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Not my gig, but I was in the studio yesterday recording the first couple of tracks for my second album. The studio engineer, who is also guitarist and sometime backing vocalist on my recordings, casually dropped into the conversation that he opened for Planet Rock's "Winters End" festival on Thursday... and I get this guy whenever I need on my amateur recordings!

The Joe Dart III Sterling Short Scale got a first run out last weekend. Lovely to play it has to be said.

Various shorties I’ve had over the years just the Shuker left 😊

I saw Big Country a few times. Just before The Crossing was released, me and a mate flew to Jersey to see them. He worked for an airfreight business, they had an office in St Helier and he got someone to procure tickets; both of us had family working at BA, so we got cheap flights out. We had nowhere to stay and travelled in shorts and t-shirts. Found a room in Pontac. Gig day we thumbed a lift to St Helier (in a Lords Taverners minibus!), found the venue (Fort Regent Centre) and just holed up in a bar there. We saw the load-in and then Stuart and Bruce came in. This was mid-afternoon. Drink was drunk. They're stunned that anyone would want to fly somewhere to see them. We were invited in for the soundcheck...it was just me and my mate and a couple of crew (private gig!), more drink (Stuart gave us fresh t-shirts), then the gig. It was a great gig. Next morning we were on standby flights, so we're at the airport at 7.00am, same clothes. Band come in, see us, Stuart cheers (I remember him putting his arms up like he'd scored a goal), he tells me proudly that he's bought a wristwatch for £2.99 (this memory has stuck with me, him just going, '£2.99!'.). It's noticeable that despite the hour, he's not holding back in the spirits. Cleared to fly, we're on the same flight...Stuart is cheering when he sees us boarding. He's in the row behind us. Amazingly, Kenny Dalgliesh us sitting in the row in front of us. Over the years, we run into Stuart a few times and he always made some remark about the Jersey blokes. I genuinely miss him, it was a tragic, terrible, lonely and pointless death. I often wonder what could have been, but at least his legacy us pretty much intact.

Played at Thekla in Bristol last night, such a cool venue. Highly recommended!

I can understand not liking a guitar tone. (Taste is subjective, and all that.) I realise some people feel like they need to share this dislike in a short comment. Then there is Gazz. I do not know Gazz personally, but he felt the need to respond to a little 45-second video at some length: He goes on...dare I say my atrocious tone seems to have offended him quite personally... Apparently, I'm doing absolutely everything wrong..."but what [does he] know??", he humbly ventures... Ah, wait, there it is: Did Gazz actually want to offer his useful (read: unsolicited) advice, or did he just want an opening to brag about his collection of amps? (And isn't it funny how some people think that they can foghorn the most patronising screed at you, but as long as they say "don't take it as an insult," everything's A-OK?)

Well, first attempt, what do ya think guys... Was a bit scary drilling into the head....

I think you can get too hung up on this sort of thing. If you put stuff up on social media you are going to encounter people who get their kicks from trolling. I see it all the time on the most innocuous clips on Instagram, people obviously just trying to upset other people for the hell of it. What they are after is attention either from the original poster or other commenters, the more negative the better, as far as they are concerned being noticed is a win for them. The best way to deal with it is just to ignore them. Don't give them any indication that you've even seen it. Deny them the attention they are seeking and leave them thinking that they're wasting their time trying to engage with you and they'll move on.

Just filling in with my brother-in-laws band Goo supporting Marmozets. Such a fun gig! Gutted I didn’t get more time in Bristol, we had to shoot off early.

We played The Shed in Charlbury tonight; it's a small venue but popular with the jazz crowd. This was a fundraising gig to cover some of the costs of the recent refurbishment there (nice to have working electricity which is up to safety standards...). It was a good turnout considering we'd never played there before and the locals wouldn't have known what they were going to get. Luckily, they seemed to have liked it. Edit: Video available.

Just recently managed after many, many years, of which trying to find, let alone own an Arpege series 11 fretless with a Delta metal fingerboard..Obtained one!! Truly Phenomenal bass. The import duties alas, which came attached, meant that I had to part with my series 1 Arpege..Not moaning, very very lucky regardless!!😊😊👍

Absolutely loving this PJB BG400. Will grab a C4 extension when funds allow for the ultimate tiny 500w 8 speaker rig!

