tony_m

Just bought a set of Lekato WS-50 wireless bugs off Bas. Straightforward deal with great comms, received the following day by First Class post, superbly packaged. Deal with confidence. 👍

PM'd re Lekatos. 

My Ashpeg board, nice and simple (just like me, though the jury's still out on the "nice" bit...  🙃 )

Coincidentally, this just popped up on my FB feed via the "Basses I'd Like To Pluck" page...

https://www.guitarworld.com/features/how-geddy-lee-found-his-sound-with-rush

Evil Blizzard, just the four bassists here (three fours and one fiver)...

(line-up has changed slightly since, now down to just the three basses, plus one guitar and various random noises)

Three in regular use here. 

Ashdown Five Fifteen minirig - used for smaller indoor gigs on small stages, and for rehearsals prior to those gigs.

Trace Elliot AH200 - purchased from @Deedee of this parish, occasionally used for small gigs on small stages paired with a Trace BLX-110 cab, or taken to rehearsal and paired with an Ashdown MAG210 cab (purchased off here many years ago from someone whose name escapes me now!) which lives at our studio (aka Mr Drums' old chicken shed).

Ashdown MAG300-210 combo - purchased many, many years ago from @karlfer, my "big" amp for larger / outdoor gigs where I want a bit more whoomf.

Signal is DI'd to desk from pedalboard for FOH, so all are basically for personal monitoring (and because both Mr Drums and Mr Lead Guitar like to hear and feel the bass on stage), though I guess the amp will also contribute something to the FOH sound. 

Same as BigJHW, I bought one of Graham's spare straps, which arrived today neatly packaged and in perfect condition. Super-straightforward transaction and great comms throughout, deal with confidence. 👍

2 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

Very nice covered stage.

 

Blue

Aye, it wasn't bad - kept the rain off OK, but was rather flappy in the wind! 

PM'd

This was a two gig / two rig weekend. For the festival on Saturday, I took the Trace AH200 head plus BLX-110 cab as I knew space would be tight, and also wanted something I could shift easily in a hurry. For Sunday's beer garden gig, it was back to the good old MAG300 combo - much as I love the Five Fifteen minirig I've been using recently, it seemed a little bit lost the last time I used it outdoors, so I'm probably going to keep it for our small indoor / village hall gigs, and use the MAG for everything else going forward.

This weekend saw two outings for Rascallion, the first a short set at a local outdoor charity festival on Saturday, then a normal two-setter (again outdoors, in a semi-covered beer garden) at a local pub.

All week, gloomy prognostications had been going around regarding the weather on Saturday, but after consulting the village pine cone, Anderby Rocks 2023 was declared a goer despite strong winds and occasional heavy showers. Having opened the festival last year, this year we were on fifth out of nine bands, with a 4:00pm slot. To cut a long story slightly shorter, the band before us overran by a good few minutes (I wasn't there when they went on, but presume they'd been delayed by previous bands themselves as they didn't get the hook at their scheduled finish time), so we were under a degree of pressure to just get on with it when it was our turn. To add to the fun, unlike all the other bands on the day whose 30 minute changeover slots featured a DJ (or in one case, a cheerleading demonstration) to keep the crowd entertained, ours featured a solo acoustic spot by another local musician. Originally the plan was he'd set up in front of the covered stage, but as it started lashing down just at that moment and he's a mate of ours, we agreed he could use the stage and we'd just work round him setting up (and also throw in the odd BVs / heckle here and there). In the chaos, we only managed a basic line check, and the sound guys never did get the monitor sound tweaked to our satisfaction - as a result we were all a bit tentative throughout, and felt we didn't really do ourselves justice, but several people complimented us afterwards on how good it sounded out front, and we had a few folks up and dancing for the second half of our set, so guess it can't have been as bad as we all thought. By dropping a couple of numbers we ended up doing just 35 minutes instead of the planned 45 to help the organiser (another mate of ours) to get things slightly back on schedule. It was great to see that when the rain arrived just before our set, a number of folks did leave, but the majority just put up their brollies or zipped up their waterproofs, and stuck it out until the sun reappeared. 

So, on to Sunday. The last time we played here was on a busy Easter Saturday, but today was a quiet Sunday on which the pub weren't doing food, there were several other events on in the area, and the weather forecast was again decidedly iffy (though not as bad as Saturday had been). We were scheduled to start at 2pm, but as of 1:55pm the audience consisted of two partners plus one dog, and two blokes sitting inside the pub. Fortunately, a number of folks arrived just after 2pm, so we eventually kicked off about 10 minutes late. As predicted by the pub, there was a further influx of folks at about 3pm for the Meat Raffle, so for the second set, whenever the sun came out the audience sitting in the covered area was swelled by a number of people coming out of the pub to watch, but who then disappeared back inside when it started raining again. The temperature also fluctuated significantly whenever the weather changed which led to rather more retuning being necessary than normal, and nice warm fingers turning into frozen ones, but we got through with only a few minor off-piste moments / brain freezes, and once again everybody was very complimentary afterwards. We're back at the same venue again late August Bank Holiday, so are hoping for a larger, more stable audience then!

