casapete

Bit of an odd one for me last night, depping at a local club in a 3 piece band - and I was the guitarist! Big club in East Hull with the last resident band. Used their amp ( a variety of VoxAC30) which wasn’t great so wish I’d taken my Fender 65 Deluxe but never mind. Got there at 7pm, the room already full of punters. Couple of old friends on bass and drums, so great to see them. We basically played before and in between the bingo and the main act, a duo from Bradford doing soul stuff with backing tracks. Finished by 11.15, got paid & home around midnight so an okay evening for me. Made me realise how much I prefer playing bass though ( despite this being my 2nd guitar gig in 2 months! ). Whilst I enjoy playing a variety of places, I also couldn’t play social clubs regularly - started out doing them nearly 50 years ago and they’re still broadly the same if last night was an indication. Couldn’t be further apart from playing theatres which I’ve been used to for the last 15 years. Still, a gig’s a gig! 😄 (Photo added - am playing a 54 / 40th Anniversary Strat into some AC30 house amp.)

Some great stuff on Sky Arts ( Freeview channel 36) tonight - Hitsville : The Making of Motown at 7.30pm, followed by Mr Dynamite : The Rise of James Brown at 9.30pm.

I've heard a few similar comments from Embassy owners. What is strange is the Embassy looks like a short scale but is a regular 34 inch job, whilst the Thunderbird is the same scale length but looks longer!

One of the first gigs I ever attended was Wishbone Ash at Hull City Hall in the early 70’s. Martin Turner was playing a Thunderbird and remember it sounding amazing.

Been playing with Dave on and off for a long time, he’s a gem of a player. Also great on acoustic guitar, mandolin and banjo - he calls himself a string wrangler! Yeh, he has. Sometimes forgets which instrument ( steel or guitar ) he plays on some songs which cracks us up. Annoyingly he’s so good on both that he can blag it too! It’s just a shame I don’t get to gig with him more regularly. Amazingly another of my friends also plays pedal steel, as well as other stuff. I’ve known both guys for around 50 years now, so been blessed with some lovely steel sounds for decades. Both have met BJ Cole and rate him highly, and also know Gerry Hogan who used to gig with Albert Lee.

Thunderbirds are regular long scale basses (34 inch) but do feel longer due to their design. I’ve tried a few and could never understand how some people get on with them, same with a Gibson Firebird guitar I once owned. The neck just seems so long and unwieldy, but maybe it’s just me. I’ve never tried anything boutique or very top end, always preferring more ‘traditional’ basses that reflect my more errr…basic style of playing. 😆

Played at a birthday party this week in Oughtibridge near Sheffield with our (very) occasional country band ‘The Fork Handles’. A 4 piece outfit up of myself on bass, my best mate on guitar, and old friends on guitar/pedal steel and drums. We all sing lead & harmony vocals. The venue was ‘The Pheasant’, a lovely old pub owned by an old friend ( who used to run the cafe in Hull where our acoustic duo first performed). Bit of an awkward room to set up in (long and thin) with us at one end and the bar down one side, but we managed to get there early and soundcheck so got it sounding okay. Previous gigs with the band have often ended up being too loud but this time we all managed to keep it under control and subsequently all the better for it. Fairly standard country rock tunes got people dancing in the first set, and by the second one most of the audience were up. All over too soon, but overall a great gig. Made me appreciate how much I enjoy having a pedal steel player in the line up - Dave Holley is a great musician, and no slouch on a Telecaster too! No pics of the band playing (unless some surface from the guests) , but obligatory shots taken during set up. I used my Precision Lyte into a Rumble 500 combo, perfect for this gig.

Nope, obvs!

Met up with Neil today in Goole to help shorten his journey to collect a Taylor bass I recently sold him. Absolutely top man, one of those BC members who you know is what makes this community so good. (Hope you love the bass Neil, and we get to meet again soon, either bass related or on a walk!) Highly recommended, deal with confidence.

Afraid not - I would think you may be needing the services of someone handy with a spray gun. I’m sure someone here may be able to suggest someone. Also have a look here in Gear / Build diaries for ideas. Good luck!

