cheddatom

Off The Tracks Festival on Saturday night. We were on at 7:15 and the tent looked pretty packed to me. I'm loving my ridiculous drum kit but need to get a Headsticks head for the bass drum. Loads of compliments after the set and apparently we sold plenty of merch. Ace gig!

I personally feel the addition of the cowbell for a tasteful 23 hits during the hour long set is a game-changer. I asked everyone who came up to tell me how great the set was if they liked the cowbell, but not a single person had noticed. 

14 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

I don't like that he showed up in a cool ride and then wants to re-tune your shells. 😒

 

Blue

All part of the game when playing originals!

1 minute ago, Lozz196 said:

Similar happened to us (Knock Off) when we played with a high profile back in the day band, their drummer fiddled and faffed around tuning the kit, our drummer getting more & more wound up as time went on. Then they started sound-checking and he said it was the best he`d ever heard the kit. We did say to him, of course, that it was nothing to do with the tuning and all to do with the player........

Hah! It's such a subjective thing. I like a tight punchy bass drum, especially live, and especially for fast music like punk. This guy didn't like it that tight, he wanted more bottom end (even though there was a huge PA with subs!) so he tuned the bass drum down. It sounded alright for their set TBF but it kind of messed up mine a bit. I'm sure no-one in the audience cared and it was good for us in terms of reaching a new crowd. I'm getting quite adept at "sucking it up"

Once upon a time we supported a big punk band at a venue local to us. They'd asked in advance (via promoter) to use my drum shells. I always think it's a bit much asking the support bands to supply kit but it was a good gig so I agreed. Their drummer turned up in a 2 seater convertible with a cymbal bag and a snare drum. TBF he thanked me for the shells, but then asked for a drum key because he wasn't happy with how I'd tuned them  

Hi Paul, no, he swapped the guitar in the end. Maybe there are some sort of ICs on these pre-amps that need a reboot every so often, like a computer, but I doubt it as no-one mentioned it on this thread

The guitar he swapped to is another Yamaha, a very similar model, and he's never had an issue with it once!

Just now, Leonard Smalls said:

We'll see you in the same place on September 10th for Going Feral. Sound should be better than for us at Rebellion!

I'm sure it will be, looking forward to it!

I'm late on this due to a mad week in the studio. We (Headsticks) played Gig In A Field at Wroot near Doncaster last Saturday 5th. The ground was saturated and I turned up in converse pumps with no spares. I kept getting stuck in the field and sliding around on stage. The audience didn't care at all. We went down really well and sold a huge amount of merch

We went back to Rebellion festival on the Sunday to play the Pavillion stage. This was the biggest gig of ours for 2023 so obviously some nerves etc. but it went really well. The room was rammed. This is a photo from a minute after the end of our set - I'd just started packing away when I remembered to snap one!

This weekend we did Down On The Farm festival in Herefordshire. It's a giant barn and honestly I didn't think the crowd would like us. I assumed most of them were there for the tributes and covers, but we got a great reception! It was the first time trying my new (old) drum kit. The bass drum is an old 26" x 9" marching bass drum and I thought everyone was going to hate it but they loved it. Insignificant in the grand scheme I'm sure but we all like to f*ck about with gear don't we  

Unfortunately the main reason for the kit is the look of the thing, and this is the only photo I can find with a hit of drum kit on it.

A pleasure to meet @Leonard Smalls yesterday. His band are great but there were definitely issues with the sound. After the first 4 songs myself and guitarist (from Headsticks) got sick of the droning feedback from the bass drum and went to leave. Walking to the top of the stairs to a small balcony made all the difference, suddenly we could hear the band clearly, both basses were cutting through, the drums sounded great... we stopped to watch some more, and then a security guard moved us on. You're not allowed to stand where it sounds good apparently!

The Almost Acoustic stage for us in the afternoon and it was awesome. Plenty of people in at the start and they kept coming. It's a big room with a load of reverb and bright lights. Last year there were lots of tables and chairs so people sat down and it felt pretty empty and echoey. This year, no tables or chairs, just loads and loads of bodies to soak it all up. Great gig. Here's a terrible photo from the stage halfway through the set

4 minutes ago, ahpook said:

 

Sadly, that's very likely to cause grounding issues.

You're right, I was being far too simplistic!

wouldn't it be very easy to just switch the wires on the output jack of any such problem pedal, rather than buy another pedal to invert the phase?

10 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

Strangely enough In Isolation did an acoustic warm-up gig at The Pit (ours was practice for supporting Mark Burgess of the Chameleons in Glasgow). We got around the PA problems by doing a bit of lateral thinking with the wiring and my FRFR cab for as a monitor for the whole band.

