geoham

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1408969330' post='2534991']
Yep I agree, thats two weddings worth IMO
[/quote]

How long do you guys play at a wedding? Pretty standard to do 8pm to Midnight up here in Scotland, with a break for the evening buffet.

[quote name='dougieb' timestamp='1408898986' post='2534436']
I have not heard of any Pay to Play gigs here in Central/South Scotland although I may be wrong. They mainly want you to play for nothing in a few well known venues in Glasgow and Edinburgh, claim that it is exposure for your band. You are expected to play around an hour and entertain their clients whilst being just one of a shitload of bands who play every night. On the two occasions that we were stupid enough to do it, we ended up doing 2 hours plus as the other bands did not turn up. We did this for the punters who were enjoying our music and not for the venues in question. I may add that one well known venue wouldn't even give you a glass of water farless a beer for free, cheapos!

Never play for free or pay to play. You are a professional musician who has invested your time, gear and experience and you should be paid end of.
[/quote]

I've not been in an originals band for about 8 years, but back in the day this was about the only way a young originals band could get a gig in central Glasgow.
In 1999, The Arena & Strawberry Fields (both now sadly gone!) on Oswald Street seemed to run an identical deal - 4 bands, all had to sell 20 tickets each at £4, handing over all the cash (£80). Anything over 20, and you could keep it.

Plenty of other places that are still in business that I won't name had similar deals, right up until I quit my last originals band in about 2006.
We played several times in a venue famous for being where a certain britpop band were discovered. Aside from a few local band nights that we 'headlined', we provided support to some signed, touring (but largely unknown!) bands. Also provided support to the guitarist from a well known 80's band who was doing a solo tour. In all of these, we had to sell tickets to play, plus supply the majority of the crowd.

I know some folk playing in originals bands, and I get the impression it still goes on in Glasgow. Playing a decent venue on a quiet night, in front of a few mates who've paid a fiver to see you and three other bands play for 30 minutes each.

My opinion is that they are a bit exploitative, but if done only occasionally, you can have a bring in a good crowd and make a little money.
However, it may also be worthwhile looking at how much it would cost to hire a venue yourself. We did it once - it cost about £65 to hire Barfly on a Friday night, including a sound engineer. We could sell tickets for as much as we liked, and we decided on timings, line up etc. I got one mate to do an acoustic set, then another to do a rock set before we went on. I took £20 each from them, and they could kept whatever else they made from tickets.
I know of at least one venue that will still offer a deal like that - and I know that some 'promoters' use it for pay to play nights!

This thread could be renamed the setlist nicking thread....

The bride requested it!

In fairness, many songs played at weddings have lyrics about breaking up or similar. Never let it get in the way of a good dance though!

Sorry if that looks a bit rubbish... was nicer before posting it

Ours is a bit less wide than that - I still think it's pretty varied though. I'd gladly add more variety if it wasn't for our guitarist being a bit closed minded at times and our lack of a keyboard player

Played this lot at a wedding the other night:-


1 Be Mine David Gray
2 Valerie Amy Winehouse / Mark Ronson
3 Bad moon rising Credence Clearwater
4 Bad Case of Loving you Robert Palmer
5 Don't Stop Nina Nesbitt
6 Hero Enrique Inglaisias
7 Sweet Child of Mine Sheryl Crow
8 Stuck In Middle With You Stealers Wheel
9 Squeeze Box The Who
10 Breakfast at Tiffanys Deep Blue Something
11 She's Electric Oasis
12 Black Horse & The Cherry Tree KT Tunstall
13 Jenny Don't Be Hasty Paolo Nutini
15 Seven Nation Army White Stripes
14 Honky Tonk Woman Rolling Stones
16 You Really Got Me The Kinks
17 Hard To Handle Black Crowes
18 Teenage Kicks The Undertones
19 Are You Gonna Be My Girl Jet
20 Time of your Life Green Day
21 Better Together Jack Johnson
22 What's Up Four Non Blondes
23 Happy Pharell
24 Hey Ho Lumineers
25 Laid James
26 Counting Stars One Republic
27 Disco 2000 Pulp
28 I Kissed A Girl Katy Perry
29 Never Forget You Noisettes
30 One Way Or Another Blondie
31 Tainted Love Imelda May
32 Runaway Baby Bruno Mars
33 Play That Funky Music Wild Cherry
34 Domino Jessie J
35 You've Got The Love Florence & The Machine
36 Mustang Sally Wilson Picket
37 Man I Feel Like a Woman Shania Twain
38 Wake Me Up Avicii
39 Sing Ed Sheeran
40 Little Lion Man Mumford & Sons
41 Get Lucky Daft Punk
42 Chelsea Dagger The Fratellis
43 Sex On Fire Kings of Leon
44 500 Miles Proclaimers
45 Proud Mary Tina Turner

Most recent hits on our setlist are Sing & Counting Stars. Sing is quite fun to play, but needs a singer with a decent range who can also rap! Our vocalist split it between them!

After several attempts to expand my four piece function band to five by addding a keyboard, I've decided to try and learn myself. We've binned a few songs because they frankly sound crap with just bass, drums & guitar. I'm still going to be mainly on bass, but switch to keys for a few numbers and cover the low end with my left hand. Before I can do this, I need to learn to play! Can anyone give any advice?

