peteb

Donating the money you make from playing is very admirable. However, in many parts of the UK there is an established market for live bands playing in pubs and around here, all the good bands (and there are several) get paid. This sets a value for live music and creates a market that works reasonably well. Decent bands get paid, punters get to have a good night out listening to a good band and pubs sell more in beer than they pay the bands. The out and out hobbyists who are prepared to play for nothing just distort that market.

Exactly. Look at it another way, just how bad must a covers band be to be prepared to play a standard pub gig for no money?

Deep Purple & Van Halen are always fun to cover

Especially encouragement

At which everyone would have been too drunk to care if a song was being played on an accordion, a guitar or a stylophone...!

I think I know his northern cousin! A nice guy (rather than pleasant - a biker with a bipolar issues & a chip on his shoulder) and what he plays is fine, just that he will never take the damn thing out of his mouth and plays over everything!

To be honest, I know plenty of people who can be that guy at times and my missus sometimes complains that I (along with most of my mates) will critique a band to the nth degree, while she just wants to sing along and enjoy the band! That's just one of the issues of being married to a muso! Beyond that, I just like being in a crowd watching live music. I'm not too keen on stadium gigs, but concert halls, decent clubs or even pubs are fine for me.

That was my practice rig until I got the Double Four.

Yep, that's the one. Good version, but the original perhaps had a bit more fire about it - then again it did feature Sklar, Jan Hammer and the great Tommy Bolin! Some mates of mine used to chuck it in occasionally (when they had a crowd where it wouldn't go straight over their heads). The rhythm section (both good players) used to dread it - playing that same repetitive figure over and over again is just RSI inducing...

Wasn't the Massive Attack track a version of the Red Baron (same album)?? I could be wrong...

I have an Elf that I carry round in my gigbag as a back-up. It sounds pretty good, but doesn't really compete with my Handbox or Mesa amps. A higher powered Elf would certainly be interesting.

PJB Double Four that sits on my desk next to a metronome and a computer screen.

Has anyone ever played Stratus by Billy Cobham? My hand cramps up just thinking about it!

Even though it has a big iron power section, it's not that heavy at all and is in a nice compact casing.

My advice would be to give the Handbox a try.

Just give it a go and persevere. It won't happen straight away (unless you are naturally good at it) but most people can sing once if they give themselves a chance and find their voice. You have to learn to listen to yourself properly. Wearing a moulded ear protector in one ear definitely helps.

That's a nice sentiment, but I'm afraid that for me it is way too late! The secret is confidence and not trying too hard. Just give it a go and don't be too hard on yourself when you miss notes. The turning point for me was a guy from a well known band (renowned for their harmonies) said that he thought that I had a good voice (or at least, 'one that he could work with'). In fact, he seemed to prefer my voice to my bass playing, which was a first!

That was always my problem and was the reason that I missed out on a few gigs. Ironically, my BVs seem to be have improved considerably these days - just 35 years too late...!

If you can run to it, the Handbox is a superb amp and great value for the price of the one in the For Sale section. I haven't tried one myself but how about a Hartke LX8500. Hartke amps are usually very powerful, decent workhorses and good value (https://www.thomann.de/gb/hartke_lx8500.htm)

That was the album that really lit the spark and made me want to pick up a bass and be in a band!

I don't believe that there is anything unintentional about the lyrics to Brown Sugar, Jagger was trying to push people's buttons. It's ironic that he was trying to trigger repressed, uptight, racist right wing Americans and ended up triggering repressed, uptight liberals...!

Personally I would have thought that it was rather apt, rather than being disrespectful...! Of course, I don't know what your presenter's relationship was with her.

I would have thought that it was very appropriate considering how she was hounded by the press and what happened to her later

Surely the point is that many songwriters want to be thought provoking (hence Sting writing about suicide or a pretty love song that is actually about stalking), or even provocative (most songs written by Jagger). As mentioned by others above, Jagger goes for a clean sweep with Brown Sugar - slavery, rape, his love (lust) for a black girl and interracial relationships (a controversial topic in America in 1971), all with a subtext of heroin use! He did say that he would have self-censored if he was writing that song today, but those were hardier times!

It seems like in future we're only going to be playing the most saccharine of love songs, where the subjects are over the age of 21 and happily married (to each other of course)...