Looking around at my collection of musical instruments and paraphernalia while I type this, I realise that all the toys is, strictly speaking, an exaggeration. However, after another Long Player rehearsal last night (60s / 70s blues rock covers), I realise that I’m shaping up to use quite a few of them.

Lots of the six string Sei bass, which has been my mainstay for over 15 years now but, on the instrument front, the Variax guitar will also be getting a good showing. I think this will be one of the first times I’ve performed on guitar in a gig setting (although I’ve done plenty of church music on guitar) and I’ll be getting good use out of a number of the settings – acoustic 6 and 12 string guitars, sitar (Paint It Black) and even Banjo (Norwegian Wood … because I didn’t want to spoil things by using the sitar sound twice).

I’ve also got various effects lined up. Not too much but a few things to spice up the sound including a good chance of my EHX B9 organ simulator getting a chance or two to shine and perhaps even a spot of looping for when a trio line up of instrumentalists could do with sounding like a quartet.

The gig is at The Blagrave Arms in Reading on 19 January and we’re doing a couple of sets, I think between 7-9pm. However, looking at that list of toys (and thinking of the backing vox, etc), I think I need to get on with some more practising!