peteb

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1453931062' post='2964462'] A decent rock and roll band? Blue [/quote] Yes, definitely...

[quote name='TrevorR' timestamp='1453926456' post='2964379'] Hope you don't mind me posting here. A sort of Wal-based tribute to the late Jimmy Bain over on the Wal Bass History Blog... [url="http://walbasshistory.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/wal-pro-ii-bass-review-by-jimmy-bain-of.html"]http://walbasshistor...my-bain-of.html[/url] [/quote] I remember Jimmy's reviews in Beats International. I recall him writing a column explaining how to EQ a bass amp properly for relative beginners, including four examples of different types of bass tones. This was invaluable to me and was the start for me learning how to get a decent bass sound.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1453927415' post='2964396'] I'll have to disagree. And remember I'm talking about local level bar bands playing rock. Sure lots of young people are going out to see Passion Pit and Interpole. But that's not local level and it's not bar rock as a matter it's not even rock. Maybe I should have said, younger people as a rule have little interest in rock and roll at the local bar/pub level. Blue [/quote] That is not necessarily true in the UK. Sure, they do not have the same attachment to rock music that kids did when I was young, but there are still 20 somethings regularly turning up to pub (rock) gigs!

Just bought an [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Aguilar TLC compressor from Lozz - very smooth transaction and Lozz was very helpful and easy to deal with...! [/font][/color]

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1453855113' post='2963579'] Agreed, but I sense over all the enthusiasm for gigging musicians once had is also down. Blue [/quote] Don't fall into the trap that Basschat is representative of most gigging musicians in the UK. There are still plenty of opportunities for playing live, just not as many as there were a few years ago. The main factor for this is the number of venues / pubs that are struggling to keep going for a number of reasons. But there is still an audience out there for a decent band!

All of my heroes who are too old to die young are leaving us! Hearing Rainbow Rising as a kid was the lightbulb moment when I decided that I wanted to be in a band and when I saw Jimmy Bain on the cover I thought that there is no reason why I couldn't do that. Jimmy Bain was basically the reason that I picked up a bass guitar...!

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1453475511' post='2959832'] There's no denying all of that, but there are so many doing it at a much less intense way (whilst still being very good at it...). Those playing as amateurs are not taking anything from anybody, and not pretending to be any more than 'week-end warriors' (well, only a little..!). There's a place for all, and mutual tolerance and respect would be useful, I'd say. [/quote] I can see your point but I think that the issue is that in a very competitive live music scene, some very amateurish bands play for free or next to nothing and undercut much better bands that expect to be paid the going rate. All of this is against a background of pubs struggling to keep afloat and fewer opportunities for new bands. As a result, punters get a poor experience and don't come again, possibly being put off the idea of watching live music and landlords stop putting bands on and go around telling other landlords that live music is a waste of time. However, pubs that do their homework and book the right bands for the going rate still seem to be reasonable busy. But the market is being undermined by rubbish bands and naive landlords...!

[quote name='ahpook' timestamp='1453418011' post='2959459'] It's nice to be nice. [/quote] Very true - it's nice to get paid occasionally as well...

[quote name='vmaxblues' timestamp='1453361592' post='2958679'] Some great responses guys. It isn't about the cash per se, rather it is about someone taking the pee, this guy is notoriously tight and I suspect we will do this for £200 and find the disco on £350. Charity gigs I have always done, no problem, and I did a mates party recently with my other band and me and the drummer who were mates with him took no fee but the others had their full rate. I will do it if the others want to, is the bottom line, I just don't like punters undervaluing the band, and as you say, everyone at that gig will end up knowing we charged £200, so the problem compounds. anyway, great comments guys! [/quote] That's something completely different. Where I have done gigs for free it has been for a genuine charity or where I'm doing a favour for a friend who I know would do the same for me if the boot was on the other foot.

