Stub Mandrel

Polite way of saying 'the Band leader had a hissy fit. He got the name and we got the band...'

The song is no longer the same now I've been infected by the 'Fuel for your oven' earworm...

First time out for us as a proper band last night. A 'Battle of the Bands'. A biggish venue with a very powerful pa (it belonged to Slipknot when they were starting out...) first time I've ever had a separate sound engineer for monitors. We sound checked first and had the benefit of it with the bassist of another band saying our soundcheck sound was 'outstanding' 🙂 Unfortunately for some other bands it was a bit hit and miss - I think it was those who brought their own guitar amps instead of using the backline. I was lucky, for the last few weeks I've been practising with the huge Fender rig they used - it was still on my settings when I plugged in and no-one changed it all night which made my life very easy! Numbers were modest, about 200 including the bands, but it was a very enthusiastic crowd who got into all the bands. Last year's winners 'Dark Matter' put on a great show, their singer told me he had decided to pretend it was a 10,000 crowd however many people turned up. We were on last, and started with Song 2; another band had done this earlier so we decided to just really go for it... it certainly got nearly everyone dancing 🙂 The rest of the song choices went down well, we couldn't have picked a better day to play what ended up as a pop-punk version of I'll Be There! We thought In Bloom might be a bit of a gamble with a largely student audience, but in the end it was probably our standout track because all the Nirvana fans went crazy 🙂 I absolutely drenched the bass with chorus for this one and it sounded absolutely gorgeous where it's just bass and drums (IMHO!) Then two songs from the end I stood on my power cable and all the lights on my pedal board went out. Quick check it wasn't a pulled out wire so I just swapped the wireless to the amp and turned up the gain bit. After weeks practicing Ace of Spades and learning to play chords with a plectrum my moment of glory and no overdrive... fortunately the adrenaline got me through it and my dread of starting too slow was unrealised! We finished with Club Foot, which always sounded poor whenever we rehearsed it without fuzz on my bass, luckily we'd decided to double the solo on guitar which paid off as I could barely hear myself playing fingerstyle with no compression and no distortion. Somehow we started and finished together although I'm not 100% sure what happened in between! We didn't finish in the top 3, I'll probably use the age of three of us as an excuse (we were introduced as three old men and their carer 🙂 ) but as far as I'm concerned that was a fantastic night because I know we were tight, several people complemented how good we sounded (including the sound engineer) and that was probably the most enthusiastic audience reaction I've ever got. My fourth gig since taking up arms again, but I think I can now say; "I'm back!"

With the 'Robot Tuner' innovation, Gibson made the first step towards the self-destructing guitar. My brother sent them a video of his removing it's own strings in response to being played...

Still gigging with Band of Friends http://www.bandoffriends.eu/

We did a very zz toppish version Well they didn't laugh me off the court....

Frankenfurter

Of all the guitars to pick on - probably based on how big Gibson think Kiesel's legal budget is rather than choosing a guitar that actually looks more than vaguely similar to a flying v.

That sick feeling in the pit of your stomach when you discover you bought the 'Mr Pickwick' version of the Star Wars album not the original... Elton John started out singing on a lot of that sort of album Van Der Valk!

Curios! Mine came with those already fitted.

Saw a Thunder 2 (in VGC) in a shop today. Thought £350 seemed a bit steep!

🙂 I'll stick to Marmite!

That's freaky, just went to the jokes thread and found this. Is it a sign?

Hah. For some reason I have 'You Spin Me Round' in my head today, wonder if I can persuade the guys to so a version in the style of Deep Purple?

I remember Rolf Harris being number one with Two Little Boys () but don't remember Hendrix being at number 1 with Purple Haze the week after... My mum made me work out and write down all the lyrics to Power to All Our Friends for her. Other things I remember playing on my battery powered record player were Puppet on a String and Eye Level.

If it's good enough for M&Ms 🙂

Well done! The skinny 'S' blurs out on the TV footage! " 100 Watt Marshall Superlead-clone Ca. 1971 Stramp 2100A - Made in Germany. With its 4x EL-34 and 3x ECC83 tubes, this amplifier was a clone of the Marshall 1959 Superlead. " Seems well known users were Gerry McAvoy, Leslie West, John Entwhistle and possibly Adrian Legg.

I came in at Out of the Blue, and went backwards through the catalogue (including the box set). Stayed for Discovery but Horace Wimp and then Xanadu was too much to bear... I like the recent double live album, nostalgia fest! I keep meaning to get 'The Night the Lights Went on in Long Beach' - for at least forty years....

Not long ago I gave my brother a JCM800 1x1216 ohm cab, to use with his Tiny Terror. Once upon I time I used to use it with a 1-watt Maplins micro-amplifier, a tiny thing with a PP3 in it. Definitely proved the rule that 100 watts are only twice as loud as 1 watt, other things being equal.

A bit bigger... this one:

Hmm. My Peavey 1x15 is bigger than my 4x10 combo (and our washing machine).

I doubt that was 1989 because it's got Phil and Mikkey in it with no Wurzel, so post 95. It's 2005.

Twice. Funny how 200 watts was enough for Lemmy...