casapete

Fender Rumble range offer great sounds and very manageable weight. The 200 watt model is within budget, the excellent 500 watt job just £49 over it. Both feature headphone sockets and should cope with a reasonable sized pub gig. Gear4music in York stock the range according to their website, so not too far for you, but check stocks via telephone before making the journey. They also carry some Hartke, GK, Ampeg and Markbass stuff too. Cheers.

Similar thing happened when playing a local coffee house gig with my acoustic duo. We played requests, and did a version of Maria Muldaur’s “Midnight at the oasis “. A lady (who was friends with Mrs CP and myself) and normally liked what we played asked us not to play that song when she was there. When asked why, she replied that it was written by her ex-husband and she didn’t want reminding of him!

I’ve just had to Google ERB! Took me a while to suss out it wasn’t Epic Rap Battles, Edgar Rice Burroughs or Executive Review Board.... 😅

Slightly OT, but anyway ! A few years ago we let a DJ use our big PA at a function in a large Manchester hotel. Gave him strict instructions to not max it out with his crappy DJ mixer. All was good until we’d done our set, to a storming audience. The DJ followed us after our set, but as we were getting changed I noticed the level rise a lot. Got down to the function room to hear it absolutely blasting, but with a lack of top end. In an attempt to go down as well as our band, the tw*t had blown the horns in the rig. After a few weeks of heated exchanges with the DJ’s management we eventually got the repair bill covered, but so much hassle. Never happened again. I have occasionally lent my rig to other bands, but fortunately the need to do rarely happens doing our sort of gigs. Funnily enough though, last week it may have been required, but as the bassist in the other band was stage right and I set up stage left it wasn’t worth the messing around. Must admit was quite relieved TBH as didn’t know the guy etc. We did a glitzy industry awards do in the 90’s at a flash London hotel. Lots of minor celebs and some name acts / musicians in the audience. Couple of weeks before the gig I get a call from the bassist playing for one of the acts, asking if he could use my rig. Seemed an okay guy, so I told him what I’d got and he was grateful as he was only doing a handful of songs with a thrown together band and it would save him the hassle of lugging stuff into central London. Then he asked what bass I used, and could he use that? Told him politely that I’d rather he brought his own if that was okay. Then it went a bit odd, with him asking what year my Precision was (a 63 as it happened...). Told me his was a 62, and ( unlike mine) in the original finish . I replied that he’d obviously be better off using his then, and didn’t lend mine to anyone (let alone such a kn*b head). Anyway, after all this I thought he’d maybe be a good player so watched him on the gig, and he was decidedly average at best!

They're good combos Paul, so long as it's not going to get moved from it's (probably final?!) resting place! Not sure if the 10" speakers are the same as in the old 210TX cabs or not - IMHO brilliant sounding but 350 watts is the peak power, 175watts RMS handling IIRC. They may be uprated ones for the power of the combo though? My tech guy has always doubted the claims to be able to run comfortably into 2 ohms by Peavey, making the amp run really hot and possibly reducing it's lifespan. ( Am sure people on here may tell you otherwise though, my guy is an old school chap who doubts manufacturer's specs all the time!) If you don't get on with it, give me a shout - I have my old Trace AH500 head that is looking for it's final resting place soon I fear. Would be happy for you to have it mate. 🙂

Yeah, I used to sh*t myself on tricky DB gigs too....😂

Understood. Just seems a shame to risk damaging them by exposing them to the extremes of heat and cold that exists in most lofts. My 63 P-bass was rescued from a loft, and the paint peeled off in strips! Frets were green and the original case was damaged beyond repair. Amazingly the neck survived without being warped , but it took a lot of restoration.

