peteb

I wouldn't have thought that lack of punch will be a problem with a SVT 3

I must admot - I might have been tempted to go all black

Rudy has always been considered to be one of the good guys. I suppose that, unlike yourself, I have always been involved in that world albeit in a very small way compared those featured in the film. I suppose that another thing to consider is that Sklar, Gadd and co are primarily studio session guys, although I know that LS does like to be out on the road. Most of the players featured are primarily known for being a sideman in live touring bands (rather than for recording). I understand that these are two different worlds, more so than you might think.

I would have thought that Rudy Sarzo would have been prolific enough for you - he must have played with every American rock band still touring. I'm guessing that Jason Hook didn't have Lee Sklar or Steve Gadd's numbers but did have Rudy & Kenny Aranoff in his mobile. Would like to see this, but I don't have Netflix so it could be a while before I get a chance. I saw an interesting YouTube clip with Jason Hook (guitar player who part financed and produced the film) being interviewed by Nikki Sixx, talking about how it was made and some of the stories behind the production.

Two gigs with the rock covers band over the weekend (in Manchester and Rotherham), both 50th birthday parties in good venues with a stage, in-house PA, etc. Manchester was notable for me doing a Dave Grohl and falling off the stage during the soundcheck. Fortunately not too badly hurt and able to do the show but definitely not a good idea! Rotherham was a three band affair with a shared drum kit (I even ended up using the headliners bass rig in the end to save time) – could have been a disaster but ended up being a good night. A couple of photos from Rotherham below

The trouble with this conversation is that there are many different talented people around and their talent takes many forms, so you are often left comparing apples with oranges! So how do you compare a prodigy like Mozart with a highly schooled, incredibly gifted, all-encompassing journeyman like Bach – yet alone individuals from the modern age / popular music?? For me, I reckon that John Lennon was a zeitgeist of an extraordinary era with a talent that could have come out in many ways, just that it happened to be in popular music. Whereas McCartney merely happened to be a decent songwriter who came to notice working with him. A similar thing to Lennon could arguably be said about Bowie a few years later. But again, you have guitar players like Eddie Van Halen and Stevie Ray Vaughan, whose playing left a lasting impression on everyone who saw them long before they were famous (SRV’s drummer, Chris Layton, once said that no one ever damned him with faint praise and said that he was a ‘good’ guitar player – everyone who saw him thought that he was extraordinary). There are also guys like Prince who can do just about everything incredibly well. We are only look at people who are relatively famous and I have just mentioned a few guys who operated in genres that I am familiar with (I’m not even going to start looking at jazz or modern classical music). There have always been lots of incredibly talented people with very different types of talent, but I don’t think that you can begin to compare them unless they pretty similar in the first place, and even then…

But doesn't that frequently happen in real life??

I was interested to find out that his first pro band as a teenager was with Paul Rodgers (Free /Bad Company) and Micky Moody of Whitesnake fame

I think that we are perhaps getting away a little from the point of the OP. Like Bilbo, I aspire to pay better gigs with better musicians (but not any form of jazz of course), even though most of the time I play in bars for so-so money (like Blue). Certainly, it is the times when I’ve shared a stage with people like Lance Lopez for half an hour, where I was a bit out of my comfort zone but still managed to hang, that I remember with the most satisfaction. It makes you think that perhaps you could play at a higher level if the opportunity arose. I think that the thing about playing the local gigs with some guys who are perhaps not quite as experienced are that you learn to cover for them and play around the weak points of their playing. Hopefully you can make them sound good and even get them to play better, just as superior players make you play to a higher standard. Of course some just aren’t up to it and you have to try and avoid them where possible…

