asingardenof

But now they do know he's a Nazi I don't think just slapping a sticker on your car is exactly a ringing condemnation

Things didn't exactly go well for the last guy who had designs on invading Poland, and now that they're in the EU and NATO I don't think it would go any better for Putin.

Ukraine has already invaded Russia but have been beaten back: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-troops-battle-last-ukrainian-forces-kursk-region-2025-03-16/

Trump thinking he can get away with ignoring court orders already suggests the constitutional crisis is already present, not brewing.

Mine is a pretty cheap and basic one so is either on or off. Might have to invest in a better one where I can play about with the sensitivity and whatnot but for now I'm just going to leave it off.

Last night's office. The Squier continues to punch above its weight, the ABM was set just so and sounded immense, and having dropped the compressor the pedalboard may as well have not been there, albeit I needed the BDDI21 for our last encore song

First gig of the year after NYE's paid rehearsal, at regular haunt Spen Victoria CC. On the basis that the Siredowsky needed new strings (a Jazz with rounds isn't supposed to sound like a 60s P with flats!) and I hadn't had a chance to do that yet, I went with the Squier P as last night's axe. After thinking I was getting lost in the mix at previous gigs, I decided to forego my compressor this time, and holy cow my tone has returned. I think I need to use the compressor a bit more sparingly, as using it as an "always on" pedal isn't working. I went with the ABM despite the small venue, and decided to give the valve drive a go, and the fates all combined to make my tone sound, if you'll forgive my entirely unbiased opinion, fecking amazing - deep and thunderous while also clear as a bell when it needed to be. Things were a bit shaken up as we'd decided to mix our standard set up a bit, as we're at the point we don't need to look at set lists to know what song is coming next. Our singist, who normally favours a vaguely Adam Ant-esque getup decided to forego all that for an old band t-shirt - it can't be uncool to wear your own band's merch if you don't actually have any, this is one someone made many years ago. For the most part the running order seemed to go well, and new songs Alright and Mr Brightside went over very well, and using Two Tribes as our second encore song was a great choice. Only a couple of minor mishaps, where our keyboardist started his section of A Town Called Malice in the wrong key and dropped out for a verse until he could recover himself, and he lost the patch he was using for the guitar solo in Alright (I still don't know why our guitarist can't play it) so had to stay with the piano sound he was using for the rest of the song, which sounded, well, crap. But all in all a good start to our year of gigs. They're starting to trickle in now, and we might end up with about seven over the year, which will be good and manageable for me with a new baby on the way. A couple of shots but none of my footwear I'm afraid; I was only in scruffy Merrells so hardly worth showing. (it did get a bit busier than this...)

Indeed. A lecturer friend of mine is currently in the process of reapplying for her job for at least the second time.

Back to Tariffs, and trump is tilting at the EU windmill and threatening to impose tariffs on them.

Meant to post this last week but as is often the case life got in the way. We'd been unable to get into our usual rehearsal place, Eiger in Leeds, so decided to try the Old Chapel down the road. The place was very well appointed and had loads of equipment supplied for free thanks to the charity that helps fund it (apparently Kaiser Chiefs do as well as they maintain their own rehearsal facilities there), so I had the hilarious situation of putting my Elf through an Ashdown 8x10 cab, which looked ridiculous (I'll get a photo next time) but sounded amazing. On our breaks we got chatting with another group who were there, one of whom asked who was playing the bass and then complimented me, which was nice. We also had a good chat with the young woman running the place that day, and overall we really liked the place and have decided to move our rehearsals there.

Scammy AF

Mine says Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America), which seems to be the case in a lot of countries

I'm just waiting for all the 2nd Amendment fetishists, with their arsenals of AR-15s that only get an airing at Starbucks when some libs need owning, to rise up against this tyrannical government. I mean, that's why they have the guns, so it must mean they're biding their time and will come and sort things out any day now, right?

Agreed. Our regular Evri driver is excellent (she can't really not be - she lives on our estate and her kid goes to the same school as a lot of other kids on the estate, so there's nowhere to hide!), but it's blindingly obvious when she's away because Evri deliveries suddenly start going missing.

That is a hell of a lineup, but I'm not willing to sell my child for a ticket

He's not too popular in fictional small towns in rural Connecticut either...

Hypothetically, eventually it'll reach a point where importing goods becomes less economical than producing them domestically. That's a long-term result though; in the short term it'll just make everyone a lot worse off as importers refuse to absorb the extra costs and pass them all on to the consumers. In reality this won't happen because Trump (or rather Musk) has basically cancelled all infrastructure funding so no new factories, etc. can be built, and nobody will be able to hire anyone because the "DEI" and "woke" (deliberate quotes because I doubt those doing this would be able to define what they are if you held guns to their heads) candidates will be unattractive to employers so there'll be a skills shortage.

I think this is a key point that gets overlooked by Trump and his followers. It's all very well saying that they'll bring it all back to the US, "drill baby drill", etc. but they've spent decades dismantling, selling off and outsourcing the infrastructure that would allow them to do this. Just to pick another example, if Canada overnight halted all oil exports to the US, there's no way that the US oilfields would be able to meet the demand.

Pretty cold rehearsal on Sunday, I had to wear my fleece and warm the strings up between songs. The main atrium at the rehearsal studios (Eiger in Leeds) was toasty warm but the room we were in was freezing. Good rehearsal though. We decided that although Sledgehammer sounds great it's probably too slow for either of our sets, so it's one we might have a go at as a bit of fun in the future. Alright by Supergrass came together pretty quickly, and after only a couple of run throughs we decided that if we can nail it at our next practice in a couple of weeks then it'll be in the set at our first gig of the year on 15th March. We also decided that having a go at Start by The Jam would be on the cards too, although we'll have to figure something out for our keyboardist to do during that other than chipping in with some backing vocals. Our usual place is booked up the only weekend we can do between now and the gig, so we're going to try the Old Chapel in Holbeck as an alternative. It's cheaper and looks better appointed, so fingers crossed. I'm also looking forward to seeing how ridiculous my Elf head looks on top of the Ashdown 8x10 cabs they supply!

SITREP: We contacted the organisers to ask if they would chip in for the extra gear we'd need to play outdoors, as it's out of the ordninary for us, but they said no so we've sacked the gig off. Ah well. Thanks everyone for your advice.

I'm after a bit of advice for what my band might need to do to beef up our setup for outdoor gigs. We're a 5-piece with keys, guitar and bass, and usually we use the PA for vocals and keys, with the drums un-mic'd and the guitar and bass coming from the backline only. We've been asked to play at a small outdoor event in the summer, where all I'm told about the setup is that it's a corporate event for a local company, where there'll also be food vans, bouncy castle, and so on. We've been asked to use our PA not only for us but also for music in between sets. Past experience tells us that our current setup, which consists of a pair of Behringer B112D speakers, isn't up to the job, though it's perfectly adequate indoors. We're not keen to buy anything new because we don't do many of these types of gig at all, so would be looking at either hiring something or buying secondhand. But the question is what should we be looking for? Are we just looking at something like a pair of subs to take the pressure off the main speakers, or a whole new PA?

You have converted me to the cause as well