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Much belated weekend update- Friday, trio gig, on acoustic guitar, playing for a mencap do at the local football ground function room, Radfords. Great fun. Saturday- a gig that almost never was. We had a dep guitarist booked and with 10 days notice he bailed, as he had ‘a better gig’. If we couldn’t replace him it would game over for us in the time available, and we’d have to let down the (repeat client) After much scrabbling and frantic rehearsing the 6 piece went out for the do, replacement guitarist much better than scheduled dep and two audience members joined us on horns- very nice. Sunday- band call for a week long am-dram run next week. Hadn’t really looked at the part, didn’t look too hard on initial viewing. Made it through, but one number I’d failed to spot it was minim equals 106 rather crotchet. Bit of a Sunday roast!

I was working with a metal band once, and the drummer insisted on tempo changes for every different riff. Basically he wanted the tempo for each beat to be as fast as he could possibly play it. I tried my best to get them (the whole band) to agree to a more consistent tempo but they wouldn't be told. This same drummer then went out of time with the metronome. When I stopped the take he asked why I'd stopped it, and I explained that he'd crossed the bar and was nowhere near the click. He said "the click must have gone out of time"

I wouldn't dream of picking up a guitar that doesn't belong to me without asking for permission. If it was unclear who it belongs to, I wouldn't pick it up. Poor show if you think otherwise, in my book.

Just got back from collecting this. Very happy.

Which to be fair, is better than "Play something you know!" as we used to shout at a mates' band... 😁

Yup, she was a right pizza work….

I once spent half an hour in the Rough Trade shop in Ladbroke Grove trying to work out which micro-genres the CDs I wanted to buy would be in. In the end it was quicker to hand the person behind the counter a list of what I was after and let them look. It turned out they only had one out of the 10 CDs I wanted to buy and it was categorised in such a way I don't think I would have found it on my own. I really don't care about genre. AFAIAC there is just music I like and music I don't like. In the shop it's much easier to find it everything is simply arranged alphabetically by artist.

Our monthly residency with the acoustic duo at a pub in a Hull suburb. Regular faces in the crowd, and plenty of requests to get through. Most challenging one was ‘September’ by Earth, Wind & Fire! My guitarist mate actually made a pretty good job of it, leaving me to try and remember the bass lines and backing vocals! The evening ( for me anyway) was slightly marred by just two people - one guy on his own at the back who seemed gone on more than alcohol shouting out stuff in between and during the songs. He actually came up at the end to thank us too, very strange. The other was a woman in her 30’s sitting right in front of us who had the loudest voice I’ve heard in a long time. Really off putting especially during the quieter songs, and annoying some of the audience too. I think she’s a friend of the landlord’s wife ( who was away on holiday) so difficult knowing what to do. She sang along and clapped out of time, making it difficult for us. When she left before our third and last set we breathed a sigh of relief, only for her to reappear ten minutes later with a pizza from the takeaway over the road! Just hope she’s not in on our gig in December.

Here's the showreel for a new project i'm involved in. Quite looking forward to getting out there...

Loved music as a kid. Had a cheap classical guitar, never got far but kept trying. Put steel strings on it and tried to play punk. It died. My mate got a cheap as chips Kay 'Strat-a-like' from a secondhand shop. I got the (even) less cool 'SG-a-like' (still got it!). Made lots of bad noises. Wet to uni. Played (badly) songs from 'The Beatles Complete' for sing alongs after the pub. Eventually got a decent used acoustic (1976, Epiphone, still got it). I could probably have been a rhythm/folk type guitarist if I had consistently tried and could have remembered more songs. My mate Steve let me noodle on his bass, and I enjoyed it far more. In the end, he lent it to me for a month on the condition I played 1FPF. Ended up with a Hohner copy of a Jazz. Did an audition. Learned a whole tape of songs badly. Two guys didn't actually want to play any of the songs on the tape... Did another audition... got into a band. In bands for next 9 years. Got much better. Got married. Over the years, I forgot how music had been the core of my life since I was about 11. Eventually started playing again as that fell apart twenty-plus years later. Got the hang again. Went through covid and got lots of practice and got much better. Divorce finally went through as covid restrictions started to ease a bit. Moved. Got into playing seriously. Joined two bands. One going strong, the other going nowhere, so left it and started a second band. Discovered jam nights and even depping. Met my amazing new partner when she came to see us play and decide if we were worth booking. Bass has helped me repair my life. If it wasn't for my wonderful daughter, most of the 22/23 years in the middle of my life would feel completely wasted.

