StingRayBoy42

Not sure if this counts, but just done my first school concert in my new job teaching primary age kids to play in rock bands. More terrifying than any gig I've ever done. Enjoyed it now that it's over... No crying, being sick or wet pants and the kids did pretty well too.

Where are you based? I'm a well known Morris tart!

Sousaphone is good for Morris Dancing. I speak from bitter experience..

Tonight: Depping on Sousaphone for a roaming/street brass band type thing at a fire festival in a park in Preston. Outside, in Preston. On the coldest night of the year. As you do. Me on Sousa, trumpet, alto sax and drums (marching drums type setup). Haven't played Sousy in public for a while, AND the guy on trumpet was their usual Sousa player, so I was pretty nervous... turned out to be an absolute hoot, the most fun I've had in ages. There were loads of people there, they all loved it, the band are all great players and lovely fellers, we sounded good and went down a treat. We did a real mix of stuff - couple of christmas numbers, a couple of trad jazz numbers, King of the swingers, Bear necessities, Seven nation army, I wanna dance with somebody... a real mix! Everything was in Bb, F or C (good brass keys) and mostly stuff I knew/could busk or three chord wonders. It wasn't as cold as I'd feared it would be, I even did both sets without a coat on because I'm a big brave boy. Two 40 minute sets, decent cup of tea and white chocolate & cranberry tiffin at half time, done by 9 and back at me dear old Ma's in Manchester by 10, good payer, and the band liked what I did so I'm on the dep list. For those of you interested in my feet, I wore two pairs of socks and my cow print DMs which also went down a treat.

The sort of place where you wipe your feet on the way out.

Played one of the worst gigs I've ever done last night... horrible grotty little (anti) social club somewhere in the Midlands. The sort of place pregnant women go to smoke. There was a loud ten piece soul band playing a private party in the next room (who sounded pretty good to be fair),there were about 20 people ignoring us, half of whom were kids under ten. Everyone was vaping indoors, including some of the kids I think. There was American football on all seven enormous TVs and a dog wandering round. One guy sarcastically danced, a women asked for Mysterious Girl by Peter Andre, apart from that, total silence. No applause, no engagement, nothing. I'd rather have played to the proverbial brick wall. Longest two 45 minute sets in history. 😐 Played the StingRay and apologised to it four times. We packed up in 22 minutes flat, which beats the previous record by nearly an hour. Got paid cash and let us never speak of it again.

My free angled polarity reverser arrived two days after contacting them Solid bit of kit, grips the plug tighter than a very tight thing and fits under my teeny board. 11/10 for myvolts, top customer service and good gear. I heartily recommend them. If anyone wants my straight polarity reverser for nowt, DM me. Disclainer: I *presume* it will work with any PSU but iyou plug it into anything that's not a myvolts PSU and a Harley Benton ISO-5, you're on your own!

I asked myvolts if they do an angled one and they're sending me one for free. Hooray!

My adapter arrived, complete with polarity reverser. Decent bit of kit. Unfortunately, the straight plug into the ISO-5 doesn't fit under my teeny pedalboard so if anyone can recommend an angled polarity reverser that's the right size, I'm all ears!

Just had a response from myvolts "Not to worry, your order includes a polarity reversing tip adapter which allows the power supply to be used with your device" Might need some heatshrink, or for a permanent solution gaffa tape.

Tonight: A social club somewhere near Walsall. It was as glamourous as it sounds (if not less so) - the average age was about 100, and that's including me and the three 20-somethings in the band... We had a dep singer as our singer/guitarist was busy/couldn't be bothered, she was great- really nice husky voice, got stuck in lugging the gear, lovely lass and a good laugh. We did mostly 50s and 60s stuff which went down well - you've not lived until you've seen a dancefloor full of septuagenarians shuffling away to a Connie Francis number, and a few of our usual set. Not sure what they made of Dakota, Brightside and Footloose but they gave it a go, bless 'em. We changed key on the fly for a few songs (to give the female singer a fighting chance) which meant I launched into my BVs on autopilot before realising I couldn't get that high, so I ended up alternating between Barry White and Alvin and the Chipmunks. There was a raffle at half time. Glamourous, like I said. Played the 'Ray for the first time in ages - it's been out of action for a bit due to me not being happy with the LaBella DTFs that were on it, back to EB Cobalt flats and it sounded fantastic. Thumpinator -> VTDI was all I took so no pedals to worry about. Probably for the best, as I think the Bass Soul Food would have finished a couple of them off, never mind the one control green bass machine. Dodgy XLR meant horrid crackly/cutting out IEMs for the first set, the joy I felt when I could hear everything in the second set was almost a religious experience. Paid cash, a pint on the house and home at 1:30 to a Westons Special Reserve and a sulky cat. Better than staying in watching telly, innit?

That's the one I've ordered I hope so!

Weird, the one on myvolts.co.uk is pictured tip positive as well... I've contacted them and asked them to clarify. I'll report back

The myvolts ones are on ebay for £14-39 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185503199156

I've just ordered one from myvolts.co.uk - £16-48 inc P&P seems pretty reasonable. I'll let you know if it fries my pedals!

What a terrible day to have eyes.

https://reverb.com/uk/item/71636985-complete-boss-compact-pedal-collection-w-original-boxes-extras

It's a bit hard to judge it on its own merits, as a 'new' Beatles song is such a big deal. No, it's probably not as good as the best things they ever did, and yes the production is a bit syrupy, and No, George didn't like it, but for me, a 1978 song by John Lennon that was on a tape labelled 'For Paul' that contains the lyrics 'If I make it through, it's all because of you' with Paul, George and Ringo playing on it is a really beautiful thing to hear. A nice postscript I think.