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Saturday night I played at The Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham, which was my final gig with The ELO Experience. Another grand old venue which first opened in 1901, capacity just under 1400 with two large balconies , the upper one being very high and steep. The gig went well, a good onstage sound despite a change of rig as I’ve sold my usual one! Used my GK800RB again, this time with my old standby cab - a Loud Inc 4x10. Really enjoyed using it, and pleased it was enough for such a big venue/stage. It was a near sell out gig which made it great for my last one, as well as being my 800th appearance with the band. I first played with them as a dep at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall in May 2009, and then joined permanently in 2011 - first gigs were a short tour of Northern Ireland which were very memorable. I couldn’t have found a better bunch of people to work with, starting out as a 5 piece & then adding 2 cellists and a violinist. It’s been an absolute pleasure throughout, and I really will miss the band and crew (pictured below) who have become like family. I’ll still be playing with the acoustic duo though, as well as any deps that may come my way so will hopefully be gigging more locally for many years to come.

Last night I was depping for a NE based big band - it was an absolute roast sight-reading these charts having never seen / heard them before! Still I managed to quite myself pretty well! SSBB Sr Duke.mp4

5 Stings, y'say? Mark

Both Hurtsfall and In Isolation played the Goth At The Brewery Event on the 27th as part of WGW. This is a free gig at Whitby Brewery on the Saturday afternoon of the Goth Weekend organised by Dominique from the band Westenra and over the past 3 years has grown from being fairly low-key to one of the major events of the weekend, and for those who attend WGW for the music probably as important as the "main" event at the Pavilion as it showcases the current generation of Goth bands. It draws a massive audience made up of people who are there for the music rather than parading around town in their "costumes" and is now so well attended that the main doors of the room are opened to allow people outside in the courtyard to see and hear the bands too. This weekend was a "Nottingham takeover" with Chaos Bleak also playing. Hurtsfall were on first at 2.00pm. We probably had the best on-stage sound of the afternoon, but even so there were problems with the monitor in front of me which kept cutting out. However due to the nature of the band we are well used to playing under less than ideal conditions, so it wasn't really a problem, and everyone we spoke to afterwards (including several people whose opinions I trust) said the FoH sound was excellent. The audience appeared to enjoy it, and we sold a decent amount of merch afterwards. This photo was taken at the beginning of our set just before Sam, our singer, got everyone to move forward so that more people could get into the venue. Even after that there were still almost as many people outside enjoying the gig as there were inside (and yes that is Whitby Abbey you can see in the background): And two more general gig photos: Chaos Bleak probably pulled the best crowd of the afternoon due to both their time slot and their reputation. And then at 4.00pm I was back on stage with In Isolation. By this time it appeared that all the foldback had stopped working - There wasn't anything coming out of the wedge in front of me, and unlike during Hurtsfall's set I couldn't hear anything from the other two. Still we powered through our set even though it sounded weird on stage. Again we were told afterwards that FoH the mix was excellent, but it was unnerving playing some of the songs with longish intros on the backing tack where they were barely audible on stage, so having no clue when our drummer was going to count us in! Also we discovered that playing last in the afternoon isn't the ideal spot as people tend leave before the end so they can get ready for whatever night-time event they are going to. Still there were a decent number who stayed all the way through our set, and we even had to sign CDs at the end - something which always bemuses me... For some reason there are a distinct lack of photos from our set on Facebook and this one of me was the only one I could find.

