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How was your gig last night?


bassninja

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Not a full gig but a half hour or so set at an open mic night in The Gate pub in North London.

Didn't fancy doing this one much and my mood didn't improve when as I walking in, a huge menacing looking blighter told me "you'd better be good mate".

Against my expectations it turned out to be a good evening, very well run, decent P.A. , good audience and some decent muscianship.

Think we went down well, after a slightly shakey start due to our illustrious leader kicking off with Proud Mary although he told us it was to be Midnight Hour.

We finished with Whole Lotta Rosie.



As I was leaving, the menacing blighter, told me "I was proper", which I guess I should accept as a compliment :)

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Arrived late, as I couldn't find a way out of town due to the carnival, but in plenty of time to get ready.

First set average, but a few 'mares for me, and what the hell I was playing on the fretless in a couple of numbers heaven only knows. Loads of kiddiwinks in the club doing the knee slide dance, which was a bit odd for our gigs :)

Second set went better, despite someone asking for "There Is A House In New Orleans" a couple of times ("No. Sorry"). People up dancing. which was nice but an odd moment for me on the penultimate "encore" when the bass went down at the start & I scrabbled through pretty much everything (but not flicking to passice to seet if it was the actives battery dying which I must do tomorrow) unthil part way through the second verse when I bypassed the pedals (all of which seem to be fine) and went straight to the front of the amp. Some invesstigation to do tomorrow methinks

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Did a great gig tonight in a hotel called the Kilmorey Arms in the coastal town of Kilkeel in Northern Ireland. Wedding reception with crazy guests, a great buffet and an early finish - fantastic! That was the fourth of seven gigs in six days, tough going but we're now on the home straight! Used my Bravewood Jazz DI'd to the PA, an Ibanez Promethean for onstage monitoring and Sennheiser G3 In Ears.

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I can't face this boring work on my desk so I'll bore you all instead.

The Jetsonics did our first inner London gig on Friday. We played the Fiddler's Elbow in Camden. We were on first (8.30) of four bands. We were offered last on/headline as an alternative but we knew if we wanted anyone to come and see us they'd want to get the train back and wouldn't hang around until 11pm.
We were asked to get there at 6pm for the last soundcheck. We turned up at 6.30 and were first there. We were also told it was now three bands as one had pulled out. The venue was sprinkled with some slightly intimidating looking carreer lager drinkers who'd had a lovely day by the look of it.
We decided to go off and get something to eat while we waited for the other bands to turn up. I got a hummus wrap that exploded all over my gig shirt. So I went to the market and bought the nearest t shirt to a plain black one I could find. I was going to get one in PVC covered in spikes but they didn't have it in XL.
Eventually most of the headline jazz funk band turned up and started playing for their own amusement and show off their 'chops' for the best part of an hour before they decided to all play a tune together and actually play a song so the sound man could try and sort them out. I never want to hear a sax again. Middle band then turned up and did a quick, proper check and sounded good. We then had about 3 minutes to do our soundcheck. It was just about OK and that's the way it goes when you're bottom of the bill I guess.
We played a 40 minute set full of our liveliest songs to a fair few of our crew who had turned up. The sound bloke was struggling with my bass DI for some reason and there was a nasty buzz on the bass signal every now and then that put me off my stroke a couple of times. The joy of almost zero soundcheck. Plus I had a blister on my left ringer from last nights rehearsal to play through. Fluffed a couple of times but nothing major.
Saying all that I really enjoyed it and we put on a great show and were very well received. The new songs went down well too.
We stayed around for the middle band who were obviously big Weezer fans. I enjoyed them. Their originals were actually better than the Weezer covers they did. I then had a chat with Dan who runs the place. He really liked us and wants us back on and will put us on with bands that are more up our street. We got paid too which was nice.
We didn't stay around for the jazz funk band. I'd had enough at the sound check.
Nice review here.. [url="http://retroman65.blogspot.com/2011/07/jetsonics-live-at-fiddlers-elbow-london.html"]Retroman Review[/url]

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Never got round to doing the hectic weekend report from nearly two weeks ago...

Friday night, self and Mrs Zero played as a duo in the local Battle of the Bands. Just for a change, we did it with bass, drum machine and vocals. We didn't come last (we know that for certain, one of the bands didn't turn up).

Saturday night, played a barn dance in a church for a couple's anniversary. All went well.

Sunday, played one set with Mrs Zero as an acoustic duo, two sets with the ceilidh band playing tunes, and two sets with the blues covers band, all in Stafford park on the bandstand for the council's "party in the park" thing. Mrs Zero managed to get a barn dance booking out of it, which was nice. As I also did the PA, that was quite an exhausting day.

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Yesterday afternoon we played our second annual CAMRA Beerfestival in Chelmsford at Admirals Park. The torrential rain kept some away but the turnout was great. We were in a huge open sided marquee, which was populated by a good crowd, thankful for shelter from the downpour outside.

