Happy Jack

Park Royal HHH is the guitarist who placed the advert. This is an established 3-piece that has been playing around London and the Home Counties for many years. Their long-standing bass player is retiring to the South Coast later in the year so they're getting ready for that by recruiting his replacement. This isn't technically an audition. HHH has already come to see me play (and sing) with the other pub rock band I play in, he knows exactly how capable I am, and he wants me to dep for two gigs he has coming up later in the month where the current bass player can't make it. Those two gigs will effectively be my 'real' audition. HHH has been very professional indeed. I've been supplied with full set lists for the two gigs, plus good-quality mp3s of the band playing all those 36 songs live, and he's been quick to give me very comprehensive answers to any questions I've asked. It's all looking good. With 36 songs to get gig-ready from a standing start I've invested a lot of home practice time. By the time I get to the studio I'm pretty ready. There are a few songs where I don't feel 100% confident but in the main I'm pretty happy. The session goes well, but there are some worrying straws in the wind. First, By God but they're LOUD! We're in a small rehearsal room and they have the PA, drums and amps cranked up to volume levels that I've rarely even gigged at. Second, HHH has really very fixed views on how each song's bass part should go, and it usually comes down to straight eights played with a pick. He doesn't want me to play fingerstyle, he's "not a big fan of arpeggios" (that's an actual quote) and he doesn't much like shuffle beats. Now I'm not used to being told how to play bass by a guitarist, but with so little time and so much material I decide not to argue about it. There'll be time enough later. Third? Oh yes, there's a third. HHH and the drummer have played together for 40 years. The two of them are like [cliche alert] an old married couple. They're virtually telepathic, complete each other's sentences, and will never be able to form a balanced band with an incoming bass player. Oh dear. Two days later the band is playing an Irish pub in Finchley with their current bass player. My wife and I go along to check them out. An old drummer I used to play with is a local so we call him and invite him to join us. The three of us sit there watching, and I am struck by how many of the songs have the lead vocals taken by the bass player. HHH has mentioned how important my BVs will be, but not that he himself is not actually the lead vocalist most of the time. Meanwhile a strange expression has come over Mick's face. He yells a couple of questions in my ear and then starts laughing. At the break he explains to us that he was in a band with HHH a few years back. "He's a complete bastard, and utterly mental" he says. "Absolute control freak, totally ruthless - just watch yourself". Then he leaves, still laughing. HHH comes over to ask me what Mick has just said about him. I tell him the truth. He laughs and seems quite unaffected by it. Our first gig together is a social club north of London on the Friday night. The band's PA is strictly 1980s ... two huge, heavy tops mounted on stands built (apparently) from scaffolding poles, and all of that on stage with us where it takes up perhaps a third of the frontage. I ask why we don't put the stands on the floor in front of the stage and get put in my place quite sharply with a load of bollocks about health & safety. The drummer brings in his shells, then his traps case, then his cymbals case, then his second traps case, then his second cymbals case. He's brought in enough kit to outfit three rehearsal rooms. He starts building a truly magnificent rig, including three floor toms, five rack toms and at least eight cymbals of varying sizes and shapes. A third PA stand with a large top now materialises at the back of the stage to the right of the drummer, apparently for (very loud) on-stage monitoring. This contributes to the drummer drifting his kit over to his left, thus pushing me against the wall where I'm standing under one of the PA tops. All sorts of alarm bells are ringing by now. My wife sets up her recording gear - she videos all the gigs my bands play. HHH sees this and delivers a lecture to the effect that nothing, nothing at all gets online unless he approves it. Hmmmm. We play the gig. My playing is fine. Not brilliant, but I'm always where I'm supposed to be and it will all sound fine to the audience. I drop a few minor clangers, as you might expect, but that's nothing compared to the list of cockups by HHH. He is clearly very uncomfortable at having to do all the lead vocals and that's spilling over into his guitar playing, which is all over the place. After the gig, the band breaks down and loads out in almost complete silence. Not a good sign. The next night we play another social club, this time south of London. The gig is virtually a carbon copy of Friday in every respect. On Sunday morning I'm in the queue at Sainsbury when my mobile rings. It's HHH. He tells me that I'm hopeless, my bass playing is "going backwards fast", it's just not going to work out, and they're going back to their previous bass player. He's clearly forgotten that I have a complete video recording of both gigs and he doesn't. I think we both know where the blame really lies. On looking at the footage carefully, I realise that the drummer never actually plays most of that enormous kit. It's just there for show. Frankly, I consider this one a bullet dodged. It was always going to end in tears.

