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LONG POST ALERT! Full video at bottom of post! So I had a pretty big thing last week that I thought I would share with you all, as it’s probably not something that happens every day for most of us! I always love reading these sorts of posts/gig blogs myself for the insight into other people's musical lives so hopefully it will be interesting to someone My band made it’s first live TV appearance on St Patrick’s Day on one of Ireland’s biggest shows – The Late Late Show. Not to be confused with the US equivalent – this is a talk show which has been running since 1962 and is broadcast on Friday nights on Ireland’s largest TV channel – RTE. On a usual week, the audience viewing figures would be around half a million, but this week, the host of 14 years had announced he will be leaving, and so the figures were expected to be in excess of one million. Cripes! We got the call a few months back following quite a successful few years and pretty exponential growth on the usual social media channels. The band plays Irish folk rock, and so St Patrick’s day seemed like a fitting opportunity to showcase our music, which by the way consists mostly of covers of traditional Irish songs arranged in a rockier context. I don’t usually get nervous before gigs – in fact, the last time I recall was before a show in 2003 – but from the day before the show I began to feel the anxiety. What if a string breaks mid song (as happened a few weeks ago at a live gig)? What if my pedalboard gives up the ghost at soundcheck? What if I play a bum note that gets broadcast online for time immemorial? The list of artists who have performed on the show over the years reads as a bit of a ‘who’s who’ of Irish and international artists – most notably U2, Westlife, Sinead O’Connor and The Boomtown Rats all made their debut TV performances on the show. Naturally, the great pedigree that the show has hosted over the years only served to heighten the apprehension even further! I arrived at RTE Studios in Dublin on Friday at 1pm and was taken to a largely unimpressive dressing room by the floor manager, who was lovely and really helpful. Our soundcheck was called for 2.30pm so had loads of time to take in the surroundings, learn the layout of the backstage (which was like a maze) and watch the fantastic house band soundcheck with an amazing version of ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’. These guys are all pro session heads and the discipline and chops were clearly evident, all guided by a great MD. I managed to grab a chat with a couple of the guys who were only too happy to oblige, which was nice. The bassist was using an active US Jazz into HX Stomp and GK backline with in ears – not so far from my usual setup, and his tone was HUGE! Our soundcheck happened at exactly 2.30pm which was great. What really struck me throughout the day was just how ‘on time’ everything was. The production itself was super slick, and I got the impression that a delay of even a few minutes would have majorly impacted the schedule, with the show due to go out live at 9.30pm. For someone with borderline OCD – I appreciated this immensely! Rig-wise, I brought my new (to me) Gibson SG Bass which I just took delivery of last week. It’s my first ever short scale, at 30.25”, in nitro Olympic White which was a limited edition finish for 2012. The first thing I did when I received it was put on a Hipshot Supertone bridge. I use one on my Jack Casady bass and it’s a huge improvement over the stock Gibson bridge. String wise, I went for my usual La Bella 760FS flats, medium scale. A bit of a setup later and she was singing like a bird! It is truly a lovely instrument. From there, I ran it into my flyrig board which consists of a HX Stomp and Peterson Strobostomp tuner, all powered by a Cioks DC7 power supply. On the HX Stomp I use a custom patch which consists of: - Low and High Cut (set at 50hz and 7khz respectively) - Rochester Compressor (set at 4:1 ratio) - Zeroamp (Sansamp clone) set pretty flat with a slight drive boost - Bass Octaver (for octave down doubling) - Pitch Shift (drop tunes 2 semitones for Drop D songs) - Ampeg Chorus (self explanatory) I didn’t need to use any of the effects at all and relied simply on the first three blocks for my basic tone. From the Stomp I ran straight into the house DI and had the signal sent back to me via Sennheiser wireless to my JH Audio Roxanne earphones. I have to say that I was a little worried about how the short scale/mudbucker