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Thirsty Pine in Gloucester. Nice big PA. Great audience, Great gig

What a cracking gig last night with Nine Lives at the Balaclava in Fraserburgh. What can I say, it was busy and loud, with an audience who were bang up for a dance and a sing along. Can't really ask for much more than that. Genuine goosebumps moment when enough folk were singing The Cranberries "Zombie" back at us such that we could hear it over ourselves. You know you've had a great gig when packing up doesn't tire you out. Can't really say much more than that. Probably pay for this with a paid rehearsal next week - karma's a b!tch Gear was the Sire Z7 then the Epiphone T-bird into the ISO standard bass rig. Shout out to the Thunderbird, it was sounding epic last night, and I felt godly playing it. Oh and I got called "the coolest MF" by a punter last night after we finished. My ego happily accepts your compliment, sir! And have a bit of bonus video...

Gig last night, a wedding. I am not generally a great fan of weddings, but they do pay well and many of them have been great. Normally it is a pain to load in and out while they are doing speeches etc. This one we had a little flap at the back of the tent to load in, but luckily it was just me and the drummer so loading in wasn't too bad, the guitarist came later once we had everything in. Quietly got everything loaded through the various speeches. For some reason the X-Control wasn't working - I know it wasnt the X18 or the router as I had wireless, but swapping cables didn't work. In the end the singer found if he started it holding the ethernet cable up, it worked. Time for some new ethernet cables! They had changed their mind about the first dance song, and wanted something to dance with everyone with, but didn't have an opinion what, so we went for 'saw her standing there' as it is generally love based and we can't normally play it as the drummers dad always wants to sing it, and he is at all of our public gigs, it went down a storm. So everyone danced for 5 or 6 songs and then went out of the tent - it had been raining for a while and suddenly got nice. So it was largely an empty tent for most of the first half until obviously 2 songs before the half time, when everyone came back in and danced. we extended a few songs then had a break. Came back in and everyone had gone off again, half into the pub the marque was in the garden of and half outside, so we did half the set to one woman, who to be fair was enjoying it, and her other half came in later so there were two of them. Towards about half an hour before the end, a large group came in and started dancing and enjoying it and then inevitably everyone was in for the last 2 songs and after the landlord gave us a hard '1 more song' and we did that song, were all shouting for more songs. As usual. Then as we broke down, or trying to, a couple of the guys were trying to set up a silent disco, which involved lots of them standing in the way while we were trying to break down and making it really slow. It was ok but I am not a fan of weddings!

Well, I will do two, although the first one was last saturday, just hadn't got round to it. Last week was a local 'pub on a beauty spot' event - they play gigs on sunday afternoons through the summer, and they are well attended. They don't pay well, the landlord is tight and he knows that people really want that gig, they do, only certain bands are allowed in. The venue is a semi-permenant marque over a fixed shed/stage, its made at the start of the season and taken down at the end. Parking in general is a nightmare, but the band have access to an area at the back, getting to it is another issue due to the traffic trying to park, took 10 minutes to get past the car parks! This was the first of the summer gigs, so looking forward to it. Luckily got there before the guitarist so it was an easy setup, I took my BC12 speaker and a TC450 as I was a little concerned about the Evox8 not starting when we were at the last gig, and didn't want to be doing an ourdoor gig with everything through one Evox8, turned out nothing to worry about, it was fine. Busy as usual, sound was clear and good, crowd were good, although the bass (the rick) sounded lifeless. Midway through the third song realised that the compressor on the 450 was nearly flat out, which was the issue, dialed it out, all sounded good. First half went ok, but seemed a bit flat for some reason. At half time people were doing their usual complaints about the sound, although not usual, in that noone complained about the vocals, I took the mixer in during the week a few weeks back and spent some time eq'ing the vocalist from a multitrack and since then he has been gushing about how it sounds, and noone has complained. People complained the guitar was too quiet, I didn't think it was, they also complained the bass was too quiet, well, not having that, so that went up a bit. switched the Maruszczyk at half time (for no particular reason) and the second half the crowd were more into it and it went down a storm - the second half songs are more poppy than the first - also the new tracks 'A little less conversation', 'staceys mom' and 'all the small things' went down well. In the end we must have been going too fast or had too short a break as we started to get really close to the running out of 44 track setlist time! Later someone posted some grainy videos of us on facebook, the bass was pretty loud in the first half!