I'm not entirely un-knowledgable, I had some lessons when I was school, but I'm far from competent! What I've been doing so far is:

- Leaning common chords
- Figuring out major scales - done C,G,D,A,E & B so far!
- Playing along with songs I know the chords for - basic chords with my right hand and root notes with my left.
- Trying to read treble-clef - using an iPad app where you play the notes it shows you on a virtual keyboard.

I've tried looking online for lessons, but they generally are very basic.

Any advice anyone can give would be much appreciated!

[quote name='gsgbass' timestamp='1408037593' post='2526542']
The newer MIM Standards are close to the MIA Standards, but the Am. Std.'s are a bit cleaner over all. The boards are a bit slicker, and there is a difference in pups, and electronics in them. The Mexican Standards don't come with a gig bag either. The Am. Standards come with a case.
[/quote]

Got a quality gig bag with my MIM Precision I bought from Wunjo's on Denmark St, at a web beating price! Assumed it wasn't thrown in, given the price I paid.

I've looked at both Mexican & American basses in the past. To the best of my knowledge, the American offers the following upgrades on the Mexican:-[list]
[*]Better pickups (Custom Shop 60's - overwound with Alinio magnets, compared to 'standard' pickups used on the Mex - ceramic magnets with far fewer winds. On my P at least, the standard were louder, but sounded pretty harsh to me. A £35 Tonerider fixed that!)
[*]Neck reinforced with graphite rods
[*]High mass bridge
[*]Higher quality tuners
[*]Hard case vs gig bag
[*]Body made of fewer pieces of better quality wood
[/list]
Try as many as you can - there can be a lot of variance between apparently identical basses. Both my Fender basses are Mexican made, but I've replaced the pickups on both of them, plus the bridge on my Jazz.

Few things to try:

Plug straight in to the FX return. This bypasses the pre-amp. You'll still hear the bass if you crank the master volume. If you still get no sound, it's likely the power amp is gone.

On a similar note, see if you are getting any signal from the FX send. (Perhaps run a jack cable to another amp - keep the gain down though - or even a tuner). This will confirm your pre-amp is working.

Try a different speaker cabinet

Failing all of the above, either continuity test all fuses with a multimeter, or replace them one at a time.

There is an actor who played a baddie in The Bill and Sliders who is in a
band. Roger something.....

I had exactly the same problem, and resolved it with a Tonerider from Amazon - £35 delivered. Much better tone and responds well to the tone control. Flatwound strings are also a must for a proper pre-CBS tone.

These are quite fun and need some work....hopefully 'rock' enough

Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Oliver's Army
Heartache Tonight

[quote name='Muzz' timestamp='1405940605' post='2506664']
At functions, we generally play a 45 first and then anything up to a 90 minute second set, sometimes longer if it's going mental and we're allowed to. Pubs are much more controlled, there's one we play regularly where we go on at 10pm and play till about 1am, with a 15 minute break in there somewhere, but that's the exception rather than the rule - 2x45 is what's asked (and paid) for most of the time, so that's what we do. Never been asked for a 4 hour set, in 30+ years of playing...must be a US thing.
[/quote]

I think there is a bit of a Scotland / England divide here too. North of the border, wedding bands normally play from 8 to midnight, with a break for the evening buffet. I believe that in England, 2 x 45 minutes followed by a DJ is the norm. Gigs in Scottish social clubs (& similar) are much the same, though the break will be for bingo rather than a buffet!

[quote name='merello' timestamp='1404038139' post='2488647']
Ice cube cool!

He's the British Trujillo!
[/quote]
Awesome bassist and very funny guy indeed. Any idea what bass he's playing here? Looks cool - like a hollow bodied 51 P. Kind of....

On hold pending sale.

Replied.

Pretty happy - paid gigs almost every week.
May finally start making more doing gigs than I spend on music equipment!

Got the job!

I've got on beat up fretless you can have for not much cash - I'm in North Lanarkshire like yourself. Drop me an IM if interested.

Still here!

Still for sale!

I was quite vain when buying my P-Bass. Ended up with Mex Fender and absolutely didn't want a Squier! My only experience of the brand was a Chinese built Affinity series Strat that I had when I was at school, which really wasn't up to much.

The P plays well enough, but I found the original pickup to harsh at the top end and lacking 'ooommph' at the low end. It was very high output though - far louder than my Jazz and active Ibanez. The pickup is ceramic, and has DC resistance of only 4.5KΩ (ish!). I replaced it with Tonerider I found on Amazon, which is much more to my liking. Alnico V, 10 or 11 K DC resistance. It's widely accepted that these are the same pickups as the Squier Classic Vibe.

I've ended up paying the price of a Mex Fender, plus a pickup - for a bass that probably sounds exactly like the Squier CV! I've never tried the Squier CV, so can't speak for the build quality - however, I'd recommend trying it if you can live the with Squier logo!

Thanks for the advice.

There will be other rehearsals thankfully.
Existing bassist will finish after gig next weekend, then no gigs in July, and back to gigging most weekends from August, with a weekly rehearsal being the norm.

The songs need to be pretty close to the recordings - which obviously makes them easier for me to learn at home.