joeystrange

1. Das Bett in Frankfurt, Germany opening for Electric 6 last month. Great venue, great crowd and my favourite show of the tour. 2. Bank Holiday weekend punk festival at the Waterloo in Blackpool. Our new(ish) guitarist was hammered and was just a flipping mess. Starting songs at the wrong time, struggling to set up his gear, a cacophony of random noises that were supposed to be guitar solos. 3. Danko Jones at Substage in Karlsruhe, Germany. We both had days off from our main tours (ours with Electric 6 and theirs with Volbeat) and ended up playing across the road from each other. They invited us over to hang out before the show then we watched their set abs headed back over the road to play our show. They gave our show a plug at the end of their set and a bunch of people came over to see us, which was cool. 4. I went to see a band do an instore at Rough Trade in Nottingham recently to nine people. That wasn’t why it was bad, I just really don’t like them. My wife loves them, however, and wouldn’t have gone alone so I went with her. I did feel bad for them driving from Glasgow to play to that few people though.

Haven’t listened to them a huge amount but I like what I have heard. I’ve seen their keyboard player, Franz Nicolay, live before though. If you like them I recommend checking out The Gaslight Anthem and Dave Hause too.

This springs to mind immediately.

Sims. Yes, their website is awful, as you’ve found out, but they’re very good. Give Martin a ring and have a chat with him about what you want, I’m sure he’ll give you all of the information you need.

I use Allianz, partly for this reason. My gear is covered against theft and accidental damage at home, on stage, in the dressing room and in an unattended vehicle... pretty much anywhere. All worldwide too. Like seemingly everyone else I’ve thankfully never had to make a claim so I can’t comment on that. The price is reasonable though.

Well... He was a heroin addict. Also, their third album is incredible IMO.

I watched a bit of Foo Fighters too. One song to be precise. I used to love them but I find their 20 minute jams in the middle of every song to be VERY boring. IMO they’ve become very self-indulgent and are more concerned with entertaining themselves than entertaining their fans. I don’t have a problem with that. They’ve got to the point in their career where they can do literally anything they want and people will all it up, so why not? It’s just of no interest to me.

Just treat it like any other gig and you’ll be fine. Have fun!

Jerry Only. NOTHING sounds like Jerry Only’s bass. If you’ve ever seen the Misfits live you’ll understand why.

Assuming that you’re using it on Saturday I’ll keep a close ear on how it sounds.

Summer 2001, I was 14. My dad borrowed a late ‘80s Vox Custom from the guitarist in his band then bought it from him for £100 a few months later when he realised I was serious about wanting to play. It was a natural finish, 24-fret through neck thing that weighed roughly the same as a double-decker bus. I eventually sold it here a few years ago. The amp I had at the same time was a Peavey guitar amp that my dad borrowed from one of his apprentices. I wasn’t allowed to turn it up past 2 in case anything blew up! After a while I got a real bass amp, a Peavey TNT 115 combo. After a year or so of playing I went to see my dad’s band and his bass player let me have a go on his Precision (early ‘70s, sunburst, tort, rosewood... beautiful bass!) and said “Once you play a Precision you’ll never want to play anything else.” He was right!

That too!

Yes! Thank you! They didn’t come up in any Google search that I did. They look perfect.

Where’s a good place to buy a knob for a Precision? Specifically I’m looking for a flat top, knurled chrome knob to fit a 6mm split shaft. They seem to be hard to track down and the only place I can find that has them in stock is a US site but they’ll charge almost £10 delivery for a £3 part which seems daft. Allparts have them on their site but no stock. Any info would be appreciated!

I had a Fender 4x10 with castors that we’re easily removable. The vast majority of the time I left them on but on the odd occasion that I took them off I couldn’t tell the difference.

I remember Steve Hodson off of Oceansize talking about how he found a “really old, way older than me” (at a guess maybe ‘70s) Gibson Grabber in a skip and was able to buy it for £200.

Me too. Though it’s seldom the case.

Thanks Nick. I’m actually after a split shaft as I keep losing knobs so I’m thinking this one. Thanks for your help.

The volume pot on one of my Precisions has gone dodgy and needs replacing. What should I be looking for? I’m aware that there are good pots and not so good pots but that’s all! Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton of (Stevie Ray Vaughan and) Double Trouble fame have always been a favourite of mine.

This a niche product because... Only a handful of people own 8x10 cabs?

Just remember that not one person watching you play cares whether or not you play it exactly like the original and most of them probably can’t even tell the difference. There’s s difference between playing it differently and playing it wrong. As long as you’re not playing it wrong (or so different that it drastically changes the song - assuming that isn’t the intention) then it doesn’t really matter. To add to that you tend to find that most people will play a song slightly different to the way they recorded it as subtleties evolve over time.

Me with Chris #2 of Anti-Flag after they last played Nottingham in 2015.

Headphones may exacerbate the noise too as you don’t have the acoustics of an open room and everything is going straight into your ears. If you play through an amp you may find that the noise is a lot less noticable than you think.

I’m not fussy. Taped to a monitor is preferable, especially if using a thin half A4 sizes set list so that it doesn’t cover the speaker, but anywhere on the floor (near the monitors, in front of amps, off to the side - taped or not) on the drum riser, stuck to a bass bin/FOH speaker/mixing desk/wall/other thing that’s somewhat viewable is also fine.