Stub Mandrel

Last night was our final gig of 2024. The venue is nearly two hours away in rural Wales, but we had such a great night the previous time we were happy to go. It was brilliant, totally rammed with two parties. Loads of dancing from about two songs in. We did two one hour sets and only had energy for one encore. Landlord put three songs on Facebook live. The fairly young audience this time still loved our classic rock numbers. They want to book us 'more' next year and for the landlord's new pub Nearest we got to a Christmas song was "Socks on Fire(place)". Afterwards we gorged on leftover buffet. Mmm Stilton. I dropped the singest and his pa back and hit the sack at about 2:20. Woke up at 10:30 as Yodel delivered new broadband router. First decent sleep for a few days. Nice to end on a high note. But our poor lead guitarist and his wife amost ran out of petrol. Made it to the 24 hour garage in Brecon with 1 mile range left. Except it wasn't 24 hour so they slept in the car until 6:00 am...

The originals were celluloid. It is highly flammable (inflammable in the US) and shtinks over the decades. There's plenty of nice modern tort out there. Cheap modern eBay tobreplace broken 80s Japanese: 2019 Fender roadworn: 1980s Hohner, has since faded to an amazing volour but don't have a photo: 60s Fender Fender repro of 60s, allowing for different light very close to the one above:

The wonderful Ms. S. Has just secured tickets to Phil Cambell and the Bastard Sons at the O2. Apparently Alice Cooper and Judas Priest are playing too, which is a bonus.

Cheap ebay/amazon ones often look pretty vintage.

I think fitting those to the local weasel-dusters is A Very Good Idea, Piglet.

Me too.

I wear a wristband to combat carpal tunnel. You can get double legnth ones. That might help.

I won't judge this, I quite like it, but some won't.

Just ordered a Brassmaster from Andertons. They now say stock by 31 December.

'Jazz Kit' I was asked to play one for a jam session. The host looked at my technique and asked me 'are you left-handed?' 'No', I replied, 'I just haven't got an effin' clue what I'm doing!' People assume that because a bass player has rhythm they can play drums. I can play ONE drum at a time. Or boom-tish at a push.

Ah the Bontempi Problem...

It's not that everyone who drives badly does so in a black, German car. Or vice versa. There just happens to be a big overlap on the venn diagram...

Lol. Our drummer in one ofthe new shirts. "Keep it Moist"

I had two batches of band t-shirts stuck at UPS Tamworth for 3 and 4 days last week. The tracking is crap.

Pics...

Go back a few months, we got booked to play for the South Wales Liverpool Supporters at the Tramshed (epic venue). Out rythym guitarist is a member. Then instead of 10% of their 9,000 members, it looked like less than 1% were interested. So it got moved to Taffs Well Football Club (essentially a portacabin with a capacity of about 70 with a band in). So yesterday I braved the tail end of Storm Darragh to turn up at a locked gate. Saw the drummers van disappearing down a narrow country lane to one side in the dark... Rang the vocalist. The rest of the guys were at the Rugby Club, trying to see if it was the venue. No. I suggested trying the local Ex's club, but the RG eventually got on the blower and discovered we were five miles further up the valley in Treforest. Much wending up narrow hillside terraces. Turned out the RG had got a message montsh ago saying it WOULDN'T be in Taffs Well and he misunderstood it... Anyway usual valleys audience, really great and helped us set up. First set was great, about 80 people all in a good mood, we did classic rock. I was using my Harley Benton kit bass with a Squier neck and it sounded great. I also wore my "Temu Stylish Pig T-Shirt (Style: Sexy). In the break a large chap in the loo looked at my t-shirt and said "F- me! It's a mirror!" We were doing two sets, one either side of Liverpool legend Andy Hodgson, who was driving all the way down and arrived 15 minutes before we finished our first set. He was meant to do an hour but did over an hour and a half and even though I'm not a Liverpool fan, he was excellent entertainment and the supporters went crazy. He used our PA and was very generous to us. Poor had about half an hour of endless selfies etc. before hitting the road for Liverpool again. Second set I used my Flea jazz. It was 10:45 before we went back on and people were slowly fading away so we just did a thirty-minute set focusing on what we knew people would like - Dakota, Motorcycle Emptiness (brilliant non-naff song for Welsh venues!), Saturday Night, Heroes./and some up-tempo songs like Rock and Roll. Lots of great comments but not the reception Andy had! Got back to Penarth in time for a couple of swift Penderyn Madeira cask whiskys at the Bear's Head. Photos in next post as will be from my phone.

Slightly different mistake last night... rhythm guitarist organised the gig... and told us wrong venue! Luckily right place was only 15 minutes away.

I once managed to returned myve string mid tune. Was well pleased with how close I got!

The cure is usually a 'Victor Wooten' semitone slide into the right note/key. The timing may sound odd but do it three times...

Heard a 'classic' live version the othe day and to my ear Andy Fraser was playing a 'simplified version' 😁

It's hard to say. I would use attribution where you can. Consider reducing resolution to the minimum required. And don't forget an embedded link often avoids issues...

Oh, I have never done that. Not once...

I like the Sire and Westone headstock. This Harley Benton one is nice too.

As a magazine editor... The layout of a magazine article has copyright for 25 years, but the content is copyright for 70 years after the author's death. But, works can be copied in any medium if they are used solely to illustrate a point, are not for commercial purposes, and are accompanied by sufficient acknowledgement. You should only use the minimum required to make a point e.g. a page not a whole article.