borntohang

No smoke needed mate, if you hadn't put us onto Keith I would never have starting picking up sessions and there's no way I'd have done half of what I'm doing now. If we're ever down in the area I'll give you shout.

Jay is the man and I can't recommend him enough. I've played with him up here in Yorkshire, and apart from an inexplicable enjoyment of being up to his derrière in mud, diesel, and firewood he's a great guy and a great player. I've played some fantastic music with him, had a lot of good times, and he's been directly responsible for the trajectory of my musical career on more than one occasion over the last ten years. We're all sad to lose him to the South, but you guys need him more than us! Best of luck in the brave new world, big guy. x

Off top of my head we've played with at least three: Noasis, Oasish, and Definitely Oasis. My favourite part of doing tribute festivals is checking out band names tbh: laziest was a tie between The Killerz and Antarctic Monkeys and my favourite was probably Illegal Eagles.

Is that just the regular Jubilee Gold? I've been desperate for a gold jazz and liked the look of the BC Jive, but wasn't sure about how good the gold would look. That's beaut though!

I was playing in the first floor room there a few weeks back for the Stag and Dagger festival. Good venue and great team dealing with us. Massive shame about the Art School - I was hoping to get a look at it but we were soundchecking all afternoon and I couldn't be bothered with the trek up the hill in the heat.

Major labels are just another level of flipery. I'm currently doing a spot of playing with a band signed to a massive American label. There are three of them in the band, all capable players and songwriters with a good live act in their own right, with an excellent producer/bass player who has been playing live with them for about a year since they booted their original guy (who was decidedly unexcellent). The bass player produced most of the demos, but can't tour regularly or get a visa; I play bass for the touring shows he can't do, and for big gigs double on keyboard and guitar instead; neither of us are in the band. There is also a second member of the production team who does various backing track, songwriting, and live production duties but doesn't tour regularly and isn't in the band. Keeping up? Earlier in the year the three band-members went to America to meet with the label and meet a bunch of songwriters (because this is what major labels insist on doing after they've signed you on the strength of your songs...). They wrote about 5 songs out there with different producers, some of which will make the album and some of which will not. Due to time constraints of shuttling between NY and LA they only had about a day of studio time with each producer, so most of those songs were electric kits or drum machines and whoever was in the room played whatever was needed. This means a lot of the demos are either synthesised or not played by the respective instrumentalist, which now puts them in the unenviable position of having to come back home and learn a live arrangement of their own tunes. Fun times!

Love my little Jag. Wanted something light and cheerful I could throw around and went with the black because matching headstocks are the way and the light. It's got a couple of stickers on it now and a few scars from where I've kicked it round the stage, but it's still going. I've upgraded the weak bridge pickup but left the neck in situ, put a cheapo hi-mass on because I could and the thin baseplate was lifting off the body a bit, and then replaced the G tuner because it got snapped off. I've had five different wiring schemes in it so far and will probably change this one when I get bored with it, but currently it's Neck Volume + Master Tone + Bridge On/Off Switch because I didn't use the bridge anywhere between 0-100. I've had it tuned from Eb standard up to piccolo - my favourite unusual one was ADGC for pseudo baritone sounds through a guitar amp. Going up to D'addario 110s helped increase the tension a fair amount because I felt like the bottom E was a bit undefined. It's still a bit floopy down there but it's not the end of the world - I like a bit of thump and I've been thinking about putting flats on it recently. The wood is a bit soft because I kept pulling the strap buttons out, so then I put strap locks on it with big bolts and pulled those out too... Finally I just filled and drilled with decent quality hardwood dowel from the shop down the road and plugged it with the biggest bolts I had that fit a strap button round them. It's been fine since! Here's me taking out my £200 quid worth of basswood and duct tape in front of 1,500 punters at Manchester Cathedral last month:

We're playing the TF stage on Sunday I believe, but it doesn't look like even the stage is confirmed yet so I'll wait till they drop it in my diary. I'd love to vote for you guys but I recognise a few names on there and loyalty beckons... If you get on I'll come watch though! Good luck with it - great lineup to get on.

That's interesting - I haven't really played around with the blend much but recently I've been running it lower. The woofiness/woollyness you get at boosted gain levels irritates the hell out of me and I've spent ages trying to dial it out, but never occured to me to cut the mids that much. I'm actually going for a fairly smooth, classic sound rather than grind but that makes sense. Going to have a play around with it again at next practice.

Counterpoint: Mini Kiss

I do. It's weird, incredibly hot, and a lot of fun. We don't make much money - it's mostly just a laugh and a chance to play some nice venues for other fans who appreciate the music too. Got quite good at changing costumes in less than thirty seconds too.

Much worse than that: professional percussionist. .

