NikNik

Time for a flick through this....

Same here re Bass Centre. Must have been '86. They had about 7 or 8 on show. Most were Precisions.

And on things KC, here's a short of Gizmodrome doing Elephant Talk. Mark King tapping away! https://youtu.be/Hl1OrgFh2EU

Spotted this on Adverts.ie. No stamp on neck. £10K?

Is that a haberdashery?

You....wore a shell-suit??

I bought one of the Harley Benton double-cut Juniors and it's a great guitar to modd. I swapped out the bridge and lowered/dressed the frets as the were a tad high. But I really like the P90 splittable 'bucker and the quality of the pots so I'm keeping them.

That was regular MO with the Ned and Bilbo mentioned earlier in thread. The telephone call would go something like this:- Ned: Hi! Howya doing? Me: Fine! What's new? Ned: Howdya fancy doing a gig? Me: Sure! When? Ned: Err.....tonight! Eight o' clock at the Shitty Tams! Me: Ok. How much are we getting paid? Ned: Err..errr....we haven't worked that out yet. These two guys would talk a bar manager into doing impromptu gigs, often, I think, just for the exposure. 90% of them we never got paid. Eventually I refused these requests to play at short notice.

I saw enough of Toyah full stop back in the day. Yeh, I can't wait for this to be released.

If the quotes are anything to go by, this is going to be superb! The Mighty Crim

It wasn't Muir of Ord, by any chance??

Village fair power supply...

It does sound a bit like Fashion, even the vocal. But the bass is all over the place.

Had that problem once. Outside gennie running 16A line to our gear. Whilst we were away and unbeknownst to us when we returned, the caterers - hidden behind a silkscreened section of the large marquee - had disconnected the Cee-Form connector and inserted a 16A-13A power-block, which powered their fridges and their large food-heaters. Unbelievably, when challenged about this, they hit the fkn roof and bawled at us not to unplug their power!! We had to seek out the organiser to tell her what was happening and recommended getting her Spark firm back out to put in another line for the caterers, who had already had a 16A put in for them at the other end of their section!

Correct. 96db is nothing!! Unless it's ten feet away from you!

I would be speaking to the bride and telling her you cannot put your band in such a position to ruin her night. I'd ask her to feed that right back to the wedding planner (they all have massive egos!) and the venue.

96db measured from where? How big is the venue? Years ago I played in a pub that had one. It was 10m from PA to meter and it was fun watching it go into orange and stay there. It tripped the power once; not good for valve amps OR the vibe! Can't recall any fines/repercussions.

Here's another one. Back around the early '80s I was in an eight-piece funk band but on the side I played with the drummer, the guitarist, one of the female vox, and the (stinky poo) keyboard-player doing a 45 of Quick-Steps and a 45 of '60s hits around the workingmens' clubs as they paid well and we used the money for running the other band. One afternoon we're loading in to some miners' welfare club in the back of beyond and out the corner of my eye I see a figure carrying full Highland Dress slip into the dressing rooms. At one point I hear this florid, Ken Dodd look-a-like asking one of the committee guys what time he's going on. I began to feel that something was up, that something was going to occur that would put us in a precarious position. I tackled our manager to go find out the SP with this guy and he comes back with a grey pallor. It seems the guy is a warm up act or intermission act who's going to regale the punters with a few anecdotes about the Highlands and a bit of singing. I fear the manager has told the committee, when booking us, that we'll back this guy up! We tell him 'No way!' and witness the Highlander guy go mildly nuts when he hears this. So, we start our set of Quick steps/Foxtrots and all's well. We take a short break and return to play some instrumental noodle to welcome the Highlander to the stage. He proceeds to regale the punters with tales real and fictitious and goes into one about Glasgow. As he comes to the end of this tirade he turns to us all and goes 'And so with that, dear friends, I give you 'I belong to GLASGOW!! Take it away, boys, in G!!' and he begins to sing! The guitarist and I look at each other and begin busking it (it's a fairly well-known tune up here) but the drummer, who is younger and doesn't know the tune, is playing 4/4 across a 3/4 tune!! I call him out on this but it doesn't really make the rhythm flow any better. The keyboard player is playing random stabs which only augments the cacophony and the Highlander quickly finishes up and leaves the stage in a rush. We look at each other in disbelief whilst out the back we can here our man going crazy. He apparently expected a full Cabaret-style pick-up band so somebody, or somebodies, had kept both him and ourselves in the dark. We played an ok gig and I got royally whizzed afterwards, misbehaving in a crude and unprofessional manner. We got paid but never played there again.

Might have been better than a wood axe!😄

Some gig in Edinburgh's Cowgate (Sneaky Pete's?) in 1986/87. Couldn't load out due to a massive biker fight in the front bar. When we were allowed to load out, the front bar floor was covered in blood and there was broken glass everywhere. There were three ambulances outside and three cop-cars and a riot van. We heard later that someone got an axe in their back,

Aye. An uppercut from those headstocks do damage to jaws and bollocks!