Be careful putting guitars in lofts, especially at the moment with the current heatwave - you’ll need more than a set of hex keys to sort them out 😟

I now have my bass set with a lower action than I’ve ever had before, as I had started getting more aches and cramps in both hands. I turn the amp up more and play less hard than I used to, and (so far anyway) it seems to have done the trick. Am sure it won’t stop the ageing process but may just make it more manageable for the time being at least. 😐

Cheers Trev. Glad you had a good night, and your son as well. Thanks for the pics too - my monitor was riddled with a strange feedback through most of the gig so I was trying to ignore it, hence the rather stern expression you captured so well. 😅

Agreed, although I bet a lot of bassists (me included) rarely venture up there so maybe aren’t bothered? I quite enjoy routine check ups on intonation and action etc - always do this every 6-8 weeks when restringing. I remember getting an electronic tuner for the first time in the late 70’s which made the job so much more accurate and easy. Think it was quite a significant era for people to start doing their own set ups.

A colleague of mine a few years ago was meeting a friend of hers for lunch, and the friend arrived early so I chatted with her. She lived not far from me in a neighbouring village, and we made small talk about what local entertainment was around at the time, and of course I chatted about being in a band etc. At some point she mentioned her brother played guitar too, so I presumed she meant in the same area so I asked if I knew him? She said maybe , he has been with Elton John’s band for a while now - turned out to be Davey Johnstone.

His version of Steve Van Zandt's 'Ride the night away' is great. Jimmy recently joined Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul onstage for this tune when they were touring Australia earlier this year. My son-in-law is an Aussie , and couldn't believe how little known Jimmy was/is over here.

As I remember, loons were more fitted in the thigh than flared jeans, with a narrower waistband too. Often cotton / velvet material, thinner than denim. You could always find them for sale via mail order in the music paper small ads (Melody Maker and NME etc) where the same shops sold long sleeve scoop neck t-shirts , Afghan coats and tall fringed suede desert boots. Groovy...

Exactly this ^^^ I usually copy and paste some relevant details from the internet to hopefully stall the daft questions, but there’s always one or two who don’t get it. A while ago I was selling some passive JBL PA speakers, and did this, only to find that one guy turned up thinking they were active for some reason.

The Thorns - used in the last episode of Ricky Gervaise's 'Afterlife' .

Brilliant, thanks for posting. ‘Don’t play that song’ will be getting my attention ASAP, love that tune.

Friend of mine who used to make cases used an electric carving knife to cut the foam with great results.

Yeah, start with contacting the manufacturer. You could also consider having the driver repaired maybe? Try Wembley Loudspeaker for a quote. [email protected]

We did Conkers Amphitheatre Arena near Ashby-de-la-Zouch on Saturday night. It’s an open air gig in a lakeside setting situated in The National Forest. Around 700 people attended, full capacity - we do the gig every year and this seemed the busiest yet. Fortunately the weather held out for us, as even though there are canopies it can be a bit miserable if wet for the audience. A great band opened up the gig, The Surfin’ Llamas. A good mix of ska and Northern soul tunes got the crowd really livened up early. Bassist Pete had a MM Bongo 5 string and Barefaced cabs, sounded really good and their sax player was fabulous. We came on around 8.45 and did one long 90 min set, which made a nice change for us. Crowd were up pretty much from the start, so it made for a memorable gig. Nice crew and PA too, and we got rebooked for next year so happy days. As we usually do theatre gigs, these sort of venues make a really nice change for us. We’ve got another one this coming Friday at Hampton Pool so already looking forward to that, just hope the weather is okay. We are on with a Blondie tribute too so should be interesting.

Reminded me that I still have (and occasionally use) a couple of those grey Fender leads that used to come with their guitars and basses. Library pic below. Nigh on indestructible!

Here you go, a couple on ebay - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FISHER-PRICE-604E-Vintage-Crazy-Combo-Horn-Musical-Instrument-1984-Complete-Set/264296323348?hash=item3d8949d914:g:jo8AAOSweOdcD8eU https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Fisher-Price-1984-Crazy-Combo-Horn-Set-Collectable-Instrument/273919803272?hash=item3fc6e47f88:g:hxEAAOSwcb5dIi9q

Just what I was thinking - my grandchildren would love one of these!