StingRayBoy42

There's an SLO StingRay on here at the mo And a SBMM with a EBMM neck which is stupidly cheap

Get a grip of yourself, or I shall have to take matters into my owm hands!

LAST NIGHT! The Cantina Band's tour of The Vaults in Knowle continued at The Vaults in Knowle. Again. Dep drummer (the chap from my other band) as our usual dep drummer had got his dates wrong and is in the USA (He's from Wisconsin, which he'll mention if you hang around with him for more than about 14 yottoseconds). We had a rehearsal with him (the chap doing the gig, not the chap who's in America) and he'd really done his homework and had nailed 99.9% of the set, so no worries on that front. (In fact, he knew the stuff better than the rest of the band - they/we're not really known for their/our meticulous preperation.) Load in is a good one, parking right behind the stage (I say 'stage'... I mean the corner between the toilets and the fire escape), set up was the usual, bit of good-natured piss-takery, catching up and gossip swapping. Not many in there when we kicked off, the singer and guitarist had brought their partners (both lovely) and a few mates (quality levels: various), so enough to make it worthwhile. I was presented with a (belated) birthday cake, a (belated) birthday badge (which everyone insisted I wear for the whole gig) and a rendition of Happy Birthday (belated) after song 2 (the second song in the set, not Song 2 by Blur, which we don't do (we should, actually)) which was as thoughtful as it was unexpected. First set was good, drummer smashed it. We play more poppy stuff in the other band, so it was nice to hear him giving the heavy rock stuff a good spanking. It was incredibly hot and sweaty, which is sort of what you want at a rock gig in a pub I suppose. Quick vape at half time, back into the second set which was also pretty good - the stuff we play (Ramones, Sex Pistols, Sabbath, Motorhead, Metallica, McFly* - all the big names in Rock/Metal) isn't for everyone... those that like it tend to REALLY like it and those that don't tend to sit at the bar and ignore us. A few young people appeared when we finished with Sex on fire and Brightside and filled up the Dancefloor (I say 'Dancefloor'... I mean the bit of sticky carpet next to the the corner between the toilets and the fire escape) so I went and joined them for a wireless boogie, which is always a laugh. They shouted for one more so we punished them with Enter Sandman, a guaranteed Dancefloor-emptier. EBMM Sterling -> Small board (EHX Tuner -> EHX Bass Soul Food -> Hookers Green Bass Machine -> MXR Bass chorus deluxe) -> MB CMD 121 The landlady loves us for some reason, we're back there a few times over the next couple of months. Paid, packed up, loaded out, home about half midnight for cold pizza remnants and a bottle of old father StingRayBoy's whiskey cider (ABV unknown but it certainly packs a decent wallop). * We had to learn a McFly song (Five colours in her hair) for a wedding we did, and we all decided we secretly quite like it, so we kept it in the set.

I bought an EBS Multidrive from Martin. Great communication, quick postage and a nice pedal.

TODAY! Depped on Sousaphone for the AD concert band at a garden party for one of the band member's 80th birthday. It was in deepest, darkest, poshest Knowle, where the drives are bigger than the flat I've just agreed to rent. Nice marquee in the grounds (!) of his farmhouse (!), a fair few family and friends were there (his, not mine) and we played well (the band is a pretty high standard which not all 'community' wind bands are). The birthday boy is a big sports fan, so we played the old Ski Sunday theme and the old cricket theme (Soul Limbo) while some folk played cricket on the field in front of us, which was jolly good fun. Other highlights were a Mary Poppins medley which rattles along at quite a lick (*and* I got the important tubular bell solo cue bang on, which was nice) and a Sousa Medley which is obviously fun to play on a Sousaphone. Other pieces were the usual wind band rep, Seventeen Come Sunday (every wind band must play this by law), A Sodding Andrew Sodding Lloyd Sodding Webber medley (Jesus Christ Superstar is acceptable) and a piece imaginatively titled Waltz no 2 (Tchaikovsky? Stravinsky? Someone like that) which is a really, really beautiful piece of music (Actually, it's Shostakovich now that I think about it). A record five people asked what the instrument I was playing was (It's a Sousaphone, basically a marching Tuba, named after but not invented by John Phillip Sousa, the American composer and band leader of the late 1800s (I should have this printed on a business card, it would save so much time) and yes it is very heavy) and one woman knew what it was so she got fifty points. Two sets, a sandwich, a glass of very passable red, a brownie and a meringue thing at half time, lots of thanks for standing in, a few viola jokes shared with Colin the Eupphonium player (his best mate's wife plays Susan in The Archers) and home in time for a stiff G&T. Oh, and it's my 50th birthday today *and* I've agreed to rent a tiny flat in lovely Bewdley. Cheers!