Is that the one where The Banana Splits should have had a lawsuit going? 😆

Absolutely this. We had a situation once where our 8 piece function band were somehow double booked ( not our fault IIRC). The solution? Two bands went out that day to separate events, each with 4 'original' members and 4 deps. Far from ideal, but two wedding receptions were saved and we also saved our reputation in the process.

I think the two posts ( Lozz and Kitsto) above nail it really - a band needs someone to lead / navigate it but must have the support of everyone else too, with agreed aims and how to achieve them. (I’ll shut up now, am beginning to sound like some corporate training tw*t) 😆

I feel your pain Mick. For years I was in a successful function band, all better players than myself ( 8 piece band) but most of them with problems that reared their head on nearly every gig. We could have definitely got to a much higher level if only people could control their personal problems - drink, drugs, other work, egos, constant moaning about everything etc. They just couldn't see what a good situation we were in already compared to a lot of other bands. In the end I couldn’t stand it any longer, and jumped ship to another band, which couldn’t have been more the opposite. Lovely people, well organised and fun to be with. We did really well and I loved every minute. Maybe it’s time to break from your band and look for a new direction, something where the running of it is on a more equal basis? That’s if your current problems with the band can’t be overcome or achieve a compromise? If it’s starting to affect your good nature then it sounds like changes will need to be made.

I’ll raise you with ‘Living on an island’, and then ‘Marguerita Time’. (Their original bassist Alan Lancaster disliked MT that much that he refused to appear on TOTP promoting it so the band got Jim Lea from Slade to mime along.)

I find it amazing in these ‘enlightened’ times that this is deemed okay by certain females. Can you imagine if this was a man touching up a woman, and the possible outcome? Dreadful behaviour.

Guilty as charged m’lud! 😆 I think it’s more a case of knowing that ‘famous’ people will generally be guaranteed to do a great job and not make your band seem incompetent. Having said that, over the years we’ve had one or two names (who were probably a little bit ‘tired and emotional’ ) get up to play who on reflection maybe shouldn’t have! All good fun though.

With our duo we have a policy of never letting people get up at all - once you do then you’re forever getting people wanting to have a go. In the blues band I play with, it’s a touch more relaxed - had a couple of drummers get up with us at the weekend ( see previous post above) , one who was pretty grim and the other bloody amazing - ex Status Quo drummer Jeff Rich. Lovely bloke too.

Ah, the trick is not to tell them you’ve bought a job lot, just have one or two handy for yourself if you need them, and then keep your used ones to give out to the unprepared ones ( okay, guitarist) 😆

Not my favourite Springsteen album by a long way, but still has some gems - My hometown, Cover me, I’m on fire and even Dancing in the dark which I didn’t like on first hearing but grew into doing so after it being everywhere.

I suffered the same situation in a previous band, where people knew I’d always have some new spares. Incidentally though mine worked out around only a quid each - Duracell Procells via eBay if buying a box of 10. Made the loss a bit easier to bear!

Played our monthly Sunday late afternoon gig at The Sun Inn in Beverley. Very quiet when we arrived so we were worried the great weather had kept people at home having BBQs in their gardens. However around 4.30pm people started to come in so by the time we kicked off at 5pm it was getting full. Plenty of requests, ranging from Tony Bennett through to Del Amitri and George Ezra. Some old friends in too so great to have a catch up in the breaks. Fortunately I also remembered to take my big electric fan otherwise the heat would have been a problem- as it was I’d just restrung my Ibanez bass and had to tune every couple of songs. Ended up doing a couple of encores before finishing around 8.30pm. Really enjoyable gig.

Wonderful amps. Had a lot of GK stuff over the years, my favourite being my 800RB which I must have now owned for maybe 20 years (pic below).The 400RB in the same series sound very close to this one and as you say, are loud things. The later models such as the 700RB and 1001RB are also brilliant amps, just not quite the same as the earlier ones though IMHO. I used the 1001RB for over 10 years touring and it never missed a beat. When you can get quality class AB amps like this that weigh around 22lbs, it does narrow the advantage class D lightweight amps usually have. I had the MB800 and MB500 and liked both, but the RB models are still my favourites.