cheddatom

If hard hitting, exciting drumming is your thing, check out my mate Sam 

Rough Trade in Nottingham on Friday night. I love playing here, there's something very cool about this place. This is our stripped back acoustic set, so you'd think the sound engineer would also strip back, but no, two mics on the bass drum (with no resonant head), close mic on the snare and hats. A good 10 minutes of EQing the drums. 5 mins EQing each vocal mic etc. During sound check I have to admit I was internally rolling my eyes a bit, but I've never heard so many compliments about the sound, and it was great on stage, so, shows what I know!

About halfway through our set, an un-known punter with a very striking appearance made their way to the front. It was difficult to concentrate while she twerked, spanked herself, rolled around on stage legs akimbo, and periodically tried to stuff her bosom back into her "top". Very entertaining. There's footage on the internet but I'm not sure it's fair to share it around. Here's the setup from sound check

Compass Cafe in Blackpool on Saturday. Only 70 people in here but it can't really fit any more. I had to do our sound so only one mic on the bass drum  I absolutely hate doing live sound, and there's no way you can do it properly from on stage behind a drum kit, but whatever, we got away with it. This might be the only venue where I can order a beer from my drum stool

I played 6 strings most of the time before my wrist injury. I did use a 4 string for a stoner/doom band as I thought the 6s might have looked a bit silly. Personally, I prefer to have all the notes accessible without sliding up and down the neck

I've had to switch to short scale bass only now, so my 6 strings just sit there at home looking pretty and making me frustrated. I might sell them soon. I'm hoping someone might start making a short scale 6 string at a budget price

If I get 30 mins in a dressing room before we go on it's fine, I get to warm up. If I go from loading on to playing, I'm a bit screwed. I don't think any amount of banana, shaken or otherwise, is going to solve that, although I appreciate the kind thought. Imagine trying to peel a banana while the sound guy is shouting for you to hit the rack tom!

Our "Almost Acoustic" set in Stoke on Saturday. A tiny venue and totally sold out. I have a bass drum, snare, hats and a cymbal. I'm not sure the reason for it but it's good fun. Our bassist switches to his acoustic bass which is 5 string, and it's so nice to have the extra low notes. I sometimes wish he'd go back to his 5 string Bass Collections but he loves his Fender P. We played 1.5 hours but it was so chilled out I barely broke a sweat. Apologies for the terrible photo, I only took it to show off my cymbal to a mate.

Rock City on the main stage as part of the Beat The Streets festival. We've done other stages at this festival a few times and it's always good, but to be back on at my favourite venue was a real treat. Awesome sound as always. A full on 30 minutes set. I had no time to warm up, broke two sticks, and had to fight through cramp, but it was a bit more exciting than the "acoustic" set. I was drenched!

The first time someone asked for my set list I was completely freaked out. I had no idea why they might want it but they took it and asked me to sign it, which freaked me out even more. That was probably 7 years ago or so. Now it's every single gig, signing CDs, Vinyl, and always set lists. People have collections of our setlists and they compare them. We don't get played on the radio or anything so it's still weird, but I got used to it.

Bit late on these but it's an amusing juxtaposition... Friday 6th Jan, Great British Folk Festival. Our guitarist donned his Crass T-Shirt but other than that we played a very civilised acoustic/folk set to a massive sitting audience. Polite applause at the end of each song is all we got, but no-one left the room which was near capacity. Apparently it was a great reaction from this crowd, just a lot more subdued than we're used to.

Wednesday 11th at the 100 Club supporting Subhumans couldn't have been more different. The venue is about 1/4 of the size for a start. It was absolutely rammed and they went crazy for us, even though most people were there for Subhumans. I love the 100 Club but it's very difficult because of the shape of the room. The PA fires everything straight at the back wall which immediately bounces back on stage. I was absolutely hammering the drums just to make myself heard on stage. I've never had so many compliments after a gig so we obviously did something right. 

I got a pretty bad concussion at the start of 3 days drinking in France. I thought I was fine, got home to the UK, then straight to a gig. I thought it was weird that everyone in Uttoxeter was speaking French but I just went with it. When it came time to play I had no idea what was going on. I remember going out of time (on drums) loads and getting a few "looks". Oops!

Surely the people losing the most record sales are the ones in the charts with mass audiences. The local metal bands I go to see are selling tapes and vinyl to hipsters. I started gigging 25 years ago, and most of the original bands I spoke to weren't making money at all. They'd sell some CDs and merch, and occasionally get paid for a gig. Not much has changed about that. The big change is that the bigger artists on big labels are no longer shifting the physical product they once were

Anyway, my band are doing OK but it still amazes me when fans think we do it for a living. One lady properly guffawed when I mentioned my job as an IT guy "I thought you were a rock star but you're just a geek!"

