peteb

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1465339174' post='3067437'] Isn't the context that that band had just played a crap set. And that shouldn't happen at that level. Blue [/quote] I thought the whole point was that the pianist used to secretly tape his many tantrums, which happened on a regular basis regardless of quality of the performance. Didn't he famously threaten to sack a trombone player because he took issue with his beard?? I thought that a lotof people in the industry thought that hegot away with that behaviour because he was a black belt karate. He used to room with Sinatra in the early days in the Tommy Dorsey band and apparently they came to blows on a number of occasions. There is a story that Sinatra paid several of his 'acquaintances' to beat the sh1t out of Rich after one occasion. Despite this they remained lifelong friends...!

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1465332307' post='3067335'] I wish I had someone kicking my butt like Buddy. Blue [/quote] You really wouldn’t…! Buddy Rich was a violent racist bully, hated by virtually everybody in the business. Read what Walter Trout had to say about meeting him and his treatment of a fan who dared to ask him to sign something in a drum store. There are plenty of demanding band leaders around who can still function as nice guys yet still insist on the highest standards, including people like Steve Via. Rich was a different proposition all together, a very unpleasant individual…

[quote name='markmcclelland' timestamp='1465122506' post='3065401'] And yes. The line between pro and, as you say, semi pro, is definitely become more and more blurry. Even semi pro, in many cases, can be a very worthy achievement. Think semi-pro footballer. I'm sure there are many Sunday leaguers on here of quite a high level who still never got anywhere near being able to get paid for kicking a ball around. [/quote] Sorry to keep picking your musings apart with minor points, but… The line below semi-pro footballers and the professionals is very distinct. Anybody playing non-league football, yet alone Sunday league, by the time they are 20 is doing so because they are not good enough to play professionally. Anyone who slips through the net (such as Ian Wright) very quickly comes to the attention of the big League teams. The rewards are so great (even at the relatively lower levels) that virtually anyone at the level would turn professional in a heartbeat. The same is not true in music where the financial rewards are a lot less certain and where it is not so clearly delineated who is good and who isn’t. You can often see bands with semi-pros paying alongside pro musicians and there are plenty of semi-pros who are far better players than many pros. Even at the highest level, there are many sought after session players who will quite happily admit to having technical limitations but play with the very best as they have great feel and the knack of knowing what to play at any given time. You don’t have to play like Jaco to be in AC/DC…! Also, being in the right place at the right time has a lot more to do with success in music than it does with football…

When we were on holiday last year in the Algarve we got friendly with a local band and saw them a few times. We noticed that they generally played a set mainly for holiday makers that you would recognise easily over here, but when they played their Saturday night gig at a club with quite a few locals there they played four or five songs in Portuguese in the final set (3 hour show) at the end of the night. Obviously this was a thing because it went down really well with the natives.

[quote name='Wonky2' timestamp='1465005143' post='3064631'] Why thank you pete, im glad you could decifer my dodgy typing and spelling, including refering to your good self as oete. [/quote] Smartphones are a wonderful thing...!

[quote name='markmcclelland' timestamp='1464982101' post='3064469'] Thanks a lot Pete. I really am appreciating all the thoughts and wishes and good natured disagreements. And yes Mental - and I don't believe that's your real name. Let's not open that an of worms. I will give one thought here though regarding what you said, I believe you have to act and think like a professional to become one. Not like the reply I received from a singer once who wasn't pulling her weight and I told her to be more professional about it. She said, 'Mark, I'll start acting like a professional when we start getting paid.' There was only one way that was going to end after that although we remained great friends. [/quote] To be fair, your singer friend does have a professional attitude in some respects - or at least an attitude that many professional musicians have! The phrase "a £50 gig gets a £50 preparation" is certainly something I have heard many times before. Of course they will always want to raise their game if they are going to play to an appreciative audience or especially if there are going to be some of their peers in that audience! I was once asked to dep for a showband playing WMCs while their regular bass player went on holiday. They didn't confirm the dates to me for so long that I ended up being busy and not being able to do it, so they asked my flat mate at the time (also a good bass player) to play the dates. He didn't have much time to learn the set but they said not to worry, 'we can go through the anything that you're not sure of at the soundcheck'. However, as soon as they got to the first gig they got stuck into the bar and just said "don't worry, they're more bothered about the bingo than the band here - as long as we don't get paid off we couldn't give a #*$%". Bear in mind this band contained a few really good pro players. Sometimes a professional attitude is not what you think it might be...!

