TrevorR

It was fantastic. Very 70s West Coast pop, Yacht Rock vibe to it and they were clearly enjoying - as was I! Nice intimate venue and great sound. Iain Hornal has a great voice and Lee Pomeroy’s playing as ever a delight… even if watching his lefty, upside down strung bass mangles my brain.

Yeah, can’t believe my Wal Pro 2E is only 5 years off that score!

Cool bass but very confused by the E and A strings!

A Costa Coffee card or similar works great for this. Usually it’s not an electronic sensor, just a physical switch/relay activated by the physical presence of the card.

Very Special… 😉

It was a fabulous gig and great music. Had such a great time!!! Nice to catch up with Jo Webb - their guitarist and co-producer - who I’ve not seen in yonks.

In the Beginning - the debut album from Big Horizon (basically the guys from Jeff Lynne’s ELO and Take That’s backing band). Picked it up at their debut gig on Friday. Damn, it’s good. Yacht Rock/Steely Dan/Hall & Oats/Andrew Gold vibe.

Interesting… Eventbrite is also advertising tickets for “Bass Guitar Live 2025” the previous day but no website or details on that one either. Beyond this blurb… Bass Guitar Live Get ready to rock out at Bass Guitar Live! Join us in London for an epic event showcasing the best bass brands and bass guitar talents around. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, this event is perfect for all bass enthusiasts. See Gear up close and Watch jaw-dropping performances, pick up some new techniques, and connect with fellow bass players. Don't miss out on this unforgettable experience - mark your calendars for Bass Guitar Live! Clashing/competing events? One event building/cashing in on the other? One event with two halves? Doubt anyone’s going to spend 2x£20 on very similar looking events a day apart… even if they’ve travelled down to London for one of them. They’ve got to dilute each other’s ticket sales. All very curious but both their PR/web/socials teams need taking outside and given a good talking to.

I’m not a big bass spender so my two best would be another TC Electronics UniTune Clip headstock tuner (can’t have enough of those scattered about), and this humbucking pickup that I got from Catswhisker Pickups earlier in the year to add to my Frankenjazz. It replaced one of a set of their side by side Jazz humbuckers which I had installed on it a few years ago. Nothing wrong with that neck pickup but a project bass is a project bass… what can you do? Sounds so great for half the cost of a Bart or an SD… and Allan’s great to work with as a customer. Thinking about it… I’d have to add the new scratch plate I got from Tiny Tone to go with it. Absolutely no worst buys, which is great!

The line up looks very SBL heavy so far. Yolanda’s great but it would be nice to have a wider range of names on the list. I’ll be watching with interest to see who else signs up and who is exhibiting and then make my decision closer to the time.

Cannot wait for tonight’s gig! Going to be great. See you there!

Just bought a ticket to see The Pete Roth Trio live in Windsor in a couple of weeks time. He’s a fabulous jazz guitarist. Yeah? So? I hear you ask… let’s just say he’s got a decent drummer. Mr Bill Bruford! Can’t wait!

Some great stuff posted here. Love a lot of it. Discovered The New Mastersounds a few years ago. Rather good too!

Just back from seeing the Stacey Brothers’ The Royal Scammers doing an evening of Steely Dan tunes. There are loads of incredibly talented Dan tribute bands out there but I doubt any could match the caliber of this crew… when you’ve got Mike Lindup from Level 42 playing keys and Yolanda Charles on bass just take it as read that the band’s a bit good!!!

Typo or Freudian(a) slip? Come to think of it, never mind, I’ve been to Aldershot…

Barry Moorhouse who runs it came along to out last Bass Bash. He’s a really good bloke.

A fine Pratchett-ism if I ever heard one. Never tried a BC Wyman bass but as @Paddy777 says their Jazz and P basses are very good for the price. Their Guy Pratt Betsy copy is excellent and I’m seriously tempted by the new Neil Murray model.

Have a chat with Allan at Catswhisker Pickups. He makes some great stuff, has lots of tweakable and custom options and can fix you up, I’m sure. I’ve got his pickups in my Frankenjazz and they’re fabulous. http://www.catswhiskerpickups.co.uk

I took the comment as meaning more as you build up the mix at soundcheck… As in… “Right that keyboard sounds good… oh, now the acoustic and electric guitars are all stomping over the same frequencies, better tweak their respective EQs to even that out and carve them out some space… Right that now that last run through sounded good. OK, soundcheck over…”

Funny, I often found the opposite… I’ve been playing ampless and on IEMs and folks have come up to me to complain that I was too loud and should turn my amp down… 🤷‍♂️

Fab night out watching Public Service Broadcasting (with EERA) in Kingston tonight.

I’ve been quite lucky with headliners But my four worst bands were all supports… Heavy Pettin’ supporting Magnum in the late 80s. Talk about a mismatch in styles. The lowest grade hair metal. Actively painful on the ears. Speaking of painful on the ears… Dave Hole several times supporting Gary Moore. Australian slide guitarist but his schtick was playing with the slide way up beyond the fretboard creating almost ultrasonic sine wave tones. Once or twice in a set as a bit of stunt guitar would have been fine but every solo on every song! AAAAARGH!!! Primus supporting Rush at Wembley. Was really looking forward to this but it really did sound like a bag of spanner’s being tipped down a stairwell. Went to the bar. The Opposition - a doomy, gloomy goth type band who were second in the bill at Penwith Rocks ‘83. Rest of the lineup was great (Billy Bragg, Porky the Poet (I think), Renaissance, Chuck Berry, Aswad, 10cc, Meatloaf). But The Opposition were just unutterably dull. And special mention for Brooke Fraser a really great Kiwi singer at The Scala. It looked like she was doing a great show but the sound was so bad that literally all you could hear was a huge bass drum and keyboard sub-bass swelling and booming around the room. Could barely hear any vocals and for all I could tell the guitar player may as well have been miming without his amp turned on. I literally did not hear a note he played all night. Hugely disappointing.

This is the best I can do… it’s the E series but may be helpful. Never seen a schematic for the passive ones. From this linear 220k for the volumes, 220k logarithmic for the tones. 22k linear master volume. https://www.talkbass.com/threads/wal-bass-preamp.1316762/

Was so glad to have seen Chas ‘n’ Dave live (my nephew’s stag weekend). What a great fun gig and both fantastic players. I guess Dave Peacock is underrated because the music most of us know him for isn’t seen as “cred”. Folks forget that they were both busy session players pre-Chas’n’Dave and you don’t get there by being shoddy players.

Really looking forward to next Tuesday to see Public Service Broadcasting at a night club in Kingston. They’re doing some low key album launch gigs before their full tour later in the autumn. The new album is themed on the last flight of Amelia Aerhart and the singles so far have been cracking! Will be interesting to see what audio visuals they have lined up for these tunes - always a big element to their music/shows.