lozkerr

Done it! Just shelled out for a Shure GLXD16+. If it arrives when Gear4Music say it will - not always a given - it'll have its first outing at next weekend's gigs. Though I'll be taking cables along, just in case...

I think I'm going to have to snap up a wireless unit pronto if I'm going to have a chance in 2025...

I use New Moon: https://www.newmooninsurance.com/

Exactly this 👆👆 When I joined my punk band, we had a lot of covers in the set, even though we wanted to be an originals band. We kept them going for a wee while while we added originals to lengthen our set to a minimum of 45 minutes, but now that we're there, most of the covers are on death row. We're keeping two that really chime with our vibe but the rest will go as we get new originals gig-ready. We might add two or three I - IV - V three-chord bangers to rotate as encores, but they won't be part of the main set. As we lengthen our set to 60 and then 90 minutes, they'll all be originals unless a cover really gels with us. Get out there, get started and then shape things in the direction you want to go.

A little late, but we played a multi-band gig at Legends in Edinburgh on Saturday for a fundraiser for Gazan families. Great atmos and a seriously pumped crowd. My friendly and approachable stage persona was in full swing.

I'm very lucky in that my partner is also a musician - guitar for fun and baritone in a brass band for the serious stuff - so there's no problem with having gear around, buying toys or with evenings being taken up with rehearsals, gigs or band admin. It's a mahoosive difference from when I was married - back then, I couldn't call my life my own. Model railways were my thing at the time and I hated having to sneak in a wagon that cost all of 20 quid. But that made me more determined not to be completely ground down... not a great basis for a healthy relationship.

Thanks! Just given Thomann some beer tokens for a strip. Hopefully they'll arrive before next Saturday's gig.

Seconded @Jack I really fancy a nice red fiery glow underneath mine!

He thought it might have been the snare mic feeding back through the drummer's and my monitor. Possibly, but I think we need to work it through with cool heads. Said mic was an SM57 rather than a drum mic - I'm not enough of a PA expert to know if that's relevant or not. The singers' mics were feeding back too and they were a fair way away from us. The way we set up was to have everything going through our own XR18, with the outputs going into the PA power amp. We've done it that way at other gigs and it's worked well, but something was definitely wrong yesterday. I video all our gigs and I've just had a look at yesterday's footage. The FoH sound is awful - bass and guitars randomly cutting in and out, vocals buried deep in the mix, drums sounding like the Battle of Jutland... we deffo need to dig into what went wrong yesterday.

It wasn't much fun at the time, but at least at the Banshee we weren't just playing to the sound engineer and we did gain a fan. The fete though - I think we'll need to have a wee post-mortem on that once tempers have cooled. In spite of it all, they've said they want us back next year. At least the Stingray cut through beautifully on both gigs. Took my Eden backline along to the fete - WTP600 amp, 210 and 118 cabs. Managed to get the stage floor shaking quite nicely 🙂

Punk gig on Friday at the Banshee Labyrinth in Edinburgh followed by Roslin Fete yesterday. Definitely a tale of ups and downs. We'd been led to believe we were on second at the Banshee, but we ended up going on first. Tough crowd - there was a bit of a bro vibe going on and as we were the only females on the bill, we felt a tad uncomfortable, especially when we started and the audience just stood and stared. Singist eventually had enough, so when we played a song where our guitarist takes the lead, she jumped off the stage, grabbed the only woman in the room and started dancing with her. It worked a treat - the lass came down the front and stood there starry-eyed. But overall, we felt a bit deflated. Guitarist took it quite badly. She's only 26 and I got the impression she hadn't faced a tough crowd before. But after we'd finished, a few people came up and said how good we were, which cheered us up a bit. One old punk, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Johnny Rotten was really singing our praises. Then on to yesterday. There was so much fog about that I was wondering if John Carpenter was in town. But no matter, the fete was well-organised and we set up and did the soundcheck. Then it all went tits-up. We were last on the programme, so after the soundcheck, we moved our gear to the back of the stage to await our turn. Then, when it came, we were bombarded with horrendous levels of feedback. The sound guy spent ages trying to track it down and we eventually started more than half an hour late feeling seriously stressed, and inevitably made a lot of mistakes. Then I discovered that (a) my monitor was turned down so far that I couldn't hear anything and (b) I was singing into a dead mic. Shortly after, the guitarist's monitor cut out completely. By that time, I just CBA doing anything else other than getting through the set. Everyone else felt the same way. When I drove home, I was all set to pack in music and take up stamp collecting. Then we had a lovely message on Instagram from the Johnny Rotten guy: So yeah - I'm back on a nice even keel today!