[quote name='Wonky2' timestamp='1465000207' post='3064622'] First of all as mark aNd oete have rightly said, its just a discussion, its not a trade off of digs or one up Manship.... Far from it As i said, its interesting and we all have different views, doesnt make any one of them difinitive. In answer to your question, or "suspicion" at one time, playing bass was my sole source of income for a period of approx 3 1/2 years. Thats an income which was enough to pay a mortgage and put food on the table, oh and pay tax. But It had its difficulties and with kids came along i needed stability instead of a famine or feast. So, first of all came a part time job, then eventually with reluctance, a 9-5. I did continue to play both live and studio on a semi pro basis. I was paid for what id did which was both regular and one off appointments, but this wasnt my primary source of income, hence my view semi pro. These days i do it for the shear love of it, money has no relevance in the matter, im happy if my exoenses are covered..... but would point out the frequency is low, but one that suits me just fine. So, that said i do feel i have a degree of insight on it, albiet my own personal one..... I guess on reading my 1st post imwas wrong in say pro equates to SINGLE source of income, i guess the more appropriate view would be PRIMARY source of income. That meaning your income from playing is your bread and butter and your bar job, helps support that. When the balance tips the other way and your bar work is your primary income supplemented with gig money or session fee's, well..... Your a barman who's a semi pro bass player. These comments are'nt designed to make me "feel better" , id also point out that ive never until put under "suspicion" talked in any way about my level of competance or history of work, my comments are in no way suggesting semi pro's ,part timers , guys having fun ,what ever you want to call them, are ant the less competant, again, my original point stated non of this "pro" mullarkey suggests any degree of competence. Ive played with some guys who do it for fun or after they finish the day job who are truly remarkebly talented musicians. Ive also played with "pro's" who are seriously defficient in areas.... Just to confirm, these days, i do it for the love of it....the day job, life, kids, poor health are all now a part of my life, the gigs or playing i do, i really do enjoy, which is more than can be said for some of the tosh i played for money. I couldn't really give a hoot what anyone calls them selves, all of the above was merely my view in a friendly open discussion. Put me in the bedroom noodler catagory if you like, im good with that [/quote] Great post - you are of course completely right.

It's just people pontificating and talking nonsense on an Internet forum - enjoy your holiday dude!

[quote name='markmcclelland' timestamp='1464858266' post='3063142'] It's just a professional gig. Sorry Pete. I'm disagreeing with you on that point. . [/quote] I wouldn't worry about that too much, it’s a moot point at best. After all, when all is said and done, it is a paying gig – just don’t go and get a mortgage on the strength of it…! As it gets more and more difficult to make a living playing music, what defines a ‘professional musician' is an interesting question and I would say that the line between a pro and a certain type of semi-pro is becoming more blurred. Like lots of those in the modern creative industries, many musicians are having more strings to their bow to ensure that they can make a living. As a final point, I would mention that the people I know who make the most money from music are those who write and record music – songs and incidental music for music libraries. Perhaps that is something worth considering??

[quote name='Wonky2' timestamp='1464826572' post='3063010'] Interesting views on the "pro" subject ...... My two pen'eth I think the important thing to remember, the thing some get confused, be "pro" is not a degree of competance or proficiency. Itsnot about where you play, for whom, or for how long.... Its about it being your proffession. Your SINGLE source of income. That can take many shapes, live work, teaching, cruise ships, studio sessions, tv work, deping etc etc, it not important where when or how, the key is that in essence you play your bass to earn your living. A proffesion. This means paying tax, even being a registered business. If you are not very good, have poor equipment, are unreliable, inflexible etc ... You will quickly realise that earning a living is difficult as you have three main allies, reputation ,reccomendation and repeat business. If you jeporidise any of the 3 with any of the afore mentioned defficiencies, well, earning enough to live on as a SOLE INCOME, is gonna be impossible. If you need to support this income with a "job" of any other kind than bass playing, well then you bass playing work is a semi proffesion, ie, you earn part of your income from another source. Many weekend giggers with 9-5 jobs are well seasoned experienced musicians for sure, semi pro... Part timers if you like. Again, its not a degree of competance and does not necessarrily dictate large pay checks. Allthough you can appreciate the highly competant are in higher demand ( thats not to say demand is high !), attract more formal appointments/arrangments and can dictate better rates. Sorry im rambling.... This isnt aimed or directed at anyone nor a is it a comment on marks hard work and determination, just a veiw having read many on the subject..... Keep at it mark maybe you can support your frelance stuff with a regular corporate/ function band ? Coukd provide the regular income you need ? Pays better than pubs for sure... If you cant find a slot in one, form one ! With the right direction 3 nights a week is not unfeasible... The calander soon fills up for a polished outfit Wonky [/quote] I think that you are pretty much on the money there. However I think that you have to accept that many guys you would think of as definite 'pros' also have an income stream outside of just playing. A pro drummer I know used to work for a PA company when he wasn't gigging and also used to buy and sell comic books to boost his income. He now has a part time office job for the first time in his life (in his 50s) and is really happy because he doesn't need to rely on function gigs, which he hated. I believe that Rick Parfitt used to work on building sites when Quo were off the road for years...!

