EliasMooseblaster

Denizens of Oxfordshire, lend me your wisdom. Can anybody recommend any radio stations or music blogs based in Oxford that are likely to be interested in some touring bands who'll be passing through in March? Only, I'm hauling Cherry White up that way, and any assistance on getting the word out to a local audience would be a boon. The genre is best described as blues/rock, a little bit prog (see https://cherrywhite.bandcamp.com/ for reference), which I gather isn't the most fashionable genre in the area at the moment, but I see no reason why we shouldn't at least try!

Saturday 12th March: Indie Noir are bringing their delightfully dark blend of music, art, fashion and film to Oxford's Jericho Tavern, and bringing my band (Cherry White) with them. Tickets available from http://www.wegottickets.com/event/334382 In their own words: "Building on its success in London and Brighton, Indie Noir is proud to be hosting its first event on Oxford. There'll be the usual blend of incredible music, art, fashion & film, all curated by underground legend of the Brighton scene, Mishkin Fitzgerald. CHERRY WHITE - The elegant sound of contemporary classic rock, steeped in a barrel of blues, with plenty of attitude [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp7UAvkMf64"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp7UAvkMf64[/url] BIRDEATSBABY - Combining piano-lead power-pop with orchestral and melodic rock, Birdeatsbaby create something that sounds hauntingly original and delicate. [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TafWo76nHt0"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TafWo76nHt0[/url] VIENNA DITTO - Captivating, eccentric and above all amazing to watch. Imagine Portishead doing a Tarantino soundtrack. [url="https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DposRLnHd-04&h=nAQEJucXq&enc=AZP-czuJJ1LCgtD7GS5F0-KebFXgjmyy2SwyLEkXfeGM0nFDvVhDaAe56m478IjMXaY&s=1"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=posRLnHd-04[/url] More announcements coming soon." Facebook event deelie at: https://www.facebook.com/events/966142783445925/

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1452800731' post='2953676'] From the BMU website: [b][size=5]BMU MUSIC MANAGEMENT[/size][/b] [b]GET EXPOSED WORLDWIDE[/b] So their main selling point is EXPOSURE. Wahey! If I want exposure I can go to the end of my garden path and drop my duds. If I want worldwide exposure I can film it and upload it to YouTube. [/quote] http://theoatmeal.com/comics/exposure (Edit: linked out to relevant comic instead due to swears)

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1452784523' post='2953493'] BMU? ¿Qué? [/quote] Oh, not a subtle pun or anything; just bitter experience. A friend's band signed a contract with them and, against my better advice, paid a not-insubstantial sum of money upfront for their services. Every update I had from him seemed to be dripping with more and more exasperation. At one point they even contacted Cherry White, after our drummer answered an ad that 'looked interesting.' I went to meet some of them and one of their first questions was "so how many of you are there in the band?" (Followed not long after by "we can do x,y and z for you if you give us this much upfront.")

[quote name='Sharkfinger' timestamp='1452781727' post='2953448'] I can't top it either but here's an anecdote from the best man's speech I gave a couple of years ago for my (guitarist) mate Garry; "One particular time, we were looking for a drummer and Garry finds a potential one on facebook. We had him come down for an audition at a rehearsal studio. When we met him there, it was clear right away he was mentally unbalanced.[b] Then he started drumming, and it was clear after the first couple of beats that he’d only ever played a drumkit a handful of times in his life.[/b] [/quote] But had he had plenty of practice on a plank with a pair of forks in the meantime?

"[color=#3C3241]We signed a management contract back in October, and because of aptitude, we had to let our bassist go"[/color] [color=#3C3241]Because of aptitude? Was he the only one apt enough to realise that the contract was a complete turkey?[/color] [color=#3C3241]EDIT: Ah yes, I've just noticed they signed with BMU. Clearly he was the only member with any aptitude.[/color]

[quote name='chrisanthony1211' timestamp='1451728112' post='2942740'] I really dislike intonation adjustments which require you to loosen the string, then loosen a grub screw and move the saddle by hand, it's always fiddly and takes forever, I much prefer just being able to turn a little screw and tune. [/quote] Perhaps I'm playing the wrong basses, but I've only ever encountered bridges which require you to at least loosen the string to move the saddle. Are there some which get around this problem (or do you just have much better control with a screwdriver than I do)?

[quote name='Twigman' timestamp='1452099957' post='2946418'] I played at white trash a couple of years ago at the drop dead festival 2012...... Ate too much in the restaurant upstairs [/quote] Those burgers are bloody good though, aren't they?

[quote name='tinyd' timestamp='1452166315' post='2947134'] I think that learning rules so that you can (selectively) break them is a good way to look at it - IMO most great music happens at that boundary between the 'rules' and whatever else is going on in the brain of the musician. Too far one way and you're listening to an aimless mess, and too far the other way and the music is safe and uninteresting. What's great is that we all have a different idea of where this boundary lies. [/quote] It's like treading a fine line between Ornette Coleman and Michael Buble.

[quote name='neepheid' timestamp='1452168720' post='2947160'] What's the reason? Genuine question, not stirring. While I don't understand doing it with three pickups which are already inherently humbucking, I can see the wisdom in it for single coils. [/quote] Not sure if this is what Machines was thinking, but my first thought would certainly have been "wot no solo pickup settings?" Personally I tend to favour one of the pickups soloed on most basses, so being limited to different blends sounds rather off-putting.

[quote name='AntLockyer' timestamp='1452095967' post='2946357'] Still no idea how that is ever going to apply to a musical situation though. Is anyone ever going to say it is a II, V, 1 in D Dorian? [/quote] Think of it more as opening up your options. For example, compare the Phrygian with the minor pentatonic: the same notes appear in both scales, but the Phrygian gives you some very colourful extras in between. So the next time you get called upon to take a bass solo at your local blues jam, you could always whip that out and give them a surprise!

