Norris

We've found that Facebook works as long as people follow you. To that end I created an A4 sheet with our band logo and a massive QR code to take people to our page. I then laminated it and it goes in front of the band at every gig. I make sure I create events a month or so in advance, and the guitarist does an amusing "call to action" post with photo a day or two before. It seems to work. The photo is a must, because text-only posts just disappear into the ether I don't use Facebook on a personal level because I hate it, nor any other socials

Anyway, yes, we had a gig yesterday and despite polishing my DMs earlier in the day I didn't take a photo of them. In fact I didn't take any worth posting. A new venue for us in Nuneaton. This is probably the 10th place we've played in the town and it's all been organic, word of mouth - which is nice. We had a few in from another venue we play not far away, which was also nice. It was quite a large pub so we were glad of the extra people. Low ceiling and carpet made for a slightly different "on stage" sound to normal, suppressing the top end, but I've played my Rumble for long enough to trust that it will still project a good tone out to the audience. The drummer even removed some of the gaffer tape damping from his cowbell 😂 Anyway we went down well, and they did the usual trick of waiting until the last song to start dancing and then wanting us to carry on all night. At least we left them wanting more. That's our last one for a few weeks - our guitarist is off touring the UK and Germany with Martin Turner (ex Wishbone Ash) through March and April. We just have the odd gig or two in the gaps. I'm looking forward to some free weekends to crack on with the garden and my VW camper (1979 aircooled late bay).

We had a request for Money by Pink Floyd. The guitarist asked me what key it was in, because apparently I am the Floyd expert. I couldn't remember so said C or D. So he played it in A. I don't care, I have a 5er and just played it a string lower! 😂

Tonight was a private do - a 65th birthday party for a guy we've known for absolutely ages. His birthday isn't actually until April, but he rearranged the party around our availability. He's a really nice chap but it's always hard work at one of his events - backing him singing for half a dozen songs as well as doing our usual sets. The evening started with a chap playing some nice smooth, tasteful jazz/latin trumpet along to backing tracks through the tiniest little Bose combo. What a great little setup for dinner/dances or a bit of event background music. He was followed by a girl with acoustic guitar and a great voice doing some unaccompanied covers. It turned out she had got up to play guitar with our band in a pub aged 15 nearly 40 years ago! It was great to hear about the musical career she had made after that early encouragement (no, neither me nor the guitarist could remember the event, but she still did) Anyway as it was a party we dialled down the heavy rock & prog and dialled up the pop & funk. We had them dancing all night -win! The venue was a village hall geared up for the local am-dram society - quite a high stage, but a great sound The theme was beachwear, and they had hired a photographer... It looks like a scene from a Weekend at Bernie's - if you're old enough to remember that film 😂. They have also cropped out my burgundy suede Vans 😜

I once played at a place where the really small, but highly sensitive mic was set into the wall. It didn't trip after I'd stuffed a load of loo roll into the hole on top of it! Hate the things!

8 years. That's one of the longest zombie thread resurrections I've seen

I guess it all comes down to whether you try to sell it afterwards. Anything I've changed/upgraded generally ends up making it a better bass, therefore I like it, and don't sell it on Squier P-bass: SD-QP pickups, Hipshot drop-D tuner Sterling Sub5: Stinger preamp It made them better basses, but MY better basses

The lengths some people will go to, eh?!

There's another band called Cubic Nipple?! 😮

MAGA... "Again" When was the first time it was great? Was it under a dictatorship/ogliarchy? I really do fear for democracy

The speakers will likely be wired in parallel. It's a mono cab. You would need to rewire the cab to get the speakers to work in stereo, and then you wouldn't have much separation. I'm guessing you want to use your cab for one side and another cab for the other side? Edit: btw a DI box would be no good for the speaker-level signals from the amp output and you would damage it and possibly the amp too.

