Finnegan's Wake, 05/04/08

The second gig of our first double header, all I can say is what a stormer!

We arrived early as usual, just to be sure we could get our gear through the usually thronging crowd easily, to be greeted with Victoria Street in a bit of disarray and parking in very short supply. Neil was in a nice wee space, seemingly having just driven there the previous night from Behind the Wall!.....

Anyhow, parking sorted, thanks to the chief security chap- sorry, don't know his name- who moved his car to let me park mine, all the gear was in and set up by 8.40. All we had to do was wait until the time when people find the transmitted sound of a sweaty band to be palatable with their Chicken Korma- 10.30 apparently. The one benefit from the delay was that from full, the venue went to packed to the rafters! It was truly heaving!

Into the first set of two- the traditional 3 sets being impossible now with the later start time- and from the first delay ridden chords of "Another Brick", the crowd were in our palms and a good night was pretty much guaranteed!

We held the crowd throughout- it was great to have such good feedback for once, pub crowds being traditionally reticent to applaud, regardless of how much they are enjoying themselves- it's difficult to clap with a pint in your hand you see- but this was a real revelation. It was fully warranted though, we were playing like men possessed!

So all in all, a particularly satisfying couple of nights. Roll on the rest of the year.

Take it real easy

Percussion Maestro

Knee Trembler Behind The Wall - 4.4.08

So here we are once more...

Yep, we made our triumphant return to one of our favourite venues last night following a lay off since last October... Back in October we suffered from some exceptionally painful sound engineering, compounded by not knowing how to operate the house PA. By the time we'd decided to switch to our own rig, it was too late - we'd emptied the place, removing the audience's collective heads like a guillotine of sound. Not good...

So this time we had everything to play for! Big thanks to Neil and Bobby for having us back and proving October was a "one off" and not one to be repeated! It's ironic as EVERY previous visit to Falkirk's Finest saw us drawing a great crowd, keeping them and having them eating out the palms of our hands.

Last night was a triumphant return to form. We were on fire!! When we arrived and set up, the venue was pretty empty - well, it was early. By the time we hit the stage at around 10pm, the trickle started... The trickle turned into a flood of people.... By the middle of the first set, the flood turned into a deluge!! WE WERE BACK!!!

We absolutely stormed through a couple of stunning sets with every single one of us playing our socks off. It's not often you'll hear this, but even I was in particulalrly fine voice. From the opening OTT delay of Another Brick In The Wall's into to the final notes of Heroes left hanging in the air, we were tight, we were funky, we were powerful... Face it, we were on form!

Without going on and on, again big thanks to Neil - we're playing with fire and will be back on Friday 13th June 2008. Do we believe in superstition? Do we fuck! We'll be back to rock the rafters again.

Right, off for some more strong black coffee to kick the system back into hyperdrive - we're off again tonight to another stunning venue - Finnegan's Wake in Victoria Street, Edinburgh (home of some of the best looking women on our circuit - until we break Glasgow)!

Until later, take care, have fun and keep rockin'

Neil

The birth of Godiva

She is born! She is here!! As the bulge in Andy's trouser department will testify, I have successfully customised my Peavey guitar (now re-christened Godiva).

For the technically anally retentive (yup, Andy again), here's a brief overview of what I did... This could almost be subtitled "Don't believe what you read"... All will become apparent.

Initially, I thought I might buy yet another guitar (number 8) with some deeply offensive graphics and a rock 'n' roll image. Then I thought, why buy another when I could do up an existing guitar to sound perfect - and, as it turned out - look perfect.

Rather than simply change the pickups, I decided to remove the whole pickplate assembly and replace everything from the wood up.

Business end - I bought a Seymour Duncan Cool Rails pickup for the neck, a Seymour Duncan Vintage Rails for the mid and a Seymour Duncan 'Lil 59 humbucker for the bridge. After extensive research, apparently this would give me a '63 Strat sound with the neck / mid positions and a '59 Les Paul on the bridge... Hmmm, nice. Add to this, I couldn't just connect these to any old crappy electronics, I added brand new American pots (a push / pull on one to coil tap the 'Lil 59), an American 5 way selector and top of the range Sprague Orange Drop capacitors (a 0.1uF on the neck and a 0.047uF on the bridge). All of this was connected with new American Fender spec replacement wiring.

In terms of "don't believe what you read" - I followed Seymour Duncan's wiring diagram to the letter... And ended up with a non-operational tone circuitry. After much tearing of hair, gnashing of teeth and emails to Andy, a flash of inspiration came to me while driving to work one day! Seymour was wrong! I then copied the layout on the original Peavey plate and VOILA! Perfect.

Looks - I had commissioned a custom designed new pickplate after Googling for "Naked girl on a horse" (hence Godiva). I then added to this new chrome hardwear, stainless steel screws and abalone topped knobs.

Add to this the Grover locking machine heads I had already installed, the job was done....

UNTIL NEXT TIME!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you GODIVA!

On the Road Again...

After our long winter of discontent and few gigs, we're back out there with a vengeance, with another CD in the bag and a fresh taste for the land of the leather trousers and OTT introductions!

Our time in the studio over Feb/March was well spent with a new 7 track CD produced at Craigmount Studios care of our now almost fifth member, our pet engineer, Colin and Shug, our progressive pal and studio owner. The tunes are up on our Myspace if you fancy a listen (just follow the link in the links section on this site). Quite addictive this studio lark. I feel like a seasoned old pro, but you can never fiind one when you need one....

So, to more recent happenings and our first live outing of the year, a new venue for us in the Waverly Hotel, in deepest Callander. as we arrived, the early crowd were still eating their steak pie, but in the setup period, the crowd changed from Teatime to Playtime and by the time we hit the stage on the stroke of nine, the joint was jumpin' and packed to the door.

We started as we meant to continue and hit them with our usual first set barrage. Despite the fairly long winter lay off, we were on form from the first note and it was like we had never been away. it was like putting on a really comfortable pair of old shoes that you had not seen for a while and just instantly knowing that they were right!

A short break later (and the discovery that a couple of groups in the audience had seen our name, checked us out on line, listened to the uploaded tunes and STILL come to see us!) and into the second set and all of a sudden we had a crowd of dancers infront of us, digging everything we played. This continued to the witching hour when we signed off in our traditional manner- Heroes with ridiculous intros!

A great night- roll on next weekend and our first ever double header!

Keep on rockin'

Percussion Maestro