Greenford PPP is the guitarist who placed the advert. This is an established 3-piece + female vocalist which has been playing the West London pub circuit for several years. Their Lemonrock site has some mp3s which give an indication of the band's quality. They're not great but they're OK, and I'm not exactly Jack Bruce myself. PPP has given me half a dozen songs to be ready for, and I turn up ready for the session. He's about 50, the drummer is a much younger guy, and the vocalist seems surprisingly disengaged during the setup process. While setting up, it doesn't take long to recognise that the drummer is VERY full of himself ... he barely stops talking, very loudly, cracks dreadful jokes that only he laughs at, and is generally a PITA before a note has been played. PPP calls the first song and off we go. Only what he's playing bears no resemblance to the song he's called. Huh? I stop playing in confusion and look at him. He stops too and explains that "we always kick off that song with this little mini-jam thing". Well thanks for warning me. I soon discover that this approach applies to every single bloody song they play, and that all I can do is play root notes until each song reaches a point that I recognise. Worse news is that the drummer has heard the expression "less is more" and decided that it's completely wrong, actually "more is more". More of everything. More toms, more cymbals, more flourishes, more paradiddles, more look-at-me look-at-me than you can imagine. It's like playing with a 5-year-old. The icing on the cake is that the vocalist is simply dreadful. It's not that she can't sing, more that she has no conviction, no confidence, no presence. I grit my teeth and stick it out. It might improve. It doesn't. After an hour, we've actually been playing for about 40 minutes and I'm wondering how soon I can leave without it being insulting. Then the door opens and a very attractive woman walks in. Guitarist's wife? Friend of the vocalist? No, it's the vocalist. The woman who has been singing is actually the guitarist's girlfriend, and she was only singing because the vocalist was running so late. Nobody had thought it necessary to mention this to me, of course. We try a song with the proper vocalist and the difference is pretty obvious. This woman can sing, and she's also got what it takes to be a front person. I can see why they get repeat bookings. The drummer remains as childish as ever, the guitarist as wild as before, but at least it sounds a bit like a band. In truth, though, I'm no longer interested. The whole experience has been so off-putting that I can't imagine ever being in this band, so it's thank you and goodnight.

