peteb

Just seen something on Facebook that Chas Hodges of Chas & Dave passed away this morning as a result of suffering organ failure after recently receiving treatment for oesophageal cancer. If remember correctly, Chas was a bass player of some note in the 60s, playing with Richie Blackmore among others (I'm sure that some will have more details or correct me if I'm wrong). My own memories of him was Chas & Dave playing before a band I as in at some corporate function gig at the Cafe Royale in London nearly 20 years ago. We used to joke that Chas & Dave had been our support band! Sad news...

How so?? A lot of the gear has changed, you're less likely to get in a fight with the PA crew and there is the impact of social media, but beyond that things have stayed pretty much the same in many respects.

I saw loads of bands at St George's Hall (a very nice old fashioned concert hall) in my youth. Most were loud with a great sound, some were too loud and sounded awful. It's no surprise that Yngwie fell into the latter category. Let's put it like this - for this type of music : loud = good / too loud = not good If you get a bad sound and turn it up then it sounds terrible. You need to understand your EQ and how everything works in a mix. Just because something is loud doesn't mean it should sound terrible.

Yep, that's pretty much what I was implying...

I think not...! If you don't like loud music then you are unlikely to stick around to watch a loud hard rock band. Similarly, if you don't understand the genre and walk in to a rehearsal room only to sneer at the guitar player's 412, or if you are a drummer who wants to play cymbals with your fingers, then you are going to get laughed out of the room (if you're lucky). This type of music is like any other in that you have to understand the genre if you are going to be able to play it properly...

The only thing I would say about that is you can still get people out to actually watch a band, but it is undoubtedly more difficult than ten / fifteen years ago. Apart from that I think that you are spot on. It seems to me that these days, pubs need to have a USP i.e. offer something other than just be a boozer on the corner of the street. This might be offering decent food, craft beers, a quirky atmosphere or a number of other things, including live music. This seems to have led to a number of pubs putting on bands despite being totally unsuitable or the landlord having no idea about what promoting / hosting a gig actually entails. Established music pubs (in the right area) where the landlord actually has to a clue generally tend to do OK.

Now where to start… I come from a land where valve amps & 412 cabs are standard, not to mention 410 (or 610 / 810) bass cabs and loud drummers. This is playing 70s/80s/90s hard rock and, yes, you do need to be pretty loud to be authentic. You might not like that, but frankly I couldn’t give a care less – you’re not going to come and see any of these bands and you wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting through an audition to join one (even if you wanted to)! Now this not to say that there is not such a thing as too loud – there is always a compromise between volume and the room you are playing in. Frankly I do want to keep what is left of my hearing (quite a few of us have lost a bit of the top end in the ear nearest the cymbals but very few have tinnitus), so ear protection is a good idea. But the whole point was summed up by a punter who once told me, “you go to a pub and it’s like watching a band at St George’s Hall in the eighties”. A few years back I was in a covers band made up of some very capable players who were well known from the local scene in the 80s. We gigged for over 10 years, generally to pretty decent audiences. Funnily enough, there is one pub that we used to pack out where I also used to play with another band who didn’t get anywhere near the same sized crowd. With the second band, the landlord often used to complain that we were too loud, despite being much quieter than the band who got much more people into his pub. It seems that no matter how loud the first band was, it was never louder than the sound of the cash registers behind the bar. I should also point out that we used to turn plenty of gigs down because we knew that the pub wasn’t big enough, or we had heard that they had noise issues with neighbours. Of course, this is very much genre related. I recently did a load of deps for a R&B band where the guitarist used a small combo on a stand and I used a Class D amp and a couple of 112s. It wasn’t too loud, sounded fine and the band got loads of gigs in smaller pubs. Great fun and the band did well (and continues to do so). Horses for courses…

You don't come across as someone who is unlikable, but it maybe something you need to work on. Being able to get on with people is a big help in being a successful musician (at whatever level), just as it is in all other areas of life. Developing a stage persona is just part of the gig - something most of us develop over time (of course some are naturals). Usually it's just an extension of being yourself, only more so! Often the difference between getting the right gigs or not...

That maybe true, but even more talented musicians tend to be pretty extroverted - some outrageously so...! A mix of personalities can be good, but if someone is too shy they are going to struggle to cut it in a band.

