Second rehearsal gig, with the big band ' Pro motion' in Amersfoort, Netherlands. Changed the Fishman loudbox mini for my Peavy classic 30. I did check out the combination at home. Payed attention the the position of the guitar and the amp. Great sound, no feedback at all, even at a volume that could deal with the big band. We're getting somewhere :-). Next challange: how to generate the best jazz sound. To be continued....
Today I had my first rehearsal with the band I ocasionally join. The 575 produced a great sound, that I shall adjust at home. Any suggestion is very welcome!
The only minor aspect of today is the feedback. My Epi Dot hardly ever produced feedback, this 575 does tons of it. How can I deal with that? Again, any suggestion is very welcome....
The band has been very busy gigging these past few months and on the whole we're doing alright. We went down really well at a club down in South Yorkshire and the audience want us back, but then we found out that the concert secretary has decided that he is only going to book entertainment through an agent, so they won't give us a return booking even though they know firsthand how good we are at what we do. It's a shame because it was a well paid gig and on top of that, the club members who pay
After years of drooling over these guitars, I've finally gotten my hands
on a beautiful '04 Prospect. It has the red sunburst finish, which I have never
seen on another one. I knew it was going to be good, but it's better than that.
The neck is just right, and it has Lollar humbuckers, immaculate condition.
I had to trade a nice guitar plus an amp for it, but I'm a happy boy!
I might still be interested in an H-555, if anybody has a nice one in immaculate
condition, and they'd want to t
Our band of merry minstrals have been playing an awful lot lately, and in fairness to blog readers, reading about this gig and that gig gets repetative, so I haven't posted lots of duplicate blog entries. But these last few weeks have been eventful to say the least.
They actually started off with a celebration, as my best mate and fellow band member Shaun married his girlfriend of the last eighteen months. I actually spoke at the wedding which was held at the church we both attend. It was a
Hello Every one, it's time I took some time to write another entry and update the story of the band's journey. I really appreciate that some of you take time to read my blog as I really do enjoy writing it.
We're well and truly in gigging mode now, and are getting more bookings than I thought we would, and going down really well wherever we are asked to play. Crowds have been of various sizes, from good to almost empty, but we have always tried to be as professional as we can be regardless o
Saturday I sold my Peavey Bandit to an older gentlemen that recently lost his job. He had been on the prowl for a Peavey Bandit USA Red Stripe model because they sound better than the older USA models. Couldn’t help but agree with him. As we sat there for nearly an hour talking about guitars, amps, and the thirst that can never be quenched for obtaining them, I told him something about my guitar buying. As I looked about the floor in the living room, I had a brand new Fender Stratocaster, a
As a very proud but still relatively new member to the Heritage family, I'm wondering if anyone can please explain why some serial numbers on Heritage guitars are hand written while others (like the one on my gorgeous 2002 Burnt Amber H-555) are stamped onto the back of the head stock? Just curious!
Another gig under our belt, we played a venue called Netherton Conservative Club. With a small audience of about eighty, we played two sets of forty five minutes and one hour. The venue has the smallest stage I have ever played on - we had our mics fully extended and set on the dance floor. The club was well out of town and located in a nice setting, but humping the gear in and out was a pain in the neck because the door was a long way from the car park. We did not get a return booking there and
Having put so much work in to the band, we are now playing live and played our first gig with the present line up, which we feel will be permanent. We all get along together and feel we have a common goal with none of us just tagging along.
Our gig was at a nice pub on the outskirts of Huddersfield, called The Wagon and Horses, which is run by a young couple who seem to be doing a good job of it. With it being what we call in England a "Bank Holiday Weekend" it could have gone either way as
I feel like we have crossed a really important bridge now, and that things are not going to be so difficult. We are now a band that is taking bookings and the fees are pretty good for a band of our ilk. More of that later. We are now a steady line up with committed musicians in the line up. It's been an up and down journey, losing two band members along the way. However, Shaun and I were determined it was not going to finish after all that hard work.
