Muzz

Ahhhh, NYE...generally ours have been positive, even better when the DJ says 'Can you finish and be off for 11:45 so I can do the countdown?' Of courrrrrse we can... 🙂 We did have one disaster, thanks to a promoter who we didn't use again (amazingly, that can be a two-way street), when we turned up to a £25 ticketed do at a Working Man's/Liberal/Con/Labour Club*, and by 'we' I mean our guitar/acoustic trio doing all sorts of stuff, to be greeted by the landlord/sec with a cheery 'Where's the f*cking rest of you?'. After explaining I was considered medically complete he informed us, with furious gesticulations at the promo signage, that he'd booked a 7-piece soul band, and the sellout crowd was expecting that. Attempts were made by both parties to contact said promoter (we hadn't had any contact directly with the landlord, so it was very clear who was to blame) but unsurprisingly he wasn't answering his phone. We set up and gave it a go for the first set, but it became immediately obvious that by the time drink had flowed in any greater quantity we'd be needing chicken wire a la Blues Brothers, and the DJ saved much further pain, embarassment and possibly violence by saying 'Pack up and get out, lads; I'll take it from here.' We were packed down and out the door by about ten. When we finally got hold of the promoter days later he was so embarassed (presumably after a biblical bollocking by the landlord) that he actually paid us in full. One consolation on the night (other than the early finish) was the thought that somewhere a small pub was, presumably delightedly, squeezing in a 7-piece soul band they hadn't booked... * I forget the exact flavour, but uniquely it was less than a mile from my house at the time...swings, roundabouts...

I've been on the other end of that - a friend's wedding, her Dad was paying, so it was a big country house hotel, verrrr posh, but he'd also booked a Jazz band, because he liked jazz. We all buggered off outside (some of us even crashed the wedding in the other wing, because it looked great) and stayed there, while her Dad, her Mum and a couple of their friends stayed in the room and tapped their feet.

Ohhhh, bad weddings...I'd forgotten about them. The absolute worst, because you feel for the couple, even though there's always a back story to a very bad one. We played one once where the couple and their immediate families (about a dozen of them) had gone to get married in NY's Central Park, then hired a real hole of a place for the cheapest evening reception they could. Terrible food, but big B&W pictures around the place of The Chosen Few all looking delighted in the US for the actual wedding. You could taste the resentment in the room. The 50 or so people other than the immediates were all on their phones the entire first set, then when the rubbish food came out, they all buggered off, leaving about 15 people. We were paid off and never did the second set. Still, it was full money and a very early finish, and luckily quite local...

The first warning sign is if the landlord/bar staff tell you when you're loading in 'It's quiet tonight, it must be because (select the excuse of your choice here ) it's just before payday/it was packed for the footy last night/everyone's on holiday/etc', at that point you brace for single-figure crowds. The real kicker is when you empty the place...or the place empties while you're on. You can tell yourself there's lots of reasons, but it still stings. I always cyber-stalk the venue beforehand, and if 90% of their social posts are about the food or the footy, it's gonna be an uphill struggle...one such place was where we played two weeks ago to the singer's girlfriend and one punter (the other dozen or so punters were down the other end of the pub in the pool room), I went and sat with the punter in the second half (the joys of wireless), introduced him to the singer's girlfriend and we asked him if he had any requests (not something we normally tolerate, but we felt obliged because he sat there all night and seemed to be enjoying himself). Couple of weeks before that an even more annoying crowd, 90% of whom who buggered off after the food service had finished, there was one table with the landlord/lady and half a dozen of their friends half way down the long room. We finished most songs to silence, not a clap, and then right at the end when they were all pisht and we said goodnight they were shouting for more encores (and I mean we did three and they wouldn't shut up). I asked them 'Where was all this noise half an hour ago? It was like a morgue in here.' We may not be invited back, but it's definitely no loss.

Daltrey's autobiography's very funny; on the night he flushed Moono's entire stash after walking off at the end while they were trashing the gear (off their collective gourds on uppers), Moono went for him... "I only hit him once. And I apologised when he came round." They sacked Daltry, but took him back after negotiating a settlement: "The band wouldn't do loads of drugs until after a gig, and I wouldn't knock any of them out again." 🙂 I've had a fairly easygoing run of being in and out of bands, nothing more savage than the aforementioned ghosting sort of thing, but on one occasion (and I've mentioned this before) I did have a blazing row with the other three - the details are unimportant/forgotten (late 80s this was), but they did have their old bassist on call, and sure enough he joined immediately - but the whole sturm und drang of the episode was slightly undermined when, after arguing/shouting/gesticulating around the pool table at the rehearsal rooms, I stumped off to the car with my bass and amp (an SVT at the time, and it's tricky enough to stump off carrying an SVT...my back was clearly better those days), came back in, remembered my 810 didn't have wheels, and had to ask the band for a lift getting it up the stairs... I haven't stumped off anywhere since...

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...

They're like Stingrays for me: I love everything about them except playing them, because they really, really don't suit me. I've had three of each, because on at least two occasions for each I thought 'I must have been wrong about the last one'. They are an iconic bass, and I really wish they suited me.

Funnily enough, I had this at a gig last weekend; a chap came up to me to say he was enjoying the band and then said 'I'm a bassist, too; I play a Fender Jazz...a US Elite Fender Jazz' My complete lack of reaction to this* seemed to nonplus him, and he walked away. * I may have said 'Oh.', just because there was a gap in the conversation...

I would say very probably; I've switched to some smaller knobs from another East preamp on one of my lesser-used Shukers for the time being...