Muzz

No idea, I'm afraid - he does this a lot, and he has a pro setup...it was a small handheld unit, though (how's that for technical? 😀) I'll try and find a link to him...the sound came straight from the desk.

Ohhhh, I'm putting that in the 'Politely Appalled' phrase list...I can see us using that quite a lot...

So we had a video shot by a friend at one of the series of gigs we did at Xmas in a venue in Cheshire...it came out pretty well...eventually...

Played a regular pub gig this weekend, they have a stage the staff set up in one of the window bays kinda thing. It's usually a late gig anyway (first set about 10:15 start, second set 1:00am finish), but with Russia playing for penalties (and I'm glad they've gone out with that approach), it was gone ten by the time they started setting the stage up, so it was gone eleven before we started, so we went straight through in one set till one. Given the heat in the (packed) pub, it was rowdy, sweaty, hard work. Good fun, though.. 😁

...or a £1.6k starting price for a completely hand-built Shuker...

Although most of us hated it...

Went to the Hollywood Vampires. Dreadful. The Damned were great, I like everything about The Darkness except the songs, but we left after 45 minutes of Johnny Depp's w**kfest - and we only stayed that long because SWMBO had gone to the loo and got lost on the way back. Seven people onstage to remind everybody how much better the originals were done by three or four people. About as subtle as a kick in the knackers...and how can you get the wrong keyboard sound for a Doors track? And as for their 'original tracks'...pfffft... On the upside, it wasn't as ear-bleedingly loud as the last couple of times I've been to the Manchester Arena, and the mix was a lot better. Didn't help Johnny's lot, though...I've seen better covers done down the Dog and Duck...

Ohhhhhhh...I like that: "Here: show me how it goes..." Genius. Stolen with thanks... 😁

Ahhh, you've been to one of our gigs...actually, when I say we 'have half a dozen in the bag' it means we can play them, but the singist regularly forgets the words, and has actually gone through entire songs ad-libbing like the 'Hi di diddle I-aye' bit in Rare Auld Mountain Dew. And no-one has ever noticed... It's not as bad as his Volare, though...he didn't even know it was Italian until I pointed it out after we'd done it at several gigs...

That as well...

Well, the fact that it's still in one piece (and presumably in tune) after all that abuse might be what they're trying to show off...

Anyone else gig with a reading drummer? Our drummer is frankly astonishingly good, and reads all the time. He knows the material, but reads it anyway, and I'm not sure if it's just his talent that makes him that good, or the reading, too. When I dep (or we have a dep) with a non-reading drummer, it's always a bit looser (no bad thing sometimes), but still feels that bit more haphazard. Any encounters with reading drummers? Are they all that rare out there (outside of full Pro/theatre/show setups, natch)...? * And I don't mean the 'I'm on chapter three of Harry Potter' type of reading...

The Rawk Band I'm in haven't rehearsed for months, due to scheduling commitments, and is consequently staggering a bit, and the number of gigs we've done is a one-hand-count, but it's good fun to get together. I wouldn't like it to be my only band, tho... The main gigging band never actually rehearse, other than every blue moon to do a 'technical rehearsal' to get the sounds and patches set right (we're an in-ears, triggered drums, Mainstage and Helix kinda setup) and maybe once every three or four months we might get together at the singer's house with a minimal trigger kit and the in-ears to run through a couple of songs, but that's it - we put new material in by emails (with a YouTube link to the 'definitive' version, just in case), usually in the week before the gig. We've been playing together long enough for that not to be a problem...

We always have half a dozen Oirish songs in the bag, just in case. Six pints in (the punters, not us) and they never fail... 😁

Well, as clickbait it got me onto the Custom Shop page, but the prices have given me a mild panic attack...£10k for a 6-string Streamer? Gott in himmel... 🤔

This. All of it. Haven't really wanted a bass by anyone else for a very long time now...I have a niggling amount of GAS for one of his JJB Precisions, or perhaps I bite the bullet and get him to make me a full-fat Shukerbird (as opposed to the Shukerbird I have, which is a Shuker neck with the rest a combination of Dingwall pickups, Hipshot and John East...oh, and a bit of Epiphone 😁)... Let's put it this way: Once I make my mind up, my Dingwall will be going to provide the funds...he's that good. 😁

