Leaderboard

Hi there, Thanks for your messages, Nick's memorial gig was phenomenal, grateful for Grainger guitars and all there support for our family. The weather held out and the everyone rocked there hardest for our big bro 💚🤟🎸 I dropped a couple of notes but managed to get to the end of my song!

https://www.leics.police.uk/news/leicestershire/news/2025/september/man-charged-with-fraud-offences-to-appear-in-court/?fbclid=IwdGRzaAMr9bNjbGNrAyv1TWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAAEe9KOKyYzb75zVeG1K57SVi-Nvq63U1Cw7mnABJETMLSDQPCJSCovaWHT1FfI_aem_eUKPZo5af_A8f6Jh7NfVtA

Back with an enhanced version of Deadlight Dance yesterday, and once again we were joined by our drummer from our Sixth Form band, Mike. This was for a street party in the road my band mate lives in. I had my trusty long scale Hofner Verythin bass but was mixing it up with several on the Gold Tone (AKA Goth Tone) Mandocello and even a couple on guitar and a couple on mandolin. I was going through my Boss BCB60 with the Boss IR2 at the end of the chain. I was telling the story of how we filmed our zombie apocalypse video in this very road, in a very light hearted way - see Infectious for details - when that Government text alert went off! You couldn’t make it up and it was a genuine comedy moment. We played well. We picked up some travelling fans from the last gig and even sold a few CDs. It was also an absolute pleasure to hang out with two of my oldest friends.

Venue: Played at the George III in Hoddesdon for their annual music festival on Saturday night. Heard some really good bands over on their second stage, then took to the main stage ourselves before the headline act. Gear: Played my Stingray through my Boss ME-80B and there was a Fender Rumble 500 provided. I put the Rumble on the "bright" setting with the EQ all centred hoping that would give me the most transparent sound, then used the amp Sims on my Boss unit. I occasionally used some fuzz or distortion but the rig absolutely sang. I was really pleased with the sound considering it was plug n play and I haven't used a Rumble before, also amp SIMs on pedals can often clash with Amps... Set: We jumped straight in with "I bet you look good on the dancefloor" and kept the feel of each song being a 'finisher' throughout. It's a great place to play because you've got a clientele who love their live music and will sing and dance along to everything. No gig photos available yet but I did manage this snap...

Short version. Long drive. Double booked. Agreed to be paid of for reduced fee. Then sorted that other band would do one long set then we do two sets for original fee. Landlord getting increasingly 'tired and emotional'. Luckily the band organiser was sober. Landlord decided that as the other band only played half set, wouldn't pay them. They got half fee in the end but we gave them a bit of ours in solidarity. So we went on at 6:45 instead of 5. Crowd were great, several musos present who gave us some reasonably convincing praise. Our setlist which continually evolves works great in the valleys. First half is all pretty heavy classic rock, second half also includes a few crowd pleasers and a 'Welsh Bit'. Anyway landlord disappeared but landlady gave us the full fee and apologised. They want us back (not surprising as normally it would go dead after the band finishes at 7 and we kept it busy until 9) . We were told this had never happened before. Two of our band are in other bands booked there so they checked their bookings. One was double booked and the other was booked in on the wrong date. Apparently we were down for 30 November... this morning I got messages saying 30th November no good can we do the friday. Then actually can we do another date instead. As you might imagine some of us are 'unkeen' about returning.

