All Activity

Once I've come down from the joyous expectation I had for this update, I'll finally get some sleep tonight. 😂 Mark

Another batch of weddings to report on, after all it is the season. Friday, Glewstone Court, just outside of Ross-on-Wye. Only 90 minutes wait for food and speeches to be over, then set up the area in turbo time, carting gear in the pouring rain. Nice couple though and well received, small room (2 plugs) Venue very keen to have us back, especially as we had to shorten the sets and we hit their strict 11pm curfew with 30 secs to spare. I love having the countdown of each track in main stage. Tonight was a funny one. We had originally been booked up in Birmingham but the event got cancelled. Tuesday night I got a call from a local sound engineer saying a band had had to pull out of a wedding due to personal circumstances and could we do it. Unfortunately the male singer and keyboard player had both managed to find something else to do, so we decided my wife could manage the vocals by herself. There was a lot of desperate ringing round to find a dep keys, Friday afternoon we found an ex cruise ship player, so I sent him the parts and we were off to the races. When we turned up we found it was a large do, say 400 people, and the DJ was a proper purveyor of the boom and tizz boxes. Our FBT rig has got sufficient clout to play loud, live music in such a space but we weren’t going to able to compete, and had people asking us to turn up. Anyway, my wife got over her nerves, unusual for her, and won them round. They were a young farmers-esque crowd, the most notable moment being when a bloke fell of the shoulders, head first onto the stage into a load of glasses left on it. Fortunately no harm done but it could have been very different! Dep keyboard player remarked it was all rather different to his usual Warner hotel gig and we live to fight another day.

I'm One - The Who

You're The One - The Vogues

It sounds like flatwounds might suit your sound and style - they have a bit more 'thump' than roundwounds, and they last for ages - years in most cases. I like LaBella deep talkin' flats on my Precision. If you fancy trying flats but don't want to break the bank, Adagio are a good, cheap (£20 ish) introduction. If you like roundwounds, Ernie Ball Slnkys are pretty good IMHO. Let us know how you get on!

Greetings @RobD from Wickford, Essex. Where are you at?

I don't know if @Prostheta still comes on here, but he's your guy If/when he makes any black boxes he sells them via eBay

TONIGHT! The Cantina Band at the wedding of Lewis (?) and Gemma (?) at a posh hotel somewhere near Nuneaton. The happy couple had seen our subtle blend of extremely loud rock covers and slapdash half-arsedery at a gig a few months ago and liked the cut of our jib for some reason, so they booked us to play their wedding. We mainly play Motorhead, AC/DC, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Clash, Ramones, Sabbath type stuff, so obviously they thought "This is the perfect band to make our special day truly memorable". Arrival at 5:30, load in to a tiny marquee filled with very well turned out wedding guests, elderly relatives and infants sliding across the small dancefloor. This... could be a weird gig, lads. Quick setup, soundcheck resulted in lots of bemused/disgusted looks before a quick pint and band conflab (many variations on "We're going to go down like a broken escalator/turd in a lift/Pork pie at Passover") and then we were on. Three songs into the first set, half the people had left. I can't say I blame them. One table seemed to be quite enjoying it (including Uncle Knobhead (there's one at every wedding)) so that was something. A few hardy souls braved the dancefloor for a couple of the less overtly offensive numbers, and at the groom's request we'd learned a McFly song (!) for the bride (Five colours in her hair (that's the name of the song, not... the bride only had one colour in her hair. Two, max) which is good fun to play and more complicated than you'd think) so we got her to join in with the singing on that, which went down well (especially with Uncle Knobhead, he loved it) and dispelled some of the air of "WTF?" . First set done, we stepped out for a vape while they cut the cake and had their first dance (not counting five colours in her hair (the song)). Second set kicked off with Highway to Hell, and suddenly they were all loving it. Packed dancefloor, everyone singing along and having a whale of a time! The second set has a few more well known/not as deliberately obtuse rock numbers in, so it went down really well. I took to the dancefloor for Sex on Fire, and had a boogie with Uncle Knobhead and the mother of the bride, which was an absolute hoot. The singer was recovering from a chest infection, so he was really struggling by this point... I helped him out on Jonny B Goode, then attempted to give him a hand on Proud Mary, before realising I don't actually know any of the words (apart from "Left a good job in the city" and "rolling") so it became a comedy number. Played the Sterling ->small board -> sansamp -> MB 121. All done, loads of people said they'd really enjoyed it (some of them even aked for our card(!)), couple of onion bhajis from the buffet, photo of the bride on the drums and the groom on Bass, pack down while the DJ played the sort of music you'd actually *want* to hear at a wedding, well paid, home about 11:15 for last nights chicken curry & dahl and a pint of old father StingRayBoy's homebrew cider (ABV unknown). Actually a pretty good gig, considering how bad we thought it was going to be.

If it lasts he’ll be hearing about that until the end of time … I know I am after 40 years on a regular basis, normally approaching wifey’s birthday whether we’re gigging or not 🤪🤣

Finally someone making sense on speaker cone sizes. So they do matter and make a difference. Hallelujah.

Wedding in Taunton. Largely unremarkable with the exception of meeting one of my heroes. This guy literally changed my life a few years ago and was an absolute gent last night. Spent a good 15 mins chatting and he even added footage of us playing to his insta.

Looking at the T shirt I 'd guess that he has cats.

A few of the cable companies on eBay are cheaper than designacable for the same thing, I've used these before: https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/ultimateproaudioltd For instance a lead I need (50cm Van Damme, Neutrik Jack M to Locking Neutrik F) is £31 delivered at designacable and £23 with that seller so not much more than buying the parts and making the cable myself. Exacltly the same components and colour options, shoot them a message if you want something specific. Cable builders make most of their money by bulk purchase on components, Designacable just whack a massive premium on top of that.

Have you tried Flatwound strings and what is your budget? I'd give a set of these a go for a cheap try if not...

Played a birthday party tonight. The birthday girl saw us at our first Newport gig and liked us so much, she asked us to play. Quite flattering really! So, we were back in Newport, playing at The Cab this time. Seems to be a former 80s (?) shop converted into a venue. Decent stage, basic PA, but they do have cabs to use. I was going through a Marshall 810, which was supplying my bass sound to the whole venue. I'm pretty sure that's what an 810 is for! It was a fun gig. Felt like less pressure, and I could hear myself much more clearly than the previous gig. The only unfortunate thing was that we had to go on first. One of our guitarists probably shouldn't have OK'd a gig on the same weekend as his girlfriend's birthday, so we went on first and then he drove back to his house, and then on to Cornwall. It felt like a long night after that. Signal chain was: Combustion GX-100 Mojo Mojo Bass Big Muff ABM-600 810 And we are Hora: https://linktr.ee/horadoom Next gig is Swindon on the 13th of July, unless we get added to a bill at Moor Brewery.

I was actually born in clacton on sea. I’ve never lived there in Essex though aside from a two-year sentence in Chelmsford (education, not prison, though there were some similarities)

My current band

Hi, cracking idea this. Can you add my stuff in please? Although my buddy Pete plays bass on some of my solo tracks he's also a Basschat member so it should still count. On Top of the World is one of my favourite bass lines. I like em all but am biased

Hello from one Essex boy to another!

A relatively new bassist, I’ve reached the point I need to change the strings on my Fender Precision electric bass. I play in a mostly acoustic band accompanied by a violin so we’re not talking Metallica riffs or Nile Rogers funky stuff - I play a lot of slides and like to keep the intonation delicate enough so I can move around the fretboard on some nice little runs and melodies. There seems to be a whole load of options for strings and I was wondering what favourites some of you might recommend?