martthebass

11 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

Just in !

 

Any of you had to deal with short notice gigs? I received this message this morning. 

 

"Hey all, potential very last minute Maple Rd gig tomorrow night, Thurs. 8/17 for Music on Main in West Bend, 6:30-9:30. The band they had scheduled had to cancel do to illness. "

 

Blue

Always a bonus!

3 hours ago, taunton-hobbit said:

 

Matamp ?

 

😎

Nope, it’s the drummers set up. The PA is Dynacord, not sure on the cabs but they’ve had a hard life with this band. The back up set up is mine and the guitarists, HK, but it’s not really up to handling an electronic kit .

3 hours ago, asingardenof said:

Was that The Old Post Office? Most of my band is based around Cleckheaton but I'm in Cas and our guitarist is near Normanton so I'm on the hunt for potential venues in the Five Towns.

No it was at the crows nest club in Upton. Nice place, very friendly.

Fairly quiet one in a small pub in Linthwaite on the outskirts of Huddersfield. Numbers were a bit down, likely due to holidays and such so it was harder work than usual. We were having speaker issues all night until one gave up the ghost on the final number, pretty packed gig list at the minute so it’ll need sorting quickly.

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

 

There aren't going to be any < 10lb acrylic basses.

The eternal optimist in me can dream…..

7 minutes ago, tauzero said:

5.1kg according to the kitchen scales.

Thanks T, you’ve saved me a mistake.

14 minutes ago, markbunney said:

We're booked on Saturday for 2 x 60 min sets for agreed fee, and have been told that if its going well on the night and the landlord wants us to carry on then we can play for longer and charge extra.

 

For the last few gigs we have been playing for nearly 3 hours when the booking was 2 x 60 mins. I like playing, and generally happy to carry on for a few encores but an extra 45/60 mins can get a bit much, and I find the quality & (my) enthusiasm suffers a bit

Ditto!

1 minute ago, dmccombe7 said:

Our drummer was in The Glitter Band in 90's and even he won't play GG songs. We've tried a few Glitter Band songs but we weren't totally happy with how they sounded so dropped them. We have another one to try at some point if we ever do rehearsals again as we are getting kinda busy and fitting in a rehearsal or two would be a struggle certainly this year. January is usually a quiet month for us so maybe then. We'll need to re-learn the old Xmas songs soon too 

Dave

We’re the same Dave, we put a poll out to our followers on FB a couple of years back regarding should we do GG/Glitter band songs or not. It came back about 60/40 against so we shelved the idea.

Dont remind me about the XMas song rehearsals 😂

12 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Its rare we do the full set to be fair. I've raised the fact that doing two 1hr sets is what we should be aiming for with a few songs as a back up but it falls on deaf ears at times. Guitarist would play all night if he could and do it 7 nights a week. Seems to be that if we learn a new song we need to add it to the set along with all the others.

My argument on it is that you should leave your audience wanting more and doing such a long set might bore the audience after a while. I personally don't enjoy listening to any band for more than 2 hrs unless its Rush, Genesis or Pink Floyd but i'm biased 

Tomorrow night we have been specifically asked to do two 45min sets. That's probably the least we've played. That's gonna be a short night starting at 9pm with a 30min break finished at 11pm 2hr drive home because of the roads being closed due to cycling events. Bad enough when its motorways shut after midnight but now its cross country roads meaning i need to travel out to Edinburgh and then South down to Jedburgh adding another 30 mins.

RANT over 

Dave

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head Dave. We always leave the punters wanting more rather than less.

Trouble with Glam genre there’s a limit on the well known numbers, especially when some bands/acts can’t be played (thanks Gary).

44 minutes ago, tauzero said:

Truss rod slackened, relief now set. Fret ends are well finished, nothing sharp there. Bridge saddles reduced to minimum but action still a bit high. Two options - shim the neck or grind the underside of the bridge saddles down a bit. I shall give this some thought.