[quote name='mentalextra' timestamp='1464820080' post='3062980'] Interesting. There are a lot of guys, convinced they are 'pro', still living with their parents for financial reasons, but who don't even play as much as you? [/quote] I remember when I was a kid just starting out and there were always these guys who would tell you that they were pro musicians, when really they were signing on and playing a couple of gigs a month! There are plenty of guys like me who have been round the block a bit but still gigging regularly, mainly in covers bands in pubs. Actually, in the last few years I've also been playing the blues circuit, including working with acts doing mainly original material (well as original as you can get playing blues)!

[quote name='markmcclelland' timestamp='1464740591' post='3062151'] And Pete, first off, really great that you're up with it and I totally get where you're coming from. I also fully expected this to be brought up ... ...the very next day, or maybe the day after, I went back to my actual job of being a waiter and barman. [/quote] F**k me, that’s a long response! First of all, I take your point that a gig is a gig! Obviously pros will play bar gigs, if only to fill up the diary, and as you say most will have a few different ways of generating income to ensure that they can pay the rent. Also, I would say that the distinction between pros and the better semi-pros can be pretty blurred, more so than some people think. However, I still don’t think that playing a pub is a professional gig. I’ve got a straight 9 to 5 office job and can’t be considered a pro musician in any reasonable way, yet have been playing upwards of 40 pub gigs a year for most of the past 25 years – ever since I stopped trying to be a professional musician in fact! I make a fair few quid out of doing so, but certainly nowhere near what I would consider making a living. If you were to play 150 such gigs a year (3 a week), you would struggle to even cover your rent in London, so I don’t think that pros really do really make a living playing gigs ‘exactly like’ the one you describe. I know a lot of this is semantics and as I said above, pros do play the odd pub gig. However, I look forward to see how you start to make you way as a professional musician and I'm interested to see if you go down the route of teaching and the function or tribute gigs, etc that are the main sources of income for most jobbing pros.

[quote name='markmcclelland' timestamp='1464711776' post='3061715'] [color=#1D2129][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif][font=inherit][font=inherit]A bit of a shock today and then my first professional London gig.[/font][/font][/font][/color] [color=#1D2129][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif][font=inherit][font=inherit][url="https://marksdiaries.wordpress.com/2015/12/19/day-126/"]https://marksdiaries.../12/19/day-126/[/url][/font][/font][/font][/color] [/quote] Not wanting to sound negative but I personally would not call that a 'professional' gig - more like a decent semi-pro band playing a standard pub gig.

I would definitely try and get to a gym and start to try and build up some upper body strength.

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1464110863' post='3056649'] I can't help you re: the amp (although as Martin Stoneham has built it, I imagine it's tremendous), but I gigged at the Reivers venue last weekend - in the same marquee, I'm guessing - and it's a beautiful place. Enjoy it. [/quote] Cheers mate - looking forward to it

Apologies for reviving an old thread but it appears that I will be using one of these amps at the Reivers Rock & Blues Festival in Northumberland on Sunday night. It appears that they are using a Stoneham bass amp as part of the house rig (not sure what cab will be there). Should be interesting, although using house rigs at these type of gigs can be a bit of a lottery if you don't know what the gear is like. Has anyone here gigged one of these amps and how did it perform??

Could be DR lo-riders??

I don't think that Marcus is endorsing them anymore. Still great strings and very cheap from Amazon.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1463661429' post='3053183'] How hard can it be to put Voodoo Chile under one's belt..? Twenty numbers for two hours, rinse and repeat..? Swap 'em around a bit..? If someone has been playing this stuff for a couple of years, I can imagine that a hundred tunes are easily available and on tap. S'not the same as a 'democratic' pub band all eager to do different genres. As a drummer, I could play any of that stuff for two or three days and not repeat a title. Most of that drumming is basically 'Ting-Tingty-Ting', anyway. Maybe I'm wrong, though... [/quote] Of course not, it’s all that easy – that’s why there are so many brilliant blues bands playing the pub circuit…!