You’re time tone is really bad, …very bad, a lot of people say my time tone is the best tone they’ve ever heard…no one knows more about time tone than me, a lot of folk say that…it’s great, really great. My time amp tone has stopped a lot of wars, really bad wars…Star Wars, robot wars (that was a really bad one)…warhammer,

I used to detest Ashdown amps until someone on here explained how the preshape function works (on when its off). Once I got to grips with that, my love affair began. I currently own two Ashdown’s, an ABM400 1x15 Neo combo that I have in a live-in flight case, and the absolutely fantastic Geezer Butler Head of Doom (that I pair with a Vanderkley 2x12). To be honest, the 1x15 combo covers most gigs as in my main band I also provide the PA (2x15” powered tops with 2x18” bass bins) with everything mic’d or D.I.’d so the backline is only really centre-fill for the front few feet of ‘audience’. The HoD comes out for bigger gigs or rare Sabbath tribute shows. Now my last SWR head has left the fold, I ‘might’ add a newer ABM EVO IV head, or even the newly announced PBM 200 as a gig-bag back up.

The honeymoon period is over and I’m still loving this pedal although it isn’t perfect. Tracking isn’t quite good enough to do ‘ain’t nobody’ live so I’ve gone back to using my oc5 in modern/poly mode for that song. I find the octaver setting on the mxr is good but isn’t a replacement for the OC5.

Fulfilled a bit of a GAS goal, and secured a Bass FlyRig V2 from this very site. Not had much chance to experiment, but it's not disappointed so far.

I have taken the brave decision to launch a new print and digital bass magazine for the UK market. I've been publishing magazines in my day job for 27 years and think it's terrible that we don't have a dedicated magazine anymore. We launch the mag officially at the Birmingham Bass & Guitar Show next month where we will have a small stand and giving away a sample issue (while stocks last) - we will then publish quarterly moving forward. Editor is Joel McIver who ran Bass Guitar magazine and then Bass Player so no cheap AI generated content here! Website is here You can subscribe via the website - our socials launch on Monday. If you are at the show next month come and say hello - be nice to put faces to names. The cover of our sample issue is here for your thoughts and comments.

This one and the XB Driver, I reckon.

New video by my young'uns band. Another single coming in a couple weeks and loads of gigs booked.

A pound to a penny, it's autocorrect for "tube amp".

Ignore the haters, it's ace!

That really is the weakest definition of AI - ie, its AI in the same way as a spreadsheet is AI. But that is the trouble now, marketing is putting everything done on a computer as AI, as by some definition it is. I would just call that a database. Or probably more normally Big Data.

I’m glad you bought it! I nearly did a few times!!

I do currently, only intend to keep one, but I’ll report back when I have both to compare. For context I play actual bass synth on every gig currently, not wanting or expecting these to be as good or replace that, just a fun alternative to play around with.

never mind, answered my own question, March. I’ve ordered a VIP so let’s see how it compares!

But, but, but, you forgot the tonepick.

I bought a non fretless Aria FEB recently. Has a really nice low action, looks, plays, and sounds wonderful. For the money it's amazing. I just use standard bronze acoustic strings on it as I like that sound and tonality. I have replaced the tuners recently and added a Hipshot Xtender also. To help reduce feedback issues, along with using the built in notch filter, I had to get a bit creative with some dampening material stuffed in the body. It has a bit of extra weight now, but can get some decent volume levels through my amp.

So yesterday I sold the last of my SWR gear. This ends what has been a thirty plus year obsession with the brand, started by my love of the bass playing of John Paul Jones. Over the years I have owned and gigged: 1) Black Beauty combo 2) Black Beauty combo with Workingmans 210 3) 750x head with Goliath III (4x10) and Son of Bertha (1x15) 4) 750x head with two Goliaths 5) Grand Prix preamp (twice) 6) SM1500 head with two Goliaths 7) SM1500 head with one Goliath Senior (6x10) 8).SM1500 with one Goliath 9) SM900 with one Goliath 10) Marcus Miller preamp (twice) 11) Marcus Miller preamp with Amplite poweramp (the setup I should have kept). I know that Fender swallowed up the SWR brand and then promptly did nothing with it, but boy would I love an SWR pedal sized preamp with the semi-parametric EQ and the famous aural enhancer (marmite to many),

In my mind, Mr Collins lives his days fully lost in funkadelia at Mothership Mews, Rubberband Land, and his whole house is decorated like it! 💫

Interesting article on Sky News "Robots listening to robots': How AI music fraudsters are spamming sites and taking cash from real musicians" https://share.google/1KocfxqaVx7QUGx7N Other concerns aside I knew these platforms were being flooded with AI content but the sheer scale of it, apparently 60,000 tracks a day just on Deezer and rapidly snowballing, is an eye opener.