Played a late afternoon gig in Methil yesterday with Blockbustarz Glam band. Ticket sales not great with only 50 sold but with a few walk ins we had a decent enough audience. Not the most enthusiastic but they dance from early on and we had the dance floor filled on several occasions with the floor shouting for more songs at the end. Started 4pm and finished 6:30pm with a 20min break in middle. According to club they are seeing less custom at the moment and last week they put a free band on and the place was empty so not good news. Not sure what's going on there but hopefully they get to grips with it. When we mentioned the Xmas gig on 14the Dec the organiser said it wasn't in his diary but he'll double check and get back to us. We'll give it a week and if nothing from him we'll take another booking. We had to refuse 3 other enquiries for Dec gigs so should manage to fill it. Another club in the next village have been looking to get in on the Glam thing too so who knows. Used the Sandberg VM4, Shure wireless, Keeley Bassist comp and into Handbox WB-100 and the new Barefaced 212 cab. This was the cabs first proper trial as it was a large club with no PA support and it worked a treat. I could hear the cab no matter where i stood on the stage. Hollow stage so the bass does boom a bit even on a gramma pad. The Barefaced cab sounds very similar to my Mesa rig with the Mesa 210 giving it slightly more mid focus but not a lot in it. The tone with an all valve head is just sublime. The fact its a one hand lift with a single cab to a gig makes it worthwhile for me. The one big change to my sound has been dropping the VM4 pick up height a touch. When i was digging in i was getting more distortion than i liked and i have never really been able to nail the issue. Changed amps, cabs but wasn't sure. Using the Barefaced cab which is 1000W confirmed it was more down to the bass. The gig last night proved it has been the bass all along. I tweaked it during the week and its now perfect with some distortion when i really dig in hard. On a more personal note we decided to hit the local McD's and had a Big Mac Meal and i'm still searching for the meat. Apparently 2 burgers in it and i couldn't taste meat anywhere. The cheese slice was thicker than the burgers and the roll was twice the diameter of the burgers. Won't be buying that again. Seriously reckon the burgers were 3" diameter and about 1/8th inch thick. (That's 75mm and approx 3mm for the younger generation) Next week is a new venue for us in Camelon, Falkirk. 2 weeks later we are in Camelon again at our regular venue for a birthday party. Dave

Whilst we still have a handful of jobs left to do to fully finish the Nick Smith Midas, today saw a massive step forward seeing the frets leveled, crowned and polished, electronics wired and fully assembled and strung! We heard her voice for the first time today and the pairing of Aguilar Amplification HJ pickups and two band cut/boost preamp are sounding sweet! It feels bittersweet that Nicks vision has reached this point yet he won’t be able to see it or make it sing 😢 She’ll now be given some time to settle before setup and the last few jobs completed at which point we’ll tie down and announce the details of the charity raffle!

Played at the Cart & Horses in the East End on Friday night with the Zep tribute. If you didn't know, this is the venue where Iron Maiden cut their teeth, which of course you would never guess from the complete lack of memorabilia around the place, Maiden themed beers and wine at the bar and everything in the familiar IM font...! 😉 A bit of an odd gig, as we had a dep drummer for the night, which as you might imagine is a tough gig for a drummer to dep. The guy we got in had been struggling at a couple of rehearsals we managed to get in, but he did fine. Not perfect, but not a disaster by any means! A smallish place so pretty packed, a great audience and Didge even managed to work the Eastenders theme into his keys solo! NB. the picture is of the soundcheck, not the keys solo in the gig itself...!

