peteb

Interesting video from Stewart Copeland (in conversation with Terry Bozzio and Chad Smith), saying that there are two types of musicians; musicians of the eye and musicians of the ear. I'm not saying that I agree 100% with this view (there are guys who are both), but I think that he is more on the money than not...

Nice little solo piece

I had a sort of similar experience at Bass Direct, with a slightly different outcome. I had gone down to BD to pick up some parts for a pedalboard I was putting together. Whilst I was there, I picked up an Xotic jazz bass in natural and just noodled for a bit, then asked to plug it in I was starting to think that it was the best jazz bass I had ever played when Mark shouted across the room (it was quite busy) 'if you fancy buying it today you can have it for £2k' (a couple of hundred quid or so off). I just said that I had only come down for £70 of bits and pieces, not for a 2 grand bass. However driving home, I started to regret not just getting my credit card out and buying it there and then. I decided that I would save up a bit of gig money and look for a secondhand one in six months time, preferably in black cherry with a maple neck. Of course, as luck would have it, exactly such a bass come up on the BC For Sale forum a couple of weeks later. It ended up costing me two nice jazz basses (a Mayones Jabba and a Nash 63 relic) and about £100 in cash. That was a few years ago and it’s been my go-to bass ever since, done maybe 200 gigs or so, and is the best bass I’ve ever owned (and I have had a few good ones in my time) …

Wonder if it was us?? If he's got the right gear (and preferably spent the 80s / 90s playing in hard rock bands) it should be easy enough for him to just play it - it was meat & drink to the guy I used to play with...

Guitar with a Floyd Rose, hit the appropriate harmonics then pull the (floating) bar up - that's how an old band of mine used to do it...!

I would say that even if you are a 'root note' player (which I am a lot of the time in some of the bands that I play with) you still need to know what a scale is and how chords are put together, basic harmony, etc. It amasses me that there are people on what is supposed to be a musician’s forum who can’t see the benefits of knowing and being able to play scales – where do they think the notes that make up tunes come from??

That's not entirely true. Sting gets the sole credit for 'his' songs, but Summers and Copeland get points on the publishing to recognise their contribution to the popularity of the Police's ditties...

It's in the set...!

A mate of mine in the North East deps a lot for a Free / Bad Company tribute up there. I keep telling him that could possibly be my ideal gig...!

That's great - there seems to be plenty of Magnum fans out there (more than I imagined anyway). We be out gigging with a full set from June, with the first support gig on 30 March in Rotherham. I think that we will (hopefully) get around a bit, but mainly playing in the north of England and the midlands. If you want to keep track of us, the band is called 'A Storyteller's Night' and the website can be found at on https://www.storytellers-night.co.uk/ and of course you can find us on Facebook as well. There are a few clips from the (very) early rehearsals on the Facebook page.

Yep - Curlers Arms supporting Backstreet Thunder

Well, I'm expecting that we may get around a bit - there's talk of gigs all over the place. Whether we get down to South Essex is another thing, but you never know (I have done gigs on the Kentish coast before now)!

We are based around Leeds and surrounding areas. Let me know if you can make it to a gig once we get up and running and I will make sure we can meet up and I can introduce you to the guys. The band is called 'A Storyteller's Night' and the first gig is in Rotherham on 30 March. The website can be found at on https://www.storytellers-night.co.uk/ and of course you can find us on Facebook as well. There are a few clips from (very) early rehearsals on the Facebook page if you're interested.