[quote name='gafbass02' timestamp='1510154326' post='3404336'] Copied and pasted from a post of mine from 2010: Funnily enough fellow basschatter davemuadib and I spent a geeky afternoon A/Bing cables back to back. We did obbm, (klotz) monster bass, elixir, zaolla, generic cheapo and hotlines. Long story short monster had a VERY obvious, pronounced low mid hump which made em sound deeper and punchier but at the expense of top end sparkle and clarity. Zaolla sounded superb, very neutral and open but with depth and solidity. Obbm sounded very similar to the zaolla, slightly less zingy and airy but very close nonetheless. Just not quite as 'expensive' sounding. The elixir was also good and very flat sounding but a tad uninteresting. The hotlines (old academy of sound cables) were still great I remembered why I liked em. Very punchy and forward sounding, a bit like a loudness button going in. The zaolla, monster and elixir were thicker and the zaolla felt the best made. The hotlines and obbm cables felt lighter and thinner. Since doing the test I've retired my monster cables to back ups and bought all obbm's which I'm very pleased with. The transparency goes well with the berg cabs and they are cheaper than zaolla! I still rate monster and never had any issues with them. People that say there are no differences between cables should def spend an afternoon doing some A/B listening to a few brands. It's pretty big differences in some cases, less in others. The biggest difference was the monsters bass boost/(treble cut) to my ears. Maybe Dave will chip in ? But the differences are there for all to hear! Simply no doubt about that. But onstage with all the rest of the band going ? Well there lies the real debate ;-) I just like to know my stuff sounds good and is reliable. :-D Edited by gafbass02, 24 October 2010 - 05:26 PM. [/quote] Yep, that's what I thought when first tried the monster cables. There is something wrong if you can't tell the difference when doing an A/B test in a quiet room because it is quite pronounced (whether you like the difference is another matter). Live is a different thing entirely of course. To be fair, if all my leads were stolen and I had to buy new I would probably just get some obbm cables rather than spend the extra money. But as it is, I'm quite happy with the cables I've already got...

[quote name='djc63' timestamp='1510092559' post='3404005'] I remember once reading a review of the Glockenklang Blue Sky in which the reviewer claimed to be able to hear a noticeable difference in quality between the supplied power cable and a 'regular' one! [/quote] I believe that Alan Holdsworth could famously tell the tonal difference between an angled 4x12 cab and a straight one! I know that OBBM posts on this forum and makes excellent leads (I got all my speaker cables and the lead for my wireless pack from Dave).However, there are other perfectly good cable makers out there as well. I’ve got a couple of Monster Cables and yes, you can tell a small but noticeable difference. You might not even like that difference (apparently Paul Turner doesn’t) but there does seem be a bit more bottom end compared to the (perfectly decent) cables I was using before. They were a bit expensive but they are really well put together and just top quality all round. I’ve had them for more than ten years and they have seen me through hundreds of gigs, so they have been great for me…

[quote name='Dr.Dave' timestamp='1509983203' post='3403017'] Ha - the Lion , Castleford !! Had a few weird nights in there over the years. We stopped doing it - and the Lionfest - several years ago because if they weren't pinned to the back wall with volume they weren't happy plus - weirdly - they didn't get the humour of playing such things as tainted love and Abba in a hard rock style. They just thought we 'got them wrong' !! We do the Junction up the road from time to time but ....well , Cas is Cas. Were I asked to prove to any extent that it's not grim up North then I wouldn't use it as a defence exhibit. Just looked on FB - sure I know your new singer - didn't he used to be in Phoenix Rising and other PurpleRainDio type bands? [/quote] I really like playing the Lion - one of the best audiences on the circuit. Let's face it, if you want to be [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]pinned to the back wall with volume, then the Balls are probably the sort of band for you...! [/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Dunno about [/font][/color][font="helvetica, arial, sans-serif"][color="#282828"]Phoenix Rising, but Pete seems to have been been in a number of Rainbow / Dio / Sabbath type bands. I'm sure that you will have crossed paths at some point - he is from your neck of the woods and been pretty busy on the circuit... [/color][/font]

Saturday night gig at the Lion, a biker's bar on the Cas Vegas strip (locals will know where I mean). The sixth gig with the new singer and it is starting to gel now. He has had a lot of new material to learn with very little rehearsal, but you can see he is starting to feel more comfortable now and it is starting to come together. Great crowd helped make it a great gig,the best so far with the new lineup.

