lozkerr

Jesus wept. No wonder you refused that gig! That's horrendous. Mind you, it is Leith...

Oofty, where was that? I'm struggling to imagine even a drunken ned wanting to have a pop at a bloke your size!

Think I might have earned a yellow card - I've just bought a replacement footswitch as the old one's carked itself and I have a gig next week. I could manage without it - it only mimics controls on the amp - but I've got used to having the controls on my pedal board. There's no additional functionality though, honest guv.

And of course, coping with the hot-desking fad. Not the electric-heater-under-the-office-tw@'s-paper-trays that was popular around the turn of the century, but the ability to locate a desk among a group of people whose work is entirely different to your own. If you're a software developer, you either work on your own projects or have a wee kip while seemingly concentrating hard on a screen full of code that will just be gobbledegook to the admin people around you - or if you're in PR, you plonk yourself among the geeks and play on YouFaceTwit all day. And of course, you always use the printer that's furthest away from where you are. That lets you master the art of carrying a piece of paper while walking briskly, thus making you seem Big and Important. When it's time for a brew, you pull out that elderly phone stuffed full of MP3s, plug in your earphones and conduct an intense but one-wordy conversation with Iron Maiden. Need to watch the volume, though. For added points, start a detailed reply as you walk out the room. Plus, when printing stuff for home, make sure you submit it in a batch and make the final document something to do with work. Make sure there's no-one near the printer before you send it. Then, as your set lists and charts are printing, if anyone approaches you, you take it off the printer looking really annoyed, make some comment about 'don't some people focus on their business objectives' when your own document finally appears and flounce off with your home stuff while making some comment about reporting misuse of resources. That's so no-one can reasonably ask you to chuck it straight in the recycling bin. There we are, kids. Laura's Thursday Tips for a more satisfying working day. Tune in next week for tips on how to leave boring meetings and still look good, how to deal with food thieves and how to provide your odious manager with a managed exit. Book and motivational speaking tour coming soon!

Aye, those are really handy. I only use a few of the features, mainly the sustain, defretter and overdrive, and getting a decent compressed sound involves a bit of faffing about. Likely it's just me being daft, though. We've got our first gig in a couple of weeks, so I'll see how happy I am with it after I've heard the recording.

How are you finding it? I have one and it seems to do a lot of things fairly well but I keep wondering if I should have gone for separate pedals instead.

Heh, you can't make music with savings, which is probably why I'm perpetually skint! My weapon of choice is a Fender American Jazz Deluxe V with a Steinberger XT-25 for taking on the road to while away evenings in hotel rooms. I still have my Ibby GSR200 squirrelled away in store as well - I should really think about selling it. What sort of music do you play?

Welcome, Grace! Aye good to see another lass making an appearance. What bass(es) have you got?

Those outside the M25 at least. I'll be coming, unless gigs are booked between now and the last set of press releases. Then gigs take priority, even if there's only a few days between the two. Buzz and rumour can only be tolerated for so long.

Tommy Gun - The Clash Destination Venus - The Rezillos Going Underground - The Jam

Give it time... I know what you mean about the D and G strings. That closer spacing can be a trap for the unwary; the set list for our upcoming gig has one song where I have to jump quickly between the two and another that has root-fifth chords on those strings. It's taken a fair bit of practice to stop my clumsy fingers muting the D string while fretting the G.

I ended up with a Pedaltrain Classic 2, which has enough space for my Boss ME-50B, Eden Glowplug and WDTI as well as the footswitch for my amp. There's still space for more toys, but I'm hanging in there for now. Cost me 115 quid including soft case. The weight saving over the flight case is incredible. Really glad I bought it.

And equally importantly, does Carl have H E F T?

That makes sense. Maybe worth adding it to the Marketplace?

Agreed. I think a pinned thread in the Marketplace would be the best place for it. I'm happy to do some donkey work collating names and routes.

@ped - I'm wondering if there's scope for a dedicated Underground Railway forum? It looks like a lot of BCers travel around quite a bit. F'rinstance, I make regular train journeys between Edinburgh and London, and regular car journeys between Edinburgh and Yorkshire. I could easily take a bass on the train (DBs excepted because of the size and the fact that peak-hour trains are aye rammed) and can take anything that'll go in a Landy between Yorkshire and Embra.

I could manage Leeds to Edinburgh on the 21st February. Could meet between Leeds and Sheffield. EDIT: Or collect from Harrogate.

I did it slightly differently; I spent ages on scales rooted on the B string, and once I'd hoisted in the concept of having two full octaves over five frets everywhere on the fretboard, I started learning a bunch of new songs using the changed fingering. It worked a treat; my four went back in its case and it hasn't been used since.

If I was in that position, no way would I give in to the temptation to come in late, play out of time, play in the wrong key or add overdriven fills full of split notes at inappropriate places. Certainly not.

First - Hot Chocolate, Taunton Odeon 1979. Last - Bootleg Beatles, Usher Hall Edinburgh, last December. Best - Pulp, Roundhay Park Leeds, 1995. Worst - Matchbox, Bournemouth Winter Gardens, around 1980/81. Well and truly cured me of any rockabilly tendencies. Loudest - New Order, Old Trafford, 2002. I was hemmed in right in front of one of the speaker stacks. Seen the most - Doves. Most surprising - the Battlefield Band. I was expecting 90 minutes of dreary teuchter wailing, but they brought the house down. Next - I'm trying to rearrange things so I can see Ellen Foley in April. Wish - the Passions, the Adverts and Ultravox with the John Foxx lineup.

As part of 'band, musical, electrical, drunken punters for the abuse of'.

Gents? 🤔

Looks like I'll be out by tomorrow. My pedal board currently lives in a roadie-proof flight case and it weighs a ton. I decided tonight that my power-lifting days are over and I need to put my pedals on something lighter before tomorrow's rehearsal. So if Scayles or Guitar Guitar have a board that isn't cast from depleted uranium, that'll be me. At least I won't have been the first 😊

Agreed. I have one that lives in my Steinberger gig bag, where the key requirement is light weight - it comes with me to that there London for practice in a hotel room. It's fine for practice and working on new songs but it can't hold a candle to even my weedy 20 watt Eden EC8. Horses for courses, I guess.

Most things apart from funk and jizz, although heavy rock and post-punk are ahead of the field.