casapete

Amazon currently have sets of D’Addario EXL170S strings on offer for £12.95. These are short scale, gauges 45/65/80/100. I bought some on a similar deal last year and they are fine. 😊

Not true I’m afraid - of the seven studio albums released by Macca in the 21st Century, some or all of his band ( Abe Laboriel Jnr, Brian Ray, Rusty Anderson and MD Paul Wickens ) appear on six of them. ( The 2012 album of old covers & standards is the exception, featuring many guest players but not his band). Saw them at Manchester in December and was blown away by their talent. 😊

Looks like him. He was on the tour at the York gig last week.

Interesting - we must have 3000+ tunes on it, and it’s never failed at all. Although we only use a couple of iPads with the duo, my guitarist pal uses a few iPads with forScore on his many gigs with varying band sizes, and I haven’t heard him saying he’s had any problems. ( The version we use was the paid for one, I don’t remember there being a free version but then again we’ve used it for years so thing may have changed.) 😊

Afternoon / early evening gig at The Imperial in Filey with blues trio ‘ The Alligators’. Small venue with no stage, but reasonable amount of room for us. Took my recently acquired Sire U5 short scale straight into Rumble 500 combo. We haven’t played since December, so nice to get back to it. I made one or two stupid mistakes but nothing to scare the horses. We’re having a rehearsal this week ( my 2nd with the band!) so hopefully we can refine some bits here and there. Anyway, the gig - comfortably full pub of people who had come out on a rainy afternoon to listen, including a lady who reckoned we’d played ‘Black Magic Woman’ for her before somewhere and asked for it again - the BL couldn’t remember it - so we did it for her anyway. Two sets of around 50 mins just flew by, and a great response from the audience. I love doing Sunday afternoon gigs, and even an hour away for me still home before 9pm.

Great idea - I did that when I broke my shoulder a few years ago. Bought a Roland synth with okay bass patches and sat down at the back of the band most of the time. Very liberating actually & I really enjoyed the experience, although the fact that due to not being able to drive at the time and was able to avail myself of the gratis refreshments on gigs may have clouded my memory. 😁

We had a similar Transit back in the late 70’s, only ours was an ex-ambulance. Our guitarist bought it at an auction and it was still kitted out with some medical items inside, much to our hilarity. The blue lights and most of the exterior local health authority decals had been removed, but it still looked like an ambulance. Went quite fast when it was going, which wasn’t very often. We got used to breaking down on the motorway, and regularly had bets as to what the problem was this time whilst waiting for the AA to arrive. It drank petrol at an alarming rate too. IIRC didn’t early Land Rovers have manual windscreen wipers too? May have dreamt that though.

We’ve used forScore with my duo for years with no problems whatsoever. A one time purchase , think it’s around £15 but well worth it IMO.

Definitely a good call, hope you enjoy still playing bass at home / recording etc. All the best.

Sorry to hear this, and hope your health issues improve very soon.

We used to have a spare ‘dep’ suit, which was for anyone who didn’t usually play with the band. As some of the deps we regularly used were quite often big lads, we had it made in a generous size. The occasional slimmer deps wearing this suit meant use of gaffer tape to keep the trousers from descending whilst playing. Great stuff gaffer isn’t it? 😆

When one of our sax players forgot to bring black shoes to a gig, I remember black gaffer tape being used to cover his white trainers, quite well IIRC. Same fella also had a hole in his black dinner suit trouser knee, so we used a Sharpie on his skin to disguise it. Had to do two marks though, one for playing sitting down and one for standing. 😆

Sorry to hear this Dave, although I understand your thinking. Like others have said, a break from things may result in you doing something that doesn’t involve driving across Scotland , and wearing four inch heels! I must admit the glam dressing up thing wouldn’t be for me, but understand it’s been a great band for you for some time. Don’t sell your gear if you don’t need to, and see how you feel after having some time to see how much you miss gigging. All the best to you with whatever you decide mate.

