MY FIRST STEEL GIG

[STEDDIE EDDIE]

well done Henry, im sure you were just fine, there'll be no stopping you now, and as for the medicine, im still on it!!! hic!!! and come on rick!!!! give us a link, it cant be worse than my first gig, can it?????

[henry]

well I put some PTFE on my volume pedal like Basil advised and some oil on my roller nut so it was only fair I had some lubrication myself and the Guinness seemed to good to pass up!

Cheers Shaun.. you've got a gig coming your way pretty soon.?
Cheers Rick, was with a country covers band at a pub called The Five Bells in Seal nr Sevenoaks.
Where's that link then..?!

[STEDDIE EDDIE]

PTFE TAPE? Enlighten me, where did you place the ptfe tape? ? ?

[Basil Henriques]

Nope, polytetrafluoroethylene lubricant as per mountain bike chain lubricant3-in-1

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[Basil Henriques]

Because PTFE is a fluorocarbon solid, it not only lubricates the track and spindle, but the carbon track of the pot isn't affected by it detrimentally. If anything it can help the track "back to Life'..

PTFE's resistance to van der Waals forces means that it is the only known surface (in its Teflon form) to which a gecko cannot stick. FWIW

INVENTED by accident in 1938. (Just about the time that early steel guitar volume pedals were starting to have pot problems with wear.) !

[bob adams]

Not quite my first gig but one I sure won’t forget!

Playing the Stakis circuit and the Hills Hotel Glasgow one night in what was a crowded fair sized venue I was playing steel and about to throw in a little tenor vocal so.... I grabbed the boom mic as you do and 'boom was the word', 240v shot through me! I vaulted the steel and landed spread eagle on the first couple’s table. In complete shock and terror they and several others disappeared at the spead of light! As the song says ‘your eyes light up and your face turns blue’. Well it was something along those lines! Fortunately the only visible scars were the substantial blisters inside my hand from the mic frying to me! and the fact that I couldn’t lift a lead at the end of the evening never mind a PSG! I think looking back it kind of collapsed my lungs, at least that’s what it felt like. If you read this Dave (Nutt) and ever come across big Barry you ask him if he recalls the memory, it put a look on his face I had never seen before that's for sure!

So the moral of this story, check your plugs now and again lads for that random loose wire it might just save you a fry up with you on the menu!

No circuit breakers in those days!

[Basil Henriques]

Bob, that's a valid reason why all instruments on stage should be powered from one point via plugboards. All too often there are sockets on stage or just at the front of the stage that are on the occasional heating phase of the three phase supply. If the stage sockets are on a different phase i.e. motive power, there is then a potential of VERY high voltages across what would appear to be the common earths.
Of course they are not earths but are "Tied" to neutral, therein lies the danger.
Glad you survived it Bob, one thing you probably learned is to "gingerly" touch a mike whilst holding a guitar etc..I've seen phase testers light up under similar circumstances. Quite disturbing..

[Zebedee]

I always use the back of my right hand to initially touch something that might be 'dodgy'.

The reasoning is this:
If you get a shock, the muscles in your arm will cause your hand to grip, that's why the back of the hand is used.

Why the right hand ?

If you use your left hand, current will go through your heart on its way to ground, not so with the right hand, it misses the heart, but probably doesn't do the liver any favours

[ZBSD-10]

My first "gig" was in a pub somewhere in Swansea with the late Stuart Christian,armed with my pride and
joy, a Rose Morris (Denley) 8-string,4 pedal steel and a Vox Defiant amp (there's one on ebay and they want
1500 quid for it !) proceeded to play reasonably ok until we were joined by The Singing Sikh,then down hill
all the way !
However ,going onto Basil's thing about electric supplies, here in Greece the system is abysmal, anything
from 3-phase to single and sometimes both intermixed in the same building and colour coded wiring means
jack s--t here, I've seen the earth used as a supply a few times so Russ and me have the trusty Martindales
as an integral part of the kit and that does give us some idea of what's what !
All the best
Frank. Corfu

[Shaun]

Don't remind me Henry, My first one's New Years eve, so I've got a while yet, I'm learning the set as best I can. I'm bricking myself just thinking about it:-) In some ways I'm really looking forward to it , in other ways I'm dreading it. I'm sure it'll be fine though. Hopefully the audience will too anebriated to notice my mistakes.