You know when you turn up to a venue. The place is busy and very noisy. The staff haven't started shifting people, tables and chairs out of your way. Then the crowd are constantly in your way as you bring the kit in. Then you have to set up on top of each other, deafened by people shouting to each other. ??? Well that's how Friday night started. Despite that once we had set up, had a few minutes outside to cool off and give some respite to our poor ears, we had a really good night. Some serious rocking out, some hilarious silliness too. I took the Sterling Sub5 with the Stinger preamp (I really must come up with a better name for it!). It's rapidly growing in my affections - relatively light weight, close string spacing, great sounds. This time with no backup bass either (growing confidence in it). The Rumble 500 continues to sound awesome, even with the low Bs and Cs. The purple suede Gazelles got another outing - not that you could tell in the non-white lighting, so I wore them again for a trip into town today too

My gig last night was great, and the main reason for it, was that we played a lot quieter. My band is a great bunch of chaps, and we all get along really well. However, the drummer is/can be, one of the loudest drummers I’ve ever played with. On the last gig in a theatre, I spent a long time meticulously refining the sound during sound check, it was superb, then in the first set, adrenaline and enthusiasm got the better of the drummer and he overwhelmed the mix we’d created and we all had to up the volume to hear ourselves. We had words at half time, and the second set was better. This week at rehearsal, the band leader instigated a discussion about stage volume, and the drummer took it well. So last night, he brought different cymbals (quieter ones) and played in a much more restrained manner. I used a BF One10 and a GK class D head. It really worked, and the audience absolutely loved it. We could all hear every nuance, and our dynamics improved. The drummer did admit that the gig was better for it. So from a great gig last night, I woke at 4am this morning in a lot of abdominal pain, tried 111, which was hopeless, walked into an Urgent Treatment Centre at 8am, was examined and referred to A&E. Suspected acute appendicitis, but after scans and bloods, it turns out to be diverticulitis. They’re keeping me in for a couple days on IV antibiotics and painkillers. Marvellous! Rob

Sadly the video files we have of this bass are too large to upload but here’s a link to our Facebook page where you can see it https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1CTLc7Rn87/?mibextid=wwXIfr Here’s more pics of the finished bass

Lovely time had by all showcasing the new project "A little more Gilmour' Dave Gilmour & Pink Floyd tribute act

Bit of an odd gig last night. The rain maybe didn't help and apparently there was some boxing on and a local music festival. Maybe 30 people in. They appreciated us anyway. Acoustics very difficult to manage and a few times I couldn't hear the guitarist clearly enough which led to a couple of very bad bum notes and a complete restart of one song - I can't actually remember ever having to do that with this band. I need another clip box for the lights. Carrying cardboard boxes across the carpark in the rain doesn't do them any favours, and I really need to reduce the number of trips.

The covers band, Top Deck, played this afternoon at The Great Northern in Langley Mill, on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border. It was the first time we’ve played there. Four-thirty on a Saturday afternoon is their standard time to have bands on. Unusual, but there was an appreciative audience up for a good time. We’ve got a booking there for August Bank Holiday as a result, so a success.

TTFC's second gig last night at The Garden, Chorlton. Venue used to be Font Bar but has just changed hands, so all the signs still say Font. They're just getting live music up and running, so there isn't a ready made audience there yet. Fortunately it's a local gig for two of us so we brought quite a few people, to the extent where I knew almost everybody in the place! It's got a lot of potential once it gets a reputation and people know there's music on. Bar staff were super chilled and helpful, always a bonus and never taken for granted. We played well, although I made more little mess ups than I should have. The drummer is fettling the recordings, so I'll be able to agonise over them at my leisure soon despite being the only one who noticed on the night. Two 1hr+ sets and 30+ songs (most of them new to me) that haven't all embedded into the muscle memory yet. Gear was Fender Japan Kazuki Arai Jazz 5 -> HX Stomp -> GR One 350 -> PA. Footwear was Vans classic lace ups. A couple of phone clips from friends. If anyone can figure out how to let me resize them please shout up! WhatsApp Video 2025-06-07 at 00.13.50.mp4 WhatsApp Video 2025-06-07 at 00.13.48.mp4