Yesterday Electrik Soup played at The Hare & Hounds in Claygate, in a marquee in front of the pub (is it still a marquee if all the sides are open, or is it then a gazebo?). Gig was 4pm to 7pm on a lovely late summer day. It was the first gig that we've used all our own equipment (backline and PA). We had so much gear 😆 all used though. Great sound both on stage and FOH. All was going well until 4 songs before the break "something" happened to the guitarist's amp. Regular readers may remember my previous post in which his valve amp died. This time he had a SS back up so we took the break for him to sort things out. The first part of the second set was just acoustic guitar and vocals, then we did the remaining songs from the first set, and the remainder of the second set. The guitarist used his original amp and it was fine. He's still going to buy a new one. We had a few people come to see us, but the pub was busy all day so there was always an audience, albeit somewhat transitory. Lots of nice comments afterwards, someone even wanted to book us for a birthday party. Couldn't do the date though, unfortunately the drummer will be away. Shuker 3 -> Getaria wireless -> Hardwire polyphonic tuner -> Fender Rumble 500 combo. To the right of the bass combo is the offending guitar amp.

Just had a run of three pretty decent gigs with the Zep tribute. First up was a trip to the excellent Cluny in Newcastle week last Friday. The evening started off with a bit of unwanted drama, as the police had cordoned off the surrounding streets due to some guy threatening to throw himself a bridge overhead (fortunately they managed to talk him down a bit later). The place was packed (243 tickets sold) and the band played as well as we ever have, inspired by a great crowd (we even got a big cheer walking from the dressing room to the stage). This isn’t the first time we’ve packed this place out and the management have agreed to increase our fee for next year! Fast forward to Thursday night, and a long drive down to southwest London to play an Arts Centre in Carshalton. Another good crowd, although not nearly a boisterous as Newcastle, and another good performance. We were staying a few miles away in Reigate, in a rather dodgy hotel that wasn’t as salubrious as you might hope, but it had the advantage of being pretty cheap! Me, the singer and the guitarist were sharing a room and stayed up chatting until 2:00am with a third of a bottle of whisky and a few cans between us! A drive across to Essex and a gig in Chelmsford on Friday. When we got to the venue, I checked my phone to see a text from a couple of hours ago, offering me a dep for a blues festival next Saturday. Unfortunately, by the time I replied, they had got someone else! I always like the Chelmsford gig, but to be honest, I felt a bit flat by the time we went onstage. Perhaps not as good a performance as the previous two gigs, but still more than OK to keep a decent crowd happy. Me and the singer (who were in the same car) stayed in a much nicer hotel a thirty minutes’ drive away, while the others made the long drive home, something that I didn’t fancy at all. PS. The night before we set off, I noticed that the underside of the rear wing of my car was hanging loose. I couldn’t get it fixed in time, so I popped into Lidl just before it closed to get a big roll of gaffa tape that they had on offer in the ‘middle of Lidl’. I fixed it up as best I could in the car park, before setting off the next morning (we did a better job when we got down to London). I did find it amusing that I’m in my sixties, driving hundreds of miles to do a gig in a car held together by gaffa tape, just like I used to do in my twenties!

Tried to add a video, technology baffles me... 😂 1757334673869.3gp

My gig tonight didn't involve me playing at all... However, I brought my PA and did sound and lights for a charity gig for our local LegClub (don't laugh, you might need 'em one day) by ex Jethro Tull keys Dee Palmer and Labour peer Stewart Wood, with support by a local Dobro and Beefheart Enthusiast... And due to rain and tiny gazebo (twas outside), didn't even get gear out of car till 1730, punters due to arrive at 1800. So no chance to set any levels, and all key sounds being completely different volumes meant lots of speculative fader-riding (had to put mixer behind the stage!). However, all sounded excellent, loads of Tull songs done and crowd happy, plus nearly £1000 raised.

The newest pedal on my board is the Empress Bass ParaEQ (the purple pedal):

Famous last words. . . .

Mad weekend with the live tribute show, but on Friday I met up with my webcast friends Mike Brooks and Jaymi (the Pink Bassman) who was over from the USA, and had a nice curry evening with Toby from JayDee in Birmingham. Saturday was a looong four hour trip to Gorleston Pavillion Theatre near Gt.Yarmouth for an Everlys & Friends Live Tribute Show gig. Absolutely packed house and a fantastic evening, followed by getting home at 2.30am. Crawled out of bed on Sunday morning after far too few hours of sleep and drove to Leeds to play an afternoon matinee show at Yeadon Town Hall Theatre. I was planning to meet up with Mike and Jaymi again this evening after the Nick Smith Memorial in Peterborough, but unfortunately didn't get out of Yeadon until nearly 5.30 and Mike got a short notice gig. I will sleep well tonight! Gig art: American Performer Mustang under the stage lights behind the side tab curtains.