All this talk of porridge is rather gruelling...

I used them YEARS ago and really liked them, when I was using Slinkys. Got to be worth a punt at £20 a set, I'm sure you could make your money back if you don't like them? I'll take a set for £20 if you don't like 'em!

I use a Lekato MW-1 for my IEMs and it works a treat. No latency, no drop outs (yet, touch wood) and it sounds good.

There's no room for anything else, unless I stick the Thumpinator underneath and have the compressor and preamp sideways along the top, which I definitely haven't thought about doing.

Here's my New Improved Enormous Pedalboard (NIEPB) The LS-2 flips between Soul Food -> Chorus and OC-2 -> C4 -> ODB-3, then TU-2 -> Thumpinator -> Comp -> Boost -> Preamp. I think. The Disaster Area controls the C4 patches, the remote is for the retina-searing LEDs, and yes there is something in the Altoids tin. Powered by a Voodoo Lab PP3+ I hope the slightly not-straight pedals don't trigger anyone's OCD. It's definitely 100% finished and I'm absolutely not going to buy anything else.

Did she pluck your G string?

Not one of us had a gig on Friday?! Bloody Labour government.

I like the Mono Betty straps.

Sounds like a D:Ream gig...

Did you announce a general election?

I insisted upon it! I hope you noticed the lights are matching pink...

Win some, lose some! Paid rehearsal, innit?

LAST NIGHT! Dance to the floor (5 piece girl-fronted pop band) at Memoirs in Walsall. Oh, the glamour! Dep singer as our usual frontgirl was otherwise engaged (again 🤨) which meant a couple of key changes, which I weirdly quite like having to do - I feel like learning the songs in a slightly different key is a useful way of getting to know them better? Somehow? It was a 30th birthday party, so we were expecting an absolute rager. By 9 o'clock (first set time), there were about 15 people in there, so we twiddled our thumbs FOR AN HOUR until the other 15 people turned up and they'd all partaken of the (very good) Indian buffet. Went on about 10 to a very small and disinterested (uniterested? I can never remember the difference) audience of older folk and vey young children. Oddly, there were very few 20-30 year olds in there. A very dispiriting set, we played pretty well considering. Dep singer did a cracking job. She's got a different voice and style to our usual, she was a bit nervous (first time gigging with a band (!) as her main thing is solo gigs with backing tracks) and she's not used to IEMs but she did a great job. Quick vape and moan about the audience break, back on for another set to even fewer people (what sort of party IS this?!) and even less response than the first. We were all pretty much phoning it in by this point. Played the StingRay 5 -> New Improved Enormous Pedalboard (NIEPB - I won't list everything that's on there as I'm going out in an hour) - MB 802 -> PA. The 5 is still a work in progress... I'm alright on the stuff I've learnt on 5, but had a few wobbles on the stuff I'm used to playing on 4. I'm going to start playing the 5er on 'normal' gigs to really get my head (and hands) round it. The highlights were 'Forget You' which I love playing, especially the tricky Bass bits in the middle 8 (I'll get them right one day) and the Indian food. Packed up, loaded out, drove home, Cider. Meh!

Was it something by Bob Mali?