We now have 33 numbers that we can go ou
After the abismal session we had last week without a drummer, things are looking up.
During the week I decided to call a friend, Allen, who Shaun and I have played with before in a band we just could not get up and running. By good fortune for us, it turned out that Allen has not been playing any gigs since last summer and was fed up with his current band's lack of enthusiasm for going out and playing.As we had always got along together and had made a point of trying to stay in touch, and w
Trying to get a band up and running is full of twists and turns that you just don't expect to find.
having completed a set list of over thirty numbers we are now ready to polish them to performance level and we have gigs booked. Then, this week, we all get an e mail from Terry our drummer saying he is quitting. He told me that he is not going to join any other band, but he wants to do other things. He and his brother have bought a narrow boat and want to go off on it at weekends with their
What with all the stuff going on about the HOC site being down, I haven't been able to post for a while, but I'm glad we're all finding our way back home and I am glad I can write my blog again.
Well, lots has been going on since I last wrote a chapter in the progress of Rout 62, my band. The band's name is a bit of a play on Rout 66, and is toungue in cheek because two of us live in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, and the two big motorways that pass our town are the M1 which runs North from London
Well,nice to be back where I started from.Hope you all had a great New Year's Eve. I was playing bass with a Rock a Billy band.It was one of those gigs where the young 'uns are telling me how the songs they are about to perform go,I was thinking 'No they don't ',but I was all ears,because I have to know how THEY do the songs I have been listening to for over 50 years. All went well.We were playing a venue that I've played on & off for over 50 years.It's about to close & become yet anothe
Back to rehearsing after a couple of weeks break due to starting a new job and also having had a very bad case of bronchitis.
I wasn't really 100% fit for practice today because my chest was still weak, and I do a lot of the singing, but others are committed to the band and you have to keep this in mind. We now have 25 numbers in the set list and we are now starting to go through them one at a time, sharpening them up. There's nothing difficult about any of them for a half way decent player,
Normally we practice as a full four piece, but today was a little different in that Terry, our drummer called me today full of flu and not only that, his home was bugled on Thursday night while he and his wife slept in their beds. In truth, he just needed some time to unwind and rest. So, undaunted, Dave, Shaun and I decided to practice and just kick some songs about that Dave did in his last band and just concentrate on guitar and bass parts.
It was actually time well spent, and we didn't h
For those of you kind enough to read my last blog entry you will recall that we had lost our other guitar player to another band, and that had come at a bad time, as we were all about ready to gig, just working on a final few song ideas to get up to the magic number of thirty songs in the set list. So, we have had to look hard and find another guitar player good enough to fit in. I had placed several ad's on websites and was getting little response when a guy from Doncaster (about fifteen miles
Life is full of surprises, and I love a book or a film with a twist in the tale. However, I don't always appreciate real life's twists.
Believing that all was well and that things really were heading in the right direction, I was ten minutes away from home on Wednesday evening when my phone rang in the car. As it is blue tooth and hands free, I could speak with no problems. Very unusually, it was Dave, our other guitar player. This was unusual because friendly fellow though he is, he never c
After a few weeks of not making an entry into my blog I am back to keeping those kind enough to read it up to speed on where we are at and the life and times of a would be semi pro player here in Northern England.
Life in the band has been interesting, my Fender Hot Rod deluxe had valve issues and was horrendously noisy. It turned out it was a pre amp valve. This particular amp has three of those so I decided that as one of them was on the way out and causing so much trouble, I might as wel
One guitar that has been a sticking point for me ever since I started this thing has been a 93 US Am Std strat.
I got it on Jan 18 1994. Birthday present. It has been the heaviest gigged out of all of my guitars and is on its third? (I think) re fret.
Its put in a lot of miles all over our big state.
It was stolen and recovered and also lost at an airport and recovered 3months later. I call it a boomerang. It comes back.
After it was stolen a friend and well respected luthier here took it
