Mancaves

Smithers XKR · Nov 8, 2022

Hello guys

Just wanted to start a little thread here and I am sorry if I break any rules or protocols.

Our Mancave... the little room where we escape our everyday stress and worries. Little fridge for yer beers, your comfy chair, big wall mounted TV, get ya buddies over and chill 🥰👍
I'll show you mine if you show me yours.. 😅🥰👍

TAE · Nov 8, 2022

Oh now you've gone and done it. I hate you. Nah just kidding.. Nice getaway there buddy. I noticed the collection of Golf Drivers you had there amongst all that was musical...
Edddie VH and a shit ton of various gear...You sir are a lucky puppy. My man cave is not ready for "Prime Time" showings but hopefully in the next few months I'll be getting on with getting her done. Until then I hope others here will inspire me to get r done by making me jealous. Dragonworks (dogooder) posted elsewhere here his cool little set up..equally cool. OK Rock On! Did I ever tell about the night I met David Essex? :laughings:

true story ..kinda crazy

Smithers XKR · Nov 8, 2022

But you live in Cali livin the dream! You supported DLR and Ed!! I am the jealous one, I live in NE England.... which is equivalent to Seattle, no wonder grunge was depressed. My gran did know Brian Johnson tho 🥰😉👍

Smithers XKR · Nov 8, 2022

David Essex is a lovely guy, my older sis went to his gig in the mid 70s, he came out and signed autos and just talked to the fans and was like normal bloke

Smithers XKR · Nov 8, 2022

I have 5 sets of vintage blade irons on the wall. But golf is not happening now. I hurt my back 2 weeks ago and have had to get private healthcare treatment. Cant drive, cant play golf, totally fed up, and when I strap on my guitar I struggle after 10 minutes. I am 57 year old broken and knackered old goat 😟😟😟

Smithers XKR · Nov 8, 2022

Anyway nice to talk to you.
I am so loving your times back in the day.
My gran ran a cafeteria in the 70s opposite the factory in the East end industrial side of Newcastle. Brian Johnson worked there and would come for his hot bacon sarnies (ham and egg sandwiches) and tabs and baccy (ciggarettes and tobacco) through the little serving hatch in the morning. Come mid day all the guys would come in for their Pies and Peas and Chips (Chips are big proper English fries). One day he said.... Mary you know I am in a local band in my spare time from work? I am going to London for an audition, this could be my big chance.
He got the AC/DC job.
They played Newcastle City Hall in 1980 after Back in Black and I got to meet him as a 15 year old kid. He remembered my gran and asked after her. Fame never changed or affected him.
What a guy 🥰😉👍👍👍

Smithers XKR · Nov 8, 2022

The canvas Eddie was just something I saw and really liked the whole aesthetic thing. I just thought it was more cool than a simple photo or poster and thought it was a very iconic image done in a different way so had to have it 🥰😉👍

Smithers XKR · Nov 8, 2022

People think that Extreme and Living Colour invented funk metal in the 90's. I saw them both live in the early 90's and they were great. But the lineage goes all the way back to Ed and Alex.
You are a guitar player TAE so listen to this where "Get The Funk Out" came from.
I'll let you decide mate 🥰😉👍

Smithers XKR · Nov 8, 2022

The photo 3 shows a flight case. Inside that is a 100W 68 plexi superlead. I used it in the 80s for gigs and it was worked to hell and screwed with the Tolex falling off. 10 years ago I had it fully restored by a local guy who had done his training and worked for Jim Marshall. I have tried it with my vintage Tube Screamer and Seymour Duncan Invader in one of my many guitars and its just the purest rock sound possible.
I was offered £3k for that amp and a couple of hundred for the original TS but they aint leaving the house 😉🥰👍

Smithers XKR · Nov 8, 2022

I had a lovely Frankenstrat replica built by a local guy. Half the price of the Fender equivalent and twice as good..
But... I just dont like the Alnico in the bridge. Ed originally used a PAF back in the day. He dropped it in a coffee pot full of wax to hot wax it and stop the high rattle feedback and melted a few by accident.
The Alnico is ok but just a bit gritty. Thinking of dumping in a SD. Purer sound and power and sustain.

Slouching Raymond · Nov 8, 2022

Nice man cave, Smithers. Everyone should have a Marshall stack. I still aspire to that.

Retired · Nov 9, 2022

Hi,

Nice gear; which bank did you rob?