I've been lucky enough to play with some excellent percussionists - my old bandleader was a full-time percussionist and he could make an entire set sound fresh with just a cowbell and a shaker. Not sure it'd work in a rock set but I do appreciate a subtle touch of extra rhythm. We were playing in a big group with a rotating lineup 12+ of us most nights, and there was one section that needed massed percussion - in rehearsal he would hand every member a bit of percussion and then make you play along. If he didn't think your performance was quite up to scratch or tasteful enough your percussion was confiscated and you had to stand onstage in shame while everyone else did the breakdown.

Mickey was in for his cheekbones, if I recall correctly. And most excellent cheekbones they were; man looked like a Mills and Boon cover walking down the street

There's tonnes of flaky musicians, the bar is just set pretty low for vocalists because for most musical contexts you rarely need much beyond half an ear for pitch, an inflated sense of self-worth, and perhaps an SM58 if you don't fancy sharing crusty saliva with every other musician in town. There's a million flaky guitarists with an acoustic sat in their room playing wonderwall, but they aren't getting out gigging any time soon (sadly the increase in open mics has also led to this not being quite as true as it may have been a few years ago...). There's also a massive gaping chasm between kareoke singers and actual vocalists who understand all the other bits of talent and stagecraft that go into being a performing singer. My personal Voight-Kampff test at auditions is asking them to sing harmony behind someone else - I'm by no means a great singer, but I can improvise a basic thirds/fifths harmony on a tune by ear, so they can't do it then they've not spent much time playing with other people, don't have much of a grasp of melody, and you're likely to be in trouble a bit further on down the road.

I didn't mean to write quite such an essay! I have some videos around somewhere but was busy trying to sink into the stage floor for most of it. A brief flick through the wiki page for Ghaanian cuisine tells me we probably tried Jollof rice, Gari, and Koobi plus a bunch of other stuff that was likely family recipes, and now I'm hungry again. Cubes of cheese and those little sausages stuck in a pineapple just aren't the same any more really.

I was playing keyboard in a pop-reggae band a few years back (well, we thought we were reggae but really we were a rock band with a passing offbeat acquaintance) and one of the doormen round town booked us to play at his nephew's christening. He wasn't offering much but he was a nice lad and we already owed him a few favours for 'well-timed assistance' around town, so we hop in the van and troll down to Brum for a play. We rock up outside this old community hall about 6PM to meet Mustafa, and after a minute he comes out dressed in this incredible full-length black and red leather robe, which makes him look like something out of Star Wars. That was Red Flag No 1. Red Flag No 2 was the polyrhythmic music playing at punishing volume inside the hall. We go inside only to find ourselves walking into the middle of a traditional Ghanian christening ceremony (or whatever the equivalent is) and that was the point where we instantly realise we are not going to go down well. We're sat down over at the back of the room with the other men and given a plate of rice that nearly takes my head off (our singer causes a minor scandal by sitting with us instead of the women, but I think we got tagged with the 'musician' exemption) and Staf introduces us to approximately 350 members of his extended family, who are all absolutely lovely and just as totally baffled as to why we're there. The ladies are all sat in circle of chairs in the middle of the room with the kid in the middle, the men are sat around the edges, and the actual ceremony is being conducted by two MCs, one man and one woman, who will quickly become MC Tall and MC Short respectively. They're taking it in turns to shout through a PA turned up so loud it's become a fuzzbox; there is a second PA playing music at a volume where my eyeballs are vibrating; I do not recognise a single tune all evening. Every few minutes MC Tall or Short will double up on the shouting tempo and the women all get up and pull huge wads of dollars out of their pocket, which they then throw at the kid. The ladies are all stunning with incredibly elaborate hairstyles and the men are wearing the same leather robes as Staf - this is clearly a big occasion and everyone is putting on their best 'look how much money we have' display, which explains the throwing of the dollars. We are under-dressed, hungover, and trying to make awkward chit-chat at the top of our voices. Eventually the ceremony is over and we set up on the community hall stage, planning to make this the shortest set of our lives. We have a quick argument about what to play, which ends with us scrapping everything from our set that isn't the reggae material. Our singer is already nervous after the men's section faux pas and we've not been able to understand a single word of the ceremony so far so we have NO IDEA what is happening. We're gamely vamping away at our best imitation of an authentic roots band but are keenly aware that our material is aimed at a spot several thousand miles and a different hemisphere away from what the crowd is expecting, and it's just dropping into the abyss of stares. The crowd is polite but clearly expecting something which is not happening. Second song in and we're contemplating dropping the rest of the set and legging it. Singer is visibly wilting under the stares of an entire flock of matriachs perched to stage right; I'm getting extremely interested in the top of the keyboard, which I have never examined so closely before. My nose is scraping the flat keys at points. Suddenly MC Short is on stage with us and grabbing the mic off the singer. What fresh hell is this??? We're expecting to be cut off unceremoniously, but instead she starts shouting at the crowd with a variation on her earlier theme. This lady is about 60 and barely four feet tall, but she can shout for God and with the backup of the PA she is reaching pitches that are melting my fillings. Every dog in a twenty mile radius is starting to howl. At her instigation, the entire front row of (stunning) women gets up as a unit to start throwing dollars at us - I'm beginning to have some very complicated feelings indeed. After she feels the crowd are sufficiently harangued we get the mic back and play another few songs which are met with respectful applause if not much actual interest, so we take the hint and finish up. We've picked up about 600 dollars in ones and have to carry them in a basket along with our gear. As soon as we finish the party is back on and everyone is off their chairs and dancing; hundreds of kids have appeared out of nowhere to do the old church hall skidding dance which apparently transcends culture! Huge baskets of homemade fried fish and curried rices have started appearing round the edges of the hall and we eat as much as we can physically carry back to the table. It's all delicious but so hot my hair starts curling and I spontaneously develop sunburn, which the kids all find hilarious. Staf is crazily happy that we played as he seems to think we are megastars rather than the chancers we are, and we're just happy to have been asked to do it so we decline our fee and take petrol money instead, reasoning that the story will likely pay for itself in beer over the years. We donate the dollars to the kiddo as a gift because we're all fairly drunk on Star Beer at this point and getting them changed seems like hassle. Some of the stunning girls from earlier are starting to give us the eye but my daddy taught me never to hit on a girl when A) you're at someone else's family occasion and B) her daddy is roughly the size of a car, in the room, and giving you the death glare, so prudence becomes the better part of valour and we make a swift exit. In reality it wasn't actually that desperate considering we were playing to an audience who had absolutely no interest in what we were doing, but it was hell of a night at the time. Don't think I've ever felt so out of place before or since. The food sure beat the hell out of my family dos though! I'd do it all again just for another crack at that buffet, even if my fragile little English stomach meant I spent three hours glued to the toilet next morning...

