skankdelvar

I suppose this thread is slightly different from the other one, in that we're talking about St George's Day rather than a Jubilee gig. For myself, I would say it would be inadvisable. The older (and I mean 70+ olds) would probably feel a bit confused and miffed. Most under 70 would probably think "Oh look, bunch of hobby-band guys trying to be cool and failing dismally". A small minority of tubby, middle-aged men might simper nostalgically, I suppose If one [i]really [/i]wants to 'confront' one's audience, there are far more effective songs. And if one doesn't, then why bother? The singer is right and the guitard is (as usually the case with guitards) wrong. Plonker.

[quote name='lettsguitars' timestamp='1335117358' post='1625997'] I guess Nick is not able to post on here due to being a business. I doubt he is ignoring anyone. [/quote] Well he started this thread, so posting on it is clearly not a problem. And I don't think he's [i]deliberately[/i] ignoring anyone. I just think he's banging out 'press releases' and forgetting to check back because he's very, very busy. Which is understandable but also unwise. Earlier in this thread I counselled that we should give him some time to get his sh*t sorted out. I stand by that, but I also think he should clarify his position re: existing subscribers and new subscribers. Pronto.

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1334859916' post='1622579'] f***ing great mate! I like Busy Like Signal too. Love the singer's voice and the lyrics. Great feel, great sounds, lovely. Consider me a fan. [/quote] What he said. It's all [i]really[/i] good.

[quote name='Gust0o' timestamp='1335098272' post='1625653'] From a quick perusal of some popular music, [/quote] I think that your 'some popular music' is different from my 'some popular music'. I mean, yes, lots of booty calls. The more the better, IMO. But there is also a plethora of whey-faced poppets (step forward Birdy) wandering along monochrome streets trying to look 'concerned' and 'sensitive'. One feels they need a good slap-up roast lunch and an afternoon of old Tommy Cooper shows on DVD. But I digress and not for the first time. Thing is, the whole political doo-dad might well be going on right under the noses of old class-warriors like Bilbo and I, but we just don't recognise it because no-one's shouting "Sooooooooocialist Worker! Ge-et your Socialist Worker!" I shall call it the Politics Of The Personal (if someone hasn't called it that already). [color=#ffffff].[/color]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1335093878' post='1625553'] Music and nmusicians can contribute to the debates that are necessary to move issues forward. I think there is considerable merit in that concept... [/quote] So do I. And it takes considerably greater lyrical skill to write a 'good' protest song than it does to write a 'good' pop song. The examples posted above are all excellent examples. Contrast the idiotic bogusness and ghastly delivery - both sonic and visual - of 'San Francisco'. Topical, perhaps, but not political. As for modern youth and their allegedly apolitical music, one might reasonably argue that [i]some[/i] 'whiny indie sh*t' is political, just not in a sense recognisable to those of us accustomed to a broader and more organised form of politics. The evident popularity of many inward-looking songs - disillusionment, alienation and exclusion - speaks to the existence of a significant number of disaffected younger people to whom organised movements, stirring rhetoric and political parties are the problem, not the solution. One cannot blame them. Many of the grand objectives us old codgers so grandiloquently espoused seem to have run into the dust, while those hopes that bore fruit have become so much a part of daily life that they are - perhaps understandably - taken for granted. Perhaps we old streetfighters should pause to review some of 'The Kids' issues as manifested in contemporary popular song. They might not use the traditional words and subject matter, but one might argue that they speak for the concerns of a significant minority of the population. Which makes them political, I suppose.

"Waiter! There's some meat in my music." "Not so loud, Sir. Everybody will want some."

There's a world of difference between a protest song and a song that protests. Shipbuilding is a good example of the latter. It makes its point fairly indirectly - the conflict of interests for a working man striving to support his family while building warships in and by which may be killed young men not much older than his son (IIRC the lyrics correctly). Songs like this have a tremendous power and virtue because they are rooted in specifics and constructed to a human scale. They invite you to reflect and they also sound pretty good. By contrast, there are any number of exhortative ditties which fall by the wayside, in part because they are simply too explicit and partly because the writer cannot find a word to rhyme with 'proletariat'. Of course, one can rhyme 'masses' with 'classes', but [i]that[/i] only works if you're singing with a Northern accent. Which explains