TONIGHT! More of a concert than a gig... depped with Tamworth Wind Band in a church in Tamworth. Lovely bunch of folks, really nice vibe, good players and appreciative of me standing in. They'd commissioned the ex principal director of music at the RAF (!) to write a piece celebrating Tamworth (!) especially for the band, so we rehearsed/workshopped it with him in the day and performed the **World Premiere** at the concert. He's a phenomenal musician, he picked up and pointed out loads of tiny little things that really elevated it. Lovely bloke as well. It's not often you get to perform a world premiere in Tamworth... I certainly don't. There was about fifty of us, so it was a fantastic sound. The tuba player was playing an absolutely beautiful old horn- I don't know much about tubas but I'd guess it was a BBb Conn 20J with a recording bell made in the Elkhart factory some time in the mid-late 1920s? He even let me play it. Cheers, Colin! The rest of the repertoire was pretty standard wind band stuff - Vaughan Williams, a couple of film medleys, a slow one with a lovely Cor Anglais solo and some Andrew Lloyd Webber - not my favourite, but Jesus Christ Superstar has got some bangers in it. The highlight (apart from the piece specially commissioned for the band 😳) was the music from 'The Incredibles' - spoof/cheesy superhero film music - a cracking Bass riff driving the whole thing along, bars of 5/4 mission impossible type stuff all over the place... loads of fun to play. Played the 'Ray -> Thumpinator -> VTDI -> MB 802, Rainbow Converse foot fans. Radio 4 on the way home - the evolution of instant messaging, from the invention of the emoticon on MSN messenger to a woman who married a chatbot. Weird. Home just after 10 for a G&T, a slice of raspberry cheesecake and a very stupid cat.

Played at the Ipswich Regent Theatre last night with The ELO Experience, my penultimate gig with the band. Bit of a nightmare journey of around 200 miles each way - one of our vans broke down on the A1 en route to Ipswich. Clutch master cylinder was to blame, so RAC summoned to trailer the van back home whilst a replacement LWB hire van was found in nearby Grantham. This resulted in us being nearly 2 hours late arriving at the venue, so a mad set up and sound check with little time to eat etc. The Regent is a big Grade 2 listed theatre built in the late 1920’s. With a capacity of around 1500, we had it just over half full. Was a slow start but they warmed up into the second set - maybe took us a while to settle into it after the rush to get there. Used my GK800RB into the Neo 410 cabinet - last time with this cab for me as I sold it after the gig! It’s been a great cab, never missed a beat. (For my final gig with the band this Saturday I’ll be using my trusty Loud 4x10.) For once a drive home with no diversions, but still got in around 2.30am. Must admit I won’t be sorry to see the back of these long gigs - driving over 400 miles in total and two long sets is getting a bit much for me. Easier drive to Birmingham tomorrow though, so looking forward to it.

My gig wasn't last night, but rather last weekend when on Friday we opened up for Subhumans at The Drill in Lincoln (a 550 person venue, but I heard that around 300 tickets were sold). I'm a huge Subhumans fan, have been ever since I was about 13 or 14 years old (I'm in my late 40's now). Fortunately I met them once before, otherwise I would have been completely geeking out. There is a Subhumans cassette tape that I have had since the late 80's / early 90's, which I used to just leave in the tape deck of my car for a long while... I brought it on to stage with me when we opened for them. The Drill is a really impressive venue, and the organization in advance was superb. It was the largest stage that me or any of my bandmates had ever played on, and we felt a bit out of our league (in the same way that you might feel flying business class when you normally travel economy). We certainly enjoyed the experience, but at the same time we were playful and laughing about how unusual certain aspects of the show were. I had brought my Mesa 6x10" cab specifically for this show, but sadly the main sound engineer did not want to mic it (he mic-ed the Subhumans bassist's cab, and commented it's only done for the headliners). For me he used the post-eq DI on my amp... oh well! We had one dedicated sound engineer just for monitors. He seemed very attentive during soundcheck, but when we played our set in front of the audience he seemed to forget my request to kill the vox in my monitor. This threw me off a bit at the start, and our songs came fast and furious... I was only able to communicate the problem to him on the fourth song of our set, which starts with the bass and gave me the opportunity to briefly pause. We had a dressing room complete with mirror and large round bulbs, a couch, fridge, and the wifi password. Beers and other drinks were provided. My family came along, and my son ran the merch desk. He did really well on sales! He sold 5 tees, 6 CDs, and 3 cassette tapes during the show. We played really well, and someone who had seen a lot of our performances commented that it was the best show yet. Most of us stayed overnight in Lincoln, and I went around the town the the fam for some sightseeing the next morning. We didn't stick around too long however, as we had to hit the road and head to Boston. There we were headlining on Saturday, but given a lot more time for our set. We played every song that we had, and I honestly think that the Boston performance was the very best show yet. They get better and better... I had to take the fam to Manchester airport on Sunday afternoon, and Subhumans were playing at the Star & Garter, so I popped in for their show. I caught the opening bands too, and between acts I went into the loo... I find Trotsky (Subhumans drummer) taking a leak next to me and he says, "Hey, what are you doing here?!?" Funny. I chatted with the Subhumans merch guy (he owed me a shirt from the Lincoln show, when I traded tees with Dick but they sold out of my size), as well as Phil the bassist (there are two flights of stairs at the S&G, and he said he was too lazy to carry up his bass cabs). I'm honestly not sure that we'll ever play such a large show again... but who really knows? Anyway, we enjoyed this weekend, which was awesome.

