Leaderboard

Matinee and evening gig with Elton Joel at Bibi’s Italianissimo in Leeds. It’s a bit of a regular December double gig for us and the nearest we get to a band Christmas party. Took along my usual Markbass traveller rig and cracked out the old P Bass as well as the Yamaha for a special event (both sounded dead nice actually onstage). Good crowds for both shows - lots of singing along and dancing and some very eager Kiki Dees lending their voices to it. Knackered but happy. Cup of tea and to bed I reckon.

Two phat bassists ?

Saturday was the first of a busy December for us at the Crumpled Horn in Upminster. We play here every Christmas and the landlord is a former DJ and agents and is an old friend of the band (indeed, he even DJ'd at my wedding). The weather was atrocious, as it was everywhere else in the UK - although I reckon it would have been cancelled if we were in the west of England. A decent sized audience when we turned up to load it, but by the time we was ready to go at 8.30 a number of patrons had left, and more during our first set - although they were singing and dancing while walking out the door. By the time the second set started the pub was nearly empty, but those who stayed were very enthusiastic. The doorman told us that this pub is half empty whenever there is bad weather, so we can take solace in the fact that we didn't cause the lousy turnout. The landlord was happy with us too and gave us a little extra on top of our usual fee. Oh well, roll on next weekend. Back to Canvey at Starr Sports. Usually a lively one!

These are mine - my son (3 year old) loves the Bit Krusher - it makes him giggle like an idiot (Mini Thomas the Tank Engine for scale)

Lol. Our drummer in one ofthe new shirts. "Keep it Moist"

A late one for last weekend, a decent night at a place we like playing; it's a fair trek, being up in Barrowford North of Burnley, but always worth it for the lively crowd; it's one of those 'last place open in town' pubs, which is middling till about 10:45, then someone flicks the Crowd switch, and instantly the place is rammed. Played it as a trio, which meant more room onstage and more money - I mean, seriously, what's not to like? The drummers situation is settling down now, it's a choice of #1 or #2, and I love playing with either of them, so all good. Only fly in the ointment is that was apparently our last gig there, down to some hoohah between the agent, the landlord and the BL - he didn't go into detail (he controls all the gig arrangments (his choice)), so I just shrugged and loaded up. I did have an interesting conversation afterwards with a girl in her 20s who'd liked the band, and introduced herself as 'Brooke Nutter'. Given where we were (in the deeps of Pendle) I asked the inevitable question about Alice, and she said yeah, she was related on her Mum's side. Good job she liked the band; it's hard to load the gear out if you've been turned into a newt... Lightweight Cheapo P, Stomp, inears and, erm, trainers*. * I'm not very shoe-focused; they might be Asics or something? I've had them years. Sorry.

Back in Brixham last night for our last gig of the year. Our drummer brought his electric kit as a test for a couple of small pubs we play. At first it didn't really work with a mono out to the desk, but with a L & R output into 2 channels it was OK. Our modest PA and monitors just about delivered the drums, but he'll look at other options next time. It was bit quiet at first possibly due to the weather, bit filled out for the second set.

Few pics appeared from our Alloa gig. Dave

Not posted for a few weeks but our new named ‘Glam Viva!’ Band has been fairly busy as is typical for this festive time. Last Friday was at a nice private social club in Dronfield. Takes a bit of sorting as the sec likes the volume on the low side for a band but we’re happy to cater and just adjust fold back to give us a decent feel on stage. Vox was happy with sound out front though when he ventured out for his normal audience participation. We were pretty tight, my Sandy Lionel has a few gigs under its belt now and we’re bonding nicely. Ended up doing an extended encore set and promise of gigs for next year. Felt odd when we were asked for NYE 2025 but had to decline as we’re booked…..so we’re in the diary for NYE 2026!