Buggers. This will be the second - possibly third - year that I'll be unable to go due to gig commitments. It's starting to make me wonder if the reason we get booked at that time of year is because every other band is out of action due to the absence of their bassist!

[quote name='Zenitram' timestamp='1452091689' post='2946286'] But... er... notes are always in the same place, aren't they? [/quote] Not if I fiddle with your tuners before you go onstage! [/maniacal laughter]

Seven, of which four currently see regular gigging action. I usually take a 4-string and my (only) 8-string along to a gig - I think there were only a few Cherry White gigs last year where I didn't need the HB-8 for at least one song. The choice of 4 has lately been between the Thunderbird and the Epi SG, and sometimes the Schecter Model T if I'm in the mood for something brighter.

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1452067149' post='2945957'] I have always thought of my basses as male - probably because the name is masculine in Italian; they say 'il basso', not 'la chitarra bassa'. (Italian has no neuter gender.) [/quote] Interesting...I wonder what the split is like across the different European languages. I'm fairly sure a bass is feminine in both French and German. Edit: The plot thickens. "Bass" is masculine in German, though "guitar" is feminine, so a bass guitar is feminine by association.

[quote name='leftybassman392' timestamp='1452088659' post='2946248'] If you want to explore it a bit further, you can do the same with any 7-note scale - the Altered Scale beloved of many Jazz players is actually the 7th mode of the (ascending) Melodic minor scale. [/quote] See also the use of fifth mode of the harmonic minor (sometimes referred to as the "Dominant Phrygian") in [i]Gates of Babylon [/i]by Rainbow. Apparently Ritchie Blackmore is very fond of that particular mode.

[quote name='Machines' timestamp='1452084883' post='2946194'] I tried out a 2012 Gibson Grabber in PMT last week. It was without doubt the worst sounding bass i've ever played. 3 x single coils, of which they can only be set on a 3 way as bridge + middle / all 3 and neck / middle pickups. The wide spacing of the pickups meant a very muddy sound I could not get any real definition from it, slap was out of the question. [/quote] [quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1452087767' post='2946234'] That's the same as the wiring on a three pickup Les Paul. Very odd way to do it. [/quote] You have to wonder what precisely stopped them looking at a Fender Stratocaster and having a lightbulb moment...

Never got round to naming my guitars, but my basses? Brenda, Christina, Jo, Aradia, Vriska, Annie, and I recently part-ex'ed Eva for Simone. Is it sexist to give them all female names?

Is there any way for you to hear the raw signal coming out of the Boss? Even with a neutral EQ, every amp will 'colour' the sound it receives to some extent, so there's a good chance the good sound coming out of the amp may be surprisingly different from the signal going in! You're probably right to try and keep your signal chain as uncluttered as possible. I'd be tempted to take the EQ pedal out of it and try to capture as much signal as possible. Then play around with whichever compression and EQ plugins came with Sonar to try and get the signal from the Boss to sound a bit more to your liking.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1451864432' post='2944219'] That in itself sounds great. Collecting royalties as opposed to straight gig making someone else rich. Blue [/quote] I suspect the modest nature of her income may give clues as to where the rest of the money was going! She was by no means an independent artist at the time, so it's highly likely that various managers and label types were enjoying a far more lucrative share of it than she was...

I learnt keys before I picked up the bass; I'm very grateful to this day that my piano teacher was a big jazz enthusiast as he planted some very crucial seeds of music theory, which were incredibly useful when I was trying to master the bass under my own steam. I suspect that it may not translate back the other way quite so well, but a lot of the theory you already know may become a lot more obvious when you're forced to think more about the scales and intervals, as you will be when working things out on a keyboard. Compared to a guitar, it is a bit like having a big, linear map of all the possibilities, and I'll echo RhysP's sentiments above regarding writing on a keyboard - it does break you out of familiar shapes and 'boxes' quite effectively!

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1451756363' post='2943158'] They'll tell you stories about a [b]chart act paying £150 a night..and that is someone who has a string of hits.[/b]..?? [/quote] Must admit, this doesn't surprise me all that much - there's obviously a public misconception that if you're having hits then you'll be sleeping on a mattress made of banknotes, which can be quite misleading. Our singer was a pretty big deal back in Lithuania (still is, really - when she visits home there will be people calling up for interviews about her new life in London), but told us about people recognising her whilst looking through the discount section of a clothes shop, and having to explain that actually, royalties from record sales weren't paying much more than she'd have got from a regular office job.

Anybody fancy welcoming the new year with a bit of gratuitous 8-string bass action? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rluoaNi1LBg

I'm not sure whether I really like "classic rock" all that much myself...or at least, I'm very selective. More than one person has suggested the offender in this story has been listening with his eyes, and I think my problem with "classic" rock is that a large chunk of its audience have become incredibly conservative about what they deem to be "correct*" - i.e., thou shalt play only Fender/Gibson/Rick, thou shalt play an SVT, thou shalt run it into a back-breaking fridge of a cab, thou shalt use the word "party" as a verb. For a genre that was supposed to be all about breaking the rules, it's amazing how many unwritten ones they've put in place. I say this as somebody who's perfectly happy to run a valve head hell-for-leather, but is very aware that it's personal preference. If you like your MarkBass amp then just ignore him! [size=2]*See [url="https://thecrowfrombelow.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/living-in-the-past/"]https://thecrowfromb...ng-in-the-past/[/url] for a longer rant on that subject...[/size]

For the time being, count me in! Hopefully I won't have to pull out of this one as well.