would sound in the mix, but when I heard my monitor mix, I was simply blown away! What a tone! So round and plummy. It has such a different character to my other basses – I’m mainly a Fender guy but love the aforementioned JC bass too. I play mostly fingerstyle but the plectrum tone is simply sublime also. I was also a little worried about muscle memory on the shorter scale bass, but I had absolutely zero issues on the gig and found it super easy to get around the neck. We were aided by a great house monitor engineer for our mixes, although it did take 2 or 3 runs of a tune to get the auxes spot on. Once soundcheck was complete, we had a few hours to kill before being back on location for 8pm. There was a wonderful canteen where we ate, as well as a great green room with plenty of food and drink for all the guests. All of the above was complimentary and we were encouraged to help ourselves. Some of the other guests on the show included Liam Neeson, James Martin and Ross White (from Oscar winning short ‘An Irish Goodbye’), Patrick Duffy from Dallas, Vera Pauw (Irish Ladies Soccer Manager) and Irish Rugby Grand Slam winners Jamie Heaslip, Fiona Coghlan and Dan Leavy. It was great to meet all of the guests in the green room and what really struck me is just how nice everyone was. These guys/girls all rose to the very top of their individual professions, and yet were so warm and humble. I don’t think this is a coincidence at all and reaffirms my belief in people! It was great just to sit and chat with ‘celebrities’ to assuage the nerves a bit before our performance. The performance itself went smashingly. Before the show itself, the music supervisor had asked for a copy of our setlist so that he could decide which tune(s) we would play. This was strange as the tunes that he picked were possibly not what the band would have picked, if given the choice, however it did take the debate out of our preparation. We were expressly told at soundcheck that as soon as we were cued, we had to begin without any delay. We were ushered on set during a commercial break and introduced by the show host, then immediately started into the song – the ubiquitous ‘Whiskey In The Jar’. The show music supervisor had advised us that the track was to last no more than 3.5 minutes, and so we had to play it a bit faster than usual to fit it all in! But it worked perfectly in the end. When it was over, we were quickly ushered off again and the performance area was repurposed for the next segment by the stage hands. One of our band members in particular gets nervous before every gig, but I think we all delivered when the red light was on (see video at the bottom of the post) We also had one more tune to play to close out the show at around 11.30pm. It had been a long day at this point, but we were all keen for a taste of the live performance again after the success of the first tune. The second tune had to last no more than two minutes however! We ended up played a sharply truncated version of another one of our tunes – ‘McAlpine’s Fusiliers’, which consisted of only two verses, an instrumental and a chorus. It seemed to work well however and we got to the end without any fluffs! I was really happy with my tone on the final performance and it sounded especially good in the car when I played the Youtube video! It was an experience I will never forget. I was hugely grateful for the opportunity and humbled to be asked to be part of such an occasion. I was absolutely overwhelmed with all the messages with well wishes before the gig, and afterwards was exactly the same with everyone enjoying the show. A major tick off my bucket list and I’m excited to see if any more doors are opened for us following the appearance. It has been a busy few years and it’s really nice to get recognition for our graft. It took a few days to really appreciate the gravity of the performance, but now that I’m back down to earth I am feeling very grateful for every opportunity music has presented to me over my lifetime. It’s been great and I can’t wait to see what the future holds! Feeling inspired. I walked into my day job today to a round of applause which was embarrassing, but again everyone was so full of kind words and praise. I think in 10 to 20 years there may no longer be such a thing as 'live' TV, so it's really nice to have this as a memory and something to look back on. Sorry for the long post but I hope it gives a bit of insight into the workings of live TV performances that might some day be useful to someone else 😊 Danny

