MarkW

I can't see how her politics or how she chose to spend her money are remotely relevant either. She was supposed to be vile off camera though. One of my friends is an air stewardess and flew with her many times, and said she ranked as one of their most obnoxious celebrity passengers. Apparently one well-known airline considered banning her from their flights because she was so difficult. She does also seem to figure prominently in a number of those 'most unpleasant celebrity' lists too, I notice... As an aside, Natalie Imbruglia and Kylie both ranked as the two nicest celebs she'd flown with, and apparently both were even shorter and prettier in the flesh than on the telly, and both were thoroughly nice. I don't like gratuitous attacks on anyone - celebrity or not, dead or not - but neither can I stand all the faux reverence and fawning sycophancy that seems to be considered de rigeur whenever someone famous dies. I'll take honesty and plain speaking any day.

[quote name='timmo' timestamp='1439804259' post='2845817'] Jolene and higher and higher, while good songs are not that challenging on any instrument. Perhaps you should select something a lot more challenging, and see how good they are on their respective instruments. [/quote] Now I like that idea! OK folks, any suggestions for songs that technically challenge everyone in the band? I'm up for it!

There's no unpleasantness in it at all, it just seems to be a natural assumption that playing one note at a time makes the bass the easiest instrument to play. We all make the occasional mistake, but mine always seem to get more of a reaction from the band - almost as if making a mistake on such a simple instrument seals my reputation as a complete imbecile. Anyway, I always point out two things. The first is that only me and the drummer play the entire set completely from memory: keys, guitar and vocals all have charts for every song, and still make mistakes. I don't want to open the old music stands on stage debate again, but in my opinion if you can't play 'Don't Stop Believing' after three years without the chart in front of you you've got no business criticising me. Second, the audience might not notice the odd bum note from the bass player, but what they sure as hell will notice is the rest of the band turning round to look at me. Not professional. And besides, when the audience doesn't seem to mind that the keyboard player (who shares vocal duties) has been singing the wrong words to 'Park Life' for three years I don't think they'll be too fussed if I accidentally play a C instead of a G. Anyway... I joined this band when our guitarist heard me playing an old bass he had lying around. I was just noodling, because at that point I hadn't played the instrument at all for 20 years, and I hadn't been much good when I stopped. He told me they were looking for a bass player, I auditioned and got the job. In the three years we've been playing together I've got to the point where I can happily stand on a stage in front of 500 punters at one of our charity gigs and knock out Rhythm Stick, Hysteria, Master Blaster - basically anything that doesn't call for fancy slap technique, which I suck at. I think I've done OK with the limited talent available, but our guitarist never misses an opportunity to tell me how many better bass players he's known. In fact he was the reason I quit a jazz band we both joined: as if to prove his point, the first rehearsal I couldn't make he brought in a pro dep who apparently pissed all over me. I'm sure his Mark King slap solo in the middle of 'Moondance' was a joy to behold, but if that's what they want I'm the wrong man for the job. Again, this probably sounds worse than it is, because I genuinely don't think he realises that it's gone past mildly amusing and is now starting to hack me off. It's my own fault as much as anyone's - if you're happy to poke fun at yourself others will join in, and the line between light-hearted joshing and the downright insulting gets blurred.

I think part of the problem is that I am naturally very self-deprecating - I have no ego whatsoever, and poke fun at my playing far more than they do. Perhaps that's reinforced their assumption that it really isn't very hard. I dunno... But then again the bottom line is I [i]could[/i] teach our singer to play most of our set just as well as me - it's about as easy as it gets! Perhaps the feel would be different, but it would probably be passable. I'll tell you what does p*ss me off good and proper though: as a man of very modest talent on the bass I had to invest some time and effort into learning Rhythm Stick, but our keyboard player couldn't be bothered. He had a few half-arsed stabs at it in gigs and then decided it wasn't a crowd-pleaser. So my one and only chance to shine has been dropped from the set, and I'm back to 'Higher and Higher' and 'Jolene'. Give him his due though - he did tell me on day one that he was a bit lazy when it came to learning new stuff!

So, as the title suggests, I am without doubt the least musically valued member of our band. They are a lovely bunch and we get on like a house on fire, but the innate assumption amongst all of them is that whilst keyboard, guitar and drums all require skill, anyone can play the bass. Now I don't really mind - not least because I know I'm nowt special - but it does make me laugh sometimes. Because I have a 4x4 and a trailer I hump most of our gear to and from gigs, and a few weeks ago I was described in all seriousness by our keyboard player as 'a roadie who plays a bit'. Charming! And tonight, when we're trying to sort a dep guitarist for an imminent gig, our singer said "if you'd learned the guitar instead of the bass we'd be fine, 'cos I could probably learn what you do in a fortnight'. Now this isn't a play for sympathy or moral support because I really couldn't give a toss (I taught myself Rhythm Stick to a gig-able standard, so I can't be completely useless) but it did get me thinking: I've read all the stuff about how important we are, and how good bass players are so much harder to come by than good guitarists, but is that really the case? The fact is that in a pubs & clubs covers band like mine pretty much any monkey could do just as good a job as me: there isn't exactly huge scope for wowing the punters with a flashy rendition of the two notes in 'Moves Like Jagger' is there? And even if I could play like Les Claypool or Marcus Miller, what exactly would I do with 'Summer of 69' or 'Country Roads' that I'm not doing now? So given the noddy-bass-line stuff we play, how would I ever look like anything other than a noddy? :-(

The father of one of my eldest son's friends is a 'breaks' producer (whatever one of those is) and played Glastonbury this year. I have to admit that I haven't got the foggiest idea what it actually entails, other than the fact that he gets very tetchy on Facebook whenever anyone suggests that he is a laptop operative rather than a 'proper' musician. From what little I've heard, it seems to entail stitching tuneless and irritating electronic beeping noises together into longer sequences to produce a mind-numbingly repetitive and synthetically sterile noise and then playing it to men in their late 30's who still use words like 'Yo' and 'Big ups' in their everyday conversation, clearly under the impression that it is still 1995. All very confusing.