The rain did break and the sun came out for the end of the two hour set. We did our mix of classic rock and modern blues rock, which always goes down well at Beerfests. We did some quite demanding Joe Bonamassa tunes, mainly for some self indulgence but thankfully the crowd loved it.

Finished up with Purple Rain (appropriate) and Comfortably Numb.

Also, first non pub outing for the TC rig. Ran both the 210 and the 212, the RH450 DI'd through the PA. Awesome sound considering on a small stage. Cant believe how big this rig sounds, it certainly does not lack bottom end.

Anyway, got the gig next year too, so looking forward to that.


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Another bike rally yesterday .
One of the guitarists has finally got rid of his 4x12 , and got himself a 1x12 combo (all that's needed) - hooray
Stuck it on the drummers hardware flightcase coffin . It was now right near my earholes - not so hooray.

Problem boom in the room - E note , had to be , doh .
Tried my new Iron Ether Oxide , but need to get to grips with it first .

All in , another loud one !!

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Got asked to help out a friends acoustic band with a few songs at Sheffield Pride yesterday. Played on 3 songs with 2 rehearsals and it went alright. There are already 6 people in the band so it's not like I was carrying any of the tunes, just adding mandolin, glock and ukulele. It was interesting, I wish I hadn't been rotten hungover but there we go.

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It finished up as a rather annoying and upsetting gig. It was the celebration of the first anniversary of a landlord taking over a pub (the Horseshoe on the Alcester Road in Birmingham), and he booked the rock/blues covers band to alternate with his resident DJ. We were at the back of the lounge - the pub has narrow everything, rooms, passages, and minds.

There was a minor hitch when smoke started appearing from one of the speaker leads running to the monitors for the vocal PA. Not entirely sure what had happened, I unplugged the lead and carried on, we coped without monitors. After the first set we went outside. Mrs Zero wasn't with us when some big bloke said "You need a singer". After he said this for the second time, I said "we're happy with the one we've got, ta". Later, one woman wanted to get up and sing with us so Mrs Zero let her, then a couple of girls did the same, and then the big bloke started shouting abuse at them. We finished our second set to some applause and loud booing from this bloke. Mrs Zero told me that afterwards he'd followed her up the room, repeatedly saying "fat bitch, you can't sing". My opinion was that he was a cloth-eared ignorant bullying cnut.

We decided that if we ever played there again, it would be without sharing with the resident DJ - it seemed that a lot of the people were there for him, including the obnoxious shitbag. Personally, I'd be happy never to play there again. It did upset Mrs Zero quite a bit - her self-confidence can occasionally be shaky, the legacy of bullying former partners, and she needed quite a bit of reassurance.

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Played a 30 minute acoustic blues quartet (on DB) at the Upton Blues festival, which went down really well. First try-out live of my Ampeg Baby Bass. Everyone said it sounded fab :) Then an hour or two later, the full Rattlin Bone played the main stage for 75 minutes. Went really well and we got an excellent crowd reaction (the promoter loved it too).

Only two issues: I was stood near a spotlight that was scorching and my Baby Bass got really hot and - as a consequence - went at least a half tone out of tune after two songs. I managed to find the odd tuning break after that thankfully. The other issue was that I got cramp in each hand near the end of the set and my left hand curled up like a claw - I had to really use ingenuity to keep playing (used the side of my right hand thumb to pluck for most of a song and to use one very mobile left hand finger to keep the riff up!) Managed to stretch my hands after the song and just about got through the rest of the set. I obviously need to do more hand conditioning if we are going to play longer sets more often.

The above shouldn't take away from a really successful gig (or two to be precise) :)

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[quote name='Clarky' post='1307205' date='Jul 17 2011, 10:58 PM']The other issue was that I got cramp in each hand near the end of the set and my left hand curled up like a claw - I had to really use ingenuity to keep playing (used the side of my right hand thumb to pluck for most of a song and to use one very mobile left hand finger to keep the riff up!) Managed to stretch my hands after the song and just about got through the rest of the set. I obviously need to do more hand conditioning if we are going to play longer sets more often.[/quote]

Intrigued, was that particularly from the Baby Bass?

ficelles

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Pretty fantastic, despite the major setback of the guitarist breaking a string and not having any spares on him ¬¬

It took him ten minutes to track down another guitar to lend, during which time me and the drummer jammed our way through various genres of music - improv being something we've never done before - in the middle of a punk set :)

That said, apparently one person told my friend that the guitarist ought to go offstage more often, so I'm not sure how to take that feedback :)

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[quote name='the_skezz' post='1308640' date='Jul 18 2011, 11:38 PM']Pretty fantastic, despite the major setback of the guitarist breaking a string and not having any spares on him ¬¬

It took him ten minutes to track down another guitar to lend, during which time me and the drummer jammed our way through various genres of music - improv being something we've never done before - in the middle of a punk set :)

That said, apparently one person told my friend that the guitarist ought to go offstage more often, so I'm not sure how to take that feedback :)[/quote]

A guitarist without spare strings? you most certainly need to have a word.