Sorry about this, going of at a tangent; tomorrow's a public holiday over here in Osaka and I've just come home from an evening out with the usual suspects 🍺 Anyway, sitting in our little local (think Blade Runner back-alleys and ¥200 beers & sushi etc ～ perfect for washed-up insolvent ex-pat ex-pro musos 🤦🏼‍♂️), I told The Dutchess that life's not bad but I wish my good friends from STWA were here. A bit sentimental but thanks to the entire crew. This thread and the friendship that goes with it crosses continents (Right Carl? 😉) and is a source of great entertainment, plus a wealth of unknown tunes to discover. Thanks to all, and the long-standing invitation is still here ～ if you ever see a cheap flight, come on over, you'll be made very welcome. As you were... Friend Of The Devil ～ The Grateful Dead

Earl Haig on Sunday. One of those odd 6pm gigs... a few faces I'd hoped for cried off, but I reckon we had about 80-90 people in, which isn't bad. A guy bought two of our live CDs. I lent him my pen and he got the guitarist to sign them 🤣 Photo by Tim James.

Saturday night in Heckmondwicke at Westgate 23 for In Isolation and Gothzilla. Small band room at the back of the pub that normally puts on punk gigs, but someone who knew our drummer from when he used to be in Every New Dead Ghost recommended us. We were a little bit worried that with it being an unknown venue in a small town we might end up playing to the drummer's friend and Gothzilla's manager, but it seemed as though every vaguely alternative person in Heckmondwicke and the surrounding are had turned up, so there was a good crowd. Vocal only PA meant that I had to use my RCF powered cab for FoH bass (these days it only really gets used for rehearsals), but it coped perfectly well, and although I was louder than I preferred on stage, I could still properly hear all the other instruments, which has been a problem in the past when I was using a conventional bass rig for the audience to hear the bass. Next weekend's gig in Bathgate has unfortunately been cancelled, so nothing now until 30th when Ex-Superstar, In Isolation, Gothzilla and Feather Trade play in London.

One of our regular venues in The Cave, Paisley Glasgow tonight 6-9pm. with the punk covers band Emergency Exit. Not overly busy but always a good enthusiastic crowd. Good feedback with sound engineer from another Glasgow venue saying the bass tone was amazing with plenty of low end and the top end really cutting thru the mix allowing the Les Paul guitar to sit right in the middle of the mix. Another guy has seen our Glam covers band 3 times and when he heard we were playing in Glasgow he cancelled another gig to come along and see us. I was quite chuffed with that. Used my P bass first set but wasn't entirely happy with it. Combination of wider neck and string spacing meant i was making a few mistakes so went back to old faithful Sandberg MarloweDK. I was using the P bass at home all week too but its different at gig pace and standing up so a little bit more work is needed on it. Not 100% sure i like the P bass tone for some of the more aggressive songs. It lacked clarity in the top end but it was ok and i would try again next gig. Have to admit the Sandberg just wins hands down in the punk band. Dave

After a traumatic week at work being made redundant I needed a good night out and some cheering up. This did the trick nicely. We sacrificed all musical integrity and pumped out an evening of rocky crowd pleasers in a sports bar type pub local to me. Dance floor full from 30 seconds in. Opened with She Sells Sanctuary and didn't put them down until Killing in the Name Of.. as the 4th encore. A week of extremes for me - on the floor on Tuesday and high as a kite by Sunday morning.

Does anybody else struggle to see the point/need for modding/upgrading a bass in most cases? I just watched Low End Lobster.... and actually enjoy his content, however the amount of money he throws at basses after he's purchased them seems a bit ridiculous? Part of the fun of it for him, it seems, is this constant need to "upgrade" parts on the guitars he's bought..... I don't see the point? In my experience hardware on basses (or guitars in general), on the most part, is fine as it is, unless its faulty. I joined in the trend for putting Badass bridges on my Fenders a few years ago, but honestly, I literally cannot hear a definable difference in the tone from the basic stock Fender bridge, at all. So I ordered (from Andertons who are currently out of stock in my preferred colour) a blue Epiphone Newport Bass. I absolutely love the looks and I want to try a reasonably priced short scale bass because of my shoulder issues. The reviews are mixed, but I know how to setup and fiddle with gear to get it right if there's a setup issue with it when it comes. But Mr Lobster, instantly pulled out the tuners and replaced them with Hipshots and the same with the bridge, probably at a cost adding up to maybe a third of the price of the bass in the first place. Seriously why? I mean I get it, if you've had it a while and you're not happy with some of the hardware functionality, but lets be honest.... MOST hardware, even the basic stuff is perfectly fine and useable unless you're a pro gigging musician who needs top end gear.... most of us are not that. In my opinion, basses like these, have a vibe and a voice and a functionality that is part of its charm, inc pickups, harware etc.... and unless its actually broken in some way...... either: A: Buy something else if you don't like it as it is? or B: At least play it a few months to find out what you do or don't like about it? Then, think about some changes IF you're going to keep it? Personally when I'm looking to buy a used bass, and the seller describes it as "Upgraded" or "Modded", I go elsewhere, because I'm looking for a bass that is as intended by it's manufacturer, otherwise why are you buying it at all? I dunno. Each to their own eh?