It’s definitely LPB, if you are referring to the one recently for sale. I was unexpectedly having to visit Camden so thought I would take the opportunity to drop off an 80s fretless Tokai I don’t use on consignment. I always browse and was a little surprised to see this amongst the stock. Original bridge, to be refitted. Temporary BBOT in place. Dot markers in the correct fretless positions, shown next to a fretted 66 Minimal damage to finish from the removed Badass bridge. The neck pocket is in the correct vivid LPB, with the conventional paint stick mark. The neck stamp is present, but too faint to read. Apart from the missing case, covers and finger rest, and the original bridge, included later and to be reinstated, it’s a very clean unmolested example. I understand it has had one owner. Apart from the two in the Geddy Lee book, I’m not aware of any others, although there must be some. Most importantly, it’s an absolutely wicked bass.

Snagged one! It's a Thunderbird, it does Thunderbird-y things (except neck dive, which is apparently a Thunderbird-y thing). Only had a quick razz in the headphones but it sounds good to me! It's a hard so-and-so to photograph for the camera in my mobile, it only shows the true sparkle when it's pulling focus and I catch it in the act thus: Sod it, have a video. 07_thunderbird 64 purple moving.mp4

We were using a new mixing desk on only its third live outing, and the desk upgrade had so far been great on its first two outings. However we initially came unstuck on Saturday night's gig as were using it for the first time with a keyboard, and found that it was only being fed to one of the FoH speakers via the desk. Turned out that the sole output from the (very budget!) keys used by our singer is a headphone out socket and she had a TRS --> TRS lead. However because it's a headphone out, it's therefore a TRS stereo signal, whereas the desk inputs are TRS balanced mono. Anyway we managed to figure out that splitting the stereo signal into two mono and using two of the desk inputs was the workaround, but it meant for a somewhat more stressful sound check than I had anticipated! I suspect that's going to be a relatively unusual set of circumstances as most keys should have more connectivity than just a headphone out socket? The gig turned out ok in the end, though! All's well that ends well, eh? 😊

That sort of mistake could happen anyway, anyhow, anywhere…😂

Dutch classical pianist Daniël Wayenberg, after cöcking up during a relatively light-hearted Sunday afternoon concert, went down on his knees and crawled under the grand piano to pick up the missed notes, to then throw those notes back into the piano and play the piece from the start again - - playing well, this time. The audience lurved it.

Is it the amount of basses owned by the average basschatter?

Was there ever a more pointless job than that of the man who is employed to fit the indicators on a BMW?

BLOCKBUSTARZ Glam covers at The Auld Gambling Hoose in Alloa last night. An old Bingo hall that they are now trying to convert to a decent sized live music venue. Biggest problem last night was their heating system was down and they were using 2off propane space heaters at front of stage facing audience so the stage was freezing cold at the start. Changing room had no heating whatsoever and we didn't hang around too long in there but they are trying hard to make it work and all credit to them. Average audience size at the moment is 80-120 which is smallish in such a large venue but we reckon we had 100 ish in all sitting down front end so it looked ok from stage area. Load in was great from their private car park at rear straight thru to front of stage area and then a lift onto stage from there. We hired a PA for this one because of its size which was a good decision. Kick off 8pm to 10:30 limit due to their licence restrictions to be closed by 11pm. We ran on to 10:45pm due to encore requests. To be fair the female staff were top notch and offered us free drinks, coffee or tea and even offered to help load the cars at night. No pressure to get packed up for 11pm at all Few mistakes on the night which is unusual for us but the cold was having an adverse effect. Good night tho and everyone was shouting for more at the end. They definitely want us back and will contact us again in January to arrange dates. Usual rig of Sandberg VM4 into Shure Wireless, Mesa TT800 and Mesa SW210/115. Sound on stage was generally good altho 2nd set vocals in monitors seemed to get louder and i struggled to hear my on stage amp but struggled on. Guitarist said he noted same. ? Odd one. Anyways a stop at McDonalds on way out of Alloa was a def. Then a wee 1hr and 20min drive home for 1:30am ish. All in all a good night. Dave

Ah the Bontempi Problem...

