P-T-P

[quote name='JTUK' post='822840' date='Apr 29 2010, 11:00 AM']Pay to play......????? we'd be expecting free beer..and with or two of the bands I might go there with..that could be pretty expensive.. I agree....hang fire and see how the land lies with other bands. Generally, I don't think that reflects well on the bands themselves if you have to consider paying. I always thought the band should be the draw. In the cases of charity and good causes, I think bands should consider the spirit of the thing and buy stuff or food etc etc... but we recently had an enquiry from an interesting festival down in East Sussex. We put it to the band about the freebie and there was the possibility of petrol ex's. The Drummer dismissed this straight away. He said will all the other concessions there, bar staff, stall holders etc etc being doing it for free...? He answered his own question with "No, so neither will I" ....Drummers, huh..? [/quote] +1 agreeing with the drummer. It all boils down to agents/promoters playing (preying) on band's enthusiasm and desire to play. If there's money changing hands the bands should be seeing some of it and I wish more bands would have the courage to stand up for their own worth. In my experience, it's never hurt to say no to a gig. The gig we have this Sunday was offered to us at a fee about 20% below our usual minimum - with agent's cut and VAT to come out of that as well - I just turned it down, didn't even negotiate with them. 30 minutes later, the head honcho at the agency calls me with a revised offer involving the agent taking a hit on commission which meant we'd come out with a net fee within a pound or two of normal. At the end of the day, promoters and agents will try anything, but they are nothing without the acts, if only all the acts would have confidence in that absolute fact. I know that's not as easy for an original band looking for the exposure a festival might offer, but it's the "might" that bothers me and so you should look for a minimum payment in some way or other - beer, food, fuel money, tickets, passes etc. - it's the least the promoter can do.

[quote name='andy67' post='813716' date='Apr 21 2010, 01:09 PM']pm'd ta andy[/quote] and replied

Have a bunch of bits for a computer if anyone is interested in taking them off my hands. 1 x ATX Case with 400w supply 1 x ASUS P4P800-X Motherboard with Intel Pentium 4 3.00Ghz processor, heat sink and fan 1 x internal IDE DVD RW Drive 1 x internal IDE CD Drive 1 x internal SATA drive connection cable 1 x internal USB 7-in-card reader 1 x internal floppy drive 4 x 256 mb PC3200 400MHz DDR RAM modules Don't mind posting the smaller items at cost but collection only from Chepstow (Newport/Cardiff collection may also be possible) for the Case and motherboard. Drop me a pm or give me a call on 07515 929935 Binmen come next Tuesday and I suspect the mrs will want this lot to go with them!

+1 to everyone who suggested picking some wll rehearsed songs to open up with and sticking with them. Though if your singer is chopsy enough and you're playing to a pub/club type audience, doesn't hurt for him to say a few words after the first number to give everyone a chance to quckly check tuning/twidldle volume etc. I'd also add that, if you're getting better as the night goes on, possibly part of the problem is attitude. You have to get yourselves to the point where you go on stage ready to impress, not needing to feel your way into things. Hit the ground running in both cohesion as a band in your playing, but also in the way you perform the songs - smile, eye contact with audience, movement, communicate with each other with daft grins, farts, - make sure that you all look like you mean business and are there to give the audience a good time. Look like you're enjoying it and the audience will enjoy it more and sooner. With that , everything else will flow for you. We also make a point, generally speaking, of laughing out loud at each other's little cock-ups. It's all to easy to start glowering at each other and from there the tension creeps in.

Bit late to the party, but really loved the Danelectro Cool Cat 18v chorus I had, thought the design of the pedal means it is a bit on the heavy side.

Sol my Lakland 55-01 to Matt and he was great to deal with. I made a cock-up with exchange rates (courtesy of dodgy info from my bank) that left me about £50 out of pocket and Matt, without prompting, made up the difference which he didn't have to do as the mistake was totally mine, not his. I really appreciated that and would not hesitate to deal with him again.