The rather magnificent St Luke's in Glasgow. Brilliant crew, and sound, too.

A first gig of the year at an award-winning Glamping site in deepest Dorset. We - the Otis Jay Blues Band - had to tweak our repertoire to include more danceable/recognisable stuff as the glampers have come for a good time. Hence a closing Mustang Sally with three young ladies around the mic adding the responses! (Sadly not pictured…) The applause sounded tumultuous, though that was clearly assisted by downpours onto the clear plastic covering of the bar. Only mystery to be solved was why four cop cars and a paddywagon turned up during set two. A Blues Brothers moment😂 Gear: Flea Jazz, Elf, 2xBarefaced One10.

This bass is all finished now……👍🏻🤘🏻

There are a lot of brain-dead clowns on the internet ... sounds like you've stumbled across a few. As to the hopeless failed musicians who can't find a better job than working in music stores, don't get me started. Start by Googling famous bass players who used short-scale basses, then try to convince yourself that Paul McCartney would voluntarily play a POS instrument. Good luck with that. In anything to do with music you should always ignore the opinions of others (including mine, of course) and try using your ears. Even when they're the opinions of experienced musicians who you respect, ignore them - they aren't you and they don't hear what you hear. If you like the sound of a bass and the way it plays, then how much you paid for it, what it says on the headstock, what the scale length is, whether it's active or passive, uses flats or rounds, all that stuff is largely irrelevant. What matters is that you're playing it and you like it. If you play with others (in a band, jamming, whatever) then do remember that nobody else in the room gives a damn what you're playing. "It's just a bass, right?"

#metoo, albeit with Aggie cabs. The Louisiana, Bristol with George Montague. 90 minute set, attempted from memory which I’ve got lazy at of late with more regular gigs, using a iPad most of the time. Helpful sound guy and the ever excellent Tom Hooper on drums. Much easier to keep the cable runs tidy at this one….

Last minute gig last night at the Butchers Arms in Inverurie with Nine Lives (as in the band that was supposed to be playing dropped out on the day due to illness). Luckily, our drummer happened to be perusing Faceache at the time and saw the venue put a cancellation notice - just one of those serendipitous moments. It was a bit of an odd one, not super busy with an odd crowd that would alternate between great dancing and singing along then nothing at all. Typical drunk guy was in attendance - put his arm around the singer's shoulder, barely coherently requested some Bad Company and got escorted out a little later. I thought I played ok, but I made a massive flub in one song (the "f*** I've lost my place entirely, quick, make some s*** up in the rough vicinity until the riff restarts" type) and some drunk guy manages to film that exact moment in a 3 hour gig - typical! Win of the night - finding out that somehow my amp and cab fit in the boot of my wee Colt. Score! Equipment - Markbass Mini CMD121P IV + NY121 cab, G&L CLF L-1000, Yamaha BB1200

Played my 1st gig of the year with Felis Leo, 1st gig in Salisbury since joining them 2 years ago. The gig was in a pub called the George & Dragon which is quite a long thin pub. The back of the pub was closed off for the night and we played just in front of that area, unfortunately space was limited and I ended up stuck in a corner behind a wall, my two barefaced one10s on a bench facing in different directions! I could only see the entrance to the loos from my vantage point 😂 Before we started there was quite a few punters in and that was pleasing, after the first set I came out of my hiding place and the bar was heaving! If we're playing a standard pub gig we play half originals, half covers but not the obvious covers... Powerage era AC/DC, UFO, Whitesnake, JJ Cale, Rory McLeod, it seems to work and weave into our own material. The crowd seemed to enjoy it, the bar staff were very complimentary and the 'fans' said it was the best we'd played (this was only my 3rd gig with FL, it was Chris the drummer's 1st!). Despite the postage stamp stage area the sound on stage was great, so much better than at rehearsals but then I don't use the 2 x one10s in rehearsal. Loading out was a ball ache, I won't bore you with that...rain, roads, busy pub full of drunks, etc. Overall the night was a cracker, looking forward to next Sunday with a Smiths tribute and an all female Slade tribute! Here's my strange setup for the evening