Yep, this is it completely: it's that look of affront with functions punters when you say you don't know the song...I've had this before: (anther Drunk And Overly-Entitled Woman, funnily enough) walks up in the middle of a song and beckons... "Play some Abba" (note lack of 'Please'...) "Sorry, we don't know any" "Noooo..." Here she points at the Mac we use for Mainstage, etc "Play. Some. Abba." "No" "What?" "No. We don't know any. We don't know any Abba." "But you must do...everybody knows Abba" Sometimes I envy Lemmy's approach: I once went up to him in Jillys in Manchester when he was feeding the one-armed bandit: "Lemmy, can I buy you a drink?" "flip off" "OK" I went back to my mates, thrilled that Lemmy had told me to flip Off... 😁 Edit: If you hadn't already guessed, he didn't say 'Flip off'... 😁

OK, for closure: we made sure we spoke to the bride (we'd already been paid, but hey, we're professionals 😉) after Over-Entitled Woman and she said "Oh, just ignore her: she's been a pain in the derrière all day". The venue manager just said "There's always one: if it isn't the food or the loos or the queue at the bar, it's something else..." 😊 I've just remembered, we did an acoustic thing (acoustic guitar, small bass amp, single PA top for the mic, cajon, that sort of hoohah) in a country pub a while back, and some wag shouted "Do some Luther Vandross"...so we did Never Too Much. Never in a million years will it make the crossover to cajon and acoustics*, but it shut the heckler up... Our singer/guitarist does a great Bohemian Rhapsody solo, too, so that's always in the back pocket as a wag-silencer... 😁 * Cue some clever sod here posting a KT Bloody Tunstall** version I've never heard of... ** Her real name. No, honestly: look it up... Edit: Chapeau to the profanity filter for making the bride sound even more classy than she was...however, this was the end of a loooonnnng day for her, and she definitely didn't say 'derrière'... 😁

We used to do some Abba, in the two-guitar, heavier band, which was always useful to pull out of the bag, but the one we, as a 50-something bloke trio, get asked for the most is Tina Turner. I just look long and pointedly at the guitard/singer, and then turn back to the requester and say "Really?" I always love the great combination of a drunk punter coming nearly right up to you, beckoning you forward to them and then telling you that, no, you DO know whatever they want playing... We had a very specially entitled woman* at a posh wedding in the Lakes the other week asked me for a song (I forget what), so I told her we'd try and fit it in the second set. We were actually going to give it a go, but the noise regs round the place were verrry strict, so we were basically cut off at half eleven - we didn't even have time for an encore. She then strode up to the singer (we're packing up at this point) and demanded a) to know why we hadn't played it and b) for us to stop unpacking and play it. When he pointed out we'd used the word 'try, and the noise regs situation', she stormed over to me to insist we play it. We then had a conversation which involved me telling her repeatedly that we'd been stopped playing by the venue's regs, and her repeating "But you said you'd play it..." for a good five minutes. Eventually I said to her "Are you used to getting what you want?" and she said "Yes I am", so I said "Well you won't this time." She then went to complain to the bride and the venue manager... 😡 * One of those "I'm a very good friend of the bride** and she'd want you to play..." ** But not one of the six bridesmaids, obv...

A medium-sized shoehorn and some goose fat...

I really liked the Bongo I had a good go on a while back - an extraordinary amount of very tweakable output, and it played very well. If I didn't look down, it was a great bass, but I'm terribly shallow like that, and I just couldn't live with the shape. I have a friend who has an uncanny knack of vocalising underlying issues, and therefore making them something you just can't unhear - he 'bog seat'-ed the Bongo for me, and even ruined Corvettes with his 'that top horn horn looks like a nob'... 😕😁 I love the head shape, tho... 😀

In a secondhand shop recently, I spotted some (new) D'Addario half rounds on a shelf, and bought a set on a whim. Put them on my Bigman-equipped Shuker which I'd always struggled with because it was too bright (tho flats killed it off a bit too much) and it's a joy to play, and now sounds very good whether through my rig or DI'd. I must go back and buy the other sets before they run out...

This.