Oh yes, I've played with these types of people just too many times. Doggedly stick to the script even though it's b.obvious the singer has either skipped a line or two, or is singing completely out of their range....... I did a dep gig a couple of years ago where the band had 'Rhythm Stick' on the setlist. In F, as the original. Not the easiest line to play, and not helped by the newly recruited guitarist playing it in E from the off. He was on the other side of the stage and no amount of arm waving and gesticulations would make him look in my direction. Poor front singer wasn't sure what to do. When we took a break I asked the gitard whether he'd realised he was in the wrong key - he said thought it had sounded a bit odd, but he hadn't changed to the correct key as he thought 'people might have noticed' 🥺

There's No One Quite Like Grandma - St.Winifred's School Choir

When I had mine I used to enjoy sowing chaos and confusion by driving reasonably and indicating when the highway code says one should. It was delightful.

Not quite, it's the Harmony pitch shifter, and yes, they are cool little pedals - I laughed my ass off the first time I opened the box! So cute, like doll house furniture or suchlike...

I played my final gig with Yellowhouse last night at a packed out Cow and Telescope in Southend. That's me now taking at least 6 months off now to get over the last year and concentrate on family and personal stuff without weekend gigs and doing all the booking and social media getting in the way. I lost my dad a few months back, my mother in law 2 months before that and my closest uncle at Xmas last year. It's been a difficult year for many reasons and I want to totally switch off from band commitments. I handed my notice in to the guys in July and they wanted to fold the band rather than replace me so we cancelled all the gigs apart from 6 of our favourites. The gig was awesome. We filled the place and they were ready to party! People travelled to Southend from all over the place in the storm to say goodbye. We had some from the West Midlands, Guildford, Margate. Some friends and family turned up unexpectedly as well. I was truly humbled by it and the love from the locals was overwhelming. I have a little tendon issue which flared up in the last 4 songs which was fun - it means I can't actually lift my fretting index finger off the board. It just locks down solid and I can't lift it off. You sort of stare at it willing it to move and it doesn't. So that was fun trying to work round it but I got through it ok. And then to add to the excitement some d##khead in a whizz bang BMW M5 decided to floor it outside the pub on the wet road as we were loading out. He narrowly missed us but managed to hit 5 other cars and nearly ended up in the 24hr shop that I was walking towards to get some milk shake and choccies for the trip home. You've probably seen my typical gig pics and videos so here's some of Carlos Fandango instead...

Go back a few months, we got booked to play for the South Wales Liverpool Supporters at the Tramshed (epic venue). Out rythym guitarist is a member. Then instead of 10% of their 9,000 members, it looked like less than 1% were interested. So it got moved to Taffs Well Football Club (essentially a portacabin with a capacity of about 70 with a band in). So yesterday I braved the tail end of Storm Darragh to turn up at a locked gate. Saw the drummers van disappearing down a narrow country lane to one side in the dark... Rang the vocalist. The rest of the guys were at the Rugby Club, trying to see if it was the venue. No. I suggested trying the local Ex's club, but the RG eventually got on the blower and discovered we were five miles further up the valley in Treforest. Much wending up narrow hillside terraces. Turned out the RG had got a message montsh ago saying it WOULDN'T be in Taffs Well and he misunderstood it... Anyway usual valleys audience, really great and helped us set up. First set was great, about 80 people all in a good mood, we did classic rock. I was using my Harley Benton kit bass with a Squier neck and it sounded great. I also wore my "Temu Stylish Pig T-Shirt (Style: Sexy). In the break a large chap in the loo looked at my t-shirt and said "F- me! It's a mirror!" We were doing two sets, one either side of Liverpool legend Andy Hodgson, who was driving all the way down and arrived 15 minutes before we finished our first set. He was meant to do an hour but did over an hour and a half and even though I'm not a Liverpool fan, he was excellent entertainment and the supporters went crazy. He used our PA and was very generous to us. Poor had about half an hour of endless selfies etc. before hitting the road for Liverpool again. Second set I used my Flea jazz. It was 10:45 before we went back on and people were slowly fading away so we just did a thirty-minute set focusing on what we knew people would like - Dakota, Motorcycle Emptiness (brilliant non-naff song for Welsh venues!), Saturday Night, Heroes./and some up-tempo songs like Rock and Roll. Lots of great comments but not the reception Andy had! Got back to Penarth in time for a couple of swift Penderyn Madeira cask whiskys at the Bear's Head. Photos in next post as will be from my phone.

