meterman

Getting the ex-Higsons (and PJ Harvey / Nick Cave / JAMC / Spiritualized etc) multi instrumentalist Terry Edwards to play Hammond organ in my live band, albeit briefly, about 20 years ago. I’d already been playing Hammond on and off for about 10 years, but standing next to him and watching as he did all the tricks that make for great Hammond playing - proper palm slides, grace notes, two-finger trills on one note, the volume swells during the solos, etc - it was a series of lightbulb moments, like “Ah, that’s how you do that!”. I’d previously been playing Hammond like a caveman because I’m self taught and I always came away from keyboard gigs with bleeding fingers or loads of skin missing from my knuckles. Seeing someone close up doing it all properly was the best lesson in technique I ever had. I learned (well, nicked really) so much from him that I still use today. And he’s a top geezer 👍

Yep, he also has another Peavey in black, and an Aria 'lawsuit' Precision copy with a cheeky Fender logo on the headstock. He's used Peaveys with The Pretenders on every video I've seen when he's been with them. Not sure what he used on the recent Foo Fighters gigs, but I've not seen any pics or videos, just heard from him that he was doing the gigs. Really decent guy and a brilliant all rounder - bass, guitar, vocals, keys, drums as well if I remember right?

Oh, no! I hope he doesn't regret it 😂 I lived in Newcastle for about a year and half and never really got the hang of the place, despite growing up in County Durham, which isn't far away, or culturally that much different. Having said that, my Dad's from Leith and we had a lot of family there and in Edinburgh. I way prefer it up there. As a kid I spent a lot of time with family in Leith and Fife, and Pittenweem, Anstruther, etc. Love it 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

I've got one of those too, they're great basses for the money. Used it on studio sessions plenty of times and it always does the job 👍 Welcome to the club!

That's weird about Earlpilanz because he's in Scotland and as far as I remember he posts worldwide. I got a pickguard from him last year and I'm in France. You must have been unlucky to have had an eBay glitch or something? Glad you're sorted though 👍

Earlpilanz on ebay does replacement Bronco pickguards in all manner of colours. Plenty of folk on here will vouch for his work, and I’ve had a few custom pickguards made by him and he’s spot on 👍

I had one of these too, on loan from a mate, and he’d set it up really well, it played great. I later had a matching Sunn Mustang Strat copy that was decent too. They were both Fender affiliated? Or am I thinking of something else?

Eddie Piller managed my mate's band Torino for a while and got them to record an album, but only one of the tracks saw the light of day on one of the many "Totally Wired" compilations. I played with Ernie from Push and Galliano a bunch of times, doing session gigs, it was amazing to see him let loose onstage when he thought nobody was paying attention 👍 Did some sessions for an album last year featuring guys from Mother Earth, Galliano, Push, and a few others. Sadly, I had to do my parts remotely as they were all in a studio in London and I'm based in France and couldn't make it over. Would have loved to have been there in person. My only other Acid Jazz (well, Talkin' Loud really) connection is I've still got some bits of RAK recording gear from Marco from the Young Disciples. He was big into DJ-ing and production but he was another great bass player on the sly. I think he was Paul Weller's bassist before Ernie McKone replaced him? I'm generally not nostalgic but the early Acid Jazz club scene was great and some of the early gigs were belters 👍

The term “Acid Jazz” is said to come from a post Acid House club night where DJ’s Chris Bangs and Gilles Peterson were playing uptempo jazz to a crowd largely made up of people dancing. As the night wore on, an inebriated Chris Bangs reached across the turntables and started flicking the pitch control up and down, thus warping the tempo of the record wildly, which confused the people dancing and he shouted into the mic, “This is Acid Jazz!” as a drunken jape. But bands like James Taylor Quartet, Corduroy, The Sandals, Mother Earth, and others, were all into jazz and were definitely familiar with acid, so a scene was formed around that phrase. But a lot of what’s passed off as Acid Jazz now (and what was passed off as it back then) is just formulaic funky soul, where maybe the guitar player owns a wah-wah pedal (late period Brand New Heavies, JTQ etc) and it’s not as diverse as the first wave of bands were.

