tony_m

Blues club I used to go to had a "Strictly No Voodoo Chile" sign in the dressing room. IIRC, only The Hamsters were given an exemption...

As a sucker for branded tat, I couldn't resist buying Tim's vintage / retro Fender belt. Couple of quick messages and the deal was done, great comms, pricing, rapid and secure dispatch, all-in-all a quality transaction. Another fine ambassador for BC. Cheers Tim!

Saturday night saw another outing for Rascallion at one of our regular venues, this time for a private function (a 90th birthday party, but fortunately with a range of generations present who seemed to appreciate our brand of country-rock and blues). After a good start and a slightly tentative middle, the first set ended up OK, and we hit the requested 45 minutes bang on the nose (more by good luck than good judgement it has to be said!). The second set then saw a first for us, with people up and dancing right from the opening number. This continued through the more "rocky" part of the set, with "Long Train Running" and (amazingly to us) "Rockin' In The Free World" going down particularly well. Overall, the audience response was probably the best we've ever had, and continued even after an utter trainwreck of a final, unplanned, encore, when Mr Lead Guitar started "Travelin' Band" on completely the wrong chord, then totally failed to catch up while the rest of us who'd actually remembered how the song went just ploughed on regardless. 😇 Next gig is an outdoor charity festival in a months time - suspect we'll not be doing "Travelin' Band" on the day, but reckon we'd probably better brush it up just in case!

Another one + spare here, though which of them gets the gig and which is the spare depends very much on how I'm feeling on the day. Think it's probably going to be the Jazz this weekend, though it might turn out to be the '51 P Reissue yet. 🤷‍♂️

Yep, that's us to a tee as well. There are umpteen other bands round our way who push themselves on the socials far more than we do (which isn't difficult to be fair!), and seem to get gigs at the drop of a hat. That said, our whole raison d'être was to have fun, playing songs we wanted to play, and gigging only occasionally, rather than being out every weekend playing the same old stuff in the same old pubs as everybody else, so probably shouldn't grumble really. 🤷‍♂️

How about these two, previously owned by DeLisle Harper. That 1957... 🤩 1957 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185858047291?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=I6kQUce0SWq&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY 1968 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185858042671?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=I6kQUce0SWq&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Having finally found myself in a gigging band a couple of years back at the age of 61, I definitely feel like I've improved since then. With me, it's a mental thing - I'm now a lot more confident in my abilities (as in "Hey, I *can* actually do this to an acceptable level!" ), and am therefore much more relaxed, and more prepared to make the odd mistake (some *very* odd) without worrying about it. It also helps that I seem to be the only one out of the five of us who can learn (and actually remember) a song arrangement quickly!

Haha, I wondered if it was - nice to meet you (again)! 😀

Yeah, I was discussing this with another user on the Ashdown FB page t'other day. I'd presumed it would be the same as my old 100W Five Fifteen minirig, which has a single output on the head labelled 4 ohm, and a 100W / 4 ohm sealed cab, but then the user guide shows the Studio has two outputs on the head (min load 4 ohm), and mentions using an extension speaker - I guess this means one could use two 8 ohm cabs, but that seems to defeat the object of having a dedicated (presumably 250W / 4 ohm) cab. Then again, the info in the user guide seems a bit skewiff as you've pointed out, so who knows what the reality is! Hopefully someone from @Ashdown Engineering will respond either here or on FB to clarify.

Saturday night saw an unexpected outing for Rascallion, replacing another local band who had been due to play at our favourite village hall venue, but suffered a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly a couple of weeks ago. No major dramas to report for once, other than Mr Singer's 12-string electro-acoustic suddenly turning into an 11-string (cue 1001 hoary old g-string jokes). The onstage sound was probably the best we've ever had - our new monitor setup (an Alesis Strike Amp 12 on the far side of Mr Drums, and an HH Tensor in front of Mr Singer and Mr Lead) worked brilliantly and provided a beautifully balanced overall mix, while my trusty old Ashdown Five Fifteen minirig is doing all I can ask of it as far as personal monitoring goes. Made a few minor whoopsies here and there during the first set (when I'm usually a bit tentative anyway), but from the second song of the second set onwards things were really cooking and I could just let my left hand do its stuff without really having to think about it. Great response throughout from the small-but-perfectly-formed audience who really do seem to appreciate our brand of country-fried rock and blues, with a few up and dancing, loudly demanding an encore when we finished, and then demanding a second encore equally loudly - we briefly considered risking "Rose of Cimarron" which we only did for the first time at rehearsal on Thursday, but the chap who runs the hall was shouting for more CCR, so we went with "Travelin' Band" instead, and for once everybody remembered how the ending goes! Next scheduled gig is an outdoor charity festival in July, but someone who was there last night has apparently now asked if we could play their birthday party at the same venue in June, so we're just waiting on Mr Rhythm to check his holiday diary before we say yes. Couple of short FB vids here... https://fb.watch/ke1m2DkVqD/ https://fb.watch/ke1tbXe3nm/

Just checking the traffic on the route to this evening's gig - setting off in about 45 minutes, fortunately doesn't look too busy at the mo, but you can never guarantee some muppet won't bump into something / somebody at the drop of a hat!