Hi T,  do you have a weight for this as yet?  I'm thinking of a 4 string but if it's >10lbs it would be a no no even for a single spot..

31 minutes ago, casapete said:

I agree Mart. A couple of hours worth of stuff should see you through most gigs, whether pubs,

clubs or festivals. In our theatre band we do around 2x60 min sets, and never had any complaints

about us short changing people! Also in seated venues in particular, people have a limited period

of concentration, and also need to walk about / use the loo / get a drink etc.
( Or maybe that’s just our audiences.) 😁

With the state of my Prostate Pete, I'm the one who usually needs to take a break 😁

1 hour ago, dmccombe7 said:

My longest gigs are when we do the full Set list with Glam covers band at 2hrs 40mins. Doing that on a hot night wearing all the glam gear including a hefty wig makes you sweat buckets. On one occasion i was so dehydrated i started to get the shakes on my hands at the break and i had drank 1 litre of water during that first set of 1hr 15mins. Now i have 2 large 18" gym fans one each side of stage and they help a lot.

Dave

You're certainly giving em their money's worth Dave.  We normally do 50 minutes plus 1 hour - pretty much standard in the club scene around our parts; some want a little less, some a little more. 

On the hot gigs, the glittery jackets come off!

On 07/08/2023 at 12:52, Doctor J said:

It has killed the FS section, for me, to the extent that I rarely bother looking anymore. Aside from adding 25% to the price of everything, I think often sellers are less inclined to go through the paperwork hassle, too, and ship outside the UK.

 

I think there's validity in a section in FS for EU-based ads but perhaps not an appetite to create another sub-section in there?

On the Astronomy focused site that I partake in (Stargazers Lounge), the sales forum is split into UK and EU/non-UK for just that reason. 

1 hour ago, dmccombe7 said:

I've had a few minor issues with the Smooth Hound wireless and decided to splash out for the Shure GLXD pedal version and i've had absolutely no issues whatsoever with it even with various other wireless kit on stage ie mics, IEM's etc.

One of the best buys i've done. It's left me 100% happy and Wireless GAS free now. 

Dave

Cheers Dave, I’ll check that out. To be fair this is only the 3rd time I’ve had issues in about 200 gigs. It seems only to be a problem at ‘younger’ places where there are about a million mobile devices operating. Still a pain when it happens and gives you an attack of the ‘Norman Collier’ variety (showing me age there).

A club gig just outside of Pontefract for the Glam band last night. Two of our compliment of four were struggling with some sort of flu bug but soldiered on like troopers propped up by our mobile (legal) pharmacy. Despite this we performed ok save a small blip due to brain fog on one of the afflicted’s part (we covered it well!) and we had the punters dancing from the first number. 
One thing of note was the failure of my smooth hound wireless set up leading me to hard wire for the second spot. There was so much mobile activity in the venue (I guess) that all the red lights were on and my set up couldn’t maintain a connection.

2 hours ago, lancer said:

What’s the weight please?

If it means anything, mine was just over 9lbs, so not as light as a special but not as heavy as some Rays.

17 minutes ago, asingardenof said:

I suspect that most of the changes will be add up to the basses being a little bit better at everything, and if this is going to end up being the most expensive bass I ever buy I'd rather it be the best it could be at the time I buy it. Knowing that there's a better version I could have gotten if I hadn't been stingy (no, the MetroLine range isn't even an option so doesn't count) would just irk me every time I look at it. 

I don’t disagree entirely but the price difference is likely to be significant. The bones of the two generations are essentially the same and I don’t think the differences equate to the price differential. In my case the ME is mainly a ‘bedroom’ bass, if I was looking at a £1k gigging bass I’d be looking elsewhere than a Chinese ME.

6 hours ago, Cat Burrito said:

Where as Def Leppard broke records in October 1995 for playing in three continents in one day (thank you Wikipedia), we achieved the more environmentally friendly three shows in 24hrs in our local village! Thankfully as I was on mandolin, all the shows were walking distance so I just carried my small pedal board and mandolin around the village.

