peteb

Page was by all accounts on a bit of a downward heroin spiral at the time and the band was starting to fall apart. I would love to have seen them at Earl's Court in 75, when they were at their peak.

Page was by all accounts on a bit of a downward heroin spiral at the time and the band was starting to fall apart. I would love to have seen them at Earl's Court in 75, when they were at their peak.

Page was by all accounts on a bit of a downward heroin spiral at the time and the band was starting to fall apart. I would love to have seen them at Earl's Court in 75, when they were at their peak.

I really wanted to see Zep at Knebworth in 79. Unfortunately, I was just a little too young...

This sums it up pretty much. I have played in many 'power trio' types of bands and the secret is getting as full a sound as possible and learning when you play busier parts, when to keep it simple and when to leave gaps. It also needs the guitar player to develop his approach to playing in a three piece. Some guitarists love the freedom it gives them, but some prefer to have another guitar there and the possibilities that gives to work as a team. Pedals are not the answer (at all) and the type of bass is pretty much irrelevant. It is just something you learn how to do and a slightly different approach to playing in bands with more instruments on the bandstand.

That used to be my local back in the 80s! I do like a decent blues jam - shame that they didn't start the jam there 20 plus years earlier...

Yea, I sold my 78 P bass to buy a Guild Pilot in the mid 80s. Not the best move I ever made, although I did recently buy my old P bass back (for 5x what I sold it for)!

Probably the best thing for it and certainly easier than carrying it down the stars. I assume that he gigged it the next night without any issue...

Yes, it can quickly become a bit Spinal Tap. I know one band (not exactly the best band on the circuit, but I did dep for them a few times for my sins), where the BL's girlfriend used to come to gigs and rehearsals and then started to email band members with notes on their performance, good and bad. To be fair, he did dump her not long after she started doing that...

Catch 22 again - do you want to leave the band and pull the gig and for them to blame you and tell everyone that it was your fault? I would do the gig and see how it goes.

To be honest, that all sounds a bit chaotic. I agree with Mart to do the gig and then reappraise the situation. The trouble you have is that you haven't done a lot of gigs over the years, so you are not known to a wide pool of musicians who might want you to join their band. It is a bit of a catch 22 situation, do you stick around to get your name better known or do you leave a dysfunctional band?

I wasn't in the room so I don't know exactly what happened. But then again, I've been in rehearsal rooms where far worse than that has happened and everyone managed to stay friends afterwards. Peter has said that he generally gets on with the guitar player apart from this issue, so just sort out this issue.

But is that what he is doing? The drummer, who seems to gig a bit seems OK with the guitarist's approach, so presumably he can follow and I'm guessing that 'a couple of bars' is actually 4 or 8 bars. If not, there is not much you can do and he's just a cr*p guitarist, but if the others can follow what's he doing then presumably that isn't the case. If nothing else, getting him to start giving cues will make him think more about what he is playing and not get too random. I've played a lot of blues gigs, where when you start a song you have no idea if it will last for three minutes or twenty minutes. But the main band leader / guitarist I am thinking of here was very definite in his cues (and could also read the room, so he wouldn't go too long if he was losing the audience), so there was never any car crashes.

So, the real issue is that you need to chat with the guitar player and work out how you are going to cue things like extended solos. There is no point in running away from a band every time you have a minor issue, or you will never get anywhere. Better to sort out a way of dealing with those issues.

I think you can see what’s going on here, especially the looks between the drummer and guitar player! The others have all played together and are pretty much on the same page. They also seem to accept the guitar player as the band leader. Therefore, in the context of this band, the issue is you! If you are going to play in bands, you have to accept that most good musicians (and a lot who are not very good) have egos to some extent. So, you have to learn to deal with it. You can come on Basschat to moan about things and you will always get the same sympathetic response telling you to either leave or to confront the band leader in such a way that you will get fired. But if you want to play in bands then you have to learn how to deal with things like this. I would reckon a way forward is at the next rehearsal you suggest that you think the band needs cues from the guitarist, either visual or he plays an agreed phase to signal that the solo is coming to an end. You can point out that this is how pro bands generally do things. This will at least make the guitarist think when he is going off-script, make it easier for you and hopefully make any car crashes onstage less likely.

This depends on what type of band it is and if the guy is actually any good. It’s OK to have fluid arrangements and for the guitar player to change the length of his solos, breakdown sections, etc if he is good enough to carry it off. Part of being a good musician is about being able to listen and adapt / change arrangements on the fly. But this requires the guitar player to give clear cues if he is going to extend passages (or cut them short) and for him to listen to the rest of the band too. Just adding or cutting a solo by a few bars because he can’t or won’t count isn’t acceptable by any means. It’s pretty clear that the guitar player and his singer brother are the band leaders, so you either work the way that they want to work, or you walk…

We all keep going back to bar gigs. I've been playing bigger venues recently with the Led Zep tribute, but tonight was much smaller - a bar with a postage stamp stage. Only 18 tickets sold before the gig, but a respectable turnout in the end considering the weather. A good night in the end, but a nightmare drive home at one o'clock in the morning, over the Pennines in a blizzard!

Not so sure that they actually do. A quick look at the Musicman website has a section titled 'How to manufacture electric bass guitars in the USA' on the first page that says "At our factory in San Luis Obispo, California, we start with hand-selected tonewoods imported from only the finest wood suppliers in the world; bodies of alder, ash, poplar, basswood, mahogany, and maple are individually chosen and matched for their rich tonal qualities, consistent grain characteristics and exceptional natural beauty". I think that most top end bass makers are going to talk about the wood they use, as most people (outside of Basschat of course) think it is of some influence to how a bass is going to sound. As discussed above, probably a marginal one, but still important enough for many buyers to consider when they are looking for a new instrument.

I'm sure that it will be an Epiphone, but as you say, a very nicely put together one (with probably upgraded pickups, hardware, etc)

It's likely that when he got the gig he went to Gibson (or they went to him) and they worked out a deal to push the Epiphone bass. I'm sure that the basses they give him will be top notch and to his spec, just with the Epiphone transfer on the headstock...

1) Yep, that's probably the reason 2) Most of them do

Funnily enough, I have started getting 'high end Samsung' smartphones for the last couple of contracts after years of getting cheaper ones. Although I'm not too bothered about mobile phones and always looked to save a tenner a month on a lesser known brand, I have now come to the conclusion that it is worth paying the extra to avoid the frustration of being stuck with a mobile for a couple of years that just does not do 'the basics adequately'. IME the Samsung is genuinely better and worth the extra cash. However, I haven't gone for an iPhone as that would cost even more than the Samsung and I don't think that it justifies the extra expense.

I'm surprised about that. As you say, it is all down to the individual and we all have different priorities, but I imagine that £1.6k isn't going to break the bank for you. Each of my main gigging basses cost me £1.6k secondhand and I gig them out regularly. I occasionally wonder about selling a few basses and getting a s/h Fodera or a vintage Fender, but that is where I would start to worry about taking them out to pub gigs (or even worse, multi-band festivals). That's my attitude as well - life's too short to gig disappointing basses...

I bought one on here last year (early lockdown) for £1,050 and flipped it pretty quickly (sold it on commission at Bass Direct where I got about £900-£950 for it, so add 20% for what they sold it for). A few years before that, I bought one on eBay that had a few minor issues for about £700 and sold it for about £850 after cleaning it up and changing the jack socket.

If you shop around you can pick up secondhand US Stingrays pretty cheaply.