I loved all the first wave Acid Jazz bands, and I was lucky enough to work with a couple 😎 When it split off into Talking Loud and Acid Jazz as two separate labels, some of the smoother stuff went with Gilles Peterson to Talking Loud, but I still bought from both labels. I do reckon the very early James Taylor Quartet (pre-Acid Jazz period) was my favourite. Also there was a band called The Sandals who were part of the same early scene who were great, although I’m not sure if they ever signed to Acid Jazz. But they played with a lot of the Acid Jazz bands. Great stuff, and bonus points to anyone who remembers the ‘Tongue Kung Fu’ club in London’s Covent Garden that all the bands used to frequent. 👍

Yes, he’s the bassist in the band. The drummer is Nick Mason of course, and so there’s the Pink Floyd connection. The keys player is Dom Beken, and the rhythm guitarist is Gary Kemp, of all people! The lead guitarist is Lee Harris who’s played with The Blockheads and Wilko Johnson as far as I remember. Cracking band, live 👍 One of my friends was the support act on their first tour. She was absolutely in awe of them, and also blown away by getting to play in all the beautiful old European theatres and outdoor performance spaces.

Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets only have one original Pink Floyd member (well, two if you include Guy Pratt who played bass with the post-Roger Waters incarnation of the band) and they restrict their set to the Syd Barrett era, and stop the repertoire to just before “Dark Side Of The Moon”. They might only have one original Pink Floyd member in the band but I’d still go and see them playing all the 1967-72 Pink Floyd material. 👍

I rarely buy bass gear so this year was unusual for me, in that I bought a used Squier Sonic Precision bass. I swapped the neck for the one on my Squier Jazz, and bought some La Bella flats for it and for around £150 all in, I'm probably done for electric basses now. I don't need to go any higher or more expensive or fancier than that. That was my best. Obligatory pic: Worst? A Harley Benton fretless uke bass that had finish issues and a neck twist. Sent it back, got a refund, no problem. Might be looking for a 30" scale fretless acoustic bass at some point but it's not a "super-urgent-must-have-right-now-OMG-GAS-is-all-consuming" thing by any means. Probably start doing some research next year though.

After I'd stopped touring in 2018, I had a full pedalboard of Boss and EHX pedals just gathering dust. I'd occasionally use one in a recording session but otherwise they remained in their boxes. So earlier this year I had a gear clear out and sold all the Boss and EHX gear on Reverb and replaced them with Behringer equivalents. Yes, they're cheap and plastic-y, but for certain pedals they are unbeatable value for money. The only reason I had so much Boss gear originally (and EHX) was because their pedals withstand a lot of tour use. Now I don't tour, I can use Behringer stuff in the studio and I know I don't have to worry about it getting stomped on or cracked or have beer spilled on it. Their analogue delay pedal is amazing considering how little it costs to buy. 👍

I've got a set of La Bella flats that I've had on a 25" scale Precision copy for about 12 years. I'm unlikely to change them ever as I had to cut them down to fit them on in the first place. They do feel and sound great though.

I always liked the old Tokai's. I owned a couple along the way too, but it was always a slight annoyance that I had to buy my own stick-on stars. Bloody copy merchants!