There you go: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Automatic-Man-Remastered/dp/B0001Q5YDG/ref=tmm_acd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1536783426&sr=8-1

I vaguely remember a rumour that Glenn Hughes may have contributed to the first album. He was a mate of Pat Thrall and he certainly sang uncredited on other friend's albums around the same time (notably the first Tommy Bolin solo album). Hughes did work with Pat Thrall on the under-rated Hughes/Thrall album a few years later.

I bought the first album without a cover for about a quid not long after it came out (may have been a promo pressing). Used to play it quite a lot and remember it being the first I'd heard of Pat Thrall. I can't remember much about it now unfortunately...

This is what Jon Shuker charges for a set-up (assuming that you want it done properly by a genuine craftsman): http://shukerguitars.co.uk/services/ Basically starting from £25 + strings for a basic set-up (action, intonation, truss rod, nut height) rising to £75 + strings (action, intonation, truss rod, nut height, fret level, re-crown and polish, fingerboard clean and oil), depending to what you want doing. I think that is pretty reasonable...

In answer to your questions: 1) yes - the rule of thumb is that you adjust the truss rod to set the action lower down the neck and the bridge to set the action for the higher register. 2) depends - £65 just to sort the action and intonation seems a little on the high side, but quite reasonable if he had do any fretwork, etc. You could always do it yourself. But it is but somewhat pointless to have a bass setup up badly, whether you pay someone else or do it yourself. FWIW, I recently went on a day long course run by Jon Shuker to learn how to do it properly. However, I still took a new bass to him because it needed some fretwork, something I now kind of know how to do but lack the tools and touch to do a professional job. Money well spent...

That summarises it quite nicely

That was the Muni stage with Chris (the big Welsh guy) stage managing. Unfortunately I didn't get chance to watch your band as I would have been heading off to my gig for that evening, but I did pop backstage to say goodbye to Chris & Marcus et al while your band were in the dressing room, so I might have bumped into you.

You are very welcome! What band were you with and which venue did you play?? We were based at the Hippodrome.

I did a dep for a pub gig once where everybody on stage apart from the singer was a dep! A few weeks later, they did a gig where even the singer couldn't make it and the whole band comprised of deps without a single actual member on the bandstand...

I would say no, especially not in the post-industrial wasteland oop north where I live. You might get the odd gig like that in London??

Blue - it was great - you would have loved it...! But bear in mind, I did two gigs for a total of £80 (about half of what I would normally get for a couple of pub gigs). In addition to that, we paid £110 for a hotel room, £20 in diesel and £50 or so on taxis to and from the hotel to the venue. I worked stage crew for one of the main stages, i.e. working as a roadie for about a dozen bands and my missus was in charge of backstage hospitality. In return we got to see a few great bands (when we weren’t working of course), a bit of free food and a few free beers. As I said, you would have loved the backstage hang and had a great time, but this is one of those times when you do gig for free. In effect I did a couple of gigs for half pay and walked away at least £100 out of pocket…!

It was indeed, but quite tiring! Always nice to be part of such a big event...

I'm surprised at that your band would cancel rather than use a dep. I'm sure that I could dep for your band with no problems and I imagine you could do the same in most of my bands. Generally, if want to play with decent players, you have to expect that they will have a few projects on the go and sometimes you will need a dep. It isn't just full time pros that work like this.

I have just spent the weekend at the Colne Blues Festival, playing a couple of dep gigs in pubs on the trail and working stage crew at one of the main stages. The first gig was a bit eventful, playing as the last band in a decent sized pub with a pretty full (not to mention well lubricated) crowd. As we were finishing, the (woefully underpowered) borrowed bass amp blew up! Played the rest of the first set through the rhythm guitarists 30w combo, which only me and the drummer could just about hear! The worrying thing was that the crowd hardly seemed to notice and danced and sang along as if nothing important had gone wrong…! We got the amp working again (to a fashion) for the second set and it managed to limp through the gig on the next day. Backstage at the main festival was great fun as usual, catching up with old mates that you only tend to bump into at events like this and making new friends that you will hopefully meet again at a festival of some sort in three or four years’ time…

1) Learn to sing harmony BVs - take lessons if necessary when you are young 2) Don't be so loyal to every band you are in - be prepared to walk if a better opportunity comes along 3) You gotta commit - no half measures 4) See the stewblack's comment above