peteb

The thing is that I’ve been gigging for more than 40 years and played in a lot of bands, most of which have been pretty good and quite often gigged all over the country (I’m currently in a tribute band that is based all over Yorkshire & Lancashire and plays all over the place). In every band there has been an element of taking the p*ss out of each. It can be quite brutal occasionally, but is generally better natured and not as bad as the ‘banter’ that you get in football teams and on building sites, etc. If you can’t hack it then it doesn’t matter how good a player you might potentially be, you are not going to last in a working band.

She drives a MX5 - now that is a stereotype girl's car 🙂 Everyone in a band has to get used to a certain amount of banter. It seems that the girl in your band handles it perfectly well. IME the real toxic 'banter' happens because of rivalries, insecurities and jealousies between members of the same sex (usually male, but could just as well be girls).

Toxic femininity as well sometimes. I've never known things to get so bad to be genuinely toxic (at least not with sexist banter) and girls who play in bands will generally learn to take care of themselves in that area and give as good as they get pretty quickly.

Dunno, I've played in bands with females where the banter (including from them) was far worse than Bassfinger's rather lame attempt. Any girl who would get upset at that isn't going to last too long in a rock band!

Remember that just because you have used a motorway on the way to a gig, that doesn't mean that it will still be open at one o'clock in the morning when you are driving home! Always keep a couple of clean tee shirts and a can of deodorant in your bag for after the gig.

Also, bear in mind that most of the sound engineers you will encounter at club level will be cr*p and that you will have to deal with them as well as you can. Learn how to make things as easy / idiot proof as possible. It is always a big boost on a gig when you get a sound engineer who knows his stuff...!

That's a hell of a rig, especially in this day and age!

Interstate Love Song (and yes, I do count STP as a grunge band) is a great bassline. Of ones I've actually played, Jeremy by Pearl Jam is an instantly recognisable bassline and the bass part to Spoonman is pretty cool...!

Pretty much this for most gigs these days. Both basses are in single gig bags with stuff needed for stage stuffed in one bag plus all spares (including a spare micro TE Elf amp and my own DI box in case of emergency) in the other. When I fist joined a band that gigged regularly all over the place in the early 80s, I just had the one P bass before that, which served me well for several pretty good bands and occasional gigs . When they asked me to join, they said that I had to get a spare bass, even if it was just a beater, 'just in case'. In nearly forty years since then, I have done maybe a thousand gigs or so and needed a spare just four or five times. But, as luck would have it, each of those occasions has been a pretty important gig and I have been really glad to have a spare bass available. It depends on logistics / importance of each gig, but I take spares whenever possible.

I've got an old Volvo V50 - can get my rig in the boot and a couple of basses on the back seat, or a guitar rig (412 & flightcased head), bass rig (410 & 4u rack), 2 pedalboards, 4 guitars / basses and a couple of bags with the back seats down. I can even get the parcelshelf over my cab now that I'm using a 212 so no one can see what's in the boot. Reasonable mpg and very comfortable on long motorway trips, except for when the clutch goes (as it did on the motorway on the way to a gig last Saturday)! Before that, I had a Toyota Celica that I used to gig all over the country. I could easily get my rig, a couple of basses, bags, etc in the back (obviously with the back seats down, but then again you couldn't get any normal sized person in the back seats anyway)!

No, of course not - I have no idea what level he plays at and I don't particularly care. I was using his post to illustrate a point I would make advising someone just picking up a bass and thinking that they could learn to play just by looking at tabs.

The real trouble with tabs is that they don't encourage you to develop your ear, especially when you are starting out. The same issue can apply with notation, but at least you need to develop some knowledge of theory to learn to read notation. It is not enough to have something that just shows you where to put your fingers to be able to play something when you start out, you need to learn why that works as well, otherwise you are never going to learn how to actually play. You need to be able to see the music behind the tab and to know that the second fret on the 'A' string is a B, but could be payed as the seventh fret on the 'E' string (or the ninth fret if 'E' string is tuned down a step).

I don't think that anyone is suggesting that tab has the same professional applications of notation and it has obvious limitations. However, it does have some uses, mainly showing you how to play a piece that you are already familiar with. For example, I can play a recognisable version of 'Portrait of Tracy' because of a very accurate tab that I found. There is no way that someone with my limited reading ability could have done that from notation and I had been trying to work it out for years by ear, but never getting it quite right. Tab can have its uses, but it depends on the quality of the transcription and what you are using it for.