One of my early gigs with my old function band was at a hotel in Grimsby. As it was an 8 piece band and the stage was only a small recess in a wall near the dance floor, it was me, the drummer and keyboard player who squeezed onto it, leaving the brass section, guitarist and the singer to ‘work the floor’. Our recently acquired smoke machine was usually operated by the one of the sax players, but as the lead with the ‘on’ switch wasn’t long enough to reach him, I was given the task of using it. Very few punters dancing at this point, with most of them still in the dining room nearby, so I thought I’d see how hazy I could make it, egged on by the brass players and of course copious amounts of alcohol from the free bar. A short while afterwards I saw a couple of old people wander in, dressed in their pyjamas and nightwear. A few more then appeared in similar attire, and I wondered if it was a themed fancy dress do or something. Then next to appear were a couple of guys dressed as firemen, which I thought was even more bizarre, until I realised that the smoke had triggered off an alarm in reception which was linked to the fire brigade. The people in nightwear were guests asleep upstairs and were woken to be told to evacuate the hotel by the firemen, who came over to us to advise us to do the same until they could determine the whereabouts of the fire/ smoke. It was then that the penny dropped and they realised what had triggered the fire alarms, and gave us a lot of grief ( quite rightly too) about their unnecessary call out. The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful after that, and needless to say the band never played there again.

I agree. A few years ago one of mine snapped and my tech guy fitted a replacement which was of far better quality - chunky and easy to change the battery. Didn’t ask him where he’d sourced it unfortunately but am sure there must be some out there. An electro acoustic bass of mine has one of those nifty little compartments where you just insert the battery with no connector needed. Bit like the MM ones IIRC, a definite improvement.

I used GK cabs for a long time. Had two Neo 410 cabs and they were great paired with my GK 1001RB amp head. Never missed a beat or came anywhere near farting out. Also had an older 410 and a 210 ( ceramic drivers) which were also okay.

Bowie’s ’Rebel Rebel’. Apparently written with the intention of him wanting it to have a Stones vibe. Also ‘ Watch that man’. The Georgia Satellites ‘Keep your hands to yourself’. Sheryl Crow - ‘If it makes you happy’ & ‘My favourite mistake’ Them / Van Morrison - ‘Gloria’. The Faces - ‘Stay with me’ ( featuring a current Rolling Stone 😁).

Played our monthly residency yesterday afternoon at Beverley’s The Sun Inn (with the duo). Fairly quiet when we arrived, but just before we started our first set loads of people appeared so it was pretty full by the time we got going. Usual request format produced some good stuff - ‘Rehab’, ‘Listen to the music’ & ‘Fire and rain’ , some ok stuff - ‘Summer of 69’, ‘Dakota’ & ‘Hotel California’, and some downright silly stuff - ‘Bring me Sunshine’ & ‘Happiness’. The last two sparked more requests for vintage TV related tunes which we drew the line with after playing ‘Avenues and Alleyways’ ( from the cult early 70’s series ‘The Protectors’ ). Hardest one of the night for me was the Dave Edmund’s tune ‘Girl’s Talk’. A great song written by Elvis Costello that has some strangely timed bits before each chorus, but we managed to get through it okay. Finished late due to the amount of requests but didn’t really notice as it’s one of those gigs where you easily lose track. Used a Sire U5 short scale into my Rumble 100 combo > the PA and was very pleased with the result. May have to start calling the duo ‘partly acoustic’ now though. 😄

Should be a good gig, right in the heart of student land too! Upstairs room so be prepared, but will be a cracking night I’m sure. Have a good one!

That’s Albert Lee with Peter Asher Daryl. Great gig and nice pictures!

Sorry to hear some people are struggling with gigs. I’ve had 4 this January, with 5 coming up in February and then 7 in March. Mainly duo stuff plus a few pub gigs for the blues trio. The duo has 3 regular monthly residencies which helps a lot though. People I know in other bands have been saying that pub gigs are getting harder to source, and fees are the same as they’ve been for a long time too.

Me too! I’ve used various basses over the years with the duo - ones that got the most interest were my Countryman uke bass, Taylor mini bass and Washburn AB20.

Thanks, it is a lot of fun. It’s great when we nail stuff, and often great when we don’t! The audiences appreciate us attempting their requests, and are usually very gracious if we miss the mark slightly. Also if we get a request for a song that we can’t do, we’ll try and do another by that artist - handy when some wag asks for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ etc. Sometimes when people continue to ask for stuff we’ll give in - some songs we’ve done include ‘Bat out of hell’ , ‘Stairway to heaven’ and ‘Africa’ which was pretty tricky. Last night the daughter of a couple who are regulars asked for a song by Ariana Grande, so we’ll have to consider something by her. A good song is a good song so if it can be done we’ll give it a go!