Uxbridge BBB is the guitarist who placed the advert. He's building a new band from scratch to replace his recently-imploded previous band. He has a drummer, and he has a second guitarist who also wants to try vocals, so he's looking for a bass player and he's also keeping an eye out for a dedicated vocalist ... the material he wants to do (Guns n'Roses, Lenny Kravitz, etc.) will benefit from a proper front man. He's had three applicants who he thinks could work, and we'll each get an hour in the studio. I'm up first, 6pm start. BBB turns out to be very easy company and a very competent guitarist; he is also very clearly The Boss. This is his band and he'll make the decisions. I have no problem with that approach so long as I know about it in advance, so that's cool. Although BBB is about 50 (and I'm a bit older than that) his drummer turns out to be a 20-something lady, which is unexpected. She is really rather good, and is absolutely there on merit rather than to be decorative. There's no sign of the second guitarist. The three of us get ourselves properly set up, chatting as we go, but the clock is ticking. BBB mentions that he's asked a vocalist to come along later for a try out. At 6:20 the second guitarist breezes in carrying two guitar cases and wearing a large rucksack. He's about the same age as BBB, so the average age in the rehearsal room goes back up. I'm pretty frustrated that one third of my allotted time has been wasted. Then it gets worse. Second guitarist - who is, incidentally, a lovely guy - opens his rucksack and takes out half a dozen cardboard boxes, each one containing a pedal. Then he opens each box and places the pedals around the base of his mic stand, along with a power supply and some patch cables. One of the pedals is a VoiceTone Harmoniser, which will add the appropriate harmonies to your voice depending on what key you are in. For this to happen, of course, you must route both your mic signal and your guitar signal through the pedal. 2nd G shuts down the PA in the rehearsal room (which BBB has carefully set up), starts moving XLR cables around so as to have the extra connection he needs. It's now 6:25, we haven't played a note, and 2nd G is nowhere near being ready to contribute anything. Enough already. Drummer launches into Are You Gonna Be My Girl (Jet), I come in with the bass line, BBB comes in on guitar, we get to the first line ("one two three take my hand and come with me") after the regulation 30 seconds, and 2nd G drops everything, grabs the working mic from BBB and starts singing. He's not good but I've heard worse. Halfway through the first verse his singing falls apart. "I feel totally naked" he says. "I can't sing like this". He picks up his (unplugged) guitar and we start again. With a guitar in front of him he sings a bit better, still not good. It's 6:30, 2nd G is standing in a puddle of unconnected equipment, in front of a switched-off Marshall stack. This ain't great. BBB persuades him to give up on the clever stuff and at least get his guitar working. He plugs in, switches on the amp, lights glow, but there's no sound. He twiddles knobs and checks connections, but there's no sound. To hell with this, on to the next song. 2nd G is now visibly distracted by his lack of an amp and his singing isn't improving. When we finish the song he starts twiddling knobs again. Nothing. BBB goes over to join him and they both twiddle knobs. Nothing. Finally I've had enough. I step over, look at the amp, and say "you're on stand-by". It's 6:35 and we finally have a functioning 4-piece band. We play the third (yes, third) song and actually we don't sound at all bad, though BBB keeps telling 2nd G which settings to adjust to make him sound right. Then BBB says that the new vocalist is due. What - during my audition? BBB goes to look for him and comes back with a 20-something guy, so the average age plummets again. Thanks to the re-wiring by 2nd G it takes a few more minutes of downtime to get the vocalist set up with a functioning mic. BBB tells him which of the songs he has supposedly prepared we will play next, and the vocalist immediately whips out his smartphone, goes online, and gets the lyrics up on screen. Apparently it was too much like hard work to actually learn them. Then he sings. Flat. He has no sense of the phrasing of the song and, given that it was a big hit some years before he was born, it is entirely possible that he's never tried to sing it before. Jesus wept. BBB makes encouraging noises, which are entirely inappropriate under the circumstances, and we try another song. Same result. It's very hard to sing convincingly when you're staring fixedly at a 4" screen just in front of your face. Then BBB says that the next bassist is due. Hang on - I've got another 10 minutes yet! He goes to look for him, leaving me with the other three. As we chat, it emerges that the third and last bass player who will be trying out that evening is a friend of the drummer's. Well thanks a bunch for mentioning that guys. If I'd known that sooner I wouldn't have bothered to turn up. I don't actually reveal my feelings (I'm not entirely stupid) but I am now aware that there isn't a cat in hell's chance of getting this gig. I pack up and leave, friendly to everyone, a smile on my face. Next morning BBB emails me to thank me, compliment me on my playing, and confirm that the gig as bassist went to the drummer's friend. Quel surprise, mon brave!

