gafbass02

I did an after party for a posh soirée in Cheltenham town hall. We were in the ‘pillar room’. I snapped this from the stage whilst we waited (in very strict total silence, whispers only!!) for the main event to finish and folks to file in. It massively over ran and we ended up taking the stage at 10:45 and only doing 40 mins !! Ah well hey ho. 6859418E-9208-413E-B827-1D1B6F98862B.MOV

Standard private party jobbie. Local golf club. Everyone outside enjoying the evening sun until the last half an hour. Then lots of dancing. Home by 11:30 paid and full of free pimms and pizza. Can’t complain. First outing for my new (tatty secondhand) Pedaltrain Novo32, which was very heavy. But given that my whole rig is basically an ageing-and-surprisingly-hard-to-come-by Zoom B9.1 and a Rolls IEM amp, it sure feels a lot safer in transit than in the rapidly disintegrating Harley Benton soft case that it replaced.

I took my IEMs out for about thirty seconds at last nights gig. put ‘em back real quick! Yup. Veeery different in the real world to the perfect sound I was hearing 😂 Like you say though, the next morning video from the engineer is always comforting!

My experience matches many others on here, but I’ll add it in case it’s useful to someone. schallers are the ones I’ve typically used most since the 90s, but I have had a few fail and fall apart. They also need tightening regularly and over time can stretch out the hole in the strap. Knock offs are a wild card. I also now own several left over half pairs that randomly fit/don’t fit and it would make an unexpected emergency strap swap situation tricky. Only recently have I tried the rubber washer thing, I’m not convinced tbh, but time will tell.

That’s literally what happened. They moved in before live music had returned.

Mine was decidedly under par. My local needed a last minute act, so I grabbed my acoustic and headed off. Very quiet, even by the usual quiet Friday standards. Which makes my set very awkward as it’s all proper sing along, foot stompy stuff. Making me feel a right idiot when I’m just playing to six folks having a chat at the bar! Luckily all friends and it’s a place I work as house engineer and former open mic host. So very friendly. I had to cut my second half short, as we only remembered in the break about the new early finish time due to the increasingly common recent complaint about the noise from a music venue from people that moved next to music venue!

I’ve always called them ‘fretless trumpets’, which clearly makes zero sense. Except in my mind, where, like many things, it makes perfect sense. 😂

Cass has always been one of my favourite players

Not a bass. But, I do have one huge regret, it’s been really upsetting me this week as it goes. For the last decade or so I was a singer/guitarist in a band and we did hundreds of gigs and had a brilliant time. When covid nearly finished me, it really scrambled my brain and left me with all sorts of neurological and psychological damage. As part of which, a very confused and disheartened me sold my beloved Fender modern player marauder guitar to an old work colleague. The model is now discontinued, so even if I could afford it, I can’t replace it anyway. He hasn’t responded to my interest in getting it back. And, even though I know it’s just a ‘thing’, it’s left me genuinely bereft. I loved it because it felt like the guitar version of my jazz bass and represented some of the best and most hopeful times I’ve had. It was just ‘mine’ and now it’s gone and I don’t really know why I sold it, I was so befuddled. gutted.

Just bought a pedal board and it was a pleasure from start to finish. 🙂

This sticker was on a large, ominous-looking box on the wall by a stage I played recently. 😝

Two enjoyable shows last weekend. Both standard stuff, one was hot, one was wet, both were fun. Although the drummer did crash his car a little bit between shows, but he was fine. 29703E4D-1428-432F-BB90-E09B6975E0B1.MOV

Very much what Dr Dave said for me.

Here we go I use the Xvive strap thingy to keep the cables how I like them at the guitar end. At the board, the headphones goes into my rolls monitor amp and the other end into the start of my pedal chain. In this case a cheap preamp I only use if I end up playing a passive bass. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/162396900311?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=0vMhZxlXRBm&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=kIsNhjMUScq&var=461424818813&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

My kit has already gone ahead to the next venue. When I get there later I’ll try to snap a few off

I had a great one in Hereford last night. I dropped my budget transmitter in favour of a custom-made dual guitar/IEM cable (like a hosepipe!) and it felt much better! I was always uncomfortable with the transmitter hanging out the stupid Ibanez recessed socket. Crowd was amazing, up dancing from the first song. Whole place was rammed and the boss was so pleased that he paid us extra. Off to a more local place tonight.

There were many perks for sure, they did me some favours and I made mates for life. But on the whole, it was pretty hellish. I won’t go into details in public and I’m sure things have changed in the interim. (Except the Public!)

I did ten + years at Richer Sounds. Sadly I was long gone by the time the payout happened.

My number one might surprise a few people as it’s not my sonic blue jazz, or indeed my sumptuous SR1200. It’s a tatty, banged up old SR500 that looks like it had an accident with a wood chipper. I bought it for £150 after the whole ‘nearly died of covid’ thing when I realised I needed a light bass. It has a dodgy 24th fret and a badly shimmed neck. And I love it. Its the bass I do most of my gigs with and even at home, I pick this one out the rack nine times out of ten. Go figure.

Alas no longer, but I used to play a couple of sixers back in the day

I had this on a ray years ago. Never figured it out.

Bless you. Many thanks 🙏