casapete

Oh and absolutely this too!

Absolutely this.

I’ve been playing in bands for over 50 years, of which over 30 were to earn a living. It’s so ingrained in my life that I just couldn’t imagine not doing it. I’m 67 and still in reasonably good health, although some days feel like 77! I’m currently in two regular set ups - an acoustic duo with my best mate, and a blues rock trio with other friends. I chose to leave my last pro gig mainly to wanting to be more at home due to Mrs CP having some major health issues. Fortunately she is doing well, and I now do mainly local gigs with no overnight stays. I refer to myself as ‘semi-retired’. My gig money, although not essential, is a welcome addition to our finances, and although I enjoy all the gigs I do it’s still nice to be paid well for them. For me it’s also about the camaraderie ( all my friends are musicians who I often meet up with for coffee / lunch etc) and just getting out there. I’ve been blessed with doing something great for a job rather than slogging away for years in an unhappy work situation, so I never take it for granted. I have no plans to stop playing music live until I’m unable to do so, so fingers crossed!

Yet they won’t let me advertise my old iPhone on Marketplace - they insist it’s counterfeit! As if a pro counterfeiter would be bothered selling something for £40! Unbelieveable.

Dodgy as! Les Pauls for £125? Avoid.

Just got back from doing a last minute dep at a local club’s rock and roll night. My buddy in our acoustic duo does the gig every week, but the regular bassist was unavailable so I got the call. Ended up using his MarkBass combo ( which wasn't a patch on my Rumble 500 which I should have taken really.) Took my passive P- Lyte as I knew there was a lot of playing. Still, a good night playing some old school dance tunes along with a few I’d not heard in years. Guitar, bass and drums trio - drummer is a nice player who keeps it simple and straight and doesn’t speed up or slow down. Particularly important on this gig as most of the audience go to dance all evening so tempos are quite crucial. Some nice comments afterwards and home by 11.45pm so happy days.

Bruce Springsteen and the mighty E Street Band last night at Co-Op Live in Manchester. Seen Bruce many times but not for a while so hoped he’d still be up for it, and he absolutely was! They played for over two and a half hours straight through, with no signs of tiredness or slowing down. As well as Bruce, incredible performances from all of the 17 piece band, especially Max Weinberg on drums and the very cool Gary W. Tallent on bass. Gary mainly used a short scale Spector, but also a Guild Starfire semi in natural which sounded immense. Nils Lofgen was also on fire, being given quite a few extended guitar solos. A great sound for such a large venue, and well organised inside too. Shame the parking was so hit and miss though - okay getting in but dreadful queues on the way out mainly caused by conflicting crowds from the Etihad stadium next door. The football crowd should have been gone before we left ( kickoff at 8pm) but in a brilliant lack of consideration there was an extra 30 mins or so added to the game ( a special leaving feature or something) which meant both arenas emptied at exactly the same time. 70,000+ people trying to get away simultaneously meant a lot of frustration for all. Then our journey home involved two lengthy diversions off the M62 so I got in around 2am. Still, an amazing evening with an amazing band, wonderful.

May 17th 2007 for me. Ex Bassworld too, although not for long. Was slogging away in an 8 piece pro function band at the time, seems like eons ago. Didn’t do any other forum or social media for years, just this one. Sold and bought a fair amount of basses and amps over the years, and met some top folk along the way. 😀

The nice GK amp will certainly be more than partly responsible too.😊

The parking there is a bit of joke from my experience. We went to see Macca there in December, and my son in law booked a disabled space as he’s in a wheelchair. When we arrived the football had already started in the stadium next door and someone had parked in our allocated ( and paid for ) space. I took this up with one of the parking staff who was apologetic but said they couldn’t ensure people didn’t park in the wrong spaces. Pretty crap for us as we needed the space around the car that the disabled bays offered. In the end I found a space on the end of a row and we managed okay but it was a bit of a struggle. 😡 Apparently the football match this Tuesday is starting after the Springsteen gig does, so hopefully we’ll be in with a chance this time.

Here’s the response to Trump from the American Federation of Musicians -

Seen him a few times but not for over 20 years so fingers crossed. The E Street Band are one of the best bands I’ve ever witnessed, and I’m a massive Steve Van Zandt fan too so expecting a good show. The superb Eddie Manion on baritone sax as well, another favourite from The Asbury Jukes.

Going to see Springsteen in Manchester on 20th May. Not seen him for a long time, and he’s now 75 so may not be quite the 3+ hour sets like he used to do. Still, really looking forward to hearing the band (17 piece) making a wonderful noise.