Morden TTT is the guitarist who placed the advert. He fancies singing some of the material, and he knows that I sing a bit, so he reckons we can split the vocal duties between us ... if a decent vocalist can be found later then all well and good. Yes, everybody involved will be an experienced gigging musician, this is no 'hobby band'. The drummer from his old band is already on board with the project, so straight away we have a functioning 3-piece if we want it. We agree a date for a week later and a studio to meet at, and TTT sends me a list of 12 songs we'll do, who by and which version, and the key that we'll be playing in. This is all very professional and not something to be taken for granted with pub bands. I pick out three songs that I'm happy to sing straight away, TTT does the same, and we agree that we'll busk the remainder on the night and see who makes a better job of it. This is looking good. Next day TTT sends me an email saying how much he's looking forward to this. The day after, TTT sends me an email asking how I'm getting on with the songs. And then the next day he sends me an email saying that he's now got a 'really good vocalist' who's going to join us, so there's no need for the two of us to do vocals. The day before the rehearsal, he sends me a final email checking that I'm fully up to speed on all the songs. Finally I turn up at the studio. TTT is a big guy (sideways) but just as bouncy and enthusiastic as his emails suggest. The drummer is a big guy (like Mick Fleetwood) and very laid-back. There's no sign of the vocalist ... apparently he's spent the afternoon at the dentist and now can't make it. Allegedly. Oh dear. Neither TTT nor I have actually been practising the vocals for these songs. At least I know the lyrics of 'my' songs, I'm blessed with a good memory. TTT has pieces of paper. Then the second guitarist arrives. What second guitarist? Oh, he answered the ad too so TTT invited him along. We start with Shakin' All Over, TTT on the vocals. The drummer sounds like a man with a wooden leg walking along a wooden pier ... boom thump boom thump. That's all he does. The guitarist, who must be about 60, doesn't seem to recognise the song or know how it goes. He's kneeling next to his Fender Twin as if he can't hear himself (he's actually deafeningly loud) and he's staring at his fingers as if he's never seen them before. TTT is trying to sing while glancing at a piece of paper resting on a ledge to his side, so that he sings "when you move ... close to me ... that's when I ... all over me". Oh dear oh dear. Move on to the next song. Guitarist says he hasn't practised it and isn't really ready to play it. OK, the one after that then. Guitarist says he hasn't practised it and isn't really ready to play it. It's I Saw Her Standing There, fer Chrissakes, how can he not know it? Fine, turn this on its head ... what songs DO you know? Grand, he knows Summertime Blues. He launches into a series of power chords, in the wrong key. What the hell are you doing? I'm playing Summertime Blues. No you're not, that's the wrong intro and you're in the wrong key. Well I'm playing The Who's version from Live At Leeds, and it's in A. But we all agreed we'd do the Eddie Cochran original, and it's in E. Oh dearie dearie me. By this stage, the drummer has completely lost interest, TTT is visibly as frustrated as I am but has done enough to show that he can't actually sing, and it turns out that I'm the only vocalist in the room. In desperation I call the simplest 12-bar in G that I know. It's yer standard two verses and a solo, third verse and a solo, repeat third verse and out. I sing the first verse. When I start to sing the second verse the guitarist widdles ineffectively all over my singing. TTT and I start exchanging glances - what is this fool doing now? He plays a simple but actually quite reasonable solo, still kneeling by his amp, still staring at his fingers. I start to sing the third verse and he goes back to his useless widdling. Sod this for a game of soldiers. I stop playing, switch off and start packing up. Words are exchanged, and it very nearly comes to fisticuffs as I leave. The next day, TTT sends me an apologetic email. He doesn't suggest we try again. Neither do I.

This subject, in various guises, keeps cropping up on Basschat, and not without reason. I've been compiling my recent experiences (just the last couple of years), originally with a view to starting a blog, but Silvie assures me that this stuff is classic Basschat fare so that's where I'm putting it. I imagine that there will be others with stories to tell, so please note that the accounts I have given here are entirely and 100% factual. The whole point of taking the trouble to write them down is that you couldn't make this stinky poo up. Nothing has been invented, nothing has been exaggerated for effect. Please note also that I have been at some pains to keep these stories anonymous. These people aren't villains, or malicious, or somehow deserving of punishment, but the circumstances are always good for a laugh and perhaps even educational. In the unlikely event that you recognise anyone from these descriptions, PLEASE don't start naming names.

