Leaderboard

Started the first 2 gigs ( of 4 in Eastern England*) at Norwich Theatre Royal on Thursday. Due to a number of reasons we hadn’t played this wonderful venue for a number of years, so was great to return here. Lovely crew and facilities, and a great sell out crowd of 1,300. Gig went really well although I was feeling a tad under the weather - dropped a couple of silly mistakes but styled them out ( I think!). Friday saw us drive up to The Cresset Theatre in Peterborough. One of our regular gigs, about 3/4 full and a nice crowd again. Decent 2 hour drive home too, so in around 1am. * The other two gigs are this coming Friday 23rd in Newark, and Saturday 24th in Kings Lynn.

The Otis Jay Blues Band kicked off 2024 at Ringwood Meeting House, Hants. Four new numbers went pretty well, and with 60 paying punters we beat our previous record by 10! Was told to ‘turn up the bass’ in the interval… understandably so as I was only using an Elf and BF One10. But ‘going active’ on my Sandberg VM4 gave me the bass boost I needed and apparently the second half had more low end. Talks of three possible new gigs through this, so quite excited!

So today (yesterday) I played two gigs with two different bands. First gig was a local bar with in-house PA & engineer. You play on a small corner stage and the acoustics arn’t brilliant with the drums dominating the on stage sound. Result was we made a lot of mistakes and we were well off our best. Anyway, dashed off from that gig to my second gig 30 mins later. Threw our PA and lights into an already packed pub, quick sound check, and on we went. Great gig, great on stage sound, and the punters seemed happy with my FOH mix. Thank god for the Behringer XR18 as the ability to recall saved scenes make setting up on gigs like this a breeze. Oh and we must have done something right as the landlady gave us a little extra in the pay packet 😎

A sure fire contender for my favourite venue, Bath's Chapter 22 Roots and Records was host to my humble duo of darkness, Deadlight Dance, last night. Dean and Nic always looks after us. The setting is a record shop in the city centre that also trades in plants. Playing mainly mandocello and mandolin (with a second time on guitar for a song), my basses took a break. We were a little light on audience at first but it didn't take much to fill up the shop. The performance was one of our stronger ones. Honourable mention to co-headliner Steve Mercy. I think it's our 40th show. We walk the line between taking our music very seriously whilst not taking ourselves too seriously at all! People like our onstage chat. Gothic, but more Carry on Screaming meets Hammer Horror rather than anything too po-faced and serious. And if Boss are looking at this post, yes, you should endorse us!

Spacewasters gig at The Trinity Bar, Harrow last night, as part of a Shake Some Acton event with four bands on the bill. Very small stage that, now we’re a 5 piece was cramped to say the least. Being so small onstage sound was poor but having heard the other bands we knew sound out front was good - kudos to the sound man, he was attentive to all the bands all night and didn’t blast the volume to max or make bass drums sound like explosions. Went very well, lots of applause and cheering, which is always nice, and was home before midnight. Forgot to mention, the rig I used was a Hartke HA3500 into a Trace Elliot 4x10, was easy to get a very decent sound from it.

Hurtsfall played the O2 Academy in Leicester as part of the first night of HRH Goth 2. Both myself and our synth player were still less than 100% fit having had to cancel the gig we had on Tuesday. However this was potentially too important to miss and I suspect that only death (our own) would have stopped us playing this one. There was some weird hum/buzz problem that affected two of the bands before us and also our backing and no combination of leads and DI boxes would make it go away. In the end it was EQ'd out at the FoH desk, as there was limited time between bands to set up and to troubleshoot problems. Strangely it only appeared to affect FoH and not the monitors. Setting up the Bass VI and backing controls: And here we are playing our opening song "Lucid": Nice big stage, and by the time we were on stage there was a decent sized and vocal audience. I felt a bit sorry for the band that opened the evening who played to less than 50 people and a smattering of polite applause. I could see people dancing and singing along to our better known songs which is always gratifying. And lots of nice comments about our performance afterwards as well as plenty of people asking about when we'll have an album out - we're working on it right now! And it's always good to see your band's name on the Festival T-Shirt: There were several professional photographers in attendance so I hope to be able to post some better photos soon.

Played with The 77s at Market House in Maidstone last night. It was our last gig with our outgoing drummer, I thought it might be a bit awkward but it turned out fine. The place was packed, and we had a really good gig. It’s my favourite place to play locally, I have been playing at the weekly jam night that is held there, but it was nice to play a full gig there. There were a couple of the other “big” local covers bands playing at other pubs in town, but it didn’t seem to affect our attendance. we have a dep lined up for our next gig in March, and then nothing currently booked until June whilst we sort out a new drummer. The only downside was having to load out in torrential rain.

Short run of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at Number 8 Theatre in Pershore for the towns local youth drama group. Fun show to play, some interesting bass lines and the kids were superb. I have worked on having a super small rig for shows but needed the pedalboard and two cabs for this one.