At Christmas I generated a few themed Teams backgrounds for online meetings. In one of them a guitar (being played by a Christmas elf) had two necks - at opposite ends of the body 😂

Scale length is 41.25" Hmmm. The tuners are pretty standard P bass style The string anchor may not work with the BT11 xtender

I think this is the more likely option - thanks

Good point and one that I hadn't considered. It's 3/4 scale bass, but I don't know if that is a standard measurement 🤷‍♂️

The Ibanez looks lovely 👍

Doffs cap and kowtows into the gentlepersons' lounge that is the EUB and Double-Bass section... I'd quite like a drop D tuner on my Stagg EUB. I know the tuners are basically the same ones as on a P bass, but with slightly different posts. I wonder if anyone has found the best Hipshot Xtender model to use, even if it involves some part-swapping? Is there one that will fit? I've seen the 5-string Stagg conversation thread from a few years ago btw. Also the rather lovely 5-string NS in the classifieds. Both are a bit beyond my budget though.

No, not for me I wouldn't want to play along to any backing track, let alone one with the bass on it. Special "signature" sound effects, maybe. Miming, no (unless I'm being paid a substantial amount of money)

Last gig I got a load of... What's that? It's an EUB ... An electric upright bass ... A bit like a double bass but electric ... Oh, right

It's the drummer way. Get your kit in from the car and arrange it as a barrier in front of the stage so that everyone else trips over it carrying their amps, guitars and cases

It was a bit of a strange one last night. The pub is quite small and gets quite busy, so they take a lot of the chairs and tables out when they have entertainment on. We've played there quite a lot over the years and have recently started doing the "acoustic" thing to better fit the room. We don't do a lot of Saturdays though, we normally do Sundays, and it turned out it was quite a different crowd. Instead of half the room being musicians, it was a load of younger people getting hammered. When we arrived the place was already fairly busy. By the time we'd set up I was starting to get getting fatigued from the volume of chatter - it was so loud! There were a larger proportion of ladies than our usual audience (old men!) so the chatter was also quite shrill. When we started playing, rather than shutting up and listening, they just talked all the louder! By the end of the first set we were starting to wonder why we were even there. We normally have a bit of banter going between numbers, but couldn't last night. It did get slightly better as the night went on. The crowd thinned slightly so that it was a bit more comfortable. They got a bit more involved with the songs and were singing along loudly. We also had the inevitable drunken dancers, one of whom got a firm shove in the back from the guitarist's right foot after persistently getting too close to his mike stand (to be manhandled out of the pub by the landlady a little while later). Anyway enough negatives. We really like playing "acoustically". It makes for some interesting arrangements. Playing my EUB makes me want to mess around a lot more, with silly slides and fills. We actually had a great laugh performing. "Rocket by Stagg" EUG in sparkle black, straight into my Fender Rumble v3 500 combo. Treble rolled off on the amp because it was feeding back through the piezo because the amp was up on the seat. Solovair boots

It's over a year since we last played at the White Hart in Ashby de la Zouch. It's usally a really buzzing town, having at least 6 pubs within a couple of hundred yards of each other on the main road, and a constant stream of itinerant drinkers. The cold February drizzle reduced the number of young ladies wandering around in next to nothing, but didn't stop them completely 😄 So the pub was a bit quiter than normal, but a more challenging load in due to the number of cars stacked up outside the surrounding takeaway outlets, making it nigh impossible to park up outside. It's always a place where we debate if we want to carry on playing there... until we do. We had a great night, managed to retain a crowd, got so many compliments and only had one instance of a drunken dancer trying to knock the guitarist's teeth out with his mic stand. We're back there in June - the night before we play another pub in Ashby! We wouldn't normally book gigs that close, but the other pub is off the main drag and we'll be doing it acoustically, for a completely different audience, so no conflict there. Usual kit: Sire & Rumble + DMs and elderly drummer On another note, in a recent post I mentioned that I have 6 weeks off. No I don't. We have a smattering of gigs over the next month or so, but then 5 weeks off. Still, it's a bit more relaxed gigwise and I might be able to get some spannering done on my old VW camper

My P7-5 (version 2?) is lovely and comfortable. Great pre-amp. Looks fabulous in black & tort too imho. It's been my workhorse for a couple of years. More expensive basses stay at home

Plenty of gardening and spannering to do. It'll be nice to have a few weekends to myself