Can't say that I agree with that. There are plenty of flaky guitarists, bass players and drummers, but they have at least had enough commitment to spend some of their hard-earned on guitars, basses and drum kits. Vocalists? Well, everyone thinks they can sing, don't they? After all, we've all done it in the bathroom, and doing it with a band has got to be easier than doing it solo, right? And there's no commitment needed. At all. You don't need to buy anything, or learn how to do it, or practice or anything. You just turn up at the studios (having spent three hours at home trying on t-shirts before making your decision) and ask where your mic-stand is and why hasn't anyone switched on the PA and tested it yet?

I was at an audition just last week where very much the same thing happened. New vocalist apparently believed that he could look up the lyrics on his smartphone and immediately deliver some sort of performance on songs by Guns n'Roses and Lenny Kravitz that he'd patently never even tried before. And he sang flat. Very.

For someone like me, the best time to start studying music properly and learning to play bass properly is roughly 50 years ago. I'm well aware that the next line is supposed to go: and the next best time is now. But actually I'm not convinced. With any luck, I'll have another 15 years of active playing ahead of me. I really don't fancy devoting maybe the first (and best) five of those to playing scales and arpeggios, and studying modes. That would almost certainly improve my playing (I'm setting the bar low here) by making it possible for me to do all sorts of things which I cannot now do and ... erm ... can't honestly say that I miss much. Techniques like slapping, tapping and sweeping are of less than zero interest to me. Playing bass solos strikes me as one of the least attractive aspects of rock music. Pinch harmonics? In 1970s pop music? I don't think so. How many great rock songs are in the Phrygian mode? Somebody start a list would you. I'm not sneering at musical knowledge or study. I'm simply pointing out that there are far too many people out there - and here on Basschat - who declaim as a matter of proven fact that it is always better to study music. Bollocks. Horses for courses, and moderation in all things.

I quite often watch the TV while playing, especially when the footy is on. The rest of the band don't like it much, mind.

Of course it doesn't matter ... it really is all about the music you make. The technique is irrelevant. If I rebuild a multi-cylinder motorcycle engine so that it works better than when I started, does anyone really care how I used the socket set? Or what make of socket set I used?

I'm now trying to visualise what he must have done to the Rick to justify modifying the pickguard like that. I'm not much enjoying it ...

The best line in that review is "add $10,000 for the speaker cables ..."

The BVs in that song are consistently off the beat, making it a right bugger to sing while playing.

OK, I'll play too.

I don't play guitar either, but I suspect that I'm just weird anyway.

It still goes on. Take a look at these, on eBay for another 55 minutes as I type this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shure-SM57-LC-Cardioid-Dynamic-Instrument-Microphone/183175482964?hash=item2aa61c0e54:g:C7wAAOSw-vda0DHZ https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shure-SM57-LC-Cardioid-Dynamic-Microphone-01/183175483485?hash=item2aa61c105d:g:k~AAAOSwZ3Ja0DIU https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shure-SM57-Cardioid-Dynamic-Instrument-Microphone-02/183175484125?hash=item2aa61c12dd:g:dawAAOSwx3Va0DJT So that's a new eBay seller with 0 Feedback score selling three brand-new SM57s at the same time, with the same photo for each, all at knock-down prices. What could possibly go wrong?

+1 to the first sentence. Maybe not so much to the second.

That was one of the nicest days I can remember - really lovely bunch of people, played some excellent (and thought-provoking) kit, met some old friends, made some new ones. Basschat at its finest.

£9500? Not sure I can count that high to Bassie.

They don't make 'em like they used to. I don't mean that as a compliment.

I particularly liked the BUY with CONFIDENCE line.

Now you can play The Funky Chibbon.

Roger Warner / A. Watt? Odd name for a band ...

So a pick is the cure for tinnitus - who knew?