Who do you get the code from? My missus works for DHL

Kylie's "Spinning Around" and Sophie Ellis Bextor's "Murder on the Dancefloor" have oodles of lovely bass goodness going on. "Maggie May" just oozes feel, so much so that even the "wrong" notes are right.

Yeah, shame they wouldn't put a link to our site in the story, or alongside it.

Our singer helped a mate of his who was putting together a production about bands. We've made the Guardian... [url="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/feb/10/pub-rock-brian-logan"]http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/feb/1...ock-brian-logan[/url]

Something I was going to add about basses in this price range is that to me, the sounds they produce don't have an especially distinctive character to them. The Fleabass does have a voice of it's own, or at least one that makes it stand a bit more apart from similarly price basses. [quote name='Rayman' post='739040' date='Feb 8 2010, 03:58 PM']I've modded mine with an EMG-35HZ pup, and I love it, great little bass.[/quote] I've seen a vid comparing this pick-up to the stock one and for me, I kinda preferred the stock one. Would be interested to hear a quality recording of the EMG though.

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='737861' date='Feb 7 2010, 09:19 AM']Which colour scheme did you end up getting, Pete? I'm glad someone found a good one, as the ones I played have now all been sent back to the distributor by a local dealer. They were all so terrible! Rich.[/quote] It's the "Punk" one I think; green with pink scratchplate. Orange would have been my preference but after other's experiences there was no way I was buying one without playing first. I'd not really intended to buy this as it happens. I needed to get a bass before next weekend and have a decent budget but haven't seen anything I'd want to spend it on - aside from the Nordy 5 I just missed out on last week - but I liked the look of the Fleabasses and I noticed my local (very small) music shop had one so I gave it a go. Lo and behold it was a decent player and will do the job. Saves a lot of faffing about. [quote name='bass5' post='737905' date='Feb 7 2010, 10:33 AM']Very true, but there's a lot (and please believe me that what follows is barely my own personal preferences) better basses for that kind of money, I'd rather spend that 300 smackers on a Squier or an Ibanez SR300, or... has anyone tried a Yamaha RBX374, dual humbuckers and a neck that flies? I just don't like them Flea basses [b][u]to me[/u][/b] they look naff.[/quote] As you say, horses for courses. I personally wouldn't have gone for a Squier simply on the basis that I've played a few in my time and while there's nothing wrong with them, they don't really grab me either. A friend loaned me a GSR200 (?) and I was pleasantly surprised by how lovely it felt but horrified to find that from the 15th fret up the frets weren't parallel so the intonation gets progressively worse along the A, D and G strings. The Yamahas I just don't like the look of while the Fleabass I do. Having played it and found it to be decent and then having set it up and achieved better results than I have on many other, far more expensive basses, I'm chuffed really. All that being said, there's a Jap P gone on eBay yesterday which I would have bought ahead of the Fleabass just 'cause it's a good price, with a guarantee of no money loss when/if I come to sell it!

...a much happier experience than others have had with them. Set-up was decent enough: neck straight, intonation spot on and action about middle of the road and completely buzz-free. This wasn't a shop set-up either as bass was about a tone out of tune when I first picked it up. Neck joint really good, paint spot on and all the hardware decently installed (no out of line tuners or poorly cut nut). The pots work smoothly and alter the volume/tone evenly aside from a very distinct bump on the tone control when going from fully rolled off to just a little on. Only real niggle was that the fretboard was pretty grubby. I've been on the lookout for a new bass and it turns out, much to my surprise, the Fleabass is now that new bass 'cause I bought it. Having got it home and put a set of DR Extras on it I was able to set it up with a pretty low action, lower than I was able to achieve on many of the much more expensive basses I've owned. The action could actually go epicly low with a bit of attention to a couple of the frets. Naturally, I gave the fretboard a good clean! The neck didn't seem to mind the changes in tension when I removed all the strings to clean it and then added the new strings. Tuners nothing special and are maybe a bit on the cheap side but they work fine. All in all I can't really fault it for the money (smidge over £300). If you are/were thinking about getting one of these but had been put off by other's experiences, I'd recommend you get out and try for yourself because either they've sussed most of the QC issues or there are some decent basses making it through.