Oh, sorry I forgot to say earlier - I have no instruments out on display in the house, everything I own from basses to drum kits to keyboards etc, live in my studio. My choice entirely. My gear is work tools, I don't want to have them up on wall hangers or anything. I love all the instruments I have, but I don't need to be looking at them when I'm not recording. I used to have everything everywhere around the house before I got my first studio. It is cool having a Fender Rhodes in your living room but also really distracting because you keep wanting to noodle away on it, and then you realise you've burned dinner. 😂

I'd probably get the 6 CD Teardrop Explodes set, or maybe some of the XTC / Dukes Of Stratosphear reissues but the prices are bonkers now. Plus the Teardrops box set was full of printing errors, doubled pages, incorrect track orders etc. Don't know if they did a second run and fixed everything but I'd only find a secondhand copy now anyway. As for the Véronique Sanson (or ex- Mrs Stephen Stills as most non French folk might know her) box set, yes it might be 25 CDs housed in a piano shaped box or whatever but I'm only interested in the 1970's stuff with Willie Weeks and Leland Sklar and Mo Foster on it and the early publishers demos. Not paying €500 just to get those. Even if they chucked in some nudie photos and her mobile number as well, 500 notes aren't coming out of my bank account for them.

I'm sorted for instruments now (well sort of, I'm still waiting on the Dubreq Theremin) but my wife was always totally fine with whatever I bought. Music was (and still is) my sole earner, so buying new gear was never an issue. She played piano, cello and acoustic guitar and dulcimer, and she loved having a play on my Fender Rhodes or the Philicorda. She still has a little guitarlele now but sadly is too weak most of the time to play it. But she's always asking me to play. I was lucky finding her 👍

I can give you a few: John Martyn at a mini jazz festival in London in the mid 1990's, completely drunk and falling about, and giving his band total grief. I'd seen him before and he could vary from gig to gig but this was awful. Thankfully I didn't pay to get in as I was bottom of the bill as a support act, but still it was grim. Psychic TV, again somewhere in London, can't remember where now. I had a couple of their records and liked them so went to see them play live, and I shouldn't have bothered. The band was direly underrehearsed and there was a really 'off' vibe in the audience. I left before they finished their set. Worst ever? Japanese so-called 'psychedelic' band, Acid Mothers Temple at the Tmesis club in Manchester. Just total free form noise, none of the musicians seemed to be playing the same song at the same time or even in the same key. The lady on drums was particularly bad, it genuinely looked and sounded like it was her first time behind a drum kit. She dropped her sticks frequently and wasn't in time with any of the other musicians, but then it was impossible to tell if any of the other performers had noticed as they were loud as f--k. Loudest (and that includes My Bloody Valentine and Dinosaur Jr) band I've seen to date and easily the worst. Mind you, The Cranberries at the Fleadh festival in Finsbury Park in the 90's were pretty bad too. I never liked them anyway but it was píșsing it down so we went into the tent where they were playing an acoustic set as Delores had broken her leg, so it was a sit down gig. And they were so totally awful we left the tent after 15 minutes and braved the rain instead. I don't know how we lasted that long 😂

Oh? They were just guitar and drums when I saw them, although that’s nearly 10 years ago now. Pffft, backing tracks? They’ve gone all modern 😂

Maybe travel over as a passenger rather than as a working musician and borrow gear once you're over here? This way you avoid the cost, and possible hassle, of obtaining a work visa plus the carnet for any gear you'd want to take with you. If it's just two unpaid gigs, check if there's backline available and either borrow a bass or buy a cheapie while you're here. You can always sell the bass on, and even if you made a loss on it, it would probably still be cheaper than getting the work visa plus carnet necessary for the gigs. There might be an easier way but that's just an idea for starters. Good luck 👍

No backing tracks when I saw them, just a raw, garage-y guitar and drums duo. Should be a good night if they're on form 👍

I was mostly a paid session player during my live career (1984-2022) and gigs could be anywhere between 25 minutes as a a first-on-the-bill support slot, to maybe a 50 minute festival slot, and then the occasional longer set as a headliner. Perhaps 90 or 100 minutes including encores. Longest for me was 2 hr 40 on a tour of Greece. I toured there five times and every show I played there was 2 hours plus. One time I went to DJ in Athens and that lasted over 6 hours. Finally gave up around 4am, I was falling asleep at the decks, and a mate took over. He was still playing at 7am when the club was chucking everyone out 😮

I thought it was Isle Of Wight's TV studio, yesterday. (David Icke not pictured)