We played at Boscombe Rec Club, it is where we rehearse for free and part of the agreement is we give them two gigs a year for free, it's a shame to see a recreation club so poorly supported by their members, I'm sure it if we to close there'd be uproar. Not overly busy but the few that were there seemed to appreciate us, a fairly early finish was welcome. IMG_0184.MOV IMG_0188.MOV

Yellow Arch Studios in Sheffield on Friday night. We've never been here before but it's a cool venue, you'd probably get 200ish in the room, great stage, PA etc. Crazy Arm were on first, not heard of them before but they were all exceptional players. We (Headsticks) went on 2nd and absolutely smashed it. People were going crazy from the off. 40 minutes of non stop drumming and I was soaked. We have a song called "Naked" and it's about the emperor's new clothes and being lied to by politicians, but for some reason, sometimes people strip off to it. Friday night a regular fan of ours apparently stripped totally naked, went mad in the mosh pit, banged his head, and got kicked out by security. I didn't see any of this but a few people confirmed it after the set. Can't wait to see him at a gig soon Shanghai Treason were on after us, who were great at sound check, and I feel terrible 'cos they're all lovely people, but I spent their set catching up with a good friend who lives in Sheffield and I never get to see him. I hope that's not earned me a black mark!

First ska gig outing with the Q4 last night. Perfect. Sat well in the mix esp. when I favoured the neck pickup. And so wonderfully light! To say I'm pleased is a total understatement. The Trojan logo and the neck 'inlays' are all vinyl stick-ons, easily removed without a trace. I'd have like some Spector crowns but they're next to impossible to find. EDIT: see below for updated pic!

Played a multi band St Pat's event in Bristol yesterday. Chaotic as these things often are we ended up going on late, no set up time so played by Braille. Couldn't hear anything beyond the vocals and we were pulled early so that the band after us didn't have to finish late 🤷🏻‍♂️ Still, I got paid and got home in reasonable time.

It was awesome! My band did its first ever live TV appearance on The Late Late Show in Ireland (not to be confused with J Corden's paltry offering) for St Patrick's Day. Viewing figures estimated at 1 million plus! I will probably create a seperate topic about the whole experience in general but it was simply amazing. Vid below for anyone interested:

This is the bridge - before I did the intonation. Slightly narrower spacing than the BBOT.

Ha! I've always loved this analogy. Back in the 70s, the guys who first got me into biking were obsessed with 'fettling' their bikes. I remember that John's idea of a perfect Saturday afternoon was to take the carbs off his CB250, strip them down and clean them (on the kitchen table 😨), adjust the needle, refit and re-balance. If all went well, he ended up with a bike that ... erm... ran exactly the way it had before. He could never understand why I avoided fiddling about with tools and mucky things like oil and grease and chainlube, and instead I got my fun from actually riding the bloody things.

Grew up listening to the 80's thanks to my two older sisters so it was no wonder I ended up picking up the bass, especially after watching Live Aid. Such amazing bands and bass players back then and huge influences from, Simple Minds (Derek Forbes and John Giblin) Talk Talk (Paul Webb) Duran Duran (John Taylor) U2 (Adam Clayton) Paul Young (Pino Palladino) Japan (Mick Khan) Kate Bush (John Giblin) Peter Gabriel (Tony Levin) The Police (Sting) Inxs (Gary Garry Beers)

Well, it was Cheltenham race week for me. Normally I do 6pm till midnight for five nights on acoustic and vocals, on an upstairs/downstairs rotation with two other guys in the first pub next to the race course. But since the whole nearly dying of covid thing, I can’t do that anymore, so I was on bass this year and only did three shows a bit further into town. The first two were standard race week stuff, just fighting off utterly hammered, red-faced, tweed clad muppets demanding oasis for every. Single. Song. But last night was a birthday party in a local pub and was just lush from start to finish, one of my fave gigs of the year. Plenty of space for me, no muppets crashing into me (ok, one did take a tumble over the foot lights, but only one), I had a great sound in ears and had great fun locking in with the drummer. Top night. E3E2671B-5307-44E1-9471-AA736120A7BB.MOV E2FA44FD-F1C9-4E05-AAAB-A6BA0EA41F80.MOV

Friday night was St. Patrick's day lunacy with beer spilt on monitors, pedalboards (not mine I don't use pedals of any description) and a bent mic stand which surprisingly failed gto stop a 16 stone punter hitting the deck. Saturday night was Dormans Club (ex British Steel works club) a place I could use the two new girls again, in safety. Suffice it to say Friday night's gig was more rewarding in dancing punters than Saturday nights.

