peteb

Pretty much. Or you can play genre specific covers that you like, appealing to an audience who also like that type of music. Or you can play in a tribute band (something that I seem to be doing a lot these days).

The point being that Metallica started out playing something completely obscure and inaccessible (at the time) that had no audience. Then they and a few like-minded bands inspired by them, went out and created an audience.

Metallica...!

Are you doing this on purpose?? There is nothing to say that no one enjoys listening to the music you want to play, providing you are reasonable and tailor your set to an existing audience and don't go out of your way to find something that no one apart from you likes. However, if you are not playing Mustang Sally, Sweet Child O'Mine, the Killers or the sexy fire song you may find that your audience is not going to be in the chain pub on the main street of a city centre and you may have to search out suitable venues further afield. You may also find that there are a number of very good bands playing the same sort of music, are competing for these gigs in those venues appealing to a relatively smaller audience.

Of course it is. I've been doing precisely that all of my gigging life and I'm not the one play lowest common denominator stuff I don't like, nor am I playing to disinterested audiences.

If you play music that you don't enjoy, then you will be incredibly unconvincing onstage and will be mediocre at best. There is an audience out there for most types of music (if you're good enough). It's your job to find your audience.

Well I have certainly had the occasional issue (mainly with outdoor gigs using a generator, but also the odd dodgy pub with dubious wiring), so I have a Samson power conditioner in my rack for my Mesa Boogie.

Get a 1u spacer bar and leave a space above the amp for more air circulation. You can always spore leads, etc in this space when the rack is not in use.

Personally, if it is at all viable financially, then I would just go for it. Life's too short not to take advantage of opportunities like this if you're lucky enough for them to come up!

Isn't that the same with any genre?

And actually funny as well

The thing is that this was a slightly clumsy joke about a real life incident that had become a running joke between the guy who posted it and a girl who is a member of the band he plays in. She doesn't seem to have been offended by it, so we just have somebody (presumably a bloke) getting offended on her behalf. There are more important things to worry about these days.

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.