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Did a depp saturday night for Mice With Glasses, a band that I really enjoy playing with. A private function/garden party in a very plush pile in the sticks.
We got fed and watered and then played a set that went down very well.

Because there were a lot of party goers dancing, the break was abandoned and we played right through the set and then a half hour encore as requested.

The only mistake I made was putting my ear plugs in my jacket pocket prior to playing and then taking it off and sticking it behind my rig as we went on. The pace didn't let up and with no breaks I couldn't retrieve them. So seriously buzzy ears for the last couple of days.

My bitsa P bass sounded pretty fine.

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Not last night but sunday , it was at a village feat ,was good even though the weather was crap , we played on the back of a curtain sided lorry with a generator which i was very impresed with , no cut outs or anything .

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Small pub gig on saturday night. Us (A Little Bit Outlaw), a support act (Arrested in Moscow, not the best but not that bad) and Acoustic Opener (Jordan Allen, really like this guy) all organised by us. We sold 120 tickets which is all we were allowed due to capacity limits, but the turnout wasn't the best. Some incidents, few arseholes fighting (Teen audience) which put abit of a downer on the whole thing. I don't think we could have performed any better musically, but the crowd just weren't feeling it for the most part. We also took the oppertunity to throw out some new little things for abit of fun, which included a samba breakdown in one of our originals, and the Pokemon theme tune.

Liam

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[quote name='tauzero' post='1307194' date='Jul 17 2011, 10:48 PM']It finished up as a rather annoying and upsetting gig. It was the celebration of the first anniversary of a landlord taking over a pub (the Horseshoe on the Alcester Road in Birmingham), and he booked the rock/blues covers band to alternate with his resident DJ. We were at the back of the lounge - the pub has narrow everything, rooms, passages, and minds.

There was a minor hitch when smoke started appearing from one of the speaker leads running to the monitors for the vocal PA. Not entirely sure what had happened, I unplugged the lead and carried on, we coped without monitors. After the first set we went outside. Mrs Zero wasn't with us when some big bloke said "You need a singer". After he said this for the second time, I said "we're happy with the one we've got, ta". Later, one woman wanted to get up and sing with us so Mrs Zero let her, then a couple of girls did the same, and then the big bloke started shouting abuse at them. We finished our second set to some applause and loud booing from this bloke. Mrs Zero told me that afterwards he'd followed her up the room, repeatedly saying "fat bitch, you can't sing". My opinion was that he was a cloth-eared ignorant bullying cnut.

We decided that if we ever played there again, it would be without sharing with the resident DJ - it seemed that a lot of the people were there for him, including the obnoxious shitbag. Personally, I'd be happy never to play there again. It did upset Mrs Zero quite a bit - her self-confidence can occasionally be shaky, the legacy of bullying former partners, and she needed quite a bit of reassurance.[/quote]

What a nightmare. I know this pub and always thought it looked a bit dodgy. Have only been in once or twice and it was quite uneventful, but there was never a good atmosphere. I'll definitely avoid it in future. That fat bloke sounds like a typical Druids Heathen (local reference!). Why do some people seem to enjoy being obnoxious?

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Still basking in the glory that was tonight's gig, on a boat, on the Thames, opposite the London Eye, for Nokia.

Great gig, had fun, free beer and food and got paid well.

The only downside was loading the gear at the end of the night. The boarding ramp was steep enough on the way in but low tide meant carrying the gear up a 45 degree slope to get out!

:)

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My originals band (Random Patrols) were at the Dublin Castle in Camden last night. For some reason I was expecting the place to be a bit grotty but it was all right - a real mix of people in there too. It was a four band night and we were on second, so only got 30 mins, but it went very well. The audience wanted us to play for longer but the sound man said "No!" politely but firmly. My wife came along (first time she'd seen this band play live) and she said we were "OK", which is praise indeed.

Incidentally, if you've ever been to the Dublin Castle and used the toilets you'll know where our name came from!

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Well. I was depping with a band I have depped for a couple of times before, but this time with a dep drummer as well, and he knew hardly any of the songs in the set. So not only was I busking songs I had never played before (but sort of knew) but trying to cue him on stuff I had played a couple of times before. Working out songs by ear/watching one of the guitarists chord hand.

Got through the evening OK but quite a few of the endings were train wrecks. Still, you guessed it, the crowd went wild, more gigs were booked & drummer & I were being chatted to in the break by people who either swore blind they had seen us with the band before.

Hey ho. Got out, made some noise, pleased the crowd and got paid.

No one died

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