I was just stating that many of the worse tabs that I have seen, appear to have come from American college kids who are probably more interested in trying out the software than getting the transcription right. America is a big country and a lot of stuff like this comes from there, both the best and the worse. The best tabs I have seen tend to be American as well. But that is because you can read notation. Not everybody can.

Why shouldn't it be? Sheet music can be completely wrong as well (and often is).

Any transcription (tabs or dots) is only as good as the person transcribing it and the amount of effort they are prepared to put into it. I have seen plenty of tabs that are pretty accurate, but there are too many done by hacks who don't want to put in the time to get it right (or have dumbed it down for a target audience who wouldn't be capable of playing the original part). Either that or done by tone deaf American students / bedroom players who have just downloaded the tablature software but have no ear at all...!

Last night’s gig was great, the Led Zep tribute played a packed social club in Grimsby. We played really well, the audience was great – all in all, a top gig. Unfortunately, the gig itself was rather overshadowed by the journey there – my clutch went on the motorway on the way to the gig! I managed to drive the last 30 miles or so in 5th gear and eventually broke down at the first roundabout once I got to into the town. I’m still waiting for Green Flag to recover my car back to Bradford, and I am going to spend every penny of my gig money from what was looking like a pretty lucrative February on an expensive new clutch for my old Volvo. That’s not to mention that I need the car recovered, new clutch fitted and back to me in time to drive down to South London on Friday for a gig at the Boom Boom Club! Obviously, there are worse things happening in the world, but still a hassle / cost I could do without…

It was a while ago, but I think that he was on the black stuff. Who knows? I do remember that me, Webby & Fergie were on it until four in the morning!

Yea, Webby is a good bloke. I got very drunk with him once at Colne Blues Festival...!

Back in the 80s when clubs first started being obliged to let females through the door, there was a club in Brighouse that, after some consideration, graciously allowed women to enter and even to buy a drink at the bar. However, there was a line on the floor that females were not allowed under any circumstances to cross, as it was a bridge too far to allow girls anywhere near the snooker table!

So more in Cambridgeshire then and only a half hour drive from Bedford / Luton, etc. Might be more of a scene around there??

Where in East Anglia are you? Not exactly the rock and roll centre of the UK, but a (very good) drummer of my acquaintance does run a jam night in Ipswich on Thursdays (https://www.facebook.com/Webbys.Jam/)

All the girls I know who do play in the bands tend to be quite happy to be 'one of the boys' and wouldn't be the slightest bit bothered about things like that. Lets face it, you have to have a certain attitude (not to mention a pretty thick skin) if you are going to get anywhere playing in bands - I would imagine even more so if you're a girl...

But this is the internet and people have got to have something to talk about, otherwise I would be forced to watch attention seeking Aussies in ‘Married at First Sight’ with my other half! However, it does beg the question, what if it wasn’t just some loser who’s never played a gig and was actually by a working band or otherwise worthwhile musical enterprise? FWIW I was once in a band in a similar situation. It was an original hard rock band back in the mid 80s (you know the thing, big hair and leather trousers, etc) put together by a hotshot local guitarist with a bit of a following. We made it known, via the local paper, that we were looking for a lead vocalist. One of the first to put themselves forward was a girl singer but unfortunately, she wasn’t considered at all despite having a pretty credible voice and look. Obviously, she wasn’t best pleased that she wasn’t at least given a shot, but it was the right decision at the time. We were going for a certain image and feel and we didn’t think that a girl singer would be the thing, regardless of how good she was. We are also very aware that we would be forever known as the ‘band with a chick singer’! He would deny this, but there was also the unspoken consideration that having a girl onstage might take attention from the ‘star’ guitar player! I think that things are a bit different these days and certainly I know of a few of that type of rock bands doing the circuit with female members, which is definitely progress. For some reason, they tend to be bass players.

I agree that a decent set-up makes a hell of a lot of difference and can make a cheap instrument play like a mid-level one, but the build quality on the Fodera (or an Alembic, etc) is a different thing altogether and yes, they are easier to play, as evidenced by Cosmo: Exactly!