're still a small time band Paul! We have a loyal following on that scene but it's probably 500 people at the most. We don't get any air play or playlisting and we're struggling to get bigger gigs/festivals

I'm from Stoke so kind of proud of this, but to be honest I've never listened to much of Lemmy's work. I did think he was known as a pick player, but this statue shows fingerstyle. I guess he did both else someone would have pointed it out already?

We have an album out next month. We're doing CDs and limited edition Vinyl. We put it up for pre-order this morning on our website and we've already had 20+ orders, so clearly, it's working for us. We'll sell them at gigs too

Eh Up Mi Duck festival on Saturday night. All day drinking tends to mean a lot of early nights at these festivals but we were on at 9:15 which is a good time to start. Quick line check and sound was ready in under a minute. Sounded great from behind the kit and loads of compliments afterwards!

A single error - When I do any "out there" fills, it can put the singer right off. I try to concentrate and use the same fills over and over, keeping anything slightly "jazzy" for the recording studio. Unfortunately as the huge crowd were so into it, I found myself go to auto-pilot - enjoying the crowd response and "vibe" instead of concentrating on the drums. Out came a particularly off-beat fill (I'm sure any drummers would appreciate it) and sure enough the singer went half a bar out! Ooopsie! 🤣 Other than that, an absolutely flawless gig and such positivity from the crowd I'm still buzzing two days later

We sold loads of merch. The new songs from our forthcoming album are going down great and people seem to know the words already! We put it on "pre order" this morning and we've already had orders for 20+ CDs and a load of vinyl and bundles. Very cool

2 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

We tend to play smaller clubs, where nothing other than keys and Vox go through the Paso its getting quite noticeable, especially on stage.

It'd be worth asking someone out front if it's coming through. If it's just on stage who cares?

...but yeh when I used to play small pubs with just vocals and acoustic guitar in the PA, I would turn the snare off in between songs and for intros etc. In that scenario, the rattling is much louder relative to the volume of the vocals and guitar. 

6 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

 

Odd. I have that same system on one of my Pearl snares, and have not had any issues, once it's strung up and adjusted by turning the knob. Just lucky..? Probably. My Camco snare has a very basic trigger, which could be sensitive to throwing itself 'off' if not correctly tensioned. I don't use my metal Tama snares much, but they are all easy and reliable.
But I digress; an e-kit solves this and many other issues..! 

I probably have it set wrong. I'll ask an expert when I get chance. I have it sounding great when it's on, and when it's off it doesn't rattle, so I figured that was good enough, but yeh, if I want to do a drum solo and switch between on and off it's basically impossible. Thankfully I've not been asked/allowed 

Just now, Dad3353 said:

 

Most snare drums can be adjusted for snap-on/off tension, assuming they're in good condition to start with. Just sayin'; yours may be exceptions. 

I have a pearl throw off on both of my main snares. You have to lift the whole thing up to take up the slack before you can pull the level up to fix it on. You can kind of do it one handed but it's not the easiest thing. If it was ever a problem I'd probably find a better throwoff mechanism and fit that to both, but as it is, for 99% of our gigs, no-one can hear it

I have a few snares where the throwoff is very stiff and takes two hands to get off and on

When I was playing quiet folk songs in pubs with limited PA, I would keep my snare off as much as possible in intros etc. Now I play bigger venues with big PAs I leave it on. You can't hear it FOH

Option 2 every time. You can't sound check at low levels as you won't hear the low end. You have to sound check at gig level. No need for 5 minutes though! Line-check everything then do 30 seconds of a section of a song where everything gets used (IE don't check the verse without BVs, check the chorus with BVs). 

here's the view from the back of the room

The Salty Dog in Northwich on Friday night. It's a small place so we easily filled it. I love this place 'cos they always have great beer. For the first time since I started playing there, they had a great sound engineer! Every other time we've played there the sound has been plagued by low end rumbling and constant feedback, however, it's always been a barman or the like just doing their best. This guy clearly not only knew what he was doing, but was also concerned with doing a good job, and he did! A very sweaty 1.5hr set and all the free beer I could drink made for a very entertaining evening