Yesterday's gig was a last minute booking. Rhythm guitarist couldn't make it due to dog illness... but dog turned out to be ok so managed to make it. Lovely old pub but in a small marquee outside, and a yellow weather warning. The warning was lifted and we set up to a healthy number of people. Numbers drifted up and down but it was a good gig. In our break and afterwards we could hear another band playing behind the pub opposite. Had a real 'festival' feel with people wandering between the venues and good vibes. We haven't gigged for a bit and were a touch scrappy but the punters didn't notice. Anyway, rehearsal on Tuesday as we have more gigs approaching. I had a bit of fun with effects, second encore was Superstition so I used the Joyo XVI with a bit of modulation to get a crazy synth sound. This was the tail end of the first set. I have no idea why audiences love this song, it's just three chords, repeated....

Played Northern Guitars in Leeds on Friday with Heisenbug. Northern Guitars is a great venue in a busy area of town so plenty of passers by stopping and coming in. Crowd seemed to appreciate our all originals set. Chasing after more bookings now... Check out the crazy drum kit! VID-20250607-WA0014.mp4 VID-20250607-WA0015.mp4

Funny old thing, just a week after tentative return to gigging post-stroke with my old band (just for a short sax set at a local mini-festival) I got an urgent call from them to play a private party not far away for a full gig - their replacement bassist couldn't make it... I spent an hour the day before playing along with an Audacity recording I'd made of the band, sort-of got my fingers and brain working together again, so it was off to the gig yesterday evening, fingers crossed! It actually all worked out OK, a few dodgy moments that didn't seem to be noticed in the new numbers introduced by the band since my hospitalisation, but I managed to stay on point and upright for two one-hour sets (thank you, Red Bull!) and got nicely paid, so in all a good way to ease back into gigging, with the promise of some more to come. Must say though, I was cream-crackered today...

Holy old thread revival Batman !! I have two of these and they are my pride and joy. The six string is a solid Shedua body with figuring from something several leagues higher. The fretless is arguably nicer. I'll never part with them.

Ok so, covers band world here. Playing the usual mix of pubs and clubs and have always gone home with cash in my pocket for the night. But now it really seems to have swung to online payment. I can understand that many of the establishments take payments for booze etc via card and phone so there's less cash on the premises, but for and old skool oldie like me, it sucks. As an example, we played a pub last Saturday (which I think is Greene King) and they informed us that we'd be payed online via whatever app it is that we are signed up to already. What bugs me is they quote payment for ten days after the event.. which is an arse pain BUT.. if you don't want to wait you can forego 2.5% of your fee for immediate payment.. even ruder! We play a few of this chain's pubs so it's becoming more of a regular occurrence for us. So do you dump 2.5% (not much but it's the principle)? Also you either need a trustworthy designated banker (chortle) or a group bank account, the management of which is an arse pain too. I don't like the way this modern world is going. Guess I'm very out of date now. 😔 Moan over. 😁

I played Morecombe punk fest a couple of years ago with my ankle broken in 2 places - even managed to drive there (left foot in plaster, electric car with one foot driving!).

And here is the Beedster II: An all maple varnished fretless Shuker Precision neck with wonderful rounded edges coupled to (what seems to be a Northwest) two parts swamp ash body (nitrocellulosic natural finish), fitted with two Seymour Duncan SJB1 pickups (CTS pots), Gotoh lollipop tuners and a Fender (slotted grub screws) BBT bridge with threaded saddles. This fretless is fitted with Thomastik flat wound strings and is a real delight to play with an ultra low action and very straight neck (the double action truss rod is just very very very slightly tightened), loads of mwah when needed, but also more double bass tone on the neck pickup with the tone rolled a lot off. So a very versatile bass and, to me, better sounding than all the fretless Jazz Basses I had and that neck is just pure joy to play. Furthermore it's not a relic sunburst à la Jaco like mainly all fretless Jazz Basses... Yes I was having an overdose of these and needed a more sober classy fretless. And even if I'm a Jazz Bass guy, I've always preferred the width and feel of the Precision Bass neck. Thanks Chris! 😊👌🏻

Under the pickguard is plenty of realestate for that.