Wenge / Elm bass update: it lives. Thought I’d share a quick resurrection story in case anyone else needs reassurance that instruments can come back from the brink. This one very nearly became “that bass I don’t talk about”. What started as a simple refinish escalated into: poly having a meltdown heat gun decisions I immediately regretted a drop-top seam briefly auditioning for independence and a small chunk of wenge making a bid for freedom near the pickup route At one point I was genuinely Googling “is relicing a legitimate coping mechanism”. Anyway… slow down, walk it back, glue where glue belongs, patch where wood went missing, black grain fill doing some very heavy lifting, and a lot of patience later — it’s back on its feet. Still some sanding to do to remove the grain filler then oil and shellac ready for nitro clearcoat. I also took the opportunity to do a comfort carve into the wenge to make it more hmmmm. It still needs some tidying sanding around the carve but nearly there. The seam is solid, the top is flat, the grain is doing that wenge thing again, and structurally it’s absolutely sound. More importantly, it looks like a bass rather than a cautionary tale. Lesson (re)learned: Heat guns are not subtle tools Wenge forgives, but only if you apologise properly Fixing your own mistakes is annoying… but also oddly satisfying Onwards now to finishing, hardware, and pretending this was all part of the plan. Builds aren’t always about the glossy photos at the end — sometimes they’re about dragging something back from the dead and quietly nodding at it when it survives.

I had been saving up for my one bass to rule them all. I got on the train with all my specs sorted to go and comission my very own J5. No way was I going to have LEDs. So vulgar. So useless. When asked if I wanted side LEDs I could not say yes fast enough.

😆 Change your tone man, your tone is all wrong, the problem is the tone, if your tone was better your tone would be better... His comments have all the hallmarks of someone desperately trying to sound like they know something but are actually giving away the obvious fact they know precisely nothing! But... go sort out your tone, its your tone making your tone sound bad!

So. After three-odd years containing knee surgery, a pulmonary embolism, torn rotator cuff, additional knee work and hand surgery, Sunday sees me back in the studio. I'm genuinely feeling energised to dip my toe into things. It's a blank canvas, we just go in, write in the fly and hit record. Old school.

Nonsense, it's the tonewood neck, stainless frets, and the tonemetal skeleton of the guitar body. And the toneair between the tonemagnet tailpiece and the tonemagnet "bridge".

We did 3 in a row with Abdoujaparov at the weekend. They're lovely guys and such a good band. We arranged to share the drum kit and bass rig. The first night was the Golden Lion in Bristol. It's a pretty cool venue room at the back of a pub, but weirdly, the pub punters have to go through the venue to use the loo, which made the doorman's job very difficult. Even more difficult that the job was forced onto our merch guy last minute. A bunch of young guys tried to get into the gig, talking too loudly, over confident, and perhaps a gurn or two... anyway, Tommo our merch man made short shrift of them. Since starting my own venue I keep noticing all the little things I don't like in other venues. Here we had: multi coloured XLR, PA hanging from the ceiling by metal angle and wood screws, spot lights at pretty much 6ft from the stage floor (mild concussion), lighting rig attached to a thin piece of wood attached to some plasterboard... Anyway, it was rammed and we had a great time Bideford Palladium Club on the Saturday, which is a very cool venue, but kind of out of the way. The guy says he's struggling so if you're out that way please go to some gigs! The sound was awesome and the room is fantastic. Green room upstairs with a random selection of objects was good fun. Someone glued a fake Oscar to the ceiling but it was down again by the time I left. More japes - I'd noticed a parking fine on our van before the show. I waited until after to tell the others. It turned out to be a yellow PCN plastic document wallet with a random bit of notepaper inside! We have no idea who it was. I suspect the venue owner did it to prevent us getting a real ticket. The King Arthur in Glastonbury on Sunday. We knew ticket sales were low, but we know a couple of people who live in Glastonbury, and it turns out they had no idea the gig was on. They've not seen it on posters or in local press or anything. There were loads of gig posters on the outside, some from last year, some gigs coming up, and a big brand spanking new gig list with Jan, Feb, Mar on it, and no mention of our gig. We got inside, the sound engineer is the guy "promoting" the show. Our frontman asks why there are no posters around and SE says "We did have some up". Our frontman laughed and asked "Were they nicked?"... SE obviously feels a bit awkward and goes on a rant about how he's not allowed to put posters up around town any more but FFS he might as well have forgotten he booked the gig at all. Apparently his door staff called in sick last minute too, giving Tommo the job again. SE chews my ear off about drums and gear while I'm setting up, and I know I should have seen this coming, but he said he needed 10 minutes to plug everything in, so we went to the shop, and on my return this f&^%$er was sat playing my kit. This might be snobby but I spent more than £3K on my cymbals and I don't let anyone play them. I let him know I wasn't happy, he got awkward and defensive, and we got on with sound check. To be fair it sounded excellent, he really knows his stuff, but by this point I'm losing the will to live. Abdoujaparov played first, and they were great, but obviously playing to 10 people in a cold venue gives a different vibe to the previous two days. I tucked into the beers and did my best. It was a long drive home to Stoke!

I just made something to stick on my pedal board next to the pedal, as there's no way I'm ever going to remember all the extra control assignments. I figured it might come in handy for other people, so here it is.