It's Scottish for 'Nutter' A Daftie.

That's brill!!! 😄

This has probably been mentioned here (and elsewhere) in the past. Playing in a bluesy-souly band with a female singer in the Janis Joplin style. Guitar, bass, drums, two saxes, female singer. Did a few gigs, nothing special. Guitarist was an A1 flake and could be unpredictable and full of cow poop. I had played with him in another band where he was quite close to a man of very similar character, also a guitarist. They had fallen out for ages but had just started being buddies again, so much so that at rehearsals our guitarist, Ned, began to suggest that we let the prodigal guitarist buddy (Bilbo) join the band. I was dead against this as the two of them would have hijacked the band and turned it into a Version 2 of the one I had been in with them, which of itself was an ongoing on-and-off-the-rails project. Eventually it was unanimously agreed: no Bilbo on guitar! Ever! At rehearsals one night, Ned says we have the opportunity to play at a birthday party being held in a venue in the city. Apparently, at out last gig a girl had approached Ned with some of her pals. They had really liked the band and wanted us to play at her birthday bash. However, she said she had already shelled out a fair bit of cash on her event so couldn't afford to pay us much. Ned, ever under substances that made him euphoric or only see a positive outcome in any action he committed, said to the girl 'No problem! Pay us what you can. If you can't; we'll just pass a hat around at the end of the night! Just sort the band out with a few beers!' I could not believe I was hearing this, and neither could the rest of the band. But by then it was a fait accompli and we couldn't really back out of it as the gig was in a week's time. 'What could go wrong?' I asked myself, knowing that with Ned and Bilbo involved, anything could. Around these two guys, I would regularly hear Commander Shore from Stingray telling me 'Anything can happen in the next half hour!' And on the night of the gig, it did! We had our own PA system - nothing massive -and we did a mix from the stage back then. We had engaged a guy with a LWB Transit to haul our gear up to the gig and we duly loaded in, rigged the gear, did a quick soundcheck and went away until the evening. I drive up in my estate car, planning to drop it nearby and enjoy a few drinks after the gig. When I get in, the drummer approaches me with a frown on his face: 'Check the stage!' As I looked over I saw nothing out of the ordinary......until I spotted, on stage right, right next to Ned's amp, was a small Sessionette combo that I recognised as Bilbo's. The drummer knew Bilbo as he, too, had played briefly with Ned and I in a similar venture and he wasn't keen on his reappearance. I sagged inside: the die was cast; let the fates work their will. And they did. Oh, yes they did! Ned and Bilbo turned up later, together, and a small, heated discussion took place about going against the unanimous decision not to let Bilbo play. Anyway. we get the gig on. We play and ok set but the vibe has an edginess to it because of Bilbo's presence. We play for just under an hour to a distracted group of people and we play out the final chords of the last tune and our female singer thanks everyone before leaving the stage. The band continues end-of-song noodling for a few more seconds and it's over. The sax players exit stage left and I follow. Suddenly, I hear the 'chugga-chugga-chugga' of an old Ned and Bilbo song beings started up. I turn around in disbelief to see the drummer caught halfway out of his stool with a look of both consternation and fear spreading across it. I stand there like a dummy as Ned and Bilbo exhort me with David St. Hubbins head-nods to return to the stage but I am rooted to the spot as the drummer sits down and begins to play along. I consider joining him to save the gig (or what's left of it) but the drummer suddenly throws his sticks down and walks offstage. 'That's it! I'm fkn DONE with this!! he shouts. I turn to find the two sax players saying the same thing. I scour the room looking for the singer but she is nowhere to be seen. Ned and Bilbo play on for another few of their numbers before stopping for the DJ. At the bar, I have to suffer the drummer and the sax players griping. I sip my pint and survey the room, trying not to make eye contact with the patrons. We then hear that the guy with the LWB van is not coming to pick our gear up. Ever! It is never explained why but I suspect, knowing Ned, that not enough money was paid to him, if any. I then notice female friends of Ned working the room; one has the aforementioned hat. Eventually, I ask Ned to go speak to the party girl, get what money she wanted to pay, and get his girlfriends to bring the hat back so we could at least get our petrol money out of this. Half an hour later, he comes back. It seems there is little money in the hat. 'Don't worry', says Ned. 'The girls are back working the room, offering blow-jobs to guys who will put in a few Quid!' I really could not believe what was happening. The sax players just got up and flipped off, with one telling me not to ask him to join bands with flakes again. The drummer was losing it as he had a fairly new and expensive Yamaha 9000 kit and no van to take it back to the rehearsal room. He and I dismantled my Trace rig, took it to the car and loaded it. We then took down his drums and traps and piled them into a taxi. I drove the short distance home, probably just over the limit. That was that band over, finito. And I never spoke to anyone in the band again for years. The singer, I've never seen since. PS: Birthday Girl heard about the BJs first-hand from disgruntled girlfriends of the men being coerced! She never paid us anything.