It puts my tiny studio to shame and I thought I was doing OK. Thanks for sharing.

Kind regards, Colin.

clamsterdamm · Nov 9, 2022

Nice collection you got there. It’s good to be surrounded by audio!

TAE · Nov 9, 2022

I saw Living color with Lenny Kravitz a million years ago...that was a good show...
Of course I watched VH open for UFO BEFORE they were signed...They blew UFO off the stage that night, It was that night that I realized OK these cats have just broke through the glass ceiling. Alex did one of the greatest drum solo's I have ever "seen" that night and I 've seen a few. What a showman, he owned the crowd.

FWIW to clarify I am not a guitarist and at 69 probably never will be. I can make noise and do a few chords but it is just not where I invested my playing time. Maybe when I get old. :laughings:

I play the keys brother. Synths and Hammonds and piano's Oh My! In this country band I play em all but when I'm doing my Tomco thing it is just about 100% piano..

Here's the audio to that crazy gig in 1976

Smithers XKR · Nov 9, 2022

Sorry TAE, doh! my mistake, it comes with age you know? 😅😅
I am a decent guitarist who plays a bit of keys, so we are the exact opposite 🥰😉👍
I will give the gig a listen and get back to you 👍
I'll have bragging rights with local musician mates..... I know this guy who supported VH in 76 before they were famous! They will say ..... Stevie thats bull man !
🤣🤘👍

Smithers XKR · Nov 9, 2022

Thanks Colin 👍

A lot of stuff was picked up second hand for under 100 quid over a number of years, I'm not rich.. just got enough money to get by now without having to do a crap job that makes me unhappy, all I ever wanted really 😉👍

Hey man ....back in the day in the 90's I did some quite good demos with just the Atari, the Korg Synth, the MT8X analogue multitracker and a little guitar amp.

Its not what you have, its how you use it... as the wife keeps reassuring me 😅😅

Kind Regards,
Steve 👍

TAE · Nov 9, 2022

And Quiet Riot WITH Randy Rhodes opened for my band @ the same time... He was pretty good for a pup. Dems was the daze!

Smithers XKR · Nov 9, 2022

You are the man TAE 😉👍 Quiet Riot was a seminal band.... Rhodes joined Ozzy, Frankie Banali played drums on the legendary Hughes Thrall album and Sarzo went on to play bass in Whitesnake...
Big hair! What a lineage 😅😅🤘🤘👍👍
I read an interview with Rudi the other day talking about his best friend Randy and their times back in the day.
🥰😉👍

Smithers XKR · Nov 9, 2022

I have to come clean here Clam... I am a bit of a fraud sadly. Everything is genuine here and this is my room and stuff... but apart from the Atari into the Korg and MT8X I really dont know how I can get any of this to work 😟
Its so difficult and I am trying to learn and get advice from forums like this. I am a good musician but the tech stuff is foxing me, even though I went to production college back in the day. I did go on the Atari forum and learned how to set up the HDD with partitioning etc and all works great now and downloaded the old Cubase 3 and my original college demo files to the HDD. So I have come a long way in a few werks. My next challenge is to MIDI lead up all of the outboard gear and use the SMPTE controller as a master to run the Atari sequencer. So much to learn 🙁 It will take me at least a year of reading and hard work and study to learn all of the gear I have.
Lot of work ahead 👍

TAE · Nov 9, 2022

Oh man Atari now you're dating yourself. I knew a beast of a keyboard player in early 2000 using the Atari stuff. It was very cool for that place and space in time.

My advice is walk away from the old stuff and embrace this amazing brave new world of music recording tools out there. Being as you have to go through a learning curve either way and help with the Atari world is going to be limited. On something like Ableton or Reaper there are literally 1000's of videos and groups all working together to help ejamakate ignoramous's like me.

In todays world with things like Ableton and Reaper that stuff from 20years ago IMHO is an exercise in futility and very restricted when compared. Mind you I have not actually embraced any of it other than using Reaper as a multitrack audio recorder to the minimum of it's limits. These days the keyboards that are out there for under $1500 that are "work stations" are powerful sequencing beast. I just sold my MODX8 for the new and improved...( nah just more memory) MODX7+ I'm loving it for the sounds but the workstation is just sitting there yelling at me DUDE! USE ME! But not yet. Time is the enemy .tick tock tick tock...damn.. Oh well I have a gig tomorrow at some Veterans event so I need to go woodshed.... Later man!

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