First public performance (with a couple of mates at an open-mic) = 54 First proper gig with a band = 61 12th gig coming up this evening!

So, @Downunderwonder / @Rich / @dmccombe7 / @moley6knipe / @casapete , I pitched up at rehearsal on Thursday intending to test out your various suggestions as regards the boominess we experienced last Saturday, only to be forestalled by Mr Rhythm Guitar who confessed that the lows on his monitor (a SubZero C12MAE active floor jobbie) had been wound up as high as they'd go for most of the gig - apparently he'd only noticed two songs from the end, and never thought to mention it to the rest of us on the day! 🤦‍♂️ Anyway, after double-checking that everything was set up correctly, we ran through the numbers which had generated the most boominess on Saturday without any problems at all - winding up the lows on the monitor in question immediately took us back to Boom City, so looks like that was indeed the problem on this occasion. 🤷‍♂️

To be honest, the only reason I spotted it was my Better Half had the TV on, so I waa watching the vid with the volume off and the subtitles on. Just a happy accident really! 😂

Dunno about the bass, but the auto-generated subtitles leave a bit to be desired... 😳

Hi Dave, I don't think so, though to be fair they're a part of the gear I never get involved with! I'll have a proper look on Thursday. Cheers, Tony

Hmm, I do usually have my amp turned inwards slightly, but then it's aiming at both Mr Frontman and Mr Lead Guitar's vocal mics. I'll try moving it around a bit at rehearsal on Thursday and see if that makes a difference. Thanks for the suggestion. 👍

No, they haven't actually got soundholes, they've both got piezo bridge pickups (in the pic below, the black one's the 12, the yellow one's the 6), but I guess they've still got the body capacity to resonate in an unhelpful manner? Sounds like a plan, I'll have a fiddle with the desk at rehearsal on Thursday. 👍

Yeah, our frontman swaps between a 6-string electro-acoustic and a 12-string electro-acoustic, and it's always worse when he's on the 6-string. Throw his vocals plus two lots of backing vox and the electronic drumkit into the mix, and it does seem to be a case of frequency stacking that the monitors can't handle. Fortunately it doesn't affect the FoH, it's just annoying.

Another outing for the Ashdown Five Fifteen minirig at this weekend's outdoor / beer garden gig. As I go through the PA anyway, the amp is really just there as onstage monitoring for me, and because Mr Lead Guitar prefers to hear the bass coming from behind him rather than through his monitor, so I don't need the power of the good ol' MAG300 combo and find the minirig easier to lug around.

Saturday afternoon saw the first outing for Rascallion in 2023, appearing as the first "Outdoor Band" of the year at a local village pub (and coincidentally the first time we've ever played there too). Really nice setup in the beer garden, with a marquee roof running the full length, though as things turned out it might have been better if they'd had the sides on too - despite the lovely sunshine, it was both a tad draughty and incredibly chilly in the shade, and by the time we finished at about 6:30pm (having kicked off at 4pm, with a 30 minute break between sets) we were all suffering from cramp and frozen fingers (but fortunately had just enough dexterity and feeling left to be able to bash out "Bad Moon Rising" as a much-demanded encore). Other than the usual distraction of the odd bass note booming through the monitors (octave E's this time rather than the usual B's and C's... 🤨 ), all went reasonably well. Overall, it probably wasn't the best we've ever played tbh, but conversely a couple of numbers turned out the best we've ever done them, so swings and roundabouts, eh? Despite the onstage boominess, FoH sound was spot-on, and the audience were appreciative throughout, with one particular lady declaring we were "f****** awesome" at the end. There again, drink may well have been taken, so... 🤷‍♂️ As it is, we were already booked for late August BH Sunday at the same venue, but they've now also asked if we could be available at short notice should they find themselves needing a band any time before then, so guess we must have made a decent enough impression. Next scheduled gig is an open-air local charity festival in mid-July - hopefully it'll be a bit warmer that day! Picture from the pub FB page...

Couple more books I've got on the shelf in addition to the "Illustrated History" previously mentioned! First one's a tad niche, but is probably my most thumbed book as I'm a bit of an SCPB fanboy... https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9781574242546/Fender-Precision-Basses-1951-1954-Schmidt-1574242547/plp And then there's this, which while not strictly bass-related, is full of all sorts of odds and ends and bits and bobs which may be of interest... https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9781476817477/Fender-Archives-Scrapbook-Artifacts-Treasures-1476817472/plp

Betcha can't spot the bass player... 🤭

Yeah, I've got an old SoundLAB SDB-20 passive DI box which lives in my spares bag for gigs - the very nice chap from whom I bought my Ashdown Five Fifteen Minirig donkey's years ago threw it in as a freebie as he had no use for it! Funnily enough, I've also got a Behringer BDI21 in the bag, just in case. Although my other two amps have got inbuilt DI's, the Minirig (which I'm using the most at the moment) hasn't even got a Line Out never mind a DI, so my main FOH feed comes from an Ashdown 12-band graphic EQ / DI pedal - hopefully the SoundLAB and BDI give me enough cover should the Ashdown pedal ever let me down! 🤞