I guess there were also people getting a fair bit of royalties from radio play but I don't know a lot about that. I imagine royalties are less now there are fewer listeners.

we can produce our own product cheaper than ever, and we can reach a wider audience than ever, we just have to convince people to buy direct rather than (or as well as) streaming

We gig loads, and sell loads of CDs and vinyl at gigs. All our albums are on streaming services but not many people listen at all. I can think of a few reasons:

• all the fans have the physical product and prefer that
• all the fans are old and scared of streaming/technology
• the fans just like the gigs, and buy the music to support the band, rather than listen to

18 hours ago, Obrienp said:

Yeah, that is the problem but that Brice looks a lot of bass for £300!

Just tried to buy it but it's discontinued

Good shout! My first 6 string bass was a Brice from Rondo and I still have it! Just can't play long-scale basses any more

2 minutes ago, eude said:

Yeah, split new, you'd probably need at least 5 times that  

One day

1 minute ago, eude said:

 

 

Yes indeed, I have 3 31.5" scale ACGs tuned B to C.

your instruments look amazing but I'm assuming they're way out of my budget (circa £500)

yeh I was hoping someone might know of one that's "off the shelf" IE cheap(er)

Are there any short scale 6 string basses? Like a proper 6 string bass tuned B, E, A, D, G, C but short scale?

Saturday night at Cafe Indie in Scunthorpe. So many stairs to load in, I was sweating before I'd even started to set up! They had a brand new set of monitors, some sort of passive d&b things, but apparently they were totally maxed out and we could barely hear them. I switched to a quieter snare drum which seemed to pacify the singer somewhat, but it was still a terrible on stage sound. Apparently it was great out front so I guess the engineer did their best with the equipment available. Still, it makes for hard work

Sunday afternoon at the Black Bull in Gateshead. This is a proper punk venue. No dressing room but as much beer as you can drink. This was a "matinee show" which our singer has started doing on Sundays, so we were on just after 5pm. It didn't feel that early in such a dark venue, and everyone had been drinking for a while. The landlord did the sound from around the corner. One monitor at the front of the stage, one on-top of the PA stack to one side, firing across the front... after Saturday night my hopes were not high, but somehow this guy got an awesome sound out of his rig. We've been playing some proper big professional shows recently, and this little punk venue in Gateshead had the best sound we've had for ages! 

That was the last gig of the year for us, nothing now until January. I might get some sleep!

I'm hearing a lot of panic from promoters and the like, and we have had a couple cancelled due to low sales, but every gig I've played seems to be as well attended as I expect. We've got loads in for 2023

Katie Fitzgerald's in Stourbridge last night. It's a small venue, and I'm bringing acoustic drums, so sound is always going to be tough. I tried my best to control volume but got most of the blame for the terrible on stage sound

Personally I'd blame the fact that the gain was too high on every channel (could clearly hear horrible clipping), the vocal monitors were tiny 10" 100W Behringer jobbies, and the engineer wasn't sure which monitor was on which send

Anyway, as usual, we went down well, loads of compliments after, sold a load of merch etc. so it really don't matter how it sounds on stage, as long as we keep our cool and do our best

The old cold store in Nottingham last night. So nice to be playing my own drums again after a 10 date tour using small sizes on a shared kit

We played 1.5 hours which is very tiring, but an enthusiastic crowd provided the adrenaline to get me through 

2 years old but this is the first track from my lockdown album, plenty of angry tracks on there

1 hour ago, TimR said:

 

Everyone should be keeping time. It's not the drummers job to keep time for the band. 

 

Knowing when a bass player (or drummer) is pushing or pulling the beat (not speeding up or slowing down the time) is a good skill to learn.

 

 

I'm not talking about playing infront or behind the beat, I'm talking about other musicians trying to speed up (or slow down) the song against the drummers steady beat. I absolutely hate it when people do this. It sounds terrible, and it's patronising to the drummer. The worst is when they start stamping their foot on stage trying to indicate to the drummer that they should speed up. F OFF!!!!

I see a few bassists suggesting they're helping the drummer keep time. If you start trying to push or drag me I just play louder and stare at you

On 24/10/2022 at 21:55, Boodang said:

1. Turns up with a set of spare strings as opposed to the statement 'I've never broken a string yet!'...

I hope that's not a reference to my bassist!! 🤣

I play a lot of drums. I like a bassist who doesn't have too much low end in his sound. It's really quite common for bassists to think they need a big booming load of bass that fills the room and it's impossible to play with

Prague last night was hot and sweaty, a perfect end to the tour. On the way home now. What an experience! Hopefully I'll get to do it again some day