About 3pm yesterday we got a message asking if we’d play a gig that night. So, with no recent band practice - we jumped on it. My 5 string anniversary Dingwall had some issues with tuning (it was going sharp) and only grabbed it from my tech place the day before. It would also have been my first gig with my quad cortex (since my last one died at a gig). I haven’t even tested if my “amp” setting actually worked, so decided to run direct (which I’ve wanted to do for years). We had some cable issues with a mic splitter so decided to forgo backing vocals and my QC output was quite low. I haven’t figured out why as yet. But we got everything sorted quick, crowd seemed to enjoy us, got some moshing and folk singing along. The basses tuning issues seem completely sorted now. Afterwards, I got complimented on my playing, my tone, my bass and my LEDs 😂 we didn’t get a photo afterwards due to being slightly moist, but grabbed one prior. Super metal looking poses. Fun fact: I had my Garmin on. 27 mins with a reported 500 odd calorie burn. I can live with that.

The Rebbels played The Cock Inn in Warminster last night. We have not played together for about a month and in the meantime I have had the nasty bug that is going around and could not pick up the bass for long periods. I admit it was a trial and not one of our best although the audience loved it. The room was hard floors throughout and the sound was a bit bass light initially. My rig was LFSys Monza 10, with a Bugera Head fed from my Marcus Miller M2 via the Zoom B2-4. As the bass has active electronics, I was able to push a little low end to get to where I wanted to be. It was a struggle for me, especially second half, but I got through with a few more pink torpedo ups than usually. Despite all this they want us back.... To top off a hard night, the rain was biblical and a 1 hour 10 minute journey home took closer to two hours with the road of Wiltshire and Dorset trying desperately, in cahoots with the rain, to aquaplane me into a ditch/hedge. Maybe it will not be raining next time1

The Hulla played an 80th birthday party in the local village hall last night. The potential for getting the setlist wrong was great as we didn't know what the demographic would be. Fortunately, we have a range of tunes on tap but as it turned out we found the right mix with the initial selection of songs. It was a small hall, there were around 100 people there and everyone was handed a glass of Prosecco as they walked in, so the atmosphere by the time we squeezed on stage was pretty good. Unsurprisingly there was dancing from the first song and for every tune thereafter. I was using IEM and my mix was great. The stage was very cramped (there was a plan for getting everyone on and off!). My B6 was under the cymbal stand where I had to stretch my foot to tap the switches without kicking over the ride cymbal. The saxophonist on front of me was occasionally stepping on the mic stand leg, so I had to anticipate him and move my mouth away from the mic to avoid impromptu dental work. I played my Ibanez EHB1000s as any regular scale bass would have been brushing up against the curtains at the side of the stage, or slapping the guitarist on the back (I don't play slap style 😃). Overall a most enjoyable gig without the pressures of the drunken city mob. An earlyish finish and the birthday girl really enjoyed herself.

21st birthday in a pub. 3 fights, finished at 22.00.😂

Yesterday afternoon I was resigned to a two gig weekend then I got a message inviting me to a last minute gig in Bath. Squashed into the tiniest corner we played to a typical Friday crowd of ever changing gangs of pub crawlers. Went down a storm and got home in good time. I took minimal kit as parking is a nightmare, so I had to be prepared to sack truck my gear through the streets. I must say that's two nights on the trot I've used the Cort, it usually gets overlooked for whatever reason. It's a simply wonderful bass. Light and beautifully balanced, rich tonal palette, fast comfortable neck.

Thursday night wedding just outside of Malvern and the second time we’ve played at the venue, which was also on a Thursday. Both times we’ve been there the crowd have been crazy, I always think it’s going to be a tough sell but they go nuts. Some deps onboard for this one but they all did a fab job and we used the hk elements rig which I like to reinforce with an actual amp onstage as the PA hasn’t got the biggest bottom.

