uk_lefty

I keep trying to start an INXS tribute band named Stranglew4nk, some right weirdos come to audition

I had a band called Not the Hoople once. We did two gigs. We were not a Mott the Hoople tribute, it was a silly joke name because one of the local bars had tribute acts with really lazy names that may as well have been "not Queen" and so on. We were an acoustic duo. We did have a Mott the Hoople fan arrive who thanked us at half time before leaving saying "it's good but not what I was expecting". To be fair, it wasn't even good.

That was the name of a Chilli's tribute for a while, remember seeing the poster. Of course if you're not a Chilli's tribute that's fine, you could be a group of monastic scholars who smell badly, in which case nobody can argue with the choice of band name....

I did a few months of gigs playing the Sam and Dave version of Soul Man while the guitarists played the Blues Brothers version.... I always just assumed the rhythm guitar was lost, it did happen a lot. Took us months to eventually talk about it and get it "right"

My first band was called Guantanamo. I liked the idea of alluding to a political point without actually making one. I also wanted to get an orange jump suit to gig in... And the singer sounded like he was being waterboarded. Anyhow, we got our first gig at an all day local music evebt and, good local exposure, purely off our band name. The phone call went "sorry mate we're full up and there's a long reserve list.... You're called what??? Can you do the 7pm slot?"

I know there are various pickguard threads but what I need is quite specific... I need a replacement fender jazz pickguard. For a lefty MIM. No big deal? Well yes, it's an early 90's MIM so a generic replacement doesn't quite fit. The bass is currently wearing a generic replacement but I had to file out the pickup hole to fit the pickups better so the current pickguard is a bodge job. I need to find someone who I can ideally post this pickguard to so they can see the dimensions, location of screw holes and the size of the pickup hole required and make me a replacement. Can you recommend anyone, ideally UK based so I can post it off to them with confidence they will understand what I want and be able to work quickly? Thanks

I know there are various pickguard threads but what I need is quite specific... I need a replacement fender jazz pickguard. For a lefty MIM. No big deal? Well yes, it's an early 90's MIM so a generic replacement doesn't quite fit. The bass is currently wearing a generic replacement but I had to file out the pickup hole to fit the pickups better so the current pickguard is a bodge job. I need to find someone who I can ideally post this pickguard to so they can see the dimensions, location of screw holes and the size of the pickup hole required and make me a replacement. Can you recommend anyone, ideally UK based so I can post it off to them with confidence they will understand what I want and be able to work quickly? Thanks

A phrase I will be using at work A LOT from now on!! Thank you!

Shareholders?

Our drummer often complains that songs are boring for him, me too really, but our band rule to test songs is, bearing in mind our core audience is couples in their forties: 1) will people dance to it? 2) will people sing along to it? A song has to pass both before it goes on the list. Even if it's the most simple plodding rhythm section exercise if the audience sing and dance we do it.

If you have a good number of Facebook or Twitter followers ask them to vote on a handful of options? We did that quite successfully for a track we would play on Facebook live, so not quite to add to the setlist but it "engages" the fans and makes it clear to the band what people, the people who watch your band that is, want.

Sad but true. Saw two grown men, must have been mid forties, absolutely hammered to the point of being a complete embarrassment shouting at each other and getting aggressive with people at a Red Hot Chilli Peppers gig... Before the Red Hot Chilli's came on. It wasn't a cheap ticket and booze was extortionate. No way would they have remembered the day and they could have spent a month's wages, lost a few teeth and get arrested all at once. Moved away from those idiots very quickly.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F163022639301 It's back again...

Don't want to derail the thread, but whose shared Calender do you use? Looking for recommendations Time tree - I'm on Android and I'm pretty sure at least one of the others has iPhone and it works for us. At home the wife and I use Famcal on Android for family stuff too. Both equally good.

I often find that I need to be quite far away from amps, particularly using Ampeg fridges in rehearsal rooms, otherwise I can't hear them at all if I'm too close. For my gigging set up I need two cabs partly to get one of the cabs at the right height for me to hear it too!

Aged 11 and bored one summer holiday my Mum's Johnny Cash LPs taught me that songwriting can be funny, sad, happy, hopeful, miserable, poetic and rebellious all at once. Songs like San Quentin and Boy Named Sue set me off looking for other great songwriters. I guess I'm inspired more by a good song than great musicianship or great bass playing, though I do appreciate them both. Weirdly, I couldn't play a country baseline to save my life and back when I used to write songs they were not at all country-tinged. But there's just something about the story telling and the wordplay that makes me want to go and write or play a gripping song.

There's a shared calendar for possible gig bookings and noting when people will be away. Guitarist books holiday, minutes later a gig is added that clashes and he concedes and cancels his holiday. Confirmed gig gets added, one member pipes up that it clashes with something "that will be much better" that he's organising with his mate but has neglected to tell the band. Calendar rules we say, "let's keep our options open" he replies.... No. A confirmed gig booked in to a free date cannot be "put on hold" because you might be negotiating something else with your mate that none of us knew about. Slamming head against brick wall.

First time the drummer came in at the right moment?

Perfect, thank you! The reason for looking in to it is that I'm toying with having a bass made and can't decide between fretted or fretless, this could be the solution if it's effective and not just a crappy gimmick.

Absolutely no idea I'm afraid

Years ago I remember reading about a fretless bass with a piece of brass fitted to the fingerboard right at it's very end so that zingy slap and pops could be played on it but with the notes sliding like a fretless. Does anyone have one of these? Is it good or bad?

Some of my mates were a bit anti social at a gig. We had decided that drinking triple JD and coke would mean we would spend less time on the loo and more watching the music.... Then they got told to shush, quite rightly, during a quiet song.

Kate Butch would be a superb tribute act name to Ms Bush!

I was a hockey player. We went from mulberry sticks to reinforcing those with fibreglass wraps, then carbon wraps, to aluminium sticks with a wooden head. The aluminium ones were unreliable, needed to be kept warm, and could be quite dangerous. Then composite materials came about and changed everything. Now it's almost impossible to find a wooden hockey stick within less than twenty years of the technology being about. However, this is a market for people who want performance and not one where we hark back to tradition as musicians do. I can see the future being a split of high end sustainably sourced wooden instruments being produced at astronomical prices, a surge in the price of vintage instruments, but all new instruments worth up to say £1,500 in today's money being some kind of synthetic (even recycled) material. There may be a wooden "tone block" in the middle holding the pickups. Think a Hohner B2A with an added fibreglass body... They will be delivered by drone from Alibaba after the robot wars of Amazon Vs Alibaba is fought in the desert in between east and west Australia, destroying New Zealand in its course. Alexa will not only be our president but also our God. Google will have self destructed before able to join the war after Alibaba repeatedly googled the word "Google" until it frazzled out like a knackered cassette. Elon Musk will be a brain in a jar orbiting the earth planning to save humanity by creating human robot hybrids that run on solar power. Maybe.

I played a four string of this and can honestly say it's the nicest bass I'd ever played. One of those where you pick it up for a random tickle and think "woah! Did I just play that?!" When you manage a technique you've never played before or your fingers just give you a sound or a riff you didn't realise was in your locker. You'll love it!