EliasMooseblaster

I do find this a fascinating subject, not least because I can sympathise with your position! I consider myself introverted, but I'm very aware that I am a different person onstage. I don't necessarily dislike meeting new people, but I find it tiring - dedicated "networking" events are my idea of hell - but somehow I find I'm able to present a different personality when I have an audience waiting for me to play. (And I'm quite sure I know a few other introverted musicians who function in a similar way.) I'm familiar with the idea that the introvert is hesitant to speak up in a group because (s)he wants to form and double-check any idea in his/her own head before voicing it, and so the conversation ends up being dominated by the surrounding extroverts. So the way I see it is that if I've gone to effort of arranging the gig, getting the band up to scratch, and getting my gear to the venue, then that set is my unequivocal opportunity to speak up (perform) and I'm bloody well going to do so! But then, I can only speak from my own experience. I know that not everybody is capable of putting that mask on when the time comes.

It's worrying how commonplace it is, this idea that work is something that must be suffered. Is it dreadfully naive of me to think that yes, we've all done jobs we haven't enjoyed, but surely they're either a means of making ends meet while you get a side project off the ground, or something you put up with until you find something more interesting to do for a living?

If anyone's in the vicinity of North Finchley tomorrow, I've had a rather short notice booking to join this interesting-looking lineup. I'll be doing a solo set of furiously fingerpicked folk-blues, going on about 5.45pm. If anyone fancies a pint before that, I'll be loitering in the venue from around 5ish. I hear they have some interesting beer on.

Tramp the Dirt Down by Elvis Costello. (What? That's not about gardening? Oh...)

I must admit I've not logged into that other forum for donkey's years. I used to make pretty regular use of it; I think I just found that I preferred the atmosphere over here (maybe it's the cheese) and decided to pitch my tent here instead. I think it was the black-and-whiteness of so many conversations which I found a bit tiring. Topics such as the order of your signal chain, perhaps at which point you took the DI signal from, or - god forbid - whether to mix driver sizes, might prompt a lot of "try it and see" responses over here; over there, you're never short of people declaring "I would never do this*, and here's why you're wrong..." Still, as far as the most bizarre exchanges I've seen, I can't decide whether my favourite is: - the two blokes who started taking chunks out of each other over whether Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd could be considered part of PF's "canon" because one of them didn't like it; or - the time the forum nearly erupted into civil war over the question of whether a Bass Guitar was a type of guitar, or some special and unique bass-related entity in a family all of its own. *this first part quoted verbatim from several cases...

Very true. Though there is also the mutual enemy of both the publican and the performer: the freeloader who comes in to listen to the music without buying a drink, or nursing a small lemonade all night. I realise some people might have good reasons for doing this (loneliness and being genuinely strapped for cash spring to mind), but I've heard of groups of people having the brass neck to occupy a table in my local for a couple of hours and neither making a purchase from the bar nor dropping a coin into the jug that goes round for the musicians. One of the regulars told me that he'd had a quiet word with a small group who tried to get away with this one night, who took great offence at the notion that this pub, known for its regular music, could only continue to support itself and let people watch the bands for free if they took enough behind the bar.

You are my northern analogue AICMFP

Not with my settings...

Sorry to hear about your guitarist. Love the track though - your bass tone is to die for!

I always maintain it's a shame that Last.FM has been gradually going the way of the dodo for the last few years. Spotify might be alright if you know what you want to listen to, but I remain unconvinced by its suggestions for new discoveries via algorithm. Last.FM, on the other hand, switched me on to at least two or three artists who I happily follow to this day.

Bear with me, as I explain in convoluted fashion the small group of people who occupy the overlap in the Venn diagram connecting the Lithuanian version of The Voice to up-and-coming UK hard-rock band Inglorious. Early in 2015, I had arranged a gig for Cherry White in the Victoria Inn, Derby. It was to be our first outing with our new singer, Donata. I very much doubt any of this parish will be familiar with her work prior to joining CW, but before coming to London, she had enjoyed a few years of pop chart success in her native Lithuania, after winning their version of The Voice. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this fame had not travelled as far as the UK, but it did mean that we had an unknown but very impressive lead singer in the fold. (And if nothing else, it impressed the two Lithuanian colleagues in an office where I briefly worked around that time.) Also on the bill were a young band called Parasight. And I do mean young: I think the eldest was barely 18, and they all looked quite a big younger than that! But they were good. Full of energy, as many of us doubtless were at that age, but also tight and well-rehearsed. Notably, the two guitarists were playing off each other really well, and they had some nice Wishbone/Maiden-esque harmoised lines. And really friendly and unpretentious when we met them; nice guys to a man. I heard via the band's Facetube page that they'd folded, which I thought was a shame, but they mentioned that one of their guitarists, Danny, had landed himself a couple of really promising opportunities, of which I forget the details now. But following the ins and outs of his own Facetagram page, I gather that he has not only replaced the original lead guitarist in Inglorious, but has also played Slash in a biopic about Guns'n'Roses. So there you have it: that night in Derby is is, to my knowledge, the point of smallest separation between Inglorious and Lithuanian TV talent shows.

