PaulWarning

Trouble with 'making it' in so far as getting just enough money to make a living from it, is it gets to be a hard slog, once the novelty of getting gigs that are reasonable well attended all over the country and Europe has worn off it gets to be hard work, travelling, hanging about for hours on end etc. The older you are with the reasonability's and declining energy and enthusiasm that comes with that the harder it is

when I was young enough I couldn't play, when I could I was too old, a 25 year hiatus didn't help 😂, rule of thumb, if you haven't made it by the time you're 30 you won't

I just insure my car for social use, after all being a weekend warrior that's what is is, I'm not doing it for the money,. Just be careful when using comparison sites and trying out the musician as a profession then deciding it's too expensive, they'll know you put down musician on one of your searches. Last year I rang up my existing insurer said I'd got a better quote online, straight away they were looking at my search and knew I'd changed my average mileage etc, spooky eh?

there's youtube tutorials on how to set up a 3 point bridges, one thought I've just had is have you checked to see whether somebody has mixed up the saddles? so say, the E string saddle is in the D strings place

from the photo it looks like the slot in the D string saddle is too deep, I picked up a cheap 3 point bridge for my Hondo (mine had bowed) from China via ebay, or perhaps you could shim the D string saddle with something?

just listened to Angry, best thing they've done in a long while, Mick's voice is just the same, amazing, when you think about the Maccas, Elton Johns, Rod Stewarts of this world

this thread had cheered me up, I thought I was paying a lot for the DR neons, last set cost me about £35 but they do last about year, but I just checked they're now about £45, what's going off with strings? the prices have gone through the roof in the last few years, and no, it's not the B word, they're just as expensive from the USA

has nobody mentioned The Ramones, It's Alive yet? can't accuse them of protracted guitar and drum solos 😃

cheers, mine is a Yamaha as well, tried it yesterday for about 30 minutes, no issues at all, better start taking my spare with me 😀

@cheddatomdid you ever find a cure, my electro acoustic started cutting out about once every song at a recent gig, if I pressed the tuner button it connects again, just tried it now it seems ok, but I don't trust it

just come back from Stone Valley midlands, the sound was very variable, I can only assume that some the bands had their own sound engineers, The Undertones singer could hardly be heard, Ash wasn't much better, the Ska bands mostly had a decent bass sound but some of the others were booming, I can only guess that they had a trebly bass sound and the sound guys were trying to get some bottom end out of them. The Skids had the best overall sound from the bands I heard, I think Michael Bradley of the Undertones was using a Trace Elf, looked like it from where I was standing, I was wasn't overly impressed, sounded a bit flabby to me

sort of, I wear a shirt with a patch with the bands name on it, crap quality, but at least my wrinkles aren't visible, Verbal Warning is the name on the patch in case you're interested

Chuck Berry did sue, successfully, the Beach Boys over Surfin USA

Sounds like one of my Open Mic appearances 🤣

arrival, Born a Rocker Die a Rocker, UK Subs reflection, In My Life, Beatles leaving, one of my own songs, Tightfisted, should make them smile, if you can't be self indulgent at your own funeral when can you be?

had recorder lessens at school, no interest Bought a guitar in my 20's and a friend tuned it to E and told me to barre the top 2 or 3 strings and taught me Blitzkrieg Bop, result, I got a tune out of it very quickly and got me interested. I've passed this advice onto several people over the years they've all carried on playing

unlike our guitarist I do not have a good 'ear' he'll tell me when I've got it wrong even when I've not realised it 🙂 I've just tried to pick out the melody line for Happy Birthday, it only took me 10 minutes! is there hope?

that's the one that sprung to mind with me as well, apparently they used the same backing track,the Damned covered Jet Boy Jet Girl as well

I too am rubbish at learning songs and have a terrible 'ear' if I had to figure them out from just playing the track I'd never work it out. Our guitarist can, makes me sick. I load the song into Audacity slow it down move it up an octave to make the bass stand out then Google it to find the most accurate tab, thankfully there's usually one that's in the ball park, after that it's repartition, I sometimes miss out the twiddle bits until I've nailed the chord structure

They didn't make Opportunity Knocks? They did release a single though, absolutely awful IMO ymmv http://denimdisco.blogspot.com/2023/08/punch-on-road-bbc-documentary-1976.html you have to scroll down a bit

I use a Zoom B1on with the Sansamp clone mostly, on occasions I left it in tuner mode which is bypass, nobody but me noticed so I could probably get away without using it until Ace of Spades, playing that without fuzz would not be good, I seen some try it, and it's not

as far as I am aware this is what amp and speaker simulators do perhaps with distortion and compression as well

not a piano but I got rid of a bloody big side board and a massive drinks cooler (not at the same time!)by putting them ebay, 99p start, buyer to collect

the Zoom B1 four has a high pass filter as well as a load of other stuff for around £80

I used to do a blog, like you kept it light hearted, not many people were reading it, just friends really, so I stopped doing it. Most of our fans are old farts like us, so we just stick to Facebook, it seems to cover all the bases, (no pun intended) where as Instagram and TikTok seem to attract a younger crowd and don't do any more than you can do on Facebook as far as I can see, but maybe I'm missing something