Muzz

A return to gigging after being laid low for a couple/three weeks (and missing three gigs! Eeeeek!) with a horrible fluey thing that was worse than pretty much all of the 4 lots of Covid I've had*, a new venue 10 minutes down the road from me, which was a nice change...I knew the pub of old as a rough one, but a new landlord's trying to turn the place round, and tho it's early days he seems to be doing well...8:45 start, 10:45 finish - agency gig, so 2 x 45, but we did an hour second set as he was a nice bloke and people were enjoying it, I even stayed till everything was packed up, and home before midnight. We've got three or four dates for the new year off the back of it. That'll do. * Yeah, I know, but I live with a Nurse who worked on Covid wards exclusively, and even now works in a mask (she's on a Geriatric/EOL ward)...ironically, she's only had it twice, I've started calling her Typhoid Mary...

I'd have to go for a 64 Thunderbird as a YOB bass, and YISPB bass would be...a 76 Thunderbird... 🙂 Not that I've any real GAS for either, given the prices...tho a chunky Lottery win would change that... 😁

We've only got two gigs in Dec before Xmas (so far), so it's only been a token Last Christmas to chuck in (four chords all the way through), which is a relief...

I've played a couple of Combustions and liked them, but my Canadian ABZ is night and day better...

Good call on the bridge; I had a Hipshot on my Shukerbird for a good while, but it just didn't look the part - swapped it for a Babicz and I'm very happy with it...

I took my 414 (which did a tour of duty as Jam Night Open Use Bass for most of this year) to Matt Ryan up my neck of the woods, and he did a great job on it, he also did a more comprehensive job bringing my headless 1985 Westone Quantum back to life...I use the 414 and the Quantum for 90% of gigs these days, tho that's as much influenced by the gigs (unknown pubs/denizens, usually very tight spaces) as anything.

Just on the precious PA owners being bass-shy, the busiest of my gigging bands uses two RCF 2-way 15s (745s, IIRC), no subs, and absolutely everything goes through them: vocals, guitar, me, drums (5 mics on the kit), bongos/congas (don't ask), the lot, without backline, and we're always, always too loud for even big pubs - the BL/Singist/Geetard/PA Owner is of the 'If it doesn't sound right turn something up' school of mixing, and possibly thinks attenuation is something soldiers stand to: I'm constantly telling him to turn the mains down, while I'm looking at wincing punters*.... Anyhoo, point being those 2 x 2-way RCF 15s of ours can absolutely deafen even a large pub, so they'll handle the bass without breaking a sweat... * I have my inears in, and the volume control set to 'Ohhhhh, that's nice and clear and not very loud'...

I notice he didn't bring his talentless wife along for that one...

Dunlop Nylon 88s, Split-P pickup in the right position, good roundwounds (preferably Elixirs) and I'm 80% there. The rest is tweaking and window dressing, really...

Not the guitar system per se, but a thumbs up for the Lekato 5.8Ghz stuff: I use a Tx/Rx MW1 pair for my inears (with a small headphone amp), and they're great: no dropouts, good range, etc...

Well, I'd be looking for a S/H Helix in the store, if not, an ME-50B, because I know how they work...I doubt I'd like to be sitting around with the manual for anything else reading 'Congratulations on purchasing your XXXX Digital Multi-Effects, please turn to page 223 to get started' while all hell broke loose around me... Failing that, as above, a tuner and a DI box (I wouldn't have brought an amp)....

Can I just say that 'with a bag of rocks', 'a shark's face' and 'a section of pebbledash wall' have all now gone straight into my lexicon for badly finished things? Ta. 🙂

Ahhhh, I see it now: that explains the widely-spaced tuners...still a fnarr-fnarr daft headstock, tho... 😁 I like that other body, too...

That body shape's quite interesting, but the headstock...oh dearie dearie me...

Wouldn't be without my Stomp, it's 'my sound(s)* in a very small box' - I use it in front of big amps, into small onstage monitoring amps and DI (TRS, tho you can buy an XLR/TRS adaptor for a tenner, too), and just itself for inears/DI. You can also split the output between clean and effected. Then there's the pitch shifting, which is very good, and means you never have to transpose anything ever again... 🙂 * And Chris Wolstenholme's Hysteria sound...and Tony Levin's Sledgehammer sound...and Flea's 'Ray sound...and....and... 🙂 Caveat: the talent, sadly, doesn't come with the sounds...but I try... 😁

Just a shout out on the Tech front for Matt Ryan - he's up in Milnrow, North of Manchester - I've had him do a couple of fret dresses/setups recently, and he's very good, he's done work for some big names, too...