Dave's branching out into giving cooking advice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbZLXMGRy1M

[quote name='Skybone' timestamp='1509805406' post='3401774'] To me, there seems to be something inherently wrong about a band who are in their 40's and older, knocking out a version of "Teenage Kicks". [/quote] Dunno, it takes on a certain ironic quality...!

I'm glad that you posted this. The softcase for my Pedaltrain Junior is on its last legs after many years and a lot of gigs. I wonder if anyone knows where I can get a replacement, preferably something that is pretty robust and doesn't cost a fortune??

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1509575678' post='3400092'] I'd buy a used Rick, just for it's killer looks alone. Blue [/quote] A mate of mine has a Rick (a 4004 i think - I've just googled it and it would cost nearly £3k new). It is his pride and joy. Unfortunately it is without doubt the worst 'expensive' bass I have ever played...!

[quote name='markdavid' timestamp='1508513227' post='3392718'] I googled this bass after reading your comment, Wow, just wow!! [/quote] Dude, we all looked like that back in the 80s...!

My go-to is an active jazz, but I like my P bass and take out which ever one I fancy. Some band leaders seem to prefer the Precision, but I think both sounds will work in just about any type of music. I’ve just got a Stingray as well, which is obviously a different sound again but still something I think would work for any gig.

This is a bit of a moot point at the moment as my band have just had to replace singers recently and have just had to change singers recently. This means that we have desperately re-jigging the set to get songs in to suit the new singer whose range does not go quite as high as the departing one. I would say that first of all the proposed song has to suit the singer’s voice and range (I think that the band can manage most guitar based rock songs – we’re not talking Mahavishnu Orchestra covers here). Also, it has to be something that the audience want to hear us play but not the more obvious choices that they can hear any other band do every week. Unfortunately, we have had to delve into the standard rock cover songbook to put a set together with the new singer but we are trying to rectify that as soon as possible.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1508185518' post='3390397'] If the pubs are in residentially zoned areas, is that why you don't have 4 hour gigs? Blue [/quote] Yes, but this is because of a number of reasons: partly because of a curfew when the live music has to finish (usually at midnight round here); also because most people do not tend to go out until 9 o'clock or later to these type of 'music pub' venues; and once they get there the audience tends to stay and watch the entire performance rather than the band just being part of a night's entertainment when they are on a crawl round a number of bars, which people are more likely to do on a night out in a town centre.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1507810255' post='3388097'] When I played covers the drunken idiots were also few and far between, but then we mostly played charity events with audiences that appeared to consist almost entirely of friends and family of the other band members. However since then I've been to see several covers bands play what I would assume are more "normal" pub gigs because I know people in the bands. Most of the audience ignored them and those that didn't used the presence of a live band as a excuse to act like dicks. And these weren't what I would consider to be "rough" pubs. [/quote] Currently I play pretty much exclusively what would be considered to be 'music pubs', where punters come to see the band. I can't think of a recent gig where the band was ignored by any significant section of the audience and there is never any trouble, even (especially) in the biker bars where there could be potential for violence if anyone was foolhardy enough to cause any problems.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1507749124' post='3387762'] Over time I'm getting the feeling that my local bar scene and cover band culture is different than in the UK. First of all our patrons are music and people lovers. I never see anything remotely like this "drunken idiots" crowd you speak of. [/quote] In my experience the gigs full of drunken idiots are few and far between. Most 'music pubs' are not like that at all. You would feel completely at home at all the gigs I do these days.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1507752351' post='3387799'] Good point. I'm not sure what my selling point would be for an agent. A 64 year old rock bar band bass player. Doesn't sound promising does it. Lol �� Blue [/quote] A good, reliable bass player with plenty of gigging experience may well be of interest to an agent who has a working band on his books in need of bass player...