Another massive alarm? There's no gap in the neck pocket, very unlike 70's Fenders 😉

I remember when A-Ha broke through with the re-release of "Take On Me". Something about the quality of the song writing combined with Morten Harket's singing just elevated them above their peers, and what an iconic video. That vocal climax in "Take On Me", starting with "I'll be gone..." still raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

Unsure how to react to this with a single emoji, so yay for great gig, and boo for health issues - hope you're on the mend soon!

Only way to find out is by playing with him not like that

Thanks again for all the replies. It was an auction house through their online portal. They have T&Cs that cover forgeries. If the buyer can prove it's a forgery then they'll refund so I'm not too concerned on that front. It was described as 1975 Fender Precision with no real caveats apart from condition. It came from the estate of a working musician who'd passed away, so I don't think there's anything devious going on - just the potential that the family didn't really know. Based on the feedback, it seems likely to be genuine, thanks @MrFingers especially. Definitely nothing conclusive to say otherwise so I have to pick it up to investigate further. I'd like it to be a player. I have an early 80s P bass that I love but I played a 78 at a studio recently and it was very nice. I'd probably try to restore it a little with original parts if I can. Expect a future question on tackling the bridge situation! How much did I pay? .... £1150 including fees. If it's mostly genuine I think that's a good price. It doesn't seem uncommon for these to be around £3K but Rich Tone Music has one on eBay just now (a 76) for £2K. I'll post some updates once I've collected it.

It is very purple... 07_thunderbird 64 purple moving.mp4

When I built this out of reclaimed pitch pine it came in at 9.5 lbs. After the router attack it's a lovely 8.25. A late 70's Musicmaster that is so heavy you hate playing it is begging for the router. No-one's gonna want it as is if it's that heavy. Go the rout route and then you'll play it all the time.

Have to admit i stood at all the gigs i did and from memory i vaguely recall my leg was a bit aching but not that bad i had to sit down. Here's me standing at one of the gigs. You can just see the white plaster cast under my jeans on my right leg. Altho a roadie did all the lifting of my gear i still managed to wire it all up. I was using a Roland pre-amp with 2 Mattamp power amps that i had positioned on my LHS so i could make changes as and when required. Unfortunately at this particular gig one of the power amps started smoking badly and when roadie went to switch it off he got a shock from it. He was ok tho and simply pulled the mains plug instead. Dave

Whats the best way to clean beer out of a mixing desk? Probably says enough about how our gig went last night! 🙄 Our guitarist will need to give his pedalboard a good clean as well. This is not the first time we've had 'problems' at this venue so I'm going to suggest that we cancel the remaining gigs we have there. It's really not worth the hassle.

Not to them, but some of us might take a bit of pride in playing something the correct way, especially if the idea is to cover a certain version. Otherwise it’s becomes ‘our version’, which as we all know is musician speak for ‘couldn’t be bothered to learn it properly’ 😂

Give them an inch and they’ll take a kilometre…? 🤓 Sorry.

Around October last year our friend Nick Smith came to see us about having another bass made but to his design of shape which he called the “Midas” We lost Nick in January in a tragic accident before we got past the design stage of his new bass. However he had selected all of the woods and we’d gone through the detail on the spec that he wanted. Following Nicks funeral at the end of February Gav and I felt it was only right that we finish Nicks bass, and after seeking approval from Nicks family we decided that it would be fitting that once complete we would hold a raffle or auction with all proceeds going to a charity close to Nick and his families hearts. Over the last few weeks we’ve been progressing through the manufacture of Midas number 1. And over the next week or so we’ll share the photos and videos of its progress so far. This video shows the design of the bass, technical specs follow “Greenie” the Kratos he had from us a few years back which had become Nicks main gigging bass for Genesis Connected. It features a one piece ribbon sapele body with a beautiful book matched flame maple top, flamed maple one piece neck with ebony fret board, Aguilar HJ pickup and 18v preamp, led fret board side dots, Grainger bridge, hipshot tuners and Evo Gold frets! Once the details of the charity raffle are tied down we’ll post on how it’ll all work, but we should have Nicks Midas done within the next 6 weeks! Stay tuned for more updates! SOLIDWORKS Premium 2023 SP1.0 - Midas Full Assembly 2025-03-29 09-46-28.mp4

Just back to my hotel after a hot sweaty little gig in Manchester on the “Gimme A Tour”, er, tour. The band were great, I was average, the crowd were enthusiastic and the volume was a bit too much. But my bass (ACG RetroB) sounded ace through the Digbeth pre, Elf and Barefaced Two10. Shoes were brown suede Chelsea boots, I really should wear them more because they’re ace.

