Rich

Can anyone recommend an amp tech in the South West generally? Bristol, Swindon, Bath, Taunton, Exeter, etc

Ooh the daft quotes game. My go: "How about everybody has a nice big cup of calm the fck down and stop taking potshots at each other? This playground stuff is getting really tiresome." -- Socrates.

Oh yes, I know that one too. Many years ago when I lived in Swindon, my blues-rock trio (Hendrix, Gary Moore, ZZ Top etc, and we were really good) had a booking at the Plessey Social Club... when we walked through the door, we lowered the average age in the room by about 40 years. As we set up, I could feel the glares from the light-&-bitter brigade burning holes in the back of my head. We had backline and a vocal PA only, nothing DI'd or miked up -- Steve the drummer was first to get set up, he sat down and picked up a stick and hit his snare drum ONCE... and I heard a croaky old voice from out in the shadows say, "ooh, it's a bit loud...". Predictably the first set was horrendous, every song met with almost total silence apart from a few “turn it down!”s from some of the coffin-dodgers and one or two claps. One of them even walked up mid-song, stood right in front of me and stuck his fingers in his ears and bellowed “It's TOO LOUD”. End of the first set couldn’t have come soon enough for me. During the interval, the club MC asked if he could borrow one of our mics to do the bingo. Ye gods. Eventually we couldn’t put the second set off any longer and trudged to the stage. I was just putting my bass on when a woman approached me. I thought, if she tells me to turn it down I’m just going to pack up and sod off home. But she said cheerfully, “OK lads, all the old farts have bugggered off home, they only come for the bingo... you can turn it back up now”. So we did... needless to say, the second set was a lot better and we never set foot in there again

I Don't Know - Paul McCartney

Who Are You? - The Oo

Oh god yes, the clunks. What were they thinking? Ugh.

Similar thing happened with the drummer in my first really good band back in the 80s, at our very first gig... we were a rocky-synth-pop band, sort of A-Ha with guitars I suppose, and we had an intro tape... an ethereal synth piece with a bass drone, which gradually rose to a crescendo and then four clicks as our cue into the big opening of our first song. Unfortunately the bass on the intro tape used to cause a massive sympathetic rattle from the snares on the drummer's, errm, snare drum, so to avoid this he disengaged the snare strainer to drop them away from the head. Yes, you can see what's coming can't you... the intro rises to its crescendo, four clicks and BLAM the big dramatic intro, drummer hits his snare and instead of a gunshot "crack!" it goes "BOING!" like a timbale. Drummer realises what he's done, fumbles to re-engage the strainer and thankfully we are only treated to a couple of BOINGs before normal service is resumed. Alas the damage is done, and our big intro sounds more like "what if Duran Duran played samba?". Thankfully the rest of the gig was an absolute belter, but it took a while for the drummer to live that intro down.

Sole Man - Salmon Dave

0:15 to 0:30 of 'Give It Up' by KC and the Sunshine Band -- ugh https://youtu.be/IeqtAB1WgEw 'He Ain't Heavy' by the Hollies -- sloppy timing and out of tune https://youtu.be/z_Jx9nqnxOM 'The Boss' by James Brown -- the first 5 seconds are fine but then it all goes horribly wrong... the bass is so out of tune it makes the whole thing completely unlistenable https://youtu.be/jC2ZY2loo74

Not exactly an IKEA solution, but a furniture conversion nonetheless. Take one old wardrobe, remove everything except the top shelf, install Warwick guitar rack, and now my basses have nice safe dust- and sunlight-proof storage. Miscellaneous bits live on the shelf (batteries, tuner, books, etc etc etc), and straps/ leads/ stage clothes/ whatever hang inside the doors. The wardrobe itself is a bit cheap and nasty, so at some point I'm going to source another nicer/more contemporary one. Maybe even an IKEA one

Up the Junction - Squeeze

I wear t- or polo shirts with the ska band, and a long-sleeved shirt (sleeves rolled up part way) with the soul band. I don't like playing in unrolled long sleeves.

People have been hung, drawn and quartered for far lesser offences than that. I hope that one day I can meet the person responsible for it and shake him warmly by the throat.

Genuine LOL. Love it. I will definitely be using this in future.

I'd want money to be even seen with it.

Nah.

I played drums at school and they were my 1st love, but bass is my true love. I'd quite happily have stuck with the tubthumping though, and no doubt by now I would have surrounded myself with a vast array of acoustic and electronic percussion. Oh you'd love my mate's tiny vintage Slingerland Gene Krupa kit. Very compact and monumentally cool.

Shut Up - Madness

Walking By Myself - Gary Moore

And finally, it's finished. If I had the patience, I could have operated on the decal and made it follow the curve closer, but it's fine for my needs. Assuming nothing else breaks, that really is The End

Hold on, I thought we'd already had the stripper story?

And start yelling for more after your last song. Followed of course by the grimly inevitable "Can my boyfriend/brother/uncle/mate have a go on your guitar? He's dead good, he used to play with the Drifters".

Groom played by James Fleet. Bride by Katie Price. Groom's family by the Crawleys out of Downton Abbey. Bride's family by the cast of Shameless. Meat 'chefs' by Cheech and Chong. Band by Steel Panther.