The strap button, presumably.

My 2004 Lakland Skyline JO5 with a J-Tone John East preamp.

Probably, this one I'd think. Still safe and sound. Edit: Because someone asked - yes, it's mine.

I'm so glad I bought this. Despite many "for sale since I can't find use for it" threads on our forum, I find it extremely versatile. After some quality time spent finagling with the knobs and getting a feel for it I actually consider it the staple of my board and probably the most versatile pedal in my arsenal. Despite the modest claims it's an octave pedal and fuzz pedal in one, this unit actually is: clean boost overdrive octave fuzz sub-octave fuzz suboctaver synth Depending on setting - and yes, I do get it, 8 knobs is a LOT - I can boost my signal and add a bit of warmth (so useful with envelope filter), add warm, valve-like overdrive, and create layered fuzz, from splatty-but-brassy to octave fuzz sandwitch to synth-like tones. And that's just the Nøjs half. The Okto part can also use it to add suboctave to anything (and dial it from quite typical suboctave sound to synth-like techno subs). Combined with my other two fuzz pedals, it can be used to dial in almost every type of fuzzy goodness, it can doom, it can do occult rock stuff, it can chug, it can also go funky... For the last few days I'm having the most fun with gain rolled down and octave added, creating an "octave blues" tone. What an amazing pedal. If you're opposed to one-trick-pony pedals, this here is... uh, a many-tricks-kelpie.

Some bands will put easy, straightforward songs in the set list, others, it seems, want to see the deps sweat!!

Here's our well-deserved Round of Applause...

Got this through the post on Saturday - wow! Very impressed with it so far, really adds a little bit of magic to your tone - I had the mk1 a while ago but this is a pretty big upgrade on that - highly recommended

No real update, but my guy is sending the scratchplate now. I've actually never seen one like it. 0ba2f294-a3b3-41f2-b34d-cc31d1eabb0c.mp4

I owe virtually all of my (limited) ability to my years as a dep. One August (2016 I think) I depped with 13 different bands in one month. 100% the best way to develop your ear and also interpersonal skills with other musicians. Great for making contacts. The variety too keeps things super interesting.

Last weekend I did a dep job on bass guitar for a 16-piece amateur big band. This is not my normal bag. The only regular reading gig I have is with the brass band, which is in treble clef. I did it as a favour to help out the Musical Director and also out of curiousity, to see what big bands are about and whether I could hack it. The set list was 25 pieces, none of which I'd played before, encompassing Glenn Miller, some jazz standards, soul, show tunes, pop songs from the last century, some oddballs like Birdland, You Can't Stop the Beat, The MD sent me a link to a Google drive with 75 pieces in it, so I decided to wait for the set list which gave me about a month to look at it. 80% of it I was able to sight-read in one take. There were six pieces which were more challenging, mostly fast walking lines in unfamiliar keys or timing issues (Birdland!), so I was lucky to have some time to work these up. Finding YouTube vids of bands playing the same arrangement was very helpful to get the sense of these pieces. There were no rehearsals. The gig went pretty smoothly, I got lost a couple of times but found my way back. The MD and the band manager were happy with the outcome and have asked me if I would dep for them again if the need arises. Important points for me: Stick with the arrangement and don't go off-piste. The arrangement is the arrangement, the MD will point out any exceptions before you start playing. In particular, look first for key-changes and geography (repeats, DS/Coda) before you worry about the notes. Be confident, and do as much preparation to help you build confidence. For me this includes bringing enough spare equipment so that you can cope with any kind of failure. Dress code - this is always important and as long as you have black shoes and trousers and a white shirt, bands will provide you with what you need (in this case, polo shirts, but in the brass band world uniform jackets and ties too). Pay? Dream on. No pay, no expenses, and a 40-minute drive both ways. I got the same as everyone else!

