Muzz

Used it properly last night, it's very useful; no more digging around in the depths of a rucksack for leads which, no matter how well you coiled and tied at the end of the night, still seem able to turn into Indiana Jones' pit of snakes in between gigs and auto-tangle. Another kinda small thing, but useful: it's designed to sit upright, which again makes things easier to delve into. The zips are waterproof/resistant, too, which the constant downpour off the Pennines tested in Rammy last night. I'm giving it 10/10, price notwithstanding...if it lasts as long as my last one, it'll work out about £8 a year...

Hokay, so to stave off the pangs of GAS (tho I'm struggling to find what I'm after (a really lightweight (<7lb) P)), and after giving my ancient gigbag a sniff (no sniggering, it's not an euphemism in any way), I decided to replace it. It's been used for more than 15 years at every gig now, and is showing the strain (as well as the stains) of a hard life. I found this on t'th'internet, and even though they're not cheap (£119 delivered), first impressions are very good. Here's a pic before I go any further: Not mine in the pic, obv - the giveaway to that is the mic; I have the dulcet tones of a donkey with a twisted ankle, and am completely at peace with that these days. Anyhoo, it's a joy if, like me, you happen to enjoy things being where they're supposed to be and having their own place. The two main storage areas have Velcro partitions (three at the top, six at the bottom) to customise the space, as well as two capacious side pockets, and there's a well-padded back pocket for a laptop/tablet. It sits upright, too, which is handy for packing/unpacking. It's actually smaller than my old backpack (a Wenger one), but I've got everything I use in there, including half a dozen cables, my Stomp, my Just In Case BDI21 (which is more totem than item, seeing as I've never had to use it - I think its mere presence makes other things keep working), power supplies, a 4-gang power extension, tools, batteries, strings, inears, wireless, etc, etc, and there's still room for more. It's a bit like a Tardis with shoulder straps... Build quality and padding is excellent, it'll be getting its first run out tonight, but I'm sure it'll make things easier. As mentioned, it isn't cheap, but I figured the last gigbag did hundreds of gigs over 15 years, so it's an investment.

I bought one about six or seven weeks ago from Jon, tho I note now it's showing Out Of Stock for all colour knobs...

Which reminds me, the new Spinal Tap movie's due out soon... 😀

Just chatting with my pal Napper and he mentioned he's working the Damnation Festival this year (Doom, Post-Metal, Black Metal, etc). Just had a look at the lineup, and not a single smile in any of the band photos, it's hilarious, they all look like the photographer's just told them the band van has been nicked. Fave band name for the weekend is Crippling Alcoholism...at least they're contemporary in their misery...I'm just waiting for an even more modern one called Switching Broadband Providers... I was asking him about hiring a drum screen for some recording we're doing, because we're getting horrendous mic bleed, and he said 'Horrendous Mic Bleed? I think they're headlining the Friday night...'

Flats. Figured I should at least try them, but I should've known (I would these days, I'm much wiser about what'll suit me) they wouldn't work for me. After a very short tenure (in retrospect, the fact that I didn't cut them should've been an indicator that subconsciously I wasn't commited) on the original recipient, they ended up on an acoustic bass, where they work really well...and don't stink like those phosphor bronze ones do...

Nope, mine were all 3EQs, and no matter what I did I just didn't like it. On the Markbass heads thing, there's a jumper (well, there was on the LMIII, and I suspect others, too) on the main board that sets 110/240v. I bought one in the States years ago and brought it back here. Not going to say setting the jumper wasn't a tense moment, but it ran for years afterwards...

The Stingray thing? A brother from another mother there, Lozz, I bought three over the years just to be doubly, trebly sure...and I was right. Still don't like Jazzes, tho, but every bass I have has a Jazz width neck, so there's that. I bought an Alembic, an Overwater and a Sei (not all at once, I'm not made of money, it was over a couple of years) just to see what the fuss was about, and I didn't like them much...at least they're the sort of thing that if you buy carefully secondhand you can move on without losing much money for the experience...

First 'proper' bass, a Jetglo bought for my 16th in 1980*, I had it for about four years, sold it for an arse-clenchingly small amount, bought a 70s P** which wasn't very good, then about a year later Pointy Things were all over the place and I succumbed to them for a good while...bought a new one for my 50th (the old misty-eyed nostalgia thing), really didn't get on with it so it went back by return post, then I thought I'd made a mistake so I bought another and realised nope, I hadn't... *Not wanting to sound to privileged, this was a 'No, don't want a party, no, don't want anything else, yes, you can have all the money I get from anywhere else, I JUST WANT TO BE GEDDY LEE...' **And I was so numb I've no idea what year it actually was; it was black and maple, and so was JJB's, soooo...

The problem/common factor is the SE didn't do (or get to do) his job properly. In the case of the Stranglers, everything else was good, but the bass had been reduced to the new Subsonic Mud Rumble which seems, along with the Deafening Cannon Kick, to be the latest in sound trends for SEs mixing rock bands.

I've used backline a couple of times of late (not my idea), and both times it's reminded me of how hard it can be to get a decent stage sound without over- or under-whelming the room with bass; I've been spoiled by a mixable feed to my inears, where I can hear exactly what's going on at a reasonable volume, something that's often elusive with backline. Oh, and the ability to turn the guitarist down cannot be overstated...

Tragically, the last time I went to see the Stranglers (admittedly a couple of years ago, the first tour with inears, so they may have got it sorted now) at the Manchester Apollo, the soundman did exactly that to JJ Burnel...