We thought we'd done our last gig at the Donkey back in October last year. Tonight we played there again. There was quite a lot of doubt if it would continue as a music venue, and not very good communication from the new owner at the time, which put a lot of peoples' noses out of joint. A lot of the old regulars are boycotting the place (as we found out) and a few bands too. Well we're a mercenary bunch and I'm glad to say we filled the place. I don't know what the bar staff thought of it because they didn't strike me as the most experienced. I think they were more used to a sedentary rate of service. That's the only photo I took We had a great time and hopefully showed the new owner what a music venue should be like. Certainly they enjoyed it. I took the stingish bass again and it was nice to let the Rumble sing a bit (they don't have a house PA any more). I even brought the smoke machine along. Packing up took ages because it seemed that everyone wanted to shake hands and say goodbye, blocking the exit while they did! Converse one-stars kept me upright and striking a few stances

Hopefully a speedy recovery and you can get back to normal as soon as possible. I had to google what that was and it sounds very uncomfortable indeed. All the best Dave

Fun morning with my buddies half remembering songs, having a chat and a laugh, and making noise. To be fair we haven’t had a get together since last November, this being a bit of fun blasting through our old new wave songs from 40+ years ago. Drummer was using a newer kit that he normally uses as a cut down set so had a chance to use the whole thing. Guitarist had a new big birthday guitar and refined pedalboard. I stuck with the FrankenJazz, usual pedalboard, and the studio’s Hartke rig. All sounded pretty good where I was stood and generally pretty tight - until it didn’t 🙄 Some songs fell apart when one or other of us forgot where we were in it, but much fun and hilarity all round which is what we’re after. Not really looking to gig, just make some different noise to what we all usually do in other bands. We were the only band in this morning and the youngster that let us in and hung around to lock up after made some nice comments (probably just humouring the old farts! 🤣)

Well this and the accompanying video lasted all of 8 hours. Where the Kasleder is in using as a spot to patch in and audition pedals. Getting dangerously close to velcroing this down.

Its crazy. Im seeing people loose sleep over how my milliseconds their compressor has dialled in for attack, how many string windings they have on the A string, how straight the neck is etc because the audience will probably walk out if any of that isn't set right, , and yet dont care less if they play the wrong notes in a song 😀 Again, this thread wasn't about the fact that you should play it exactly, but I do find it satisfying when I know it's as close as I can get it. Al. You left out the most iconic bit of that song? How and why did you come to that decicison? Not judging, just curious.

That's entirely the point, the lads were discussing potential routing hidden by the scratchplate.

Jings Daryl sorry to hear that mate. I would add that i toured with a broken leg in plaster cast. It can be done provided your bandmates help with your gear, or you just hire a roadie as i did. Dave

Great Scott! He's right!! I could have lost 12p!!! Coming up next: How to charge VAT on VAT.

The (in...)visible bear says...

My board which is “always on” (apart from the tuner mute!) and I DI into our desk and use IEMs.

Just back from the Audio Lounge in Glasgow after a gig with the punk band. We were second out of four and went down really well. Quite a small venue - it certainly isn't the Barrowland - but I'm really warming to more intimate spaces. The Stingray acquitted itself well, although it's getting a bit clattery. I think it's going to have to go to Chris McIntyre for him to work his magic. The backline was deffo old skool - SVT plus Workingman 810. Awesome sound and it was great to feel the air hitting the backs of my legs but completely OTT for such a small room. I wasn't complaining though, as for once I had enough oomph to hear myself over our volume 11 guitarist!