TheGreek

Eton Rifles - The Jam

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/155656746124?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=hkUH1-T2TeO&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=3arTyUkpQE-&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

West End Girls - Pet Shop Boys

The ‘Impossible’ Gig You want to headline a festival this Saturday night with Nicky Bomba?” my drummer buddy Jason asked me. “Hold on a second - Nicky Bomba? As in the guy who played for John Butler?”, I asked. “That’s the one, brother!” Holy crap… I knew who Nicky Bomba was. He played on the very first album I bought with my own money: 14-year-old me was super into this album Nicky played drums on As far as I was concerned, Nicky Bomba was heckin’ famous. What I didn’t know was that he also played guitar and sang with his own reggae and ska band. And now I had the opportunity to play a ton of that stuff with THE Nicky Bomba himself. “Absolutely I’ll play the gig. What are we playing? Is he sending us charts or recordings or anything?” I asked. “Nope - we’re just showing up and jamming on the night,” said Jason. Woah. No recordings to catch the vibe of the songs (not even a list of songs to check out), no charts, no rehearsal, plus I’ll be playing with a guy I’ll meet minutes before we go onstage. This was an impossible gig. My only thought was, “This is either going to end really well...or really badly…” The Night Of The “Impossible” Gig As far as festival stages go, this is among my favorites 30 minutes before we were scheduled to start playing, Nicky arrived backstage. But before I even got the chance to fan-boy over him, he was giving me a big, warm smile and introducing himself to me and Jason. But then Nicky did something unexpected. He started introducing himself to all the other musicians who were hanging around backstage. I thought he was just being polite, but after a while, it dawned on me; all these other musicians will be playing with us as well! I had thought this was just going to be a trio thing - me playing bass, Jason playing drums and Nicky singing and playing guitar. I was wrong... Nicky gathered us all around in a band huddle and explained that he’d start off the show playing a 1-2- minute drum solo, and after he was done, he’d switch to playing guitar and singing, and that’s when we’d come onstage and start playing with him. As far as what we’d actually be playing, Nicky was very vague… There were rumblings of phrases like, “Just follow me” and “Go out there and have a good time” But before anyone had the chance to ask any questions, Nicky leapt from sidestage to face the crowd and start his drum solo, leaving the rest of us watching and waiting for his cue. So put yourself in this position: Imagine you’re: Playing a headlining festival slot (high stakes as it is…) For a ravenous crowd (who you don’t want to disappoint…) With four musicians you’ve literally just met (who’ll need your support …) Backing an artist you have tons of respect for (even higher stakes…) Playing songs you’ve never played - or even heard before (tons of ‘unknowns’...) Sure thing Gordon... And to top it all off, my mum had made the trip down with me because she wanted to check out the gig. She was in the crowd filming the whole thing. Any mistakes or trainwrecks would be immortalized for all time in high definition. If you could only have ONE skill in your arsenal at that moment, what would it be? Don’t worry if you don’t think it’s possible for you right now. That’s OK. But imagine you could wave a magic wand and be given ONE skill to use for the next 60 minutes, what would you pick? Reply to this email and let me know what you’d want to be able to do. Cheers, P.S. On Wednesday, I’ll tell you the skill I tried to rely on and I’ll let you be the judge of whether it worked or not. I’ll dig some of the old footage that my mum took from the actual gig so you can see for yourself. P.P.S. This isn’t something I’d recommend you do unless you’re confident in your ability to hold your own and you trust the people you’re playing with can do the same. There’s something to be said for putting yourself in challenging positions in order to grow, but there’s a fine line between that and setting yourself up for failure.

Rotterdam - The Beautiful South

Master and servant - Depeche Mode

25th December - EBTG

Crazy - Gnarls Barkley

Bargain!!

A lot of people have it in their heads that Fenders are better than Squier - fair enough. Are they ten times better if the price is ten times more? No! When I started playing the build quality of Fenders was abysmal which set my mind to thinking that people are buying Fenders because that's whats on the headstock. This has stayed with me for my whole playing "career" - I've owned a LOT of basses but only about 3 Fenders. What you get from a Squier is a good, well put together bass with good tone. What you don't get with a Fender is a 10x better bass, 10x better put together or 10x better tone. For your money, the Squier is the better bass.

Bumped

I bought (what supposed to be) an Acoustic 406 cab from eBay - I thought it was a bit of a steal - collected it earlier to find it was actually half a 406 (2x15) with only one speaker and chopped in half. I'm on the fence about being disappointed as I don't really have the room for a huge 2x15 cab at home and would need a monster head to drive the 600w cab at 2ohms. I do know that what I did get works properly as the seller had set it up in his man cave to try. I believe that there can't be that many Acoustic 406 cabs which have been doctored in this was - wondering if anybody knows any more about it. I bought it in Essex.

Run to the hills - IM

American Pie - Good ole Don

Everything I do, I do it for you - Brian Adams

Message in the bottle - The Police

Nice basses but the headstock is too long IMO. Dehead it!!

Sorry @Owen...I couldn't resist.

Elementary error is a bit more complicated than first expected so a new Aguilar OB2 Pre going in. Hoping to get it back midweek.

Morning has broken - Cat Stevens

Is it because of the use of Fenders (doesn't really work in the UK as we call them mudguards or wings but our USA cousins might get it)