 

First up was "The Crown" which was amazing for music a few years ago. Whilst stopping short at needing chicken wire, it wasn't a great start. Line checking, the sound guy asked one local who kept saying "turn down" (it's an experienced acoustic duo so nobody was troubling the neighbours). The second we had lost any edge or bite to the sound he proudly announced "Well, I wasn't going to stay anyway!" Needless to say, I just pushed that slider right up! We seemed to play to nobody, only to find out a fair few were sat outside listening. The bar staff charged me £4 for 2 lime and sodas just prior to going on too. They knew we were playing a free charity show for disadvantaged kids so I thought they could have waivered that but I just politely paid it. Such a shame overall though, as a few years back it was an amazing venue for live music. 

 

We then went on to "The Club". This is not normally open in the afternoon and was the one I knew would be a disaster. However, against all odds, there was a small but very enthusiast crowd. We both agreed that it was really enjoyable. We had some downtime between sets so stayed and watched the next two acts. As we left the barmaid made a point of coming over and saying how much she enjoyed the show. 

 

The final show was at our regular haunt "The Blue Boar" so I knew it would be well attended and fun. It was. Much like the Club, we were offered a free drink for providing our services for the charity. We had a family down the front who seemed to love our set. The Dad was straight up afterwards asking about our instruments and we chatted about growing up in the 80s. They were one step further, finding us on social media and writing some really nice comments. 

 

 

It was worth adding, the show was our first since launching our zombie inspired third single. So, although we did the show for charity, it was a good opportunity to plug our new video. And talking of which...

 

 

Great video Cat!

To be honest, as the differences to the original Chinese ME ain’t huge, if you can live with the headstock decal (the band I play in have never heard of Sadowsky anyhow so they assume it’s a cheap Fender clone) then saving a huge wad of cash on a used generation 1 makes sense. My used gen 1 fretless with an East pre came in at less than half the new price of one of these.

47 minutes ago, casapete said:

Cheers Dave, we never take doing great venues for granted though. The band has now been going for

over 17 years, and I’ve been with them for over 12. During that time we’ve done a fair few dives and 

places we’d rather forget, so it is nice to be able to play gigs which are better suited now to a bunch

of old geezers ( not including our string section in that of course!).

Having said that, I’m playing at a nice old music pub in Beverley later today with my acoustic duo.

Still get a massive buzz from doing small gigs where the audience are near, and can see myself

doing that for as long as I continue playing.

I was talking with the guys in the band about your gig at Sheffield City Hall last night and saying what a great venue it was for a bands of your talent. The drummer piped up with, ‘Ive done the city hall……changed out some of the stage flooring for em a few years back’ 🤣🤣🤣

Getting back on the horse during recovery from a bit of surgery at the end of June, so a nice local gig just outside Sheffield to get me back into it. The place was distinctly quiet when we were setting up and the landlord was indicating that it was hit or miss for crowd numbers at this time of year. Thankfully the place filled up nicely and we played 2 spots to a packed room. I refrained from Foxton style moves though 🤣. The punters enjoyed the show so hopefully we’ll see a return in the new year.

1 hour ago, TheGreek said:

Q: are buyers of the JMJ replacing the bridge?

Not in my case, to be honest I think it takes away the Mustangness if it's replaced with the standard Fender BBOT.

Had one of these myself and sold it on as it wasn't getting the giggage it should have got.  One of the few basses I regret selling.

1 hour ago, ezbass said:

I saw him using a Trent with them, on the telly. Prior to the Trent, he was using JMJ Mustang.

I think he still swaps about a bit, last bit o telly I saw him on recently he was on the blue JMJ.

My preferred genre is post punk/new wave but found myself depping in a Glam Rock band as my then band wasn't particularly active.  7 years on I'm still enjoying playing in a Glam rock band.  Never look a gift horse......

In terms of the OP's question though....yes.  I've never been one to do the busman's holiday thing, I'm much happier up on stage than watching.