How about Bernard Edwards' little solo in Le Freak? As basic as it gets, and arguably the most interesting bit of the song. Not that that's saying much mind you...

Every now and then I wish I had the ability to solo, but I'm hopeless at it: I have neither the proficiency to be melodic nor the technique to be flashy. But to my ears a bass solo can be every bit as pleasing as a guitar solo, provided that technique isn't used as a surrogate for musicality. Stu Hamm's solo at the end of 'Love Thing' is a very simple but beautiful piece of playing, whereas the pyrotechnics of Mark King et al, whilst hugely technically impressive, just leave me cold. That said, even if I could solo I'd never get the chance - our 'rock god' guitarist would be too busy starching his pants at the front of the stage to let me get a look in...

[quote name='SteveK' timestamp='1438766248' post='2836964'] Shame, that in a thread titled "Cilla Black RIP" you felt the need to post the above![/quote] No, I don't think so. It's a shame that she has died and I'm sorry for her family, but we're all adults. "Let us say what we think, and be frank about it: death does not confer privileges."

I must admit I have never been able to stand Cilla Black's voice, and have often used the fact that my father-in-law thinks she's fantastic as the absolute benchmark of his abject lack of musicality. Seriously, I've heard more melodious noises when I've trodden on the cat.

Our set lists are now compiled with a view to confusing the bass player as little as possible. A few weeks ago we did a gig where we had Valerie (the Amy Winehouse version: fret a D# and play duh-du-duh-du-du) and You Can't Hurry Love (fret a Bb and play du-du-duh, du-du-du-duh) in the same set. You can work out what happened for yourselves...

Thanks guys - lots of good advice here. Phil, I had to smile when you mentioned turning down to get a better mix: the instinct in our band is to turn up the things we can't hear rather than turning down the things that are too loud, and it's infuriating. Whenever my bass needs more punch I usually start by cutting the lowest frequencies on the EQ before I start boosting anything or turning the volume up, and that seems to work pretty well. Regarding the drums, we only mic the bass drum, because this has a tendency to disappear a bit - the rest of the kit is acoustic. I'm very interested in the IEM suggestion, for several reasons. Firstly there are the obvious size/transport/storage benefits over floor monitors. Then there's the fact that we wouldn't be adding to the already considerable on-stage volume, or introducing potential new feedback problems with additional speakers. Our drummer is very keen on this approach and has apparently used it before in other bands, but our keyboard player says he struggles with IEM for some reason. Not sure why. Budget-wise, we've probably got around £600 to play with. :-) Cheers Mark

Hi Douglas It's a Mackie DL1608, which apparently has eight outputs. A single mix sent to each of us would be a massive improvement on what we've got at the moment, but if there are other options that might work better I'm all ears! Another thing I was wondering about is that we currently only send drums, keyboards and vocals through the PA, with guitar and bass going through our own amps. If everyone sends a line to the desk to be in the monitor mix, had we may as well all go through the PA or are there benefits in keeping things a bit more separate? Apologies for the noddy questions!

Hi all A quick forum search didn't turn up what I was looking for, but if this has already been covered just point me in the right direction... Our band regularly struggles from monitoring problems. More specifically, only the keyboard player and the singer have any sort of monitor, and in both cases they are old and clapped-out practice amps that are being used for a function they were not designed for. Half the time the guitarist can't hear anything except the drums, I can't usually hear the singer or much of the guitarist, and there is also the ever-present danger of horrific feedback due to the general crapness of our set-up. I can't help thinking we'd be better off if we just bit the bullet and bought a few proper floor monitors, but this isn't something I know the first thing about. I've seen active and passive versions (no idea what the implications of either are) and various suggested set-ups for a five-piece band. Do we need one for each person, or just a couple strategically placed so that everyone hears more or less the same thing? Any advice would be massively appreciated, and especially if anyone can suggest a decent budget set-up! Cheers guys!

Day two of our three day stint at the Great Yorkshire Show done, and what a day it was! It started with doing my First Responder bit when a young woman collapsed in the queue for the burger van. At first I thought she'd just seen the prices (£17 for three burgers) but it turned out she had a medical condition. She was out cold for a good 20 minutes, and it took the medics quite a while to turn up. It never ceases to amaze me how many people just stand by and ignore someone who obviously needs help. Our keyboard player commandeered a parasol from one of the picnic tables to keep the blazing sun off her, and even had the foresight to shout "Don't forget to like our band on Facebook!" as they wheeled her into the ambulance. The gig itself was brilliant, and when we finally had to stop this evening we had a marquee rammed with drunk farmers yelling "One more song!" in unison. A load of people from a recent charity gig also turned up and re-booked us. Brilliant crowd! I am also absolutely loving the new Stingray 5. It sounds amazing through my TE rig, and just seems to suit me better than any of my others. I think I'm in love! Last day tomorrow, then another gig on Saturday. If any Basschatters are in the area feel free to come and say hello, and to offer any criticism of my woeful bass playing :-)