I've only been in to a studio to record once. I arrived with donuts for the recording engineer. Put him in a good mood at the start of the day before we irritating him with our unholy racket for 8 hours.

I reckon I’m good with this 😊

Standard line up is 8 piece function band. Guitar bass drums keys, male and female singer, trumpet and tenor sax. Saturday the horns were on track, but as the clients were a brass band celebrating their centenary the organisers asked to sit in for three numbers. We also scale up to a five piece horn section, can add percussion on that as well. Then we scale down to the two singers and me on acoustic. The guitarist sometimes joins us for the trio plus. The main trick we pull is putting a lot of the standard function material into medleys such as singalongs or dance alongs.

She is annoying, that Marguerita… 😀

Up to just before the age of 11 I had pretty much zero interest in music. My parents were both quite musical (my mum has sung in several well known choirs and even now in her 90s plays in a Ukulele orchestra that probably does more gigs a year than I do) although at the time I'd never have known it as there was rarely music on in the house. However in 1971 I went on a Scout summer camp where Radio 1 was on all day every day and I came home obsessed with pop music, in particular the emerging Glam Rock movement. Like @NancyJohnson the band that I favoured was The Sweet who had the right combination of pop catchiness with their A-sides and heavy rock on the B-sides of the singles. The first record I bought was Hellraiser. My parents were not at all keen on my new-found interest and it took me another 2 years to actually start learning how to play the guitar, and I didn't get seriously involved with bass playing until I bought my first bass using my student grant money at the beginning of 1981. It wasn't until the bass guitar became more prominent in Post-Punk music, in particular Joy Division and The Comsat Angels that I took more of an interest in playing it. I've always been interested in playing in order to be able to write/compose so I've never felt any particular affiliation to a single instrument. The more instruments I can play the better I can understand how they work together in a band. I bought my first synth in 1982 again with grant money, and have spent significant times in bands playing guitar and/or synth as well as bass.

$799.99 on this side of the Atlantic...over $500 off! This one's definitely a no-brainer, especially compared to rhe Player series Jazz bass for the same price.

We're bass players - nobody in their right minds would let us into their posh hotel! We'd have the lagging off the pipes inside five minutes, and soupy footprints on the wallpaper.

Actually it's me. I work for Spotify under the moniker of Genre and Subgenre Nomenclature Officer. The criteria used are me chucking darts at dictionary pages. Smooth Wotocheshede Tech Slam is next in line for a nanosecond of fame, blink and you'll miss it.

50s and 60s 2" then 1" computer tape was the basis for analogue video recording. Which has massively higher bandwidth than 8 audio tracks! Video bandwidth is around 5.5MHz. And back in the 90s, when I was involved in this sort of thing, computer processing power was not sufficiently fast for uncompressed full 625 lines digital TV, hence any recording had to be done via tape. Firstly using the component D1 system, which used 3 tapes to record (effectively) RG and B, then the composite D2 single cassette system (which we at the Beeb never used), then Panasonic's D3 (which we did - I used it a lot!). When I worked in our transfer suite my most exciting job was to record from a 2" 24 track tape (an Otari) and 35mm film bay onto 19 16mm magnetic tape machines, 6 Nagra T 1/4" machines, 4 D3s, a Sony Digibeta, 6 Fostex DATs and 20 VHSs. I could have recorded it in multiple passes, but this would have taken days (50 mins runtime) so I did it in one, using one of the record Nagras as timecode master (they had the best T/C). It took 3 hours to plug the various machines for audio, video and syncs but it was a joy to see when setting the master Nagra off all those other machines going in unison - each film/mag bay alone was 6 feet high and 18" wide!

There will be more LFSys models next year - both bigger and smaller. A 2x10 is certainly a possibility, but there may be an even better way of skinning the cat. You can always build a 2x10 from two Monzas. The corners interlock to aid stacking - and you get the option of using one or two cabs depending on the size of venue.

It is possible to both be a bassist and buy basses/instruments as investments.

It wasn't the drummer!