Friday was our (In Progress) 1st gig outside of Jam Night. So 17 songs rather than 4. We weren’t as tight over the 17 as we are for 4, and the error to song ratio probably went up a bit. It was my company’s Christmas Party and I’d agreed to pick up and drop off the hired PA gear (a faff). We had 2 hours to set up and soundcheck and took 1h52mins of it 😀. The high / lowlight was finding out that the only monitor we’d managed to position an hour into set-up to be feedback free (space restriction in the restaurant), didn’t have the jack plugged in properly and was indeed feeding back😖. So we had no foldback. The singer couldn’t hear herself. Luckily a couple of us had in ears with us and a long connector that reached the desk so we sorted her out ok. People seemed to enjoy it, some dancing and plenty of singing. Overall we enjoyed ourselves and were reasonably pleased with how it went.

Last night, a new venue for Nine Lives - the St. Olaf Golf Hotel in Cruden Bay. It was a bit blowy driving up to the place - thought this might limit attendance. Place is nice though, we got to set up in the lounge bar which felt like playing a gig in someone's living room (albeit with a bar at the opposite end. Setup was a doddle - small room, levels were easy to dial in. In the first half, it was surprisingly busy - a group of 6 or 7 ladies determined to dance the night away made for a great time. Unfortunately, they had to leave to go to another social engagement (for which one of them apologised - that was nice). Second half was a bit dead, unfortunately and annoyingly there were quite a few folk through in the main bar but barely any of the effers came through, despite me going through a couple of times in an attempt to shame them into it. Honestly, you can take your second hand "enjoyed the band" comments delivered later by the staff and stick them up your holes sideways as far as I'm concerned. Props to one lass who kept coming through when she heard a song she liked, you're alright! Gear was the G4M "rat" bass, then the Epiphone/DiMarzio Les Paul into the Markbass cubes. One plus from last night was finding the culprit for some recent pedalboard nonsense - my old 80s Yamaha compressor is getting cranky and making humming sounds which change when you wiggle at it. I removed it from the signal chain last night and played without it, but it looks like its time may be up.

CONGRATS, YOU MADE IT! DETAIL AND FINAL PRODUCT REVEAL! This is one of the most accurate pictures in colour and texture I would say: Lovely undercoat reveal, wood exposed darkened with an extra dark grain thanks to the wax... Some more from the back with light against it... All in all, I have to say I am genuinely shocked it came out that nice - I have made tons of mistakes but I've used those blemishes to my advantage to apply wear around them and make them more believable (ie. I dinged the instrument and peeled the paint in a particular spot where I had a heavy run of sherwood green, same as I wore and sanded it near the upper horn to disguise the silvery run I made by accident etc). I am super satisfied on the outcome, the bass sounds and plays like butter, really nice actually! And a very healthy 3.5kg weight indeed. Considering I did this in the windy cold snap of November outside in my garden, I don't think I could've asked for a better result! Another consideration: I tried to crackle the nitro but either my nitro wont crackle, OR it is not fully cured yet - I did the hair dryer + air duster trick and nothing happened... I may try again in some 2 months once it is certainly dried up - we shall see! Ander.

Fear of the Duck - Iron Maiden

I think that we're all really glad to see Rob is back.

I always made a point of using the indicators whenever possible on my 3 series M sport. Loved the very audible tick tock they made. Happy that the current 1 series does the same. And whenever possible I make other BMW drivers wait at junctions. Does that make me a bad person?

Might be cheaper than some of the used ones🫢

Dropped by GuitarGuitar on my lunch and they had both new finishes in. Think the Indigo doesn't pop as much as I expected, but the red is cool. Still had stock of the old colours too so great to have more of a choice.

Thanks Gents, My wife is 100% excused from buying me a present this Christmas. Thanks to Kazan for his valued second opinion & expertise.