Another good test for the Monza last weekend. I did a dep gig with a 16-piece big band - drums, keys, trumpets, trombones and saxes. No PA. Outdoors. I was just about loud enough at Fortissimo, with the iAmp Doubler running pretty much flat out. It's notionally 450W into 8 Ohms. The Monza handled that quite happily. To get a little more headroom and move a bit more air, I DI-d the signal from the amp into a TecAmp Puma 10 combo. A more powerful amp would have been a better option, but since I'm not planning to make a habit of doing this gig I'll stick with what I've got for now.

Not last night, but Friday night, played a rare live outing with The Inevitable Teaspoons at Krakatoa in Aberdeen. We played last ("headlining") and were treated to some fine acts first - Kaleidoscope and then Autohuman. No pics, it was a bit of a rushed changeover because as usual things ran on a bit. We played pretty well and went down favourably, heard someone describe us as "entertaining", and was speaking to the guitarist from Autohuman after and he was keen to do gigs with us again. It wasn't super busy, but there was an enthusiastic gathering of about 20 folk up front and probably 10-20 more skulking at the back, so eh, as long as it wasn't empty! Gear was the Greco LGB-700 three pickup bass into my pedalboard then out into Krakatoa's FOH, using a Markbass Little Mark Black Line 250W into an Ampeg fridge for monitoring. Because why not?

Just watching Radio 2 in the Park and the Anastasia bassist was playing a Ibanez Talman 5 String and also what looked like a Fender Vintera Mustang too … great to seeing a pro playing a £300 bass!

It depends on what constitutes a "boutique" bass. If you mean exotic woods, active electronics, brass bridges made in small numbers by "craftsmen" then...yes but no not really. Looking back now with the balance of hindsight at the days when such basses were considered the pinnacle of acquisition for most self-respecting bassists, a lot of what was considered desirable, and indeed essential, seems pretty preposterous nowadays. Conversely,however, the idea nowadays that I need a very old (probably knackered) Fender P Bass strung with heavy gauge La Bella flats and a vintage Ampeg B15 that breaks down regularly in order to be a hip and savvy bass player is equally preposterous. And the same kind of fashion victims that adhered to boutique basses in the 1980's/90's are extolling the primacy of vintage gear now. If you like boutique basses buy one. If you like vintage ones get one of them. The notes are in the same place on either.

Is this a complete the sentence competition? If so, I suggest: Boutique basses are bought by lawyers, medics and well-paid weekend warriors in the vain hope that spending lots of cash will make up for lack of talent. Over to you lot.

All done! CTS pots and switch craft socket, new pick guard, new Tone Rider The Duke pickups, fender Hi mass bridge and new DR Low Rider strings. £340 in total but that includes the bridge I didn’t need (but I have to have) and you could save money on some cheaper strings if you wanted so less than £300 for a bass which to be honest is as good as my Fender! Sounds completely different though as I got the vintage ish pickups and I went for a higher value capacitor on the electronics. Output seems high and quite bright right now but strings are very very new. It does sound wierdly like my Musicman Sterling I just sold but passive which is a really good thing!

That works well if the drummer looks at you. I asked a dep why he was fixated on the singer and he said ‘Cos he pays me’

Only a couple? I'm impressed. I do that after playing for about 50 years!!

For one band I'm in I've given up practicing to the originals... better to rely on my wits.

Again, from the band side... We were a pub covers band and occasionally used deps (drums guitar or sax). We would claim, "Don't worry, we play like the record." Except we didn't always. Some we had changed keys for the vocals, others had slight modifications to the arrangements (four times the starting riff instead of the three on the record etc etc). Once a song has been in your setlist for a while its easy to forget any modifications you have made... Most of the deps handled it all very well.