Normal for a professional studio? No normal for Stoke? Absolutely

Did you expect musicians to be easy to work with?

I run a recording studio in Stoke and I thought it might be good to document some of the more amusing episodes, and get other perspectives on it too I've done some work with a local band. They book me as a producer, but as soon as they arrived, their frontman said "You've got your work cut out for you today, you'll be recording 7 full tracks". Not long after, I clarified "so, you're the producer today, right, I'll just be the engineer?" and he was quite happy with that. He wasn't very happy with the end product and so had to book back in to re-do rushed vocals etc. which was predictable. After every vocal take, I would say something like "cool" or "OK" just to indicate the end of the take. He would take it as a compliment and thank me. Towards the end of the vocal session, he picked up my guitar and started to play it without asking. Is this normal behaviour?

If you are in to your guitar based blues (or any derivative thereof) then tip your hat or raise a glass today to the amazing John Mayall who is 90 today. A little clip to enjoy from 20 years ago at his 70th Birthday celebration concert:

Hello, I joined the site a few weeks ago, but spent the past week in Texas visiting family during my niece’s wedding, including a stop to Austin, spending time at Austin City Limits. I am a bass player in a blues trio with Lenny Mojo Hand G and for a Catholic Church in Durham. My number one is a 1987 Rickenbacker 4003. My backup is a 2007 Fender American Standard Precision. At church I play through an Acoustic 100 watt 15” combo and for playing out I use a Carvin MB15 with a 15” extension cab. I have been reading many of the posts and am excited to join y’all.

The funniest ones are when people buy a ticket clearly advertised as a 70's Glam Rock covers band and then asks us to play some funk, AC/DC or even U2. Don't forget the shouts of "Play something we know!"....

It’s in lovely condition. I was set on a brand new Euro LX in matte black stain but this was too good not to buy. I’ll restring it with my preferred EB Cobalts and give it a couple of tweaks, it’s got Rotos on it at the moment which are lighter gauge (40-100) than I normally use, and just a little touch of string buzz on the E string, but overall I’m very happy. Less than two hour round trip and the owner was a super nice guy too.

I worked in a pro studio in the 80s and 90s, going from 2", 16 track to 3 or 4 Adats and never saw a chewed Adat tape. New high quality TDK or HHB tapes for every job. The old MCI/Sony 2" machine would jump into fast rewind and loose the remote. You had to be quick getting to the monster of a machine and hit stop before it got to the end and produced a cloud of brown confetti. We ran the Adats at 16 bit ( 18 or 20 bit on the newer machines) and 44kHz. ... anyway, studio etiquette.. Musicians set up instruments and drums before mics put in place, DI the bass even if an amp is miced, guitar/bass amps in their own space. Tune frequently. Cases and unused instruments tidied away. No smoking, eating in the studio or control room. Tune again. Make sure the engineer is not on coffee making duty and send band members to do any food shopping. Tune again. Don't sit singing, chatting or messing with instruments in the back of the control room. Don't bring alcohol unless this has been confirmed before. Tune again. Ask before unplugging or switching instruments or amps off. Singers remember how close to the mic they were singing and try to keep that consistent. Bring lyric sheets. Try to have only essential members in for the mix, too many cooks... Acoustic stringed instruments should be muted when not being played or may resonate and be distracting or worse esp in the control room. Don't ask the engineer to do a final mix after spending 10 hours recording. Modern times has brought other things into focus: phones off or in another room. There will be more I've forgotten. D (edit to add a biggie: Don't P off the engineer!)

Pretty sure i got it from a fellow BC'er many moons ago and thought it made a lot of sense. Can't remember who it was tho. ? Dave