Glad to hear you had a barnstormer of a night to finish the band's run. Definitely one of our favourite venues to play, and the perfect place to play your final gig! We're playing there later this month on the 28th. It's that awkward time of year between Christmas and New Year, so fingers crossed we'll have a decent turnout. I'm sure the colourful regulars will be there no matter what!

Of course in the days of recording to analogue tape, the final mixes would often be sped up (or very occasionally slowed down) to achieve a better feel when the record was cut without any regard for what it would do to the pitch.

I had a band in once and their bassist forgot he had his tuner set to 432Hz. Everyone else was tuned to A=440 and I could not figure out what was wrong. In the end I realised after opening the bass track up with the pitch and time tool. It was so subtlety out of tune it was almost nauseating. I had a solo artist who recorded his album with me. He was well into all sorts of spiritual and conspiracy theories. Anyway, after he'd finished the album, he left me to mix it while he was away. I sent him a first mix and he came back with "Sounding great but have you read about the resonant frequency? Everything should be tuned to 432Hz in order to resonate with the body, can you retuned the album?" Mad that he thought that digitally re-tuning acoustic instruments and vocals would help the music resonate with your body/spirit. Anyway, I did it and he didn't like the result 🤣

Just on the OPs quote about solo karaoke singers, a couple of weeks back, I went to a wedding reception where said bride and groom decided they were just going to have a DJ until 10.30pm, then karaoke. The guests were probably about 50/50 parents and their 25+ year old children and their friends; stupidly, it did cross my mind that if there were any decent singers it might be worth hitting them up and asking whether they'd be interested in fronting a band. I suppose after decades of X-Factor (etc.) it's honestly no wonder that people think they can sing. Man alive, we stuck around until 11.30pm and not one of the people that picked up the microphone could hold a tune. It was all nails on a blackboard stuff. We suffered an hour of cats screaming.

My experience of BMW drivers (and i include both my brothers here) is they need to buy cars with working indicators or maybe they just need lessons on how to use them. Dave

You paid to put that on a T-shirt?😂

Pics...

Just home from a great gig up at the stables in Milton Keynes with the Phil Collins tribute’ no jacket required’. Fantastic audience as usual and always such a pleasure and privilege to play at this wonderful venue. Some guy donated £1000,(yes £1000) to our charity the bridge house trust for the homeless. Another kind person gave £100! Never ceases to amaze me , our audiences appreciation and generosity .Decided to use my status empathy 5, it’s been a while since it’s had an outing but really enjoyed playing it.A lovely thing indeed. ‘Appy days!😊