If only we had one to hand! Or a normal small bass drum would have been fine too

31 minutes ago, Cat Burrito said:

...

 

 

great video!

The Pit in Newstead on Thursday. This was a practise run for our "almost acoustic" set at Rebellion Festival on Thursday. It's a long story but I have to use this "tupperware bass drum" contraption I made a few years ago. Unfortunately the PA at The Pit wasn't really up to the job, so although it apparently sounded fine out front, we were really struggling on stage. Anyway, usual positive reaction from a crowd that seemed impervious to our decidedly average performance. 

Star and Garter in Manchester on Sunday. There were two great bands on before us - Iconoclasts and Instant Agony. Classic punk stuff really, loud, noisy, and a lot of fun. We were headlining but I don't really have a drum kit I can share with support bands at the moment (another long story), so opted for the house kit which is always great here. Unfortunately, although everything was expertly tuned as usual, I could not get my kick pedal to clamp to the bass drum properly. That combined with agony in my wrist lead to a few errors on my part. Nothing disastrous though, and again, the audience had no idea. I had 2 different people tell me that's the best they'd seen me play! 🤣

35 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

 

Yup, in the main they are.

 

Far fewer non-driving males than females, far fewer Dads with childcare issues than Mums.

Although those two statements are probably true, that's not quite what your post implied. IMO your post implied that female applicants were incapable of reading your advert and poor at communication in general, the implication being that male applicants would not have the same issues. Sorry if I've misinterpreted your point

35 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

...Unbelievable levels of weaponised bovine faeces enter the equation as soon as you start trying to recruit a female singer, and the younger they are the worse it is...

 

Surely these issues are not gender specific?

1 hour ago, miles'tone said:

Inappropriate requests? 

 

"Get yer moobs out!"

 

I had very stern words with the wife when we got home, I can tell you!

 

Hah, I genuinely had a group of fans hold up a digital display asking me to take my top off. It turned into a chant when I refused. I will never get my moobs out on stage

Honestly it was beyond comical. He had me play just ghost notes on the snare for a few minutes, then asked me to play the snare normally for a few minutes. Has anyone ever seen that before? He EQ'd each close mic for ages, then asked me to play with plenty of cymbals. No overheads or hi-hat mic, no vocal mics plugged in, and he's already EQ'd the close mics without hearing cymbals. And as for EQ'ing the bass at the amp, after he'd spent ages EQing it at the desk (with a mic on the cab and post EQ DI), I've never seen anything so ridiculous. Just undoing all that work at the desk. 

The FOH subs were so loud, I thought he'd put the tom mics in the stage monitors. He said "no, that's just the acoustic volume of the drums, you are playing very hard, maybe you could play a bit gentler?". I tapped the floor tom and it was on the edge of feeding back. I told him but I can only assume he thought it was my first gig as he just shrugged it off.

I didn't get any photos this weekend, oops! 

Headsticks gig at Sidney & Matilda in Sheffield on Friday night. It's a cool hipster bar with a proper 'orrible basement venue underneath. It stank of BO down there and I didn't see any ventilation. Perfect  Only about 50 or so people in but it's a small room so that was cool. Plenty of newcomers too which is always a good sign.

Sound checking my snare, the engineer asks "Is there any chance you have a drum key with you?" and I laugh and say yeh. He says "Do you think it needs a little tune up? It's quite resonant!". I laugh and say no. Then he asked if I always rimshot or if I play a standard snare hit too. I say both. He wants to know what material my snare is made of and what model it is... He gets to bass guitar, our bassist plays for 2 seconds, the engineer shouts "woooah, can you notch out 400Hz on your amp please?". After 10 minutes of EQing the bass from his mixing desk, he tries guitar. He's forgotten to plug the guitar in. He walks on stage to plug it in, but instead walks up to the bass amp and starts messing with the controls and asking our bassist to play. I think he got the message after a minute of that. I thought a fight was about to break out! Anyway, the gig was cool, even if the sound was ridiculously loud and bassy. 

Supporting The Undertones on Sunday at the Tivoli in Buckley. I love this venue, it's so weird. The manager (I assume he owns it?) was talking quite proudly of all his renovations, which were great, but when I asked him if there was a toilet with a lock on the door he was stumped. It's a big room but there were 300 or so in which is plenty for a great night. There were a few of our fans there but we went down really well with the others too, sold a load of merch and signed setlists etc. 

I've never seen The Undertones before, and I only knew the one song, but I was blown away. So much energy for older guys, absolutely rock solid performance (well, the last minute dep drummer might have struggled a little but we'll forgive him that), great vocals... they're just cool AF on stage.