'I just like good music' is all well and good, but there are over 100 million songs on Spotify alone (about 600 years of constant listening) and 60,000 songs added to it every day, so you need some way of focussing in on finding what you want to hear and genres/sub-genres are a reasonably simple way to do it. Even if we were limited to a few genres like folk, rock, pop, country, blues (it'd be a boring world if we were!), Country alone has been sub-catagorised into long list of sub-genres (at least according to Wikipidia). Alternative country Americana Cowpunk/Country-punk Gothic country Roots rock Australian country music Bush band Bakersfield sound Bluegrass Old-time bluegrass/Appalachian bluegrass Traditional bluegrass/Neo-Traditional bluegrass Progressive bluegrass/Nu-grass Bluegrass gospel Bro-country Canadian country music Christian country music Classic country Coastal Country Country and Irish Country blues Country en Español Country folk Country pop/Cosmopolitan country Country rap/Hick-hop Country EDM Country rock Cowboy pop Cowboy/Western music Dansband music Franco-country Gulf and western Hokum Honky tonk music Instrumental country Lubbock sound Nashville sound Countrypolitan Neotraditional country New country Old-time music Outlaw country Progressive country Rockabilly/Neo-Rockabilly Psychobilly/Punkabilly Gothabilly/Hellbilly Southern rock Southern soul Sertanejo music Talking blues Traditional Country music Truck-driving country Cowboy/Western music New Mexico music Red dirt Tex-Mex/Tejano Texas country Progressive country Western swing Phonk and Bronx Drill are just a sub-genres of Hip-Hop, partly characterised by location and sound/lyrical themes (Phonk uses choped beats, Drill tends to be dark with street/gang lyrics), the sub-catagories are probably quite uesful for people really into that music.

I've managed to squeeze a bass break from 'Leave It' (from 90125) into the Edwin Star song '25 Miles'. It doesn't derail the song and it satisfies the prog bassist hidden within me. I remember you saying this a while back, and now I do the same.

Nice looking and sounding bass! I wouldn't worry too much about the price: a) That's not how much it will sell for b) Yes there is a rarity - there can't be that many of them left & we must lose one or two a year to fire/floods/car crashes/being stolen & dumped etc... c) You have to learn to disassociate cost & quality once you get past the threshold of £800-1000. Everything above that price is purely people treating themselves to something they deem as being a treat. If 26k isn't within your price range there's no point worrying because you can buy a perfectly usable bass from a musical perspective for vastly less so you're not missing out. For some people it will be within range and they'll probably buy it for noodling around at home.

When I look at the OP's one, it looks like a cartoon of a Jazz Bass. In a good way. It is clearly a Jazz, but taken a bit further out in a kind of Pop Art style. I like that aesthetic.

The Inevitable Teaspoons are a cutlerycore band from Aberdeen, Scotland.

Well who was it then, and why on earth did he need all the room above the drum kit? Was it a Morrissey tribute, and he needed the space clear for swinging the gladioli around?

My guitar was on a guitar stand next to me in the control room. I use it to work out notes when I'm tuning vocals. I was doing that with this guy's vocals. I'd put it down for a minute while I carried on synchronising the double-tracked vocals, and that's when I heard him playing it behind me. No big deal it just seemed a bit rude. If it was on a stand in the live room next to the other studio instruments I wouldn't expect anyone to ask before playing it

The worst is when a band, who have no idea what they're doing, want to record an album in one day. I have been in that band, although I did warn them it couldn't be done, was totally ignored and of course was proved right. Luckily I was just a hired hand and was paid a fee for the day so it was no skin off my nose. The band then had to spend much more money, than they originally intended, trying to get those dodgy and rushed recordings sounding halfway decent at the mixing stage, which was impossible to do. I'd prefer to to record one perfect tune in a day than 10 rubbish sounding ones.

Like A Haricot ～ Neil Young

Ah, apologies, that wasn't quite clear. Yes, the guy was wrong. Studios are a very odd environment if you're not used to it. I've worked with many new to studio bands as well as seasoned pros. Both will try your patience! It's a very intimidating place to walk into first time and for the engineer /producer social skills are sometimes more important than technical skills.

Doesn't fit into either of my Glam covers or punk covers bands but its always good fun to confuse the audience. 🤩 Roundabout another good one to noodle with. Difficult for me as i don't use a pick. Dave

I've dabbled a bit with the keys part from the start of On The Run doing it on the bass. Its probably not accurate but a few folks have recognised it when i'm just setting up my rig. Weird what people recognise. I once played a part from Genesis Suppers Ready VI Apocolypse in 9/8 where bass does EEE-EE-E-EEE-EE-E and someone recognised it. Dave

The funniest ones are when people buy a ticket clearly advertised as a 70's Glam Rock covers band and then asks us to play some funk, AC/DC or even U2. We've even been asked to play "something modern". The Sweet was modern in 1973. Dave

Attention during a break. Lol Daryl