asingardenof

Gah! This is what I get for trying to update while having a conversation with someone.

One song we play a semitone louder lower than the original recording, but I hadn't yet figured out how to play back the track at a slower speed maintaining the same pitch when practising, so I'd practise with the original and make a mental note to drop the key when we played live. I'm sure you can all guess what happened next.

Our sound guy is our keyboardist, but our "soundcheck" usually consists of our singer wandering about the venue with his wireless mic checking if he can hear us OK. Keyboardist and drummer have monitors which apparently all sounded OK, but some sequenced bits need remixing to make them more prominent. I'm thinking I might need to invest in one to give myself a fighting chance.

Are we back to ranting about Scott Devine again? If you so forgot "super awesome"

If Ashdown will ever make a standard ABM with a smaller form factor then I'll stop doing this.

You've got to be careful with that sort of thing though, because the man who invented the Graphics Interchange Format thinks his invention should be pronounced "jiff", proving that inventors aren't always correct.

My personal unit-related bete noir is newspaper style guides that don't allow for the degree symbol when they write about temperatures, so they have them in Farads or coulombs.

Oof!

We Got The Beat - The Go Gos

I bought my trusty Squier Precision from John Scheerer & Sons in 1998. At the time it was based in the Merrion Centre in Leeds, and had been trading for around 140 years at the time of its closure about 15 years ago. Photo credit: https://highwooddrums.co.uk/news/140-years-a-musical-instrument-institution It's now a Costa.

I call them "dodgy routing covers"

I have a cheese grater called "AGHyafeckinbastid!"

Saturday we played our much-hyped (and I mean much-hyped, I don't think as much effort has gone into promoting a gig since I've been a member) gig at The Hop in Wakefield. Our guitarist Jen is a local to the area (three of the others are all from over Bratford way) so had been going mad with excitement for the last month and there had been a great many posts on "the socials" including from her employer. She had gathered a huge list of shout outs that she wanted to do but which we had to quite sensibly curtail - I made the point that with the amount she wanted to do we may as well ditch the set list and just do shout outs! The venue was reasonably compact but a nice size, and the stage was a decent size. It was a warm evening so we managed to get the AC turned on above us, but it was pretty useless and so it was a pretty sweaty one. I decided to go with my Sire V7, Ashdown ABM and the trusty Barefaced cab, with the Elf on standby just in case. During soundcheck everything sounded OK but the on-stage sound during the gig was very hit and miss - there were a few songs where we were relying on some sequenced drum tracks to keep the drummer in time, and thence to keep the rest of us in time, but there were a few songs where he could barely hear it and so we went a bit wrong on a few occasions, notably during the bass solo of Club Foot where I made a right hash of things. For the most part though things went pretty well, playing-wise, and our newly-prepped track Shout was amazing to play live, as well as giving me a chance to break out the Mooer octave pedal I got for Christmas! The atmosphere in the venue was absolutely tremendous, and playing issues aside one of the best gigs I've had with the band. Our guitarist's husband even went so far as to say he thought it was the best one he'd seen of us. People were up and dancing and singing right from the start, and the number that did so only increased through the night. We played two encores and left them wanting more - I was at the bar getting a drink afterwards and two lads were talking to each other about whether we were coming back on or not, and were disappointed when I told them we were done. My next door neighbours came to see me and looked like they were having a great time, possibly too great as they left immediately after we'd finished. We'd priced ourselves as low as we'd normally go to get the gig, but from what I was told they took almost well over double behind the bar what they'd normally take on a Saturday night. We hope we'll be invited back after that, and we'll definitely be pushing for a bit more in the way of fee. It's an Ossett Brewery pub, and we were told that they would pass on our details to others owned by the brewery, so fingers crossed. I think someone from another pub may have been in that night because we got an enquiry over Messenger during our mid-set break. Hopefully this will lead to us getting a few more diverse gigs for next year.

I hate when that happens. When I was a student in the late 90s I encountered a 70s Fender Jazz in a secondhand goods shop in Leeds which was on sale for £750. I had some student loan money burning a hole in my pocket but unfortunately not that much so I had to pass. Ah well.

I've seen good reviews of the Harley Benton JB-40FL: https://www.thomann.co.uk/harley_benton_jb_40fl_3_tone_sunburst.htm

Decent rehearsal on Sunday, and Shout is in the set list for our gig in Wakefield which is good. Still enjoying the practice studio in general but at one point there was an awful eggy smell that put us off for a few minutes, so next time I'll be booking a room away from the toilets (nobody in the band claimed responsibility, which they would have if it was one of them!). Looking forward to the next gig because it's been a few months since the last one.

I very much enjoy the original, but definitely prefer this cover by Yola.

Yeah, I think I need to look into doing this

I play with Replicater, a covers band nominally based in Cleckheaton near Bradford (though 2/5 of us are in Wakefield). We do a mix of 80s and 90s pop, new wave and Britpop mostly, but with some other bangers from other disciplines if we feel like it. Our FB page link is in my signature and I've attached a video, although it's a couple of years old because we're terrible at recording our gigs. We mainly play pubs, WMCs and the occasional cricket club, but we're playing a private party later in the summer. VID-20230828-WA0000.mp4

An oldy but a goody