Just got it home and tweaked the bridge. Action is low , might raise it a hair , it has an older set of rounds on it , I may leave them on , I have Thomastik flats on the yellow one. These are a good looking pair!

Up close and personal kind of gig, a bit too up close because someone hit the end of my microphone stand hitting my microphone into my teeth, and a bit too personal as a rather drunk young lady forgot to not keep herself clothed in public! So this was the first gig with no bass amp, and as my dwarf is off being fixed I was playing with the zoom. It was the first time with 2 Evox8 speakers. It takes a bit of getting used to it, and for some reason the mixer was working weirdly, and as the keyboard player has a huge monitor speaker hard to get the sound right. It sounded quite good at the start but people complained the vocals weren't loud enough although this might be positioning, as the guitarist has now put his amp up high and point out to the crowd, if you are on that side that is all you can hear. But as I pointed out, sound through their monitor is their issue, it causes feedback sometimes and unbalances things, and the guitarist looks to me to sort it out, but I point out it is their monitor. I was getting over my cold, my first songs sounded ok, but then I do the high bit in crazy horses and my voice just said, nah, not doing those notes, would you like another note just a bit lower? So I cancelled doing any of my songs (which is only a few after that, although one of our encores). my voice even for backup vocals started getting bad after that. Glad my main songs were at the beginning! I recorded it, but unfortunately as it was on the guitarists side, it is basically just his guitar. Still, hugely interactive crowd (possibly too interactive at times), and not a bad gig at all.

Back to the pubs for me last night with a dep gig with my old band Isabelle at The Brave Old Oak in Towcester. Drummer really struggles with loud bass players, so I took in ears to supplement my rig so I could be fairly quiet on stage. Next step with this band will be to go amplesss for me. Anyway, I remembered all the stuff, decent crowd and went down well, home by 0045. Happy Daze!

Wedding gig near Birmingham depping with my brother’s function band last night. Real good vibe, lovely audience, and got to try out my Darkglass Vintage Microtubes pedal to give it a bit of grit in a couple of the heavier songs. Plus pulled pork rolls. Winner.

Just finished routing the pick guard and some finishing touches like countersinking the screws etc. Was just about to connect it up and realised all my flathead screwdrivers i need to connect the pickups and preamp have gone missing 🥲 Very happy with how it’s turning out, ended up spacing the pickups a little further than initially intended largely down to cosmetics and symmetry.

Led Zep tribute at the Motorsport Lounge in Llandudno last night. A great night with a sell out crowd, nice venue (the stage was a bit cramped though) with very friendly people running it and enthusiastic punters. We had an issue with a guitar amp and the monitors were right on their limit, so not the greatest onstage sound, but with such a good crowd - who cares? https://www.facebook.com/themotorsportlounge/videos/1175097643505412