[quote name='bonzodog' timestamp='1453320874' post='2958482'] I will probably be in a minority of one here but I, and I'm sure my two band mates are the same think about the gig before the money. If it's a party it will probably be a good night so we would be happy with £50 each. We've done loads of party's for friends of friends on the cheap. I've spent 15 years playing in boring clubs where I only did it for the money. Nowadays I'd happily play for a low fee as long as I enjoy it and I see people enjoying themselves to our music. Life is short so I want to play as many good gigs as possible. [/quote] I agree as well. Much as I think a band should [b]generally[/b] insist on being paid the going rate, there is absolutely nothing with doing a favour for a friend of one of the band. A few months ago a friend asked if we could play at her wedding. I knew she was on a budget (the wedding reception was in a pub to save costs, etc) so I said I would see what we could do on price. The band had a chat and agreed to do it for half our normal pub fee. I offered to forego my share, but being decent guys the rest of the band wouldn’t hear of it. I did about 40 gigs last year – a shortfall of £30 from one gig to help out a friend is neither here nor there to be honest. I remember similar occasion several years ago with another band, when a good friend of all of ours was in a similar position. He asked how much it would cost for us to play his wedding, there were a few looks and shrugs between the band and the guitarist just said ‘well nothing is a round figure’! it ended up being a great night and we helped out a mate. What goes around comes around and when I got married four years ago I had five well-known local bands play half hour sets at the wedding party. The only ones who got paid were the nominal headlining (3 piece) band and I had to literally force them to take £20 each at the end of the night to pay for their taxis home. The guitar player said that he already had a lift home and wasn’t getting a taxi and insisted that I took the £20 back. I suppose it depends on your outlook on life…

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1453124413' post='2956536'] no, Sam's in four fighters but started as a dep, I thought he'd got the main gig now but could be wrong [/quote] I think that Ric is still the main guy but I haven't seen him for a while. Ric actually has a regular 9 to 5 (unlike the others) and I know that he does use a dep on a regular basis. I will ask Geoff the next time I see him...

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1453112020' post='2956343'] Sam? He's an old mate of mine, easily one of the best drummers I've ever seen, let alone played with [/quote] Nah, the guy I'm taking about is Ric White (out of Wakefield). I'm afraid that you must be the thinking of some other Foo Fighters tribute - gawd knows there are plenty around...!

[quote name='gapiro' timestamp='1452854902' post='2954064'] @oops - Fake festival is usually tribute bands eg "Four Fighters" [/quote] I know the Four Fighters – played with the (excellent) drummer in the past and am good mates with the bass player (Geofftheleaf on here). They’re nice guys and a very good band. They play for decent money all over Europe, so there is obviously a demand there. A couple of the guys are ‘pro’ musicians by any reasonable definition and the Four Fighters makes up a significant part of their income, along with teaching and various other gigs. The singer promoted the first fake festivals around here; risking his own money and fortunately they have been very successful. Apparently they are great fun thru I’ve never managed to get to one. People here often seem to ask what it takes to be a ‘pro’ musician? Well, playing gigs that pay enough to pay the mortgage is high up on that score and personally I would prefer to play in a decent tribute rather than a corporate function or wedding band…!

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1452787691' post='2953532'] You almost always get a sensitivity gain. That's why so many users of mixed cabs rave about the combination. But the reality is that virtually [i]any [/i]two cabs together will sound better than either on its own, partly due to the sensitivity gain, partly by the upper cab making it possible to hear your mids, rather than have them all pass you by south of your equator. [/quote] I should mention that I was using two cabs with different sized speakers before and then changed to two identical cabs (two 410s), so it isn't just because of moving from one cab to two.. As I understand it (and I'm not particularly technical by nature) the efficiency gain is because all of the speakers are moving together, [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]doing the same thing at the same time and are therefore all the speakers are perfectly in phase with each other. [/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]For example, this may not happen if you were to mix 10s with say 15s, you might expect the 10s to move faster than the 15s and with a shorter excursion. I would imagine that if cabs with different speakers are made to be used together they are engineered for the different speakers to have a similar [/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]excursion (assuming that [/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]excursion [/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]is the right word). [/font][/color]

I read something on here once about the advantages of using similar cabs with the same speaker size was that all the speakers would be doing the same thing at the same time and therefore you would get an efficiency gain. This seemed to make sense, even to a non-technical person like me so I tried it and, yes, two identical cabs did sound better. Since then I have not mixed speaker sizes. However, I think this is a general rather than a ‘blanket’ rule and I am sure that there are certain cabs with different speaker sizes have been designed to work well together…

I see that you are putting a Part 2 online, now that you are back in Madrid. Are you going to analyse lessons learnt from your adventures on the Costa Blanca, how you would do things differently if you were to do it again and how this is going to affect your future plans??

