martthebass

Stonking gig last night at my local club. We usually get a few friends turn up when we play this place so we asked the proprietor to open 15 minutes early at 6:45 so we could load in and get a bit of a sound check. Alas the punters had other ideas and it was standing room only by 7:15. Amazingly we did manage to get a decent sound - suspect I was slightly on the loud side as I was using my Fallout bass which is a bit hotter than my Mustangs. A guy and his wife traveled from Dewsbury (about 40 miles) to see us and brought a big bag of party wigs which he dumped near the stage - wasn’t sure what this was about...then on the second number he got up and danced his heart out and got all the punters going, distributing wigs for them to wear. It was like having a 70’s glam Bez 😂😂😂 All in all another great night, next week we venture into the dark lands on the other side of the Pennines so we’ll see if our run of great gigs continues.

Fender, MIA, MIM Squier, MII, MIM Musicman EBMM Danelectro Status G&L Lakland Sandberg Epiphone Westone Avon.....the shame RSD Overwater Warwick Rickenbacker Limelight

TBH there's so much signal processing going on I can't tell if it's any good. A 70's Woolworth's bass would sound about the same....

Without any real effort on my part I’ve ended up with 50% of my pack being sig basses. Status CW sig....it’s just a lovely bass and it was one that Rob Green was finishing up for stock not long before he ‘retired’. No regrets on that one. Squier Mustang Mikey Way. It’s silver glitter and suits my glam rock band to a T. It’s also not a bad bass.... Fender JMJ Mustang. I had no idea who JMJ was but this is a great Mustang.

We once got a Mark's and Spencers sandwich and a bag of crisps (sorry - chips Daryl) at a gig in Accrington. It was the least they could do as we were on the wrong side of the Pennines 😉

Seems like Glam bands in the main are a nice social lot. I joined my band as a dep in late 2016 to help them out as the replacement bass player (the original bassist had had a heart attack) needed an hernia op. My 80s band wasn’t doing much so I filled in for the a couple of months. Like you, knew the songs but most were re-keyed. Ended up not leaving.... When the big C struck in 2021 I offered my resignation but the lads wouldn’t hear of it and we carry on at a flexible reduced rate of about 40 gigs a year. I aim to keep rocking until I’m in the ground!

Just noticed, for some reason it didn't post the text I'd added.... Was just saying, we love the Biker rallies - we were worried when we did our first one in 2018 but the crowd loved it. We've even ended up doing Bay City Rollers stuff in the sets for them which we were sure they'd hate. We'll be doing a couple of MAG/NABD rallies this year in Cheshire and North Yorkshire and we can't wait! We're starting to see a few more Glam bands crop up around here, some seem to have 'adopted' the sets we had on our website.....but generally speaking there's plenty of work for the genre and we don't have to go looking for it. The secret is a good front man who likes to act and dress up like a tart as well as sing!

We all have em mate, even the best bands. As the saying goes 'it's a paid practice'.

Another great gig at a club in Huddersfield last night with the glam band. Wasn’t expecting miracles because Covid had hit this club pretty hard when we played it last year with a lot of the punters still AWOL. This seems to have reversed this year and the club was packed and we had a great night. Another booking to sort but this will be 2024 as we are now booked solid for 23. Going on 7 years with this band now and it’s still loads of fun!

Yup.....I always think I don't smile enough

Also according to Wiki.... An electronic component is any basic discrete device or physical entity in an electronic system used to affect electrons or their associated fields. Maybe we are getting caught up on the difference between active and passive electronic components. All that said, I guess it's not in any way important to the discussion on this bass so I'll shut up.

I quite like it, it's got a nice range of tones (not as flexible as a Fallout bass but more than a single pup Mustang) and it's not offensive on the eyes. Haven't seen a price but guessing it's in JMJ, US Fallout territory? Don't think I'll dip my toe this time as my 3 shorties cover my needs but maybe down the line?

Does this qualify....

Played a club on the outskirts of Chesterfield Saturday night, nice place, well run and their own light system which is always a bonus as it reduces our setup/strip down time. Club liked things a bit on the quiet side (though thankfully no db meter cutoff system) which made it a bit polite for the first half of the first set. Things warmed up however and when the dance floor filled we upped the volume a bit; by the second set we were at our normal level. Concert sec came into the change room at end of play and expressed appreciation and took our last available date for 2023. So all in all 'job's a good un'. Was home and watching Mick Ronson doc on Sky Arts with a Glenmorangie nightcap by 1:00am.

When I’m sound checking at a big gig with venue based sound guy I always go simple. Psychokiller always works for me!

Shuker?

https://shukerguitars.co.uk/

Now that's an idea. Think the wife would kill me though, I used that to get my Chris Wolstenholme sig just before Rob 'finished'. I do love the look of the 'old style' Statii though, but not enough to sell the CW.

For playability purposes I’d consider it definitely needs a refin. Personally I’d go for a vintage tint poly lacquer which would make it look fairly period correct. I had a maple neck MM refinned by Shuker a few years back with a stainless refret at very reasonable cost.

Good to see you back out on the road Daryl

I think when I put my LM3 in to Real a few years back they said if it was the power board it'd be about £160. I guess that would be more like £200+ now. On that basis, at 50 gigs a year I tend to look at the cost of the amp at about £2/gig which seems more than reasonable - and that's a worse case if the amp is U/S at replacement. My back up Italian LM3 is still as good as when I first got it so probably still worth a few quid.

That's not bad. To be honest, unlike my previous old school Trace stuff I tend to look at the ICE based amps as 'consumable'. My LM3 is a 2012 Italian class AB job which I put over to back up about 3 years back. My current main is the Little Marcus which has about 3 years old and done about 130 gigs. It will get retired to back up in another couple of years if I'm still doing 50 gigs (or so) per year.