I have already been surprised at the interest in the band. I was very much part of 'the rock fraternity', but to be honest they kinda passed me by. It has been cool to hear all these great songs that I hadn't really listened to that much. They are a bit of a cult band, not really massive, but with an obviously sizeable and dedicated following…

I’ve just joined a Magnum tribute band, which hasn’t done a gig yet but still getting a load of interest. Great players with an excellent singer and a keys player who has a bit of history with the original band (played / wrote on the singer’s first solo album), so all pretty exciting and can’t wait to start gigging. The main issue we’ve had so far seems to be to ensure that we avoid copyright issues with the merch / website, etc. We have had a few messages of support passed on from the main band (as well as advice on copyright), which is really good of them. It is a bit of a strange one for me as it was never a band that I really listened to and a bit of a bizarre thing to get a text message out of the blue asking me to join. I have a couple of friends who were in a Foo Fighters tribute that did make decent money and years ago I was asked to join a U2 band that did really well, but I doubt that Magnum is a tribute that will make big money – it is probably a bit too much of a niche band for that – but still seems to have enough fans out there to be viable. Hopefully it will help to raise my profile again as well as get to play decent size gigs, so who knows where it might lead to? So far, it’s all good…

Some friends of mine played a festival up in the Orkneys (a gig I have done before) with Ted and became good friends, did a couple of jam sessions and pick-up gigs with him. I was a bit envious to be honest and told them they had to introduce me next time he played around here. Strange to think of how many of my heroes he played with at one time or enough, part of the musical backdrop to my youth and beyond! The terrible thing was that he died during a routine hernia operation. Still touring to the end, so not a bad old life. By all accounts a lovely guy and a terrific drummer…

Absolutely right about the crowd and it is a pretty good set-up, which could be great if there had been a little bit more thought. The Landlord at that pub is a nice guy who is a real enthusiast. He also has made a bit of money from other ventures, which means he can afford to do what he wants with the pub and what he wants to do is to make it into a good local music venue. He has succeeded in this to a degree, it's just a shame that he didn't ensure that there was enough room to site a decent sized PA without blocking the audience's view, have enough room on the stage for a desk and have somewhere to store his extensive collection of various musical instruments. I'm not knocking it too much - it's a decent gig with an impressive little stage and the people who run it are great, as are the punters. It just could be even better...

The Polished Knob in Tod...! It can get a bit cramped up there, having to share the new stage with the contents of a secondhand music shop all pushed to the back so that they can be on hand for the landlord's midweek jam session...

If you want to cover all basses (as it were) then a passive 4 string P bass and an active 5 string jazz would cover it...

Funnily enough, I caught the train down to the Bass Centre in Wapping many years ago with every intention of spending every penny I owned on an Alembic (an Epic if I remember correctly). I didn’t get as far as plugging it in – as soon as I picked it up, I knew that it wasn’t for me (I ended up getting a Warwick Streamer LX instead). The basses I’ve actually owned and hated: 1. A Rickenbacker copy when I was a kid – a lot of my heroes played Ricks, leading me to buy a Rick copy when I was about 15. Awful bass – somewhat put me off Ricks for life, which was only reinforced when I played a mate’s genuine one many years later (the worst expensive bass that I have ever played). 2. Guild Pilot – didn’t really hate this but it had a twisted neck, which no one could do anything about despite many efforts. Sounded great and looked great (for its time – it was the 80s after all) but was a dog to play because of the neck issue. 3. Yamaha (can’t remember the model) – bought to replace the Pilot – sounded weak compared to its predecessor and was difficult to set up and very uninspiring to play, although I do know someone who sought one out secondhand and insists that they are very collectable (apparently). I thought it was cr*p and couldn’t wait to get rid…

Terrific player - like an early fretless Pino on speed! Based on his YouTube videos, personality wise he may be a bit of an acquired taste...

I always thought that they were just following the grand blues tradition of taking a song, re-working it and passing off as their own. Exactly who did write 'Dust My Broom' ( to pick one example out of countless blues standards)?? BTW, I believe 'Dazed & Confused' was based on a Bob Dylan song, which itself may have been based on an earlier tune...

Always assumed that you would be an Oxbridge, or possibly a Durham, man...

In fairness, perhaps it should be noted that, following posts in this thread on Basschat and the resulting press coverage, Ms Bush has issued a statement to emphatically deny that she supports the Conservative Party. Apparently the original statement was taken out of context and she was just pleased to see a female PM, who she thought was better than David Cameron... https://www.indy100.com/article/kate-bush-conservative-tory-voter-internet-rejoice-statement-hillary-clinton-2016-interview-8718606