Or perhaps, "Man, I feel like a plonker..."

I know the type you mean - not wishing to detrail the thread, but donkeys ago I manned the phones part-time at a driving school. I never bit my tongue harder than when a guy phoned up one morning to ask if we had "a stimulator." "I'm sorry sir, a what?" (Thinks: I think you've confused us with the shop at the other end of the high street...) "A stimulator. You know, one of them computers you can practice on before you go in a real car." I politely explained that we didn't have a driving simulator, and asked whether he was still interested in booking any lessons. But throughout the conversation, he insisted on bring up the "stimulators" again and again, saying that the bigger companies had "stimulators" he could use, and how we should get ourselves a "stimulator", while I politely explained that simulators were quite expensive, and our office space was very limited. I hope he managed to find the stimulation he was after.

Probably the same way that various companies can offer unpaid internships without, apparently, falling foul of minimum wage legislation. It's within the letter of the law, even if it is a d!ck move.

And with a fretless Wal, how could you not love fretless bass? Enjoyed reading that - thanks for sharing!

Similarly, I look forward to seeing Fender's offering for the Mark Knopfler Strat starter pack...

Glad to hear the Ernies have done the trick!

I think this was several years before dear Al was bitten by the Schecter bug. (Even if it was him, he's not having that serial number...)

At least you might have got a sale out of it - way back when I had the patience to log onto another popular bass forum (which may or may not share its initials with a respiratory disease common in Victorian times), I got a fair old Spanish Inquisition from one guy who seemed to be desperate to know every little detail about my Schecter. I wasn't selling it - I'd just mentioned on a thread that I was very happy with my purchase. He picked up on my mention of the neck profile being "more Jazz-like than P-like" and wanted to know exactly which neck profile that would be - C, D, U, X, Y, Z? I went onto Schecter's website and quoted the measurements they'd kindly supplied for public use. OK, what's the nut width? I wasn't about to nip home and measure the thing - far easier to head back to the webpage and get it from the horse's mouth. String spacing at the bridge? There's a website I'd like to recommend to you, mate: it's called "Google." What's the serial number on your bass? ...and at this point it started to feel like I was being stalked. I stopped responding, and was very grateful that he didn't chase me up for further answers.

I can believe this. We played a festival in Milton Keynes years ago - all original bands and massive local attendance. I was chatting to one of the punters after our set, and I mentioned how nice it was that so many locals had come down for the weekend to support all these unknown, independent bands. He explained to me that they couldn't hear original live music anywhere else (apart from the Stables or the Bowl), as the pubs in the area stuck to booking tributes or covers bands almost exclusively. So any locals who wanted a fix of fresh, new stuff would come along to festivals like this one. (It's not often I hear about the supply:demand ratio being skewed the other way when it comes to live music!)

+1 I've often thought Pete Shelley's best songs could have been a hit regardless of which decade/musical era he'd written them in.

Yeah, driving from London to Leeds and back again the same night, in driving rain both ways, might have been the tipping point for me! Ironically, the biggest distance we travelled was one of the most enjoyable - possibly because we flew to Germany, all sitting in different ends of the plane (that's Queasyjet for you...), then I had to get on the U-Bahn to meet a friend of our drummer to borrow a bass for the night, so no time was spent folded up in the seat of a van. And the venue treated us exceptionally well, which helped (after hurrying from Schoenefeld, to somewhere in North Berlin, and then back down to Kreuzberg, a litre of Dunkelsbier on the house could not have been more welcome!)

In my own mind, I've reached a point where I separate "playing the gig" from "being on the road." I think a lot of a people on this thread have alluded to the similar ideas; I've realised that I tend to enjoy the actual performance, but I find being on the road more and more tedious. The time on stage can be immensely satisfying; the time in the van can be incredibly boring, and it's unfortunate that the latter dwarfs the former. Since I started the solo project, I've been a lot more selective about the gigs I choose to do. It's early days, so the audiences are smaller, and the atmosphere a bit less exciting, but at least I know I'm not playing for free when I get there. Needing only a couple of acoustic guitars means I can jump on a train and come back the same night without too much hassle. Essentially, making the "on the road" aspect less tedious has made it less of a shock to go back to square one in terms of booking the gigs and building the crowd!

Following this one to the letter, I probably can't count my very first (proper) bass amp, as I I haven't switched it on in months! (I have a feeling I even put it up on the "Recycling" listings as it's need of some more comprehensive repairs than I can perform...Laney Session 40 Bassman, anyone?) So, I still have a Seiko chromatic tuner, which was in my case for every gig, probably up until the point that I bought a pedal tuner, and is still my go-to for tuning. Best of all, its low current demands meant that I could give knackered old 9V batteries a new lease of life by popping them into this tuner!

What if they could only find a bassist who would fall for it...would the Edinburgh Tattoo be brave enough to have an extended bass solo as its musical accompaniment?