StingRayBoy42

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?

Kenya dig it?

TONIGHT! Played Sousaphone with The Acid Morris for their Solstice (ish (Solstish?)) dance out under the concrete henge of Spaghetti Junction (Gravelly Hill Interchange for the pedants). The Acid Morris are like nothing you've ever seen, even in your wildest Psilocybin-fuelled fever dreams: Border Morris Dancing to techno remixes of traditional Morris tunes and tonight for the first time ever, a Sousaphone. Probably one of the weirdest things I've ever done, and possibly the world's first (?) Techno-Sousaphone-Morris Dance mashup (under Spaghetti Junction). It was a ton of fun, there were sermons (one entreated the audience (there was an audience!) to teach their tortoises to sing) , testimonies (mostly nonsensical (one about the benefits of Morris cats as opposed to Morris dogs (of which there are many))), there was a bit where we all cast soft toys into a bin bag (not sure why), a speech about how the Sousaphone is in fact the preferred instrument of the angels (followed by a short (improvised) Sousaphone solo) and several techno Morris dances. After that, it descended into a more or less full on rave (with Sousaphone accompaniment) which was ace - it was my first time jamming along to a techo DJ and it went down really well. I don't think anyone there had ever seen/heard a Sousaphone player jamming along with loud dance music under Spaghetti Junction. The ONE TIME your Sousaphone lights aren't charged up, you end up at a rave. LIVID. I was tempted to stay and have one of the funny looking peppermints that were going round, but my designated driver (who is also (sort of) the main idiot (and also my Dad)) was keen to nake a move (and I'm gigging tomorrow) so good sense prevailed and it was back home about 11:30 for a homebrew cider (ABV unknown) and a cheese and pickle roll instead. Their sound system has the potential for hooking up the SA C4 synth pedal, so there's every chance the next outing will involve Sousa -> Wireless mic -> synth pedal, which could be quite something.

There's reasonable offers and there's taking the piss. Nowt wrong with asking someone (nicely!) if they'll take £50 for something that's up for £55, or £1200 for something that's up for £1250, or "Will you include postage?" IMHO especially if it's been up for a while. I wouldn't then try and haggle further if they said yes, that's taking the piss. They can always say no! I certainly wouldn't be offended by it. If a listing says "No oferrs, the price is firm", that's different. As long as you're nice I don't see a problem.

Bought some TI flats from Ian - top comms, quick (first class!) postage. Top Basschattery, deal with confidence.

Don't tell him, Pike!

Have a look at stuff that uses 5.8GHz - I *think* it's a different frequency to wi-fi (anyone who knows about this stuff, please correct me if I'm wrong) so less chance of interference.

No, we don't have community policing south of the border... certainly not in the refined and lofty establishments I play!