Another morning after the night before post for you My mob Yellowhouse played the Essex Riviera with a dep singer. She's done a couple of gigs with us over the last few months with us and it's getting better each time. I think this is the best bit of video I've ever seen of my lot. The sound is great and the vocals are immense. It's an old Skunk Anansie song which I've always wanted to play and Susie blows the doors off here.... (Cort A4, Orange 4 Stroke, Laney Digbeth pre on the tube setting and a couple of Barefaced Big Baby cabs for the geeks)

What key is that in?

Played at The Craufurd Arms with Stray last night supported by Bedford’s Thr3e. Really good home crowd and good sound thanks to our recently acquired sound engineer Stuart. I took my 77 Ric into a Bugera MOSFET and Eden 4x10. I always struggle to get a decent on stage bass tone at that venue but apparently it sounded great out front (thanks James!). Cart and Horses in London to come next Saturday!

The cock filter has been scaled back, thankfully. It means we can refer to Dick van Dyke and not Penis van Lesbian.

Haven't owned my Pro that long but it ain't going anywhere soon.

Here's my new Warwick RockBass Streamer fretless wiht black head.

I'm hating this topic - soon everyone will know how great Danos are, and I want to keep it to a select few! I've loved these things for years. Never had an original one (although nearly did once), but had a clutch of them and they've all been great. Although not as historically accurate, I ended up keeping the late 90's Korean Pro model in blueburst. Plays and sounds immense, and light as a feather. Just one vol / tone and a selector switch so a bit easier to use than the pointer contols, but I generally just leave the switch in the centre position and vol/tone full on. Am starting to trim down my stash of stuff due to impending semi-retirement but won't be letting the Longhorn go.

For me, absolutely not. Even if I had started early, not late, in life - the lifestyle of a professional musician is not for me and is nothing I would ever have aspired to. Much as I enjoy playing bass and being in a band it is purely as a hobby and on my terms. Being a bassist is a part of my life but it doesn't define me.

In case this is of interest to anyone - seems Cort have just released a new headless bass - looks pretty cool and for £700 seems fairly reasonable stacked against Ibanez etc. So new that there's nothing about it on the Cort website 😅 BassDirect have a Star Dust Black model after the green sold whilst it was typing!

I'm surprised we made it all the way to page two before the inevitable "the Beatles weren't all that" comments started...

Shaped a bit better this time ... (sanding the borders better soon); the bottom wood (I don't know what type it is) is quite hard to work with, and the top is very very soft ... I got a hiccup while sanding it, a a little piece got off, so I had to glue it ... now let's make the cavities as a nice human being would do! 🙂

I think there's a logical conclusion to that train of thought that involves not playing at all...

A multimeter does not load the battery, so you will get a slightly higher reading than when the battery is in use. Also, the voltage droops as the battery discharges, but it will recover a bit if left alone for a while. Put back into service, it will not last long, but it may allow the circuit to operate again for a while. David

I take it back... and tried to with a sneaky edit! From the Ibby Site, Support, Catalogues http://www.hoshinogakki.co.jp/pdf/ibanez/catalog/1995EU.pdf

Yeah, had one of them too, very nice basses of the usual Fujigen standard and scrub up well with a bit of TLC. They're active EMG pickups, so there is no bypass. They're not the stock pickups either. I did that same mod, swapping out the Ibanez pickups for EMG. @Grooverjr Depending on what they've installed, you've got the following controls 1 - Master volume, pickup blend, bass and treble cut and boost 2 - P Volume, J Volume, bass and treble cut and boost 3 - P Volume, J Volume, P tone, J tone With that in mind, play around and you should be able to figure it out. Yeahm h

Unfortunately you are correct. I like them for pit work and rehearsals where you don’t have to knock houses down. Same board and amp with my Aggie db112s has much more clout.

Out of curiosity I thought I'd measure the two whilst I had them out. The pale blue with the maple board is the (mezzo in case you don't know.) I did a couple of pics that the ibanez stats don't give you, which are probably more related to playability. Ie 1-4 fret distance and comparable width at 12th fret. Apologies if this is getting a bit off topic.

Well I’m off to see ,one love the Marley film, shall report back later

That's an interesting looking venue, Mick, but somehow I suspect the acoustics would have been a bit tricky ?

Finally got an actual board to put my pedals on.

There's quite a lot of detail about how it was found and the state of the bass here: https://www.debassist.nl/muzieknieuws/artikel/2-29077/paul-mccartneys-first-hfner-is-back?fbclid=IwAR2zFoM5u-eKYQaIErdIhaLsDu8ryKT4MPo9mJTogDQd0DGzsVVhj60494U

For once I’ve managed to post on the “How was your gig last night” thread, on the day after the night before. It was a lively night with the pub being pretty much full from when the host band kicked things off. It was the debut outing for my Rickenbacker. It got plenty of attention, in the main from the bass players, but a few of the guitarists and one of the drummers also oggled it. The singer will be back next month, so I’ll probably be back to the shortscale headless to avoid any whacks on the back of her head.