TODAY! AND TONIGHT! Two very different gigs! I use the term loosely. Up at unacceptable for a Saturday o'clock to drive to Tamworth (through Storm Darragh, mind you... pelting rain, high winds and yet *still* bellends (mostly in Audis, Beamers, Mercs and Teslas) screaming down (up? (actually, let's not get into that again)) the M6 at about 90, undertaking, tailgating some idiot fop (me) in a Hyundai who's just trying to stay alive... arseholes) for 11am to play carols in the Ankerside shopping centre with the mighty Tamworth wind band. (Em (the TWB Euph player and JJO (more about them later!) trumpet player) asked me to stand in so I couldn't say no). Imagine a depressed shopping centre in a modest regional town (with much to be modest about) with lots of closed units and not many shoppers around (it was supposed to be the christmas lights switch on but they cancelled it due to the weather) actually no, imagine dawn of the dead (is it dawn of the dead? Or day of the dead? The one where they're all stuck in that godforsaken mall with the zombies outside?) and you're probably closer to it. It was *feezing* cold (Em bought me some fingerless gloves in the break, which helped) and a pretty grim experience... we played loads of stuff from 'The Red Book' (not the Mao Zedong one), which anyone who's been near a wind band in December will know - they're all beautiful arrangments and in horrible keys - six flats, anyone?! We were supposed to play until 4 o'clock (!), but by about 2 we'd all lost the will to live, so the conductor suggested we just knock it on the head about half two (we all eagerly agreed) so we did. We played and sounded OK all things considered but it wasn't an experience I'm in a rush to repeat. Unless Em asks really nicely again, which she probably will. Then it was hotfoot to Brum for a quick pitstop at my Pa's place and to pick up Birmingham's finest Japanese non-binary morris dancing jazz trombonist and off to the Cameo Suite in Coleshill for the JJO Black Tie James Bond/Christmas (first set Bond themes, second christmas stuff. No idea why.) concert! It took ages to get there due to horrendous weather and a couple of roads blocked by fallen trees (!) but we made it in time for a quick top 'n' tail rehearsal. The first set (Bond) sounded fantastic - The main theme sounds great, Goldfinger was mint, Skyfall was really good, Writing's on the wall (how a man can sing that high is beyond me) sounded superb and Live and let die (the Stan Kenton big band arrangement) was a particular highlight, the trumpets reach notes that are far too high to reasonably exist. Oh and nobody does it better is an absolute belter - the flute in the intro which I'd never really been able to hear before was the glaze on the cherry on the icing on the cake. I drop D (Hipshot) on that one for extra phatness. Five differnt singers! Couple of minor flubs, but overall we sounded great. A friend of the BL who's a pro player (West End type stuff) said some lovely things about my playing at half time, which was nice. Second set was all the christmas stuff, not as exciting to play as the Bond themes, but a couple of good'uns in there... The opener was It's the most wonderful time of the year, which is ace to play, my part in Jingle Bells is bonkers - four pages of relentless FAST crochets... I even hit a couple of the right notes (purely by accident), we did a weird Latin style arrangement of God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman which is a taste I have so far failed to acquire, we did a lovely (Tom Kubis) arrangement of O Holy Night which is really weird and tricky but it all came together (Soprano sax solo by Sarah and Flugle solo by Steve) and a cracking playout/mashup which cracks along at about 800 bpm. Sold out audience of about 90-100 people (all friends and family, we're a 'community' band) who were all dressed up to the nines in black tie/dinner jackets/posh frocks and were very appreciative. Played the 70s (reissue mex) Precision -> small board (VTDI -> Thumpinator (the secret weapons!)) -> MB 802 which sounded cracking! I was at the front for some reason and the BL commented how good the Bass sounded which is always nice to hear. Full on suited and booted affair (Midnight Blue 1460 DMs with orange laces (the band logo is orange on black)). Packed up, dropped Brum's finest JNBMDJT off, The Wondermints on the way home, back about 1230 (avoiding more downed trees) for a *very* stiff V&T and the remains of yesterdays Jambalaya. And so to bed, and looking forward to a Sunday of doing absolutely NOTHING.

There’s a huge amount of horseshit about 440 being “evil” and 432 being the natural harmonic of the universe. its bollocks. Tune to whatever reference pitch you like. Just don’t expect pianists, wind guys and just about any other traditional instrument player to invite you to play!

The website is back up.

Played a hellish gig in centre of the city. Audience twice drunkenly crashed into the singer while dancing. Drunk redhead thought she was J-Lo and danced suggestively to wind up her boyfriend (which worked). Two people thought it would be a good idea to lift lift out and play the singers harmonicas and someone tried to barge past me while I was playing to get his coat (which I’d already told him I’d moved). I swore at him and pushed him and he spent the next ten minutes staring at me me. (Was a very small, angry lawyer type.) Only saving grace was the fantastic bar staff and manager and the fact I got two incredible whisky sour cocktails for free.

Given the state of the weather it's surprising that anyone turned out, but turn out they did. A bit of a slow start at the Black Horse Whitwick, but it soon ramped up into a great evening Nice and Chrismassy and very hot indoors. We did our usual lot of Xmas songs plus a busked version of Mary's Boy Child which was rather fun and silly. Audience: Lots of drinking, lots of dancing, lots of jollity. Rig: The usual Sire P7-5 and Fender Rumble. Elf hat Footwear: Black DMs again

First of a run of 9 at a local hotel, 2 this weekend, three for the next two weekends and then NYE. It’s works do-s mostly. Nice room to play in and the sound guy only had his bigger FBT rig available so ‘making do’ with that. Tonight’s were a mixed bunch, some ready to large it and some absolutely not, but most were dancing and joining in. Will try and get some footage before the run is over.