Next on the calendar is a short performance at the care home where Mr Lead Guitar's mother resides, followed the next day by a trip to an army barracks where they apparently want us to provide music from 4pm to 8pm for a Families Day thing, so we're aiming to do 45 minutes on / 15 minutes off each hour. Should be interesting to say the least, and we're going to have to add a few new numbers to our repertoire if we're not going to run out of material! We've also not rehearsed much recently due to people being away (me included), and it showed this weekend - definitely need to put that right over the next three weeks.

Pic from Saturday, probably during "Have You Ever Seen The Rain"... 🫢

I used to use a Boss TU-2, but after an embarrassing incident when I didn't spot the little dot on the display so tuned the E string down to D# instead of D, I replaced it with an Ashdown BassOmeter which has a larger display (though even that was a struggle to read clearly in daylight at a festival). Also got a couple of clip-ons (a Joyo and a freebie from Reverb) as backups, but only really ever use them at home.

19 hours ago, casapete said:

We only do this one Blue, as a favour for the owner who I’ve known for a few years.

It’s actually quite enjoyable, and the residents seem to like it. When my Dad was alive,

I used to take him to regular ‘singing with dementia’ afternoons, and it was really moving

to see people who struggled with their everyday life managing to remember lyrics and

tunes from their younger days.

 

It’s also easy to think the residents all like really old stuff, when in reality most of them probably 

remember seeing the Beatles and the Stones in their youth! We do requests, and the ones

we get back that up - usually Elvis / rock n roll / 60’s stuff is popular, with the occasional

standard thrown in too. It’s lovely to see how they react when we play their favourite songs.

We've been asked if we'd be prepared to do an hour or so at the care home where Mr Lead Guitar's mother is a resident. We've all said we'd be happy to do it, but aren't entirely sure how our particular selection of country-rock / blues covers might go down. Guess we'll just have to wait and see if and when it takes place.

This works for me, though I can't say I've ever tried playing my bass immediately afterwards... 

Usually it's a quick verse and chorus of our opening number (Green River) to check our basic sound's OK, a quick chorus of Dead Flowers to check the mandolin level, and a quick chorus of Learning To Fly (the Tom Petty one) to check the backing vocals. If we're adding a new number, we might give that a quick run-through as well.

The Doobie Brothers "Listen To The Music" (the 2014 version off the "Southbound" album).

20 hours ago, BassmanPaul said:

Just for interest, who the heck is Cici Powell?

 

As well as the aforementioned videos, also plays bass with The Dave Simpson Trio.

Have a good 'un! 👍

5 hours ago, Marky L said:

Uhmm.. sticking my neck out buuuut, I found the Foos to be rather boring. I guess only having an hour affected their set choice but I just feel it's always Dave talks, quiet intro, ramp it up, Dave shouts, bring it down, bit of improv, loud, shout, quiet, loud, shout, end. Next song, repeat previous. I dunno, I just found them a bit by numbers.

 

I did like the band intros though, Nate wallops out a bit of Beastie Boys and Pat gives us some God Save The Queen.

Oops, hit submit twice... 😳

5 hours ago, Marky L said:

Uhmm.. sticking my neck out buuuut, I found the Foos to be rather boring. I guess only having an hour affected their set choice but I just feel it's always Dave talks, quiet intro, ramp it up, Dave shouts, bring it down, bit of improv, loud, shout, quiet, loud, shout, end. Next song, repeat previous. I dunno, I just found them a bit by numbers.

 

I did like the band intros though, Nate wallops out a bit of Beastie Boys and Pat gives us some God Save The Queen.

Yeah, have to confess I've never "got" the Foos, but as a proud Poodle Dad, I totally got Josh Freese's vest... 🤩

4 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 

So "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" is fair game?

A good point, well made. Age plays tricks on the mind, don'tcha know.... 😬

15 hours ago, msb said:

There used to be a No Mustang Sally sign on the side of the stage…

Blues club I used to go to had a "Strictly No Voodoo Chile" sign in the dressing room. IIRC, only The Hamsters were given an exemption... 

As a sucker for branded tat, I couldn't resist buying Tim's vintage / retro Fender belt. Couple of quick messages and the deal was done, great comms, pricing, rapid and secure dispatch, all-in-all a quality transaction. Another fine ambassador for BC. Cheers Tim!

PM'd

Saturday night saw another outing for Rascallion at one of our regular venues, this time for a private function (a 90th birthday party, but fortunately with a range of generations present who seemed to appreciate our brand of country-rock and blues). After a good start and a slightly tentative middle, the first set ended up OK, and we hit the requested 45 minutes bang on the nose (more by good luck than good judgement it has to be said!).

The second set then saw a first for us, with people up and dancing right from the opening number. This continued through the more "rocky" part of the set, with "Long Train Running" and (amazingly to us) "Rockin' In The Free World" going down particularly well. Overall, the audience response was probably the best we've ever had, and continued even after an utter trainwreck of a final, unplanned, encore, when Mr Lead Guitar started "Travelin' Band" on completely the wrong chord, then totally failed to catch up while the rest of us who'd actually remembered how the song went just ploughed on regardless. 😇

Next gig is an outdoor charity festival in a months time - suspect we'll not be doing "Travelin' Band" on the day, but reckon we'd probably better brush it up just in case!