It's rather nice being in a 'power trio' with some licence to improvise and the space to jmp around while the 'main attraction' is largely tied to his mike 😁 We enjoy some coordinated instrument wagging too!

So I did it in the end, I have bough a short scale bass - here in the classfields. Nice little bass for not a lot of money. The fretwork is very good, keeps a comfortably low action with "floppy" TI flats. Add that it has a 38mm nut width, neck not super skinny back to front but not chunky either. Overall it is very easy on the fretting hand. I like the sound. Tubbier than my precision, and it came with flats. I tried it on Cissy Strut and it was spot on! It is, however, a serious neck diver. I guess it's because of the short horn. I have put on hipshot licensed ultralight tuners, taken off another bass, and.. 260gr of car wheel balance weighs on the back it still needs a leather strap to stay in place 🫣 ...in the other hand, it still is a pretty lightweight bass. I bought it because, after trying the electric guitar, I have realised it is really nice to play with as little effort as possible for the fretting hand (that was before I realised how much stretch is required for some chords..). I would say the first impression was positive. Not sure this is a full conversion to short scale, I'll see..

I had a half-arsed go at it during the 90s. Half-arsed because I realised after a while that it really wasn't for me. I didn't have a plan B so I then just went with the flow of life and kept my eyes open for other opportunities. Some ups and downs along the way but I'm happy with my lot now. A great wife, two lovely sons and a rewarding job that I love. Music is now my me-time playtime with friends. We don't gig but we play what we want, when we want - all original ideas that could go anywhere depending on the day. Wouldn't have it any other way now.

That's never bothered me at all. We all make decisions that are - ultimately - self serving so I've never had a problem with a muso colleague who "gets a better offer". What does bother me is the musos who make self-defeating decisions that screw up everyone, including themselves, i.e. no one benefits from the decision, it's just a clusterf***.

Hi Dr J. Here you go. Hope this helps the detective work. Hopefully you can read the serial number in the picture. It's active but I'm not convinced it started out active because the pots don't seem to make a huge amount of sense and there's no apparent bypass. Lovely woods but they hadn't been well looked after by previous owners so they're quite dulled.

Mine is 014836. I think all the ‘Pro’ models didn’t have the tape edging, and haven’t seen any standard Longhorns without it so yours may be unique?! At the time some people said the Pro series spoiled the Dano sound, but having had both I’m not so sure. The wooden bridges and concentric controls probably do alter stuff, but it wasn’t that apparent with mine - both models sounded ace. The upgraded tuners on the Pro, again whilst not vintage accurate, do make life easier, same as the bridge. 😊

No tape binding on the blueburst I notice. My pinkburst late 90's Korean is also devoid of tape, and has a serial number on the headstock. I've not seen another one without tape. Does yours have a serial number?

I went for the no fuzz for Nazi scum one.

Continuing the theme of "finding ways not to spend money on gear"... NDD.

@jimmyb625 I recall towards the end, the Manchester shop cost £1200 or so a day to run, it was a very, very expensive building to be in… I did 11 years there. We were never “cool” like PMT were perceived to be, or Johnny Roadhouse…it was a weird company. I never fully understood much of the decision making process - I never felt any iteration of the senior management had a full grasp on what to do next. Some of us had a clue - I ran the social media for a bit, at the birth of facebook/twitter/instagram as a sales platform…they took it off me and killed it in months… Such is life. Met loads of good folk who I still speak to… The old Manchester team met at the shop last year when it reopened as a bijou pizza restaurant 😆

You mean like this one? : Sorry for the bling, folks, but - in my defense - it was a pretty dull dinted black Squier when it started...

It was quite odd to be honest. My own bass sound was great from the cabs to about 2/3rds out onto the stage and then the bass seemed to disappear and i couldn't hear it at all. Can't say there was any other issues with the on stage sound. They had a great monitor system at front of stage too and i could hear the others very clearly however it did mean we weren't able to hear the FOH sound too well and it was mentioned by other musicians in the audience that guitarist was a bit too low in the mix. On hearing mobile vids it is noticeable that he was a bit lower than we would have with our own PA but not on stage. The PA subs (6off) were below the stage almost all the way round and when the SE initially turned them up you could feel the stage vibrate with the bass and he turned them back down a bit again. Overall it was a decent sound with a decent quality PA. I've had some SE that have no idea what they're doing and PA has been cheap rubbish. Dave

Duffy's bar in Leicester on Saturday night. It was rammed and super sweaty. I'd annoyed the sound engineer yet again! This time I moved the drum monitor before he'd arrived. It turned out this monitor was knackered, and rather than fix it, he'd found just the right angle to balance it on a bar stool and keep it working. It'd been working for months apparently! After the show I politely recommended that if he didn't want to fix it, he should put a "do not move" sign on it. Anyway, I played without a monitor and it sounded fine on stage. Great gig!