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1463678133' post='3053338'] HENDRIX I'm saying the level appreciation would not be the same as fans born in 1953. It depends on how far after 1956 your talking about. There are 20 and 30 year olds that love and appreciate Hendrix,but certainly not at my level. Understand, that's merely my opinion. For example I like and appreciate Duke Ellington, but not at the same level as my parents. They were there and on the dance floor, I wasn't. Blue [/quote] I’m not sure that you’re entirely right there. I know some 20 somethings (all working blues guitar players obviously) who live and breathe Hendrix, Clapton et al. Of course they don’t have the advantage of having experienced them when it was fresh and innovative, but then neither did I and I’m in my 50s! similarly there will be some 20 yr old kid on a jazz programme in music college who will have a hard-on for Ellington. So not entirely right – just about 97%! [quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1463661429' post='3053183'] Our chum will doubtless confirm or deny, but I don't think it's that hard to have a set consisting of blues/rock stuff in that ilk. I would imagine that these are not two-minute punk utterings, probably more like five to ten minutes. Red House..? Cocaine..? Sunshine Of Your Love..? Knockin' On Heaven's Door..? On a really hot night, Europa..? The American jazz scene has the whole Real Book to choose from as a repertoire; I'd imagine that these bar bands have an equivalent portfolio of '60s/'70s blues-rock numbers; we all know them. No-one has to 'agree' anything; the front man (or lady...) calls one out, and they play it. [/quote] There isn’t a book as such, but it’s fair to assume that most guys on such a gig will know the bigger Hendrix or Cream tracks. Certainly if someone was to ring up and a few days before and say we need an extra 90 minutes so have a listen to these 12 tunes, then if the band was good enough it would all come together on the night.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1463617928' post='3052906'] Has there ever been a 4 hour bar band market in the UK? Blue [/quote] Interesting question and I'm not sure that I know the answer. I have never been aware of 4 hour gigs around here, although back in the early 90s there were a few city centre bars that wanted bands to play for around 3 hours to appeal to a 'bar hopping' audience rather than one that had come specifically to see the band. The 4 hour gig appears to be more common in mainland Europe than over here.

[quote name='BottomE' timestamp='1463223911' post='3049674'] Too many previous comments to read. Quick view. Thats about 2 hours too long for me, the audience and definitely the singer. I've seen some of my fav bands - top class acts - and have had enough after a couple of hours. Attention span is like that these days. I remember Marcus Miller coming to do an encore and thinking "no" thats enough, i want a crepe. During a few years of being pro and doing the 5* hotel circuit around the Middle East we had to do 4 x 45 minute sets. Felt a lot more like work than the 2 x 45 minute sets im doing tonight at a wedding. [/quote] I think that the point is that a 4 hour gig is for a different type of audience. For an audience coming specifically to see a live band then one and a half to two hours is more than enough before they start to lose interest, no matter how good the band is. The four hour gigs work on the basis that you have a transient crowd who want some entertainment before they move onto the next bar. The point of having live music in a place like that is to encourage the punter to stay a bit longer and buy another drink because of the band and possibly return later in the night. However, there will not be many punters who stick around for the full 4 hour set.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1462281161' post='3041696'] I'm doing that in my 50s. I'm gigging way more than I ever have done in four decades of playing and loving it. Er, mostly. The only thing wearing thin is my hair. Boom-tish! [/quote] I have been doing something similar in my 50s, playing original stuff on the blues circuit (if you can put original and blues in the same sentence)! I make more money from the local rock covers band but I get to play all over the country doing the blues stuff! I suppose that the point is that when the originals hard rock band broke up in my late 20s, the idea of putting together another similar proj (especially after a few failed attempts) and getting home at 4am every gig to get up for work at 7.30 started to lose its appeal and I spent most of my 30s & 40s happily playing in a variety of covers bands...!

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1462260081' post='3041444'] There's definitely an originals scene in the UK, just some people aren't willing to make the slightly longer drives. When my band are out and gigging I already have promoters primed and ready in most of the major places in the UK. Some of those gigs will be a 4 hour drive and we'll be lucky to get petrol money back playing between 30 and 45 minutes but at that stage it's just about getting out there, playing and getting a percentage of the audience to remember you [/quote] That's cool when you're 25 but starts to wear a bit thin when you're in your 30s and trying to balance a gigging band with a full time job and maybe a family. There is a market for live music in most areas and if you want to gig you need to position yourself in that market. The bigger the market in the area that you live, the more options you will have.