The Gig That Nearly Never Was... Or... (cue silent movie style music) The Perils of Facebook Videos. A bit of background to the tale. As a band, we (Rascallion) have always agreed that any of us could go and play with anybody else as long as they were open and honest about what they were doing, and it didn't interfere with or compromise us as the main band (our drummer, for example, has been hosting a weekly jam session in his studio with some other local musos, but has also been keeping up to speed with our core material). Having been on hiatus since October 2023 while our esteemed frontman recuperated from an operation to fuse one of his ankles, we finally resumed rehearsals in March when he declared himself fit and ready to go. We were all a bit rusty, but things soon slotted into place and we spent the first couple of rehearsals working up three new songs, which went surprisingly well (though I do have to wonder what @casapete and his bandmates would make of our rendition of "Showdown" sans strings!). We then turned our attention to the rest of the setlist, most of which we've been playing for the past couple of years, and this is when things started to go pear-shaped, with Mr Frontman failing to remember how to start the tunes he'd normally start, along with most of the chords, lyrics, and arrangements to the rest of the set. Initially, we jokingly put this down to his age (70+), but then at our next rehearsal, it was even worse, with umpteen songs grinding to a lyricless halt (if they even got started in the first place), so in preparation for our third rehearsal, I printed up a new setlist for him which included the first line of each verse as cues. Then, on the evening before said rehearsal, and with just over two weeks to go until our first gig of the year, our drummer came across some videos on Facebook of a new-to-us band playing at a local pub back in February, and who should be there, upfront and centre? Yep, our frontman. Despite his protests, the rest of us (particular Mr Drums, who's a great drummer and a lovely chap, but has a very short fuse when he thinks someone's taking the proverbial) struggled to accept that Mr Frontman was apparently fit enough to gig (and presumably rehearse) with another band in February, but not to rehearse with us, and must also have been concentrating all his efforts on learning their stuff rather than keeping up to speed with ours. To be honest, we've had our suspicions that he's been "playing away" before now, but this is the first time he's actually been caught in the act. Anyway, after initially refusing to ever set foot on stage with him again (and insisting that he removed his gear from our rehearsal room), Mr Drums finally cooled down and we all agreed that rather than pull the gig, we'd let Mr Frontman back into the fold for it, and after three more rather edgy but improving (in both mood and performance) rehearsals, the gig went ahead last night. After all that drama, not much to report really. A smaller than usual turnout (possibly down to an outbreak of random end-of-the-month-itis), and less dancing than we've had before, but still a great reaction from everybody, with a bit of singing along and plenty of complimentary remarks afterwards. Performance-wise, it's probably safe to say we were still a little ring-rusty, but we managed to negotiate the occasional curve-ball thrown by various members (an extra verse added here, a breakdown section omitted there), and our revised, slightly rockier setlist seemed to work well. For some reason, I really struggled to get my onstage sound sorted on this, the first live outing for the Squier 40th Anniversary P, and eventually resorted to just pressing the "Deep" button on the Ashdown - luckily this produced a suitably deep (sic) tone which I could both hear and feel, so I felt a lot happier in the second set than the first. On the plus side, it apparently sounded OK out front, and in what seems to be a new atmosphere of entente cordiale, it looks like we won't be having to find either a new frontman or a new drummer before our next scheduled gigs in July after all! Quick FB reel from the first set - really must ask our man with a phone to shoot some footage of our second set sometime as that's a bit more lively! https://www.facebook.com/reel/438884908720268

Strange weekend for my lot, Tore Down - unusually back to back gigs Friday night and Saturday daytime. Friday night we resumed our residency at The Shamrock in Ipswich. Drummer is a farmer and had a lamb problem so we started late at 9.45pm. Hardly anyone there, even fewer listening to us, didn't bother with an encore. This was the place at 8.45. Opps, didn't mean to post yet. Late start meant late finish - less than convenient because next day we had a gig in Newmarket at the Harley Davidson dealerhsip there. We played 2x 1 hr sets, starting at 11am, needed to get there for 9.30am-ish. I'd booked a Travelodge locally to save going all the way home then all the way back, which kind of worked out OK - managed to get about 6hrs sleep. We'd played a gig at the Harley place before - odd. On the face of it there was no reaction at all - the band seem to be completely ancillary to the event, with nobody watching, virtually no applause or reaction after the songs. But afterwards loads of people came up to say how much they enjoyed it - especially the manager there, Mick who, true to his word, booked us for their 28th birthday bash this year. Which proved to be exactly the same Saturday. Dull drizzly day although we were outside under cover - dry but cold. Good turn out but very little reaction. Every now and then whatever we were playing was drowned out by someone starting up a bike and revving it - particualrly one of our lovely slow blues tunes 'Blue Jean Blues'. Nice food available - either a free BBQ although I opted to buy a stone baked pizza. At half time someone who runs a Harley club asked us to play at their summer bash next year. Mike and the crew at Newmarket loved it and are going to ask us back again. Loads of good feedback from punters, too. Strange. Good pay, though.

The Roundabout club in Sandy, Bedfordshire. Decent gig in the end. We don't often use our own PA and we have this digital system that none of us really understand. Worked fine last week. This week, full of gremlins. We also managed to blow our sub somehow so I was trying to play to the venue through a 100watt amp I was planning to only use as a stage monitor, plus a bit of bass in the tops. Regardless of those and other sound issues the actual gig was good. We were really relaxed so no starting at 200mph or messing up of songs. Decent venue, good little crowd who seemed to be enjoying it. Played my "new" MIM Precision throughout and was very happy with this through my SWR Working Pro, good job that amp has a built in limiter considering how much I was having to push it.