I'd want Steinberg's Quadrafuzz VST in a pedal format. There are 4 bands, and on each band you can choose from 4 different saturation types, gain, attack time, and clean blend, then you can set where the bands crossover... very useful for bass distortion IMO

The first time in Hull for us (Headsticks) at the New Adelphi Club. I've heard of this place and I gather a lot of big names have played there. Apparently the sound engineer has done every single gig there since it opened. He really knows the venue and it sounded fantastic. Not a massive crowd but it's a small place so felt good. Everyone wanted to chat before and after, which is always nice although I do get a bit bashful if I haven't had a pint. Another sweaty one! I changed after the set, put my stage shirt in the van, and chucked it over the line when I got home at 3AM. It was still soaked at 10AM! I might have to bin that one. I've nicked a photo from a fan on facebook. 

3 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

It will probably be partially directional and partially tonal. I can't see it in the photo but from what I encounter and larger stages, I imagine that the drum monitor is angled slightly towards the back of the stage so as to minimise spill to FoH, also it will probably be EQ'd to maximise being able to hear the instruments. IME the problem with bass rigs interfering with FoH is excessive bass. These days I rarely use my FRFR when I gig relying instead on the PA foldback, however on those occasions when I do bring it, I normally have in pointing across the stage to minimise FoH spill.

Yeh I figure the excessive bass was the problem, he's using a 4 x 10 and 2 x 10 BareFaced stack, and it's loud as hell, but by the time bass had been sent to everyone's monitor, it sounded just as loud and just as bassy to me. I guess it gives the engineer the control once we get going - he could cut the low end out of the monitors but couldn't cut it out of the bass amp. It sounded great by all accounts anyway

16 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Is that a Kemper you're using there @cheddatom. 

How are you finding it in a live situation ?

Dave

No that's the Ferocious Dog rig, they were headlining 3 nights on the trot, so left all their gear set up. I'm on drums with Headsticks so was just showing off my fancy kit on the riser  

Settle Down festival on Saturday. We were on first at 3pm and I didn't have high hopes for a crowd but they really packed in. My mate has loaned me a very nice drum kit to try and I always think you get a new source of inspiration when on a different instrument... either that or the fresh heads I'd just put on, but it sounded awesome.

Our bassist was told to turn right down on stage, which he hates. The engineer did explain the issue to him but I wasn't paying attention. Anyway, I asked for bass in my monitor as I couldn't hear the bass amp, and he says "sure, you can have as much bass in the monitors as you like". What's the difference between loud bass on stage from an amp, or loud bass on stage from monitors? I must be missing something there

Anyway, the crowd were on our side from the first note. It felt like the best gig for ages.

Hah, sorry! Same thing though innit 😛

It really did sound fantastic

Hope & Anchor last night. I'd been on a bit of a bender in London with my brothers and the booze combined with the heat was really getting to me. It turns out all I needed to do was play a sweaty gig to sort myself out!

Great to bump into @NancyJohnson . I really enjoyed your set! Great sound from that Warwick (despite the tiny combo). The bottle of red from your singer was very generous! 

When we got there to load in at 1:30, we were told we had to wait upstairs until the sound engineer arrives. The guy blamed the "corporate knobheads at Green King". Fair enough but the load-in time was agreed. The soundman turned up at 2:40 and doors were supposed to be 3pm. There was a house kit on stage, even though we'd said we'd be bringing drums and agreed kit share with the promoter. The soundman says "oh, you're not using the house kit? But we're already running so late!". Obviously I wanted to say "yeh, isn't that your fault?" but I smiled and nodded, moved the house kit to the side, set up my kit, and watched as he was still slowly lifting mic boxes out of his store room. I guess the house kit wouldn't have saved any time after all  

Our 3 guys at the front always take their own mics, it's a hygiene thing, and it's on the tech spec that goes to every gig. For some reason it's 50/50 whether the sound engineers will be happy or whizzed off about it. I don't get it. This guy was in the latter camp. Honestly, the speed he was moving and his general demeanour had me judging him to be the stereotypical horrible soundman and I was expecting a nightmare of a gig. Anyway, it might have taken 3 times as long as usual and delayed the whole gig, but it sounded absolutely fantastic! 

We played well to a very small crowd. It looked like 15 people to me, maybe a couple more, but in a small venue like that when everyone's having fun, it really doesn't matter.

Flat tyre on the van delayed our departure by almost an hour. Back to bed in Stoke by 1:30 so not too bad. Photo from a fan on facebook