Possibly. Repent at leisure and all that... I'm glad you're taking a while to think about it. Even though I missed out on a tasty bargain in the marketplace tonight 😉

All thanks to Hale and Pace:

Oh my. That is one awesome rig. Although I think I'd struggle to cart an Eden 610 about these days. I've noticed that Eden gear doesn't seem to appear as much in the marketplace as it used to, or even on fleabay for that matter. I wonder if us aficionados know what we've got and are hanging onto it like grim death? I have five Eden amps and I love 'em to bits.

God, I absolutely fkn hate that song. Gies me the dry boak. I have to turn off the radio or leave the room whenever I hear it. I'm not joking. It's one of the two songs in the entire world's repertoire of popular music that I will flat-out refuse to play. But it is just Wonderwall. Oasis churned out some cracking songs. Champagne Supernova, Cigarettes and Alcohol, Songbird, Roll With It, Stop Crying Your Heart Out, Don't Look Back In Anger, Live Forever, Shakermaker... the list goes on. And I love Little By Little. My 80s band stretches the envelope from time to time. An Oasis song hasn't been suggested yet, but if they want to do sodding Caterwaul, they'll have to do it without a bass player. I'd go for Cigarettes and Alcohol, Don't Look Back In Anger, Champagne Supernova or Little By Little in roughly that order. All fabulous bangers. But Wonderwall? No chance.

They're certainly going to town... apparently there's a lot of new merch being launched. Including food. The first item to be released will be a soup. It's just soup, but you get a roll with it.

Played our first Fringe gig last night with the punk band. Well, it was in a Fringe venue although not an official show. But it does mean we can be economic with the actualité and casually say that 'when we played the Fringe...' Fake it 'til you make it and all that. The Stingray had its second outing and acquitted itself very well. The bass amp was an old Laney box - no idea of the model - but the Stingray sounded really good through it.

Or Woodbine Smoke?

Our punk guitarist often asks me for a pick, even though I've told her repeatedly I don't use one. I do have a few kicking about though, including a 2mm job. I'm going to do that next time she asks.

Apparently it's called blue sparkle. It deffo looks the biz!

I like boosted mids. Starting from flat, I usually have the mids about three-quarters full, bass about a third of the way up and roll off the treble a fraction. Having said that, I've only had it for a few weeks and I'm still experimenting with different tones. I'll try cranking the treble a bit more next rehearsal. Oh, and the Corstorphine branch of Guitar Guitar has the four-string in the same finish, if your credit card's feeling itchy 😉

It is indeed a very sparkly Stingray. Shiny thing! Shiny thing! 😉

Me at the Banshee Labyrinth a week last Thursday. First outing for the Stingray!

Opened a three-act punk set last night at the Banshee Labyrinth in Edinburgh. Lovely wee venue with a lot of atmos. My new Stingray had its first outing and I was very pleased with how well it cut through. We're playing there again in September.

It certainly isn't. Some cracking songs in that list though! I have Holiday in Cambodia and For Whom The Bell Tolls on my personal to-learn list, but songs for my bands have to take priority. Our 80s band has an additional constraint, in that we push our USP as covering post-punk and indie material rather than anything between 1980 - 1990. So no cheesy pop, S/A/W, hair metal and so on. This constraint - which we don't enforce too rigidly, BTW - might have cost us a few bookings, but OTOH when we do get gigs we know we're going to get a good crowd. We played a birthday party not long back and this was the set list: 1. Teenage Kicks 2. Somewhere In My Heart 3. Back On The Chain Gang 4. Love Will Tear Us Apart 5. Rip It Up (the Orange Juice song) 6. Love Shack 7. Town Called Malice 8. The One I Love 9. Call Me 10. Suffragette City 11. Happy Birthday (the Altered Images song) 12. Psycho Killer 13. Long Train Running (at birthday boy's request - dad rock isn't really our thing) 14. Dignity 15. The Whole Of The Moon 16. She Sells Sanctuary 17. Don't You Forget About Me 18. This Charming Man 19. Tainted Love 20. Purple Rain All in all, it went down very well. We had people up and dancing almost immediately (although we started long after the party did, so the punters were nicely lubricated) and we got a lot of applause at the end (or they could have just been relieved that we'd finished!). I think having the constraint in place helps to narrow things down when selecting songs, but it just reduces the disagreement problem rather than eliminating it completely.