Mudpup

All the best buddy. Thanks for your contributions to the site and make sure you check in now and again!

I played my final gig with Yellowhouse last night at a packed out Cow and Telescope in Southend. That's me now taking at least 6 months off now to get over the last year and concentrate on family and personal stuff without weekend gigs and doing all the booking and social media getting in the way. I lost my dad a few months back, my mother in law 2 months before that and my closest uncle at Xmas last year. It's been a difficult year for many reasons and I want to totally switch off from band commitments. I handed my notice in to the guys in July and they wanted to fold the band rather than replace me so we cancelled all the gigs apart from 6 of our favourites. The gig was awesome. We filled the place and they were ready to party! People travelled to Southend from all over the place in the storm to say goodbye. We had some from the West Midlands, Guildford, Margate. Some friends and family turned up unexpectedly as well. I was truly humbled by it and the love from the locals was overwhelming. I have a little tendon issue which flared up in the last 4 songs which was fun - it means I can't actually lift my fretting index finger off the board. It just locks down solid and I can't lift it off. You sort of stare at it willing it to move and it doesn't. So that was fun trying to work round it but I got through it ok. And then to add to the excitement some d##khead in a whizz bang BMW M5 decided to floor it outside the pub on the wet road as we were loading out. He narrowly missed us but managed to hit 5 other cars and nearly ended up in the 24hr shop that I was walking towards to get some milk shake and choccies for the trip home. You've probably seen my typical gig pics and videos so here's some of Carlos Fandango instead...

I think maybe funk is fairly repetitive in general? It's hitting a groove and seeing where it goes a lot of the time. Some of their songs take a huge left turn in timing in the middle bits but there's a lot of material to go through to find them. They remind me of a lighter version of Stevie Salas Colorcode which was a band I used to like a long time ago.

I'm playing my last ever gig tonight and I'm having a moochy morning - a bit of tea and toast, a lie in watching You Tube on the laptop and then shortly I'll restring the bass and get prepped for what looks like to be a cracking final apearance in Southend, Essex And then I found this lot.... what tha actual f### have I been missing! Flat out funk, the tightest band I think I have ever seen having a total blast playing together and a monster of a bass player with a killer sound on every video you'll ever see of them (someone at Sire needs to sign him up btw...) It either wants to make you give up completely or keep on playing - I'm not sure which yet. Oh and they played up the road from me a few days ago. Aargh! Anyone else like them?

VID-20241202-WA0007 (1).mp4

VID-20241202-WA0009.mp4 Warwick Corvette Proline custom (black) Mesa BB750 (black) Barefaced BB2 cabs (black), Vans Hi Tops (black)

Friday night was the last one at one of our fave venues in Essex. It was a great turnout and so many people came along to say goodbye to us. We have one more in Southend next Saturday and then we're packing the band up after a total of 24 years. It's gonna be 'emowsh' as we say down here.... Here's some pics from Friday

True dat.....they did look tasty. And I was only trying to spend some cash with them 😂

I popped into the Cambridge PMT a couple of weeks ago. You go in the front door and walk right past the counter to go deeper into the shop. There were 3 staff sitting behind the counter having a chat and eating lunch - no one even looked at me let alone welcomed me. I walked to the back of the shop, hung around the bass section looking at the couple of 5 strings they had locked up on the wall for about 5 minutes, did a couple of laps of the shop in case anyone could be bottomed to ask me if i needed anything or wanted to try a bass and walked straight back out again. I was still less interesting to them than a baked potato. Thats £500 of my money they're not getting then....

We've been using a water based Beamz Hazer for years now. It has a remote that can vary the intensity of the haze, the duration and the interval. You just need to be sensible with it. If you have smoke detectors over the stage don't use it or just have the odd tiny squirt. Use proper haze fluid and not general smoke fluid, it seems to produce a thinner but longer 'hanging' haze.

£20 a set here and arrive in about 10 days..... You're welcome 🙂 https://www.stringsandbeyond.com/dr-electric-bass-strings-mr-45-med-45-105.html

Don't mess with it. Take it back to the seller for a further chat about it. If you played it in the shop you may struggle to get a better outcome but if you bought it online you can probably return it if you haven't had it long.

No idea sorry. Drummist turned up with it one day. It's bloody heavy.

Plan B would be stop playing the smaller pubs. That's what we did. Same issue with the drummer - big hitter and a loud kit. He tried playing with rods but it really didn't work for any of us. Robbed the power out of the band and drummer was grumpy about it. He also had a smaller kit but liked using the big stuff. I suppose it's like asking you to play through a 50 watt combo and below talking volume for him.

Nope, it's the same size as the kit. You lose the gap under the cymbals but what do you use that for anyway?

Get a drum screen. We use one and it works really well. Or a new drummer of course 😁

And one of the original UK Playboy bunny girls too

I used to work with Chas's daughter Juliet many years ago and she became the keyboard player in my band at the time. We rehearsed at the barn/studio in the garden of their farmhouse in Essex most weeks. Every now and again we would get kicked out so Chas and Dave could do some recording in there. They would randomly turn up with a crate of brandy and loads of cigars, boot us out and stay in there for days at a time putting tracks down. And another memory was sitting in the cottage after rehearsals at 1am with Chas's wife bringing tea and toast out, everyone having a bash on the old piano and a 60's PBass leaned up in the inglenook fireplace! Just the warmest and kindest people you could possibly meet. Juliet is playing keyboards with Eddie Tenpole at the moment...

Did they con you into the backstage poker game afterwards?

I'll still be loitering around on here I expect. But my main motivation was always the gigging and I definitely need a break from that for at least 6 months or so. The guys did appreciate the extra value I gave but just saying thanks isn't enough - they needed to step up and actively help out and take some weight off me and they didn't. One of the guys was on sick leave from gigging due to a hernia between between about July 2023 and March this year. He didn't do a single thing behind the scenes - didn't approach a single venue for a gig, learn any new material or even view some recent gig videos and see where he could improve anything. It was all stuff that could be done at home easily. That doesn't cut the mustard for me. I'm going to keep most of my gear for now (just in case) and I'll probably use my time learning a 5 string - i've tried before but couldn't get my head round it because of the weekly gigs on a 4 string so maybe now is a good time to give it another go.