One of the things I find interesting about the VT Bass and other Character series is how little adjustment you have tend to have to make to the EQ controls; most of the drastic change in sound comes out of just altering the Character control and I rarely tweak the three band more than a few notches each way to account for room sound. Got some big gigs coming up this summer and we're probably going to have to move to in-ears, so I'm looking forward to seeing how well it works!

I was never a big fan of the BDDI, but the VTDI has totally revolutionised my playing and I've not bothered taking an amp to shows since I bought one. I just run straight into whatever is onstage - it's only backfired once when I was given an old Carlsboro which appeared incapable of reproducing bass frequencies, but I just cranked the mids and pretended I was Lemmy for the evening... I've had so much fun with it that I'm starting to get curious about picking up a second BDDI/VTDI and running them in parallel to front of house for dual gnarly/vintage sounds.

Same scale but Bronco is 19 frets and Jaguar is 20, alas, or I'd be putting together a rosewood Bronco with a matching headstock sharpish. It's just a case of moving the bridge position but it's more naffing around than I'm game for when I'm perfectly happy with the Jaguar as it is.

I've not played the Broncos much but I've been incredibly happy with the little Jaguar SS - I bought it because it was the cheapest and lightest bass in the store and I wanted something to throw around, but I've had a lot of use out of it these last two years! Had it in all kinds of tuning and wiring setups too; at the moment it's got one volume knob for the P pickup, an on/off for the J, and a master tone which seems to work quite nicely. I brought it to a studio session strung up ADGC as an alternative "baritone" sound, but my friend ended up playing it and eventually picking one up to replace his 70s Musicmaster which was getting a bit fragile for touring work. Not gonna pretend it's a pro-level bass, but they're passable out of the box and make great basic mod platforms. With any luck mine will see some very big stages this summer. I really wish they did the Mustang or Bronco with a rosewood neck but they're different scales so can't even swap a JSS neck onto them.

Farting and covered in kebab remnants, usually... Jokes aside I've just about mastered the art of catnapping sat upright in the van on the way home, so if a real bed is involved I can be asleep before I even hit the pillow. Any real 'buzz' after shows is solely due to beer or caffeine these days, sadly!

Oh yeah, I've been in the business long enough to default to 'nod and smile politely' mode unless it's written on paper. He was a breath of fresh air really. I didn't think they made them like that any more: shaved head, rat moustache, camelhair coat, loads of gold rings. A proper old school showbiz bastard...

Again, sounds good to me. I had an audition with a band last week and afterwards the manager came to see me and did a bit of a pep talk thing: "What do you want, kid? You want to be famous? Because these guys are going to make it. Biggest band in the world next year." "flip no, who wants to be famous? It's hard work and it sucks and you have to talk to journalists all the time. I want to be RICH!"

I can see how megastars like Adele have to put a 'no contact' clause up. First couple of times people want to chat to you it's fine - but after the fifteenth person wanting you to ring their mum and do a verse of Chasing Pavements down the phone you're probably pretty tired of it so you say no, and then they get upset because you were OK with the previous fourteen people asking you for it and go tell everyone you're a beach. Eventually you figure you may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and institute the "no speaky unless spoken to" ban so they'll leave you alone. Then you go slowly mad through isolation, build a theme park in your back garden, invite a bunch of pre-teens for sleepovers, and your nose falls off. It's a weird business.