A fascinating blog - I stayed up way to late on a school night to read it to the end and await the next instalment with interest. Two comments / questions: 1) Why did you go out in July? I would have thought that it would have made sense to go out at the beginning of the season (April / May ??) when I assume that every bar is booking residencies or gigs for the season rather than midway through? I think it would have been easier to find a band needing a bass player for the summer as well as a place to live and a part time barwork if needed. 2) I know that you are on a budget but I would think that you would really need a car to work as a musician out there? I assume hat you would need to gig up and down the Costa to make a living? As you have found just trying to get to a few jam sessions, what would be a two hour round trip in a car takes all day n public transport and will usually mean you can't get back home at night! Not to mention that presumably you will need to carry an amp at some point!

I got 11

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1450779888' post='2935728'] This is the one question I always ask. I'm sure there must be really good keys players out there, but in forty years I've not had the good fortune ever to meet one of them. [/quote] I know (and indeed have played with) a few excellent keys players. They are all barking mad of course… Not necessarily bad guys but massively eccentric, even by the high standards set by most musicians playing in bands...!

My four questions would be: 1) What audience are you targeting and do you have an idea of a coherent set list to play to them? 2) What’s the deal with PA and transport? 3) How’s the money split – is it an equal split or is there a principal and the rest of the band get wages? 4) Whose round is it? There is no right or wrong answer to any of those questions but it is always best to know up front what you are getting into to avoid any possible misunderstanding. If it was an original band that had any possible chance of success I would also want to know about songwriting credits / publishing / copyright, etc.

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1450030877' post='2928953'] As peerlessly talented as he was, loads of what Jaco does is IMO unlistenable noodling... it's just there for the sake of it. I've got no interest in listening to it because it's technically clever. It just doesn't sound very good. Mr. Jaco & I are in it for different reasons, basically. [/quote] I would agree that Jaco was certainly guilty of occasional coked up noodling – just see the various clips of his Weather Report solos! However, the good stuff (the first solo album, Heavy Weather, the Chicken, the Joni stuff, etc) more than makes up for it. It may be it 'technically clever' but it goes deeper than that, it is worth checking out...

[quote name='Rich' timestamp='1450006680' post='2928658'] Will you please give it up with the "if you don't like Jaco you should give up" stuff? It's demeaning and more than a little insulting. Added to which we've heard it (more than) once and it's getting tedious. Yes I'm tetchy this morning. [/quote] I am afraid that I have to disagree – everyone is entitled to have an opinion. Maude seems to be of the opinion that he is a highly respected musician, that he can disregard every influential bass player of the past 50 years and dismiss whole genres of music as worthless. Blue seems to think that some people should not be allowed within 50 feet of a musical instrument! I’m with Blue on this one. This is very little to do with Jaco. I don’t like country music but I can appreciate that there is a lot of good stuff in the genre and a lot of great players playing that type of music, so I occasionally watch the odd YouTube clip on country bass players to see if there is anything I can learn from them. I certainly do not dismiss all the great country players and make stupid statements how I can pull better country songs ‘out of my ass’ than some of the most highly regarded figures in that genre! No one is above criticism, Jaco or anyone else. Coilte makes a perfectly reasonable point in post 335, as has Bilbo in the past. But just disregarding the most acclaimed and influential bass players for the hell of it is just the equivalent of a surly teenager wanting to paint their bedroom walls black. It’s all a bit dumb really, this is supposed to be a community of musicians after all…

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1449927296' post='2928058'] Did you get asked back? That's the acid test. [/quote] 14 bands in a year - he is probably too busy to be able to accommodate requests for repeat gigs...!

[quote name='Old Man Riva' timestamp='1449938461' post='2928205'] I always assumed Paul Chapman had played the intro to Anyday?! [/quote] That has been suggested in the past but it was kinda denied by the UFO camp (probably true though)