lozkerr

What an outrageous suggestion! 😉

They do indeed. Sometimes it's possible to anticipate them too. Preview shows can be very educational.

I've not done pit work, but I have done stage management and lighting design, so I think I can answer some of this. The phone handset isn't for talking to the band. It'll be hooked up to a talk-back circuit - essentially a closed-circuit intercom system - that allows the stage manager, conductor, lighting and sound operators to talk to each other. If the show uses follow-spots, their operators will be on the talk-back too. Music rehearsals will include lengthening parts of songs, cues to play riffs at odd places and repeat some parts. Those will be agreed between the music director and the show director, and be rehearsed seperately. It's not unknown for the actors not to encounter the band until the first technical rehearsal. They'll have been working with backing tracks up to then. When a show does go off-piste - and you're right, pantos do do that - the people who keep it on track are the stage manager, the conductor and the lighting and sound people. The band will have rehearsed what might go off-script and be able to respond accordingly.

That is exactly what I do. Play last encore (assuming we're asked for one 😉 ), mute amp, unplug and switch off wireless transmitter, put bass into gig bag, pedal board into case, coil cables, change shades for normal specs and get off the stage sharpish. Takes about three minutes to get everything where it should be and I do final tidying up backstage or in the green room. That just seems to me to be the professional thing to do.

I went wireless about this time last year and the feeling of freedom was fantastic! Still have to keep an eye on stage position during songs that need effects or BVs though - I expect I'll get caught out sooner or later...

I am Hard. I am Brave. I shall defeat the Final Boss and absolutely not give into the temptation of the five-string Sandberg and EBMM Stingray that they display so seductively on their website. But if I do... hell, I was out in April! And I've bought the outstanding bits of electric string I need today, lest I fall in a heap in the new year. I. Can. Do. This. Err, I think...

Fantastic night last night at Edinburgh's Wee Red Bar with the 80s covers band. We were doing a two-hander with a 90s band and the place was packed - we came within 27 tickets of selling out! No, the venue, not the band 😉 People were dancing from the first song, which is always good to see and loudly singing along to the last few numbers. We hadn't gigged since June, because reasons, so it was great to blow away the cobwebs. Bass was my Sterling Stingray V into the venue's Peavey amp - I still don't know the model number. Maybe I'll look when I'm back there next week, if I remember. In the meantime, here's me grinning like a gargoyle while belting out Love Shack:

Bought a new Mono M80 from the Gallery a few years ago. When I got it home, I found a padded Mono strap and a 10-metre cable inside. Bonus!

Bought an EHX Freeze off Ben. Great guy to deal with, excellent comms and pedal exactly as described and very well packed. Dead chuffed with it!

This is both the best and the worst. Found for a song on fleabay but the full refurbishment cost was not so much a song as a double album. But I'd wanted one of these for ages and it sounds fantastic! I'm pondering getting an Electro-Harmonix Freeze and a decent expression pedal before the end of the year so I can try the 2026 abstinence thread.

Aye. Until you get some perv trying to upskirt you.

For the now-defunct punk band, a lurid pink jacket too big for me was my outfit of choice...

Me too. I'd have thought bringing back the WTP heads would have been more in keeping with the Eden brand. Looks like they're aiming at lower price points. I'll be interested to see what you think. I doubt if I'll be trying one just yet, though, as I've just had this fully refurbished. Jeezo, I thought my Metro had some grunt but this thing's a bloody monster!

I received a couple of these in the run-up to our last gig and thought no more of it - they were trapped as spam and a quick look through the source code uncovered quite a few red flags. I thought it might have been a one-off, but I've had another one today from some more supposedly big-shot US lawyers. This one's a bit cruder than the earlier supposed missive I had from Cravaith, Swaine and Moore, but it's still a scam. It's a nasty one, though. For one thing, both those companies really exist and they genuinely are large legal firms. Everything apart from the alleged 'infringing video' link resolves to real URLs and email addresses. I've been on the Internet for 37 years now and thought I was wise to this sort of crap but it still gave me a jolt. It is designed to do one thing and one thing only - panic the recipient into clicking that supposed Facebook link. It looks like it's been shortened just to fit nicely on the page, but in this case it really has been shortened. Here's what it looks like under the bonnet: <p style="margin:0 0 8px 0;font-size:15px"><strong>Infringing Link:</strong> <a style="color:#0b5b7a;text-decoration:none">https://www.facebook.com/<wbr>108692607419559/videos/...</a></p> In this case, it's dead - clumsy work on the scammer's part - but in the earlier one, it led to a shortened URL. Hovering over it displayed the actual link - bit.ly/something_or_other. Expanding the shortened URL - you can find plenty of sites that will do that for you - showed it led to a page stating that 'Unexpected traffic has been detected from your computer' with a link to click. Click on that link and you'll be asked to log into 'Facebook' - it's actually a fake login page. If you take the bait, bam - these scumbags have your login credentials. And just to add insult to injury, Faceache took the post down and restricted my account when I uploaded these annotated screenshots. Let's be careful out there!

Hm, I see what you mean. It's a moot point now though as the band's broken up ☹️

We have a winner!

We all adopted stage names for the punk band - Annie Hilation, Jude Struction, Laura van Detta and Sara Macarra ('macarra' is a Spanish word for a thug). Fitted the vibe very nicely.

Tanita Tikaram at an instore performance at Assai Records Edinburgh on Saturday. I loved her early stuff, went right off her for a while and recently discovered her again.

We're primarily an 80s band, but we don't enforce a cut-off date of 31st December 1989 or ignore anything released before 1st January 1980. The earliest song in our repertoire is Suffragette City (1972) and the most recent is Take Me Out (2004). But they're mainly 80s - here's our full list: Another Girl Another Planet Baby I Love You (Ramones cover) Back On The Chain Gang Bohemian Like You Call Me Cars and Girls Chance China Girl Crash (the Primitives song) Dakota Dignity Disco 2000 Don’t You Forget About Me Don’t You Want Me Echo Beach Everybody Wants To Rule The World German Film Star Going Underground Hanging On The Telephone Happy Birthday (the Altered Images song) Heart of Glass I Don’t Want A Lover I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll (Joan Jett rather than the Arrows) In Between Days Just Like Heaven Killing Moon Little Bird Long Train Running Losing My Religion Love Like Blood Love Shack Love Will Tear Us Apart Mandinka New Year's Day Perfect Skin Pretty In Pink Pride (In The Name Of Love) Psycho Killer Purple Rain Reward Rip It Up Running Up That Hill She Sells Sanctuary Should I Stay Or Should I Go Slippery People Somewhere In My Heart Suedehead Suffragette City Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This Tainted Love Take Me Out Teenage Kicks The Honeythief The One I Love There Is A Light That Never Goes Out There She Goes This Charming Man Town Called Malice White Wedding Whole Of The Moon

I used to be a railway modeller and I'd heard of the Growler Group long before now. Sorry!

Nor me, even though I have one. And I suspect female membership of this is a bit thin on the ground: http://thegrowlergroup.org.uk/ Quite SFW, in case you were wondering.

I'm nicking that for the next time a colleague thinks it's funny to ask if they can play tambourine in my band!