The Bush in Cwmbran, pretty compact but wonderful pub. Had a real blast. Sound was very boomyn asked sound to turn down my bottom end and he replied I have can you turn yours down and I said I have! Stone flag floor and stone wall behind rear ported cab... I had to repair my finger with superglue after slicing the tip on Wednesday. Three layers lasted the night. My playing was a bit scatty on a couple of songs and the night seemed to suit sticking in some frills and whistles 😁 noone seemed to mind and we had a few musos in so that was ok. Alex was trying out his new Gretsch Electromatic for the first time. I barely appear in the short vid below, but it gives an idea. https://www.facebook.com/story.php?id=100024370338008&story_fbid=1613621292793533

I got the Schecter P4 Exotic a couple of years back and while I loved the way it played and the look I realised that P bass sound wasn’t for me. After watching @funkle’s post on building a Wal-ish I decided I wanted to build my own. It’s something I’d looked at before but always seemed like a massive leap of faith with the lack of demos, all the content showing off the Lusithand NFP and Turner Pickups pushed me over the edge. Here’s some of the process so far: The original Schecter P4 Exotic. Prepping for incision, getting centre lines and working out how much needed routing out. A little improvising and got it routed, regretted forgetting the dust extractor for the router though… A new pick guard and some extremely deep pickup cavities to house the Turner English voiced multicoil pickups. Test fit before I attached the neck and started connecting wires. The journey has hit a blocker there sadly as I seem to have misplaced my flathead screwdriver bits to connect the preamp and pickups. Hopefully should get that all finished up this weekend though 🙌

Thanks, I hoped it hasn’t seemed like showboating though - just thought it may have been of interest to see what being in a theatre band was like. All through my time doing this I’ve also kept playing pubs, cafes and private gigs ( mainly with my duo), so I’ve always loved the contrast between the two scenarios. Doing the smaller gigs has meant I’ve never taken the wonderful old theatres for granted, and I will miss playing them a lot. ( Tonight though I’m in an ordinary town pub on the outskirts of Hull playing requests for a small and often inebriated crowd. 😆)

We played third out of 4 bands at The Herdsman in Hereford last night... First band up were ANoise, who do a sort of dance-punk craziness with lots of bizarre costume changes... Lots of fun, though unfortunately only about 6 people had come in by then. Then it was MC16, who do an excellent agit-punk thing - highly recommended (but no pix, though we're playing with them again next week near Telford). Then it was us - luckily I'd brought my Big Amp (1500W!) so I could be heard, which is always nice cos it's all about me 😁. We had the biggest crowd, either because somehow we have fans or, more likely, we had the best time slot. And actually, rather than muttering about how rubbish we were or shouting "Oi, flash w4nkr!" if we dared to play above the 5th fret, someone came up and said I played like Les Claypool! I suspect he must have been very, very drunk. And we are also now officially a covers band, as our other bass player suddenly started playing RATM's "Bullet to the Head" and then our encore was our Cameo/Penetration mash-up of "Don't Dictate"... Headline band were Last Tree Squad who do a ReggaeRapPunk thing and are proper groovy, though I only saw one of their songs due to having to get my ancient self to bed ready for work at sparrow's in the morning... ChokedBulletToTheHead.mp4

Who knows? I wasn't supposed to know but the venue owner paid me before we started. So now I know the total and how much we all got. I'll be looking for another job.

My All boss bass board has reached its final form.

Glad you pulled. She's got an unusual name, hasn't she?

Yep, it's very loud and there's an amazing weight to the sound. Best digital power section I've used (and I've used a lot!). There's so much going on I'm a loss to know where to start right now, but I'll try and review in a few days. The cab calibration is amazing. The effects sound lush and are endlessly tweakable using the software. Low and High pass filters. Preset shapes. Vintage and Modern tones. I bought the footswitch as well, which will be a game changer for live use. I was giggling like a kid at Christmas when I started playing!

Recorded a bit of my 66 Mustang today. Backing track is my band, used Moises to remove the bass and put mine over. Backing track is only a demo so not 100% full quality but it gives you some idea. Love the sound of this bass, it just sits and pokes out when needed. Blue Horizon snippet.mp3