I wear them for gigs 100% of the time. I'm not sure if I understand the definition of ear fatigue, but I've also taken to wearing them in some situations where there's a lot going on, even if it's not necessarily at dangerously loud levels. They just help things feel a little... calmer. And because of the flat response, you can still have conversations.

This sounds cool! Will see if I'm free, but fingers crossed! I went to one very small bass doo in Birmingham about 8-10 years ago, but that's the only one I've been to. Just getting back to BC after a lengthy hiatus. 🙏

In most cases there's FA 'upgrading', its all about 'Brand Name' dropping in the hope strangers will appauld and echo the poster's choice 😶 I don't think it's quite as bad here but over on TalkBS it's rife 😄 Little ryhme , reason or thought is given just throw out some buzzword names. It's rare to see a post going "I've X bass but the pickups are lacking 'Y'" or "they've too much 'W'"; "swapping to pickup 'Z' got me ....". Posts normally go "I fitted 'current buzzword'" and that's it. The 'current buzzword' angle is pretty important since there's a definite pecking order to this consumer p!$$in contest 😄 You might think I've went a bit OTT but if that's the case why do the buzzword companies all sell T-shirts ? Instead of "Team Aniston/Jolie" it's "Team Lollar/Nordy" 🤣

TBF the VM70s Jazz was a very decent bass to begin with. I'm still upset I had to sell mine, but being able to eat was more important at the time, and I'm definitely not unhappy with the Sire that replaced it.

Orange LBT is indeed a great amp Very loud 500w and in my opinion a nicer tone compared to the Terror series

No need to make it so difficult ...

Mainly to create engaging content. Which seems to be working. And no doubt a bunch of BassChatters will now head off to YouTube to add more views following your free advertisement.

Yeah, it would seem that way:

Making a start on the body now. All glued up ready to cut the body shape out. Exciting!

Hi I’ll have a go at posting a picture to see if this helps thanks to you both for taking the time to reply

Acoustic... anything else is "Electrickery.."

Or you could use an Octaver, add in a bit of clean blend so it doesn’t sound too synthy and play the normal B and let the pedal do the work.

I do my own set ups. It has never needed more than a tweak of the truss rod in ten years but I am careful how they are stored.

Played for the church I moved to for the first time this weekend. Rehearsal on Thursday evening and two services yesteday one at 9.30 and again at 11.30. We used the little H B Mighty 15 valve amp (shown in another thread on here) plugged into the speaker of an Ashdown EB 180 as a low level monitor and the send from the HB 15 plugged into a DI box to front of house. They loved it. Valve warmth sent to the desk for them to eq as they need for the mix. They have everything set up for us all to be on IEM which was a joy to have. We each have a mini mixer on our music stands. If you check out Aylesbury Vinyard on YouTube you can see the past services and hear how the system sounds.👍

Of course. I will tip my hat to the use of the clear pickup cases - that's way cooler than the later black models Gibson used. Please to see there are new pickup options (Curtis Novak recreations) if I ever needed to resurrect a G-3.

Sorry to hear you got made redundant but hopefully the gig cheered you up a bit. Hope you get another job soon. All the best Dave

These are BassCulture stacked humbuckers (because of the wires colour). Ask Christoph Dolf there : https://www.bassculture.de/impressum.html

I use the Digitech Drop, it's OK for a tone down but anymore and it sounds way too artificial, don't get me wrong it sounds artificial even on a semitone drop but not so much that your average punter would notice it! It's a shame as it works really well on guitar but just doesn't manage it on bass but, it is the best I have found so far!

When I had mine built I knew which body shape I wanted because Sei had been mostly picked on that basis alone, that it was going to be a 34" scale fretless 5-string with an ACG01 preamp and I had a photo of a Nordstrand (IIRC) bass that I liked the colours of. That was it. Martin helped me pick out some woods that would give the visual result I was after and then sent me away to measure my favourite bass for the nut and bridge spacings. Once I had those I spent an afternoon in the shop trying out various basses the get the right neck profile and pickup voicing to suit how I played and how I wanted the bass to sound and after another 18 months this was the end result:

I did have this monster at one point... Fun, but utterly pointless!

In all seriousness though - you're always going to get neck dive on thunderbird bass type shapes. I guess your choices are use a grippy strap or don't take your hand off the neck when playing open notes!

A film I have a fair amount of affection for.