Nope (see my comments about the 79-year-old Roger Waters' great show), not at all (otherwise I'd be buggered), I was just suggesting that 'When should bands call it a day?' isn't a simple answer...

Our BL's just bought one of the new gen of smoke machines, and I was initially alarmed to see he'd mounted it on one of the lighting rigs, and yeah, it is a daft thing to do, but despite flooding the stage with its effects, it wasn't like the coughing nightmares of the past, in fact it was barely noticeable...apart from the fact I couldn't see the drummer for a while...or the audience, come to that...

OK, let's put the cutoff at 55...anyone on here still going to be gigging? Yeah, I didn't think many... Want someone in the pub to come up and tell you you're too old to gig? I'm sure there's 20-year olds who think 40 is too old to gig... Personally, I'm not a fan of gig arena stuff these days (tho the 79-year-old Roger Waters put on a hell of a show recently*), which is where the older 'legend' bands tend to be, but if people want to go see them, great. There are also plenty of older musicians (and singers) who can still do it; Steve Hackett's 73, and his last tour was breathtakingly good. * With some compromises, obv, and we paid about a third of the price for the tickets (Twickets is a good thing), otherwise I wouldn't have gone...I'm not that big a fan...

The main gigging band (4 piece) do pubs for £300 minimum, and I'd expect 2.5 - 3x that for New Years...unfortunately, for various complicated reasons, it looks like this New Years might be the first one in the last 15 or so I'll be in the house and missing out...still, the Boy's home from Uni, so that'll be nice...

A game of two halves this weekend: Friday night's gig was one of the regular ones we play, but the pub's not exactly thriving, and this week was just terrible; about a dozen people in, which dwindled to two by the end. We're gonna give it a miss till into the new year, if it's still open... 🙁 Satdy was a last-minute 40th booking in a pub (buffet set up on the covered pool table, that kinda thing), busy (yeah, the rugby was on, but once that finished the regulars got involved, too) and an engaged audience...turns out the birthday boy, who loved it, manages 14 pubs in the area, so the BL unloaded a big wedge of business cards...fingers crossed...

I'm no virtuoso, but I get by OK, I'm a busy player (not in terms of notes - quite the opposite - but in terms of gigging a lot), but I think that's because I also have a set of skills that can be just as important as chops (over a certain threshold, obv) in any band; I'm reliable, I'm cheerfully sociable, I'm dependable and I don't panic, and I have a professional attitude no matter what the circumstances.

I started on Rotos for a good while, because they were pretty much the only game in (my) town, and I didn't know any better...then DR Sunbeams and HiBeams, and occasionally flats (Chromes) and groundwounds a couple of times on specific basses. Then I discovered Elixirs about ten years ago, and that's been that, apart from a brief flirtation with NYXLs and Slinkys and a couple of others I can't even remember, but they didn't last (SWIDT?), so it's Elixirs all the way now...

...and you'd be wrong; I've been trying to convince the BL that the band in general has waaayyyy too much gear for the pub gigs we play, my example is evident each gig...my other gigging band has literally half the gear. The drummer always arrives last, and because I set up last (see breakdown activities but in reverse...again, three minutes) I'll help set the PA and lights up and give him a hand, tho he's nearly 40 years younger than me and therefore far more qualified to lift heavy things...

Yep: switch off Stomp, unplug power supply, unplug the desk feed lead and bass lead, coil into rucksack, put inears and transmitter/receiver in bass case with the bass, zip em up...done. 😃 If I'm feeling particularly philanthropic I'll lend a hand...I generally do one end of the gig or the other... 🙂 I arrived early (unexpectedly light traffic) just as the van with the PA, lights and guitarist/BL did, so I unloaded with them, but at the end I broke down the PA and left the three of them to it...I might get across the principle sooner or later that we need less gear...call it Tough Love... 😃