Sky Arts tonight Saturday) on Freeview at 7pm - Jeff Beck Live at Ronnie Scott’s , followed by The Jeff Beck Story at 9pm.

Great song, with a fine Chris Spedding guitar solo largely based around one note IIRC.

Guy Pratt has appeared on many of Bryan Ferry’s albums over the years, along with ace guitarist Chris Spedding who started working with Bryan early on in his solo career. He also toured with Roxy.

Just seen this on FB

We played at an open mic type evening yesterday. It’s a weekly session at St John’s pub in Hull, and run by an old friend of ours who is a sound engineer, and a lovely bloke. Anyway, each week they have an act on first ( who get paid) followed by various folk doing their thing, be it covers / originals / spoken word etc. Our friend has been asking us ( acoustic duo) to do the opening set for a while, so we relented and gave it a go. There was a great PA to use ( QSC etc) so a fairly easy job to set up in the tiny room. We did an hour of various stuff, working from a set list rather than our more usual requests format. I actually found it a bit daunting being in such a small room, crammed with people including a lot of musos. We settled into it after the first couple of tunes, opening with an instrumental version of ‘ I heard it through the grapevine’ and then working through some blues, country and rock stuff. It went very quickly, and we got an encore too so people seemed to like what we did. It made an interesting change from our usual gigs so glad we did it - we’ve been asked back so happy days. Fender Kingman bass / Rumble 100 / Clark’s boots

I think it’s an old 210 watt mixer amp. We use it with a pair of 1x10 passive cabs ( just for two vocal mics ) and it’s actually pretty good! Bloody heavy though. On every gig we just turn it on and don’t touch any settings and it sounds great, whatever the room. No soundchecks needed! One day it will surely conk out I reckon, but old Peavey USA stuff was always pretty bombproof - I had a Mark111 bass amp from the same era and it was just as reliable.

I played two gigs this weekend with blues rock band ‘ The Alligators’. Saturday night we were at a pub on the east coast, which we’d done before. Not many punters in when we started our first set, and then quite a few left due to a guy who was off his head ( not from drink) floundering dangerously around the dance floor in front of the small stage. At one point he tried climbing the stairs onto the stage, so I stopped playing and gave him my best death stare, something I’m not great at to be fair. Amazingly he backed off ( thank god) but by this time the damage was done. Second set was brought forward and only saved by a group of ladies coming in on a night out. Got paid and then beat a hasty retreat - we have two more dates at this venue later in the year, but I’m not keen to return. Sunday’s gig was entirely different, thank goodness. Nice pub in Filey where we played a late afternoon session, starting at 4pm and finishing around 6.30pm. We had nearly a full pub of blues fans, including a few local musos, and went down really well. The landlady is soon moving to another venue in West Yorkshire and wants us to play there, so could be interesting. Used my usual passive Precision Lyte straight into my Rumble 500, along with a very comfortable ( but potentially uncool/embarrassing ) pair of Clark’s trainers. No photos of the gigs, but a nice one of Filey looking towards Bempton Cliffs RSPB reserve. Also for the vintage gear heads, a shot of our ancient ( (1970’s?) Peavey PA amp - and yes, those are jack inputs 😆

Antique / junk shops, car boots, auctions, eBay, Etsy etc etc as others have mentioned. Or how about this? Vintage ‘Wash Board’ for £22 - gdads.co.uk Or even this although £56.44 - amazon.co.uk Search for ‘Behrens BWBG12 Galvanized Washboard, Large’ Same Behrens model as the Amazon one available for £37.50 - desertcart.co.uk Good luck! 👍

This ^^^ 100% ! We had a similar gig yesterday, our regular slot at The Sun Inn, Beverley. It was pretty full by the time we arrived at 4.30pm, then absolutely rammed by the time we kicked off at 5.30pm. Obviously the bank holiday had a fair part to play in the amount of people coming in, but we managed to keep them from moving on to other local drinking places. We did our usual request thing, and probably the most we’ve ever had. ‘Dad rock’ was the main theme on a lot of them , so we hit them up with ‘’Smoke on the water’, ‘Highway to Hell’ and ‘Stairway…’. These were intertwined with ‘Copacabana’ , ‘Don’t dream it’s over’ and the awful ‘Hi Ho Silver lining’ Drink does appear to affect a lot of people’s preferences it would seem. Funniest thing was when a group of young lads came in, with a trophy held high as they’d just won it at a local football tournament. As they were about to be served one of the bar staff asked what the team was called, to be told it was a village under 18 side!! A swift exit followed ….. No pics taken, except for the lovely Beverley Minster as we were loading out.

Probably just under an hour then I reckon. 🙂

Where are you Mike?