Clarity and the ability to hear yourself when you're close to it in a full band situation. This text from the website sums it up... "engineered to operate at a low enough frequency to avoid the off-axis midrange suckout found in almost all commercial bass cabs. This midrange "dip" is why it is often difficult to hear your bass clearly when you're standing above or to the side of your rig. With LFSys, you experience exactly what you're playing, even when standing right beside your cabinet. No need for stands, tilting or boosting the mids – your sound remains consistent wherever you are. Your band members will hear you effortlessly and your audience will hear every nuance of your bass sound." That is what made the difference for me. It's like a secret weapon.

Saturday night was a trip to London to play the legendary What's Cookin', for my friend Rich Davies and his band The Dissidents. I've been part of the band since 2016 and we have kept the same lineup throughout. They are all insanely good players and I like the fact that this keeps me on my toes. We had one rehearsal and I spent the week going through the set at home as we don't play live often and Rich had changed some keys of songs. I'd initally thought of bringing my Rickenbacker but midweek decided to change to my long scale Hofner Verythin bass. Rich wanted me to bring my Blackstar rig but I hate London load ins so when I found out there was a house rig, I was happy to use that. Having travelled up with the keyboard player, we arrived in good time, only to find out our drummer was not so fortunate. We wound up sound checking without him whilst a kit sharing support band quietly twitched! Thankfully he arrived and we got all set up. The nice thing was I had a bunch of old mates show up, including a singer I worked with for 10yrs, a roadie from a previous band and the guy who does the videos in my main band. We went on and just killed it. Due to the tube strike, the venue was quieter than usual but respectably half full and all eyes were on the band. Props to the support act who danced at the back throughout our set. The downside was that an accident on the M25 meant I got in at 3.15am but it was a superb evening.

Indeed it is. Build thread here.

I ended up in that situation for a band I played in regularly. 😂 The BL changed arrangements on a whim, added new stuff, mashed songs together and all with little or no prior discussion. Often it would be during the gig, but never with a rehearsal. I didn't like it and as the rest of the band didn't either, we left him. But I have to say that with hindsight it gave me self confidence playing and enabled me to deal with the the surprises that sometimes arise in dep gigs.

Sounds like you have earned some leverage with a mardy landlord because the landlady clearly knows a good thing when she sees/hears it. Fill your boots and bump your fee. It is well worth it to them if you are keeping trade alive for an extra two hours.

Snap this one up, they're £379 new. 29" scale. I've played mine in a metal band, so yes they are good for metal 😆 https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/product/snap-dragon-e-bass/

Playing in Newquay at Project 83 in a couple of weeks with our friends, Tüsk. Promises to be a fun night and free entry!

Thanks Dave, yes I was very privileged to have acquired it a while back off of rumblefish on here, mr robin vick . Enjoying the lighter gauge strings on it too .

From the other side of the fence from someone who has used deps for their band, I'll repeat this because IMO it is worth repeating: If there is a dress code then follow it! While we didn't except our deps to go all out with full leathers (we were a garage punk/psychobilly band) although it would be nice if they had, we did think that a simple instruction to wear black with no obtrusive band or brand logos and no trainers for anyone other than the drummer would be easy to follow. However you'd be surprised by how many couldn't or wouldn't do this. Remember that for the night you are on stage you are part of the band and you are in part responsible for maintaining their reputation both sonically and often visually.

Yes, of course, and the very best session musicians, the likes of Chuck Rainey, Marcus Miller, Anthony Jackson, Pino etc., have/had the skills and theory knowledge to ensure they knew to create interesting lines which perfectly outlined the harmony, and could listen to what the producer/artist wanted them to play and interpret that appropriately; they didn't get gain their reputations by just being 'good enough'.