casapete

Just got in from a wedding gig, local-ish and quite well paid. Large marquee at the back of a Georgian town house in a big garden in the university area of Hull. Nightmare of a get in - either through the front way via garage / long windy garden path / into the bar area then right down the full length of the marquee to the stage, or - drive down some back street to some massive locked iron gates, through which there’s an narrow alley ( they call them tenfoots round here..!). After 50yds there’s a pair new large pine gates, leading into the rear garden and the back of the marquee. Because the tenfoot is so narrow you can’t swing the van into the garden, so we decide to lift the large gate ( maybe 12 foot long by 8 high) off it’s hinges to widen the angle. As we’re doing this, a guy who looks a lot like Lemmy emerges from the adjoining terraced house and starts to chat. Turns out the booker doesn’t have right of access to the garden despite the new pine gates, and no key to the iron gates at the end. Says he’ll be around later if we need him to let us out etc so we thank him and crack on. Get the van in and unload it. We do the gig, go down well with over 200 guests and the happy couple all enjoying it. Finish our second set, then strike the gear down and load it into the van. Yes , you’ve guessed it- the best man ,who was rather tired and emotional earlier on, is nowhere to be found and he has a key to the iron gates, so we get his mate to go and knock at Lemmys door to see if we can borrow his. Lemmy not in! Fortunately another resident, lovely Romanian guy called Mihail, sees our dilemma and helps us out using his keys, despite a slight language barrier. All this happened in virtual darkness with a steady rain shower drenching us as well! So relieved we can escape after a long sweaty gig, thank god ones like these don’t happen too often.

Our first gig for nearly 6 weeks at Leicester De Montfort Hall last night. Audience of around 1000 all up for a good time, plenty of interaction and dancing. We had our flakey moments, including a keyboard crashing on the opening song, but end result was okay thank goodness. A great venue, with top crew and staff as well, certainly one of our favourite gigs.

As a Danelectro fan , I’m bound to agree to a certain extent! Does my Longhorn have the ‘best’ tone of my basses? Maybe not, but it’s probably my favourite nevertheless. There is a lot of pleasure for me to be had from getting good results from stuff that hasn’t cost an arm and a leg , and the arguments over where instruments were made / materials used can get tedious. You just know when something feels and sounds good to you, and can hopefully see beyond the hype that often surrounds buying an instrument. The gap in quality has narrowed so much over recent years between budget / medium to upper end basses, and it’s a great time to be starting out buying kit now.

Really feel for you Andy, and hope that you can make some progress following your appointment in June. Take care, all the best.

Just got an email offering 10% discount on orders before June 4th 2018. Code to use at the checkout is GDPBLAH Cheers.

Great tunes, all of 'em. KC and the Sunshine Band did some great stuff and pioneered 'disco' styles before everyone else jumped onboard, as well as masterminding the sublime 'Rock your baby' by George McCrae.

I suspect I'm not really the ideal demographic for such an event, but when I looked at the list below there seemed to be plenty of newer type acts appearing alongside the more established bands? https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/efj3v2/artists/by/a-z

I knew a guy like that. He used to (annoyingly) put his cases behind him on stage for easy access too. Whilst I'm all for a reasonably smartish get out of a gig, I really don't get what the rush is to save a few minutes afterwards, and it can give the wrong impression to bookers if the band are rushing around as soon as the last note has died away. Our band used to call them 'Doris Day' gigs ( quick pack away, quick pack away etc.... apologies to younger BC ers.)

When I was in function world, we often couldn't pack down until the end of the gig so inevitably 'mingling' occurred before that. Some members of the band could mingle so much they were useless at the pack down anyway.....

Amazing line up, but I didn’t manage to watch all of it so will try and see more on catch up. Of the stuff I did see - Florence and the Machine - just don’t get it at all. Dodgy vocal and dreary songs. Squeeze - excellent , with Yolanda Charles on bass sounding fab too. Liam G - okay but the vocal gets in the way for me after a while. Noel G - enjoyed it, and nice encore of the Beatles ‘All you need is love’ Sam Smith - another artist I don’t get. His voice is just a succession of vowel sounds... Billy Ocean - lots of great tunes, bass and drums sounded excellent too. Christine and the Queens - wasn’t sure if she was miming in places? Ed Sheeran - good performance as usual. Paloma Faith - enjoyed her set, band sounded excellent.

+1 for a s/h Fender Rumble 500 V3. You may just get lucky in your price range, but they don't come up that often (for good reason!). If you do decide to go heavy, there are some great Trace Elliot bargains to be had if you do a bit of digging. For example these two heads - https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-bass-amplifiers/trace-elliot-ah250/1299245893 https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-bass-amplifiers/trace-elliot-ah350x-350w-bass-amp-head.-used-and-in-good-cosmetic-and-working-order./1294505807 Would leave a fair amount of your budget for a suitable cab too

I used to be a bit like that, till I had issues with my shoulder and hand that makes a high action too much. When playing guitar I still prefer the action a bit higher than most I think, can't be doing with stupidly low sets ups that rattle and choke etc. Mind you, I also prefer big round necks too, so must be a bit of a masochist

One of the first 45's I ever bought was 'I'm a man' by Chicago, on the old orange CBS label. It had this amazing song on the B side, which blew my 11 year old mind at the time. Didn't get the first 1.15 of piano TBH, but then when the full thing kicks in, wow! Swings like crazy, and started me off in my appreciation of great brass sections.

Dep bass player and hire the PA to them.

One of the few brands that I’ve never played a bad example of is Musicman. Sure, there’s been ones I’ve preferred over others, but their excellent quality has always been pretty consistent to me. Maybe the one you tried had been messed with or something? Agree with you about Yamaha too - never tried a duffer, even the cheaper ranges.

Shouldn't that just read '....was cheap' ?!!

+1 to both posts above. As Lozz said, Fender Rumble range all punch above their weight in volume and tones available, are lightweight and priced fairly IMO. Great amps - the 200 or 500 combos will see you well through most gig scenarios.

That's what I thought when I first saw it TBH. My mate who sent it said there are others on YouTube nearly as bad though, so am guessing it's for real.

I’ve tried a couple of Taylor GS Mini basses and loved them! One man’s meat etc.....

Did a gig in central Paris with my band. Took a Transit and a car, and didn’t have any problems - no worse than any other major city anyway. Agree with the comment above regarding bump parking though - saw evidence of it a lot. Check that you have what you need for driving in France now -spare bulbs, reflective jackets, warning triangle etc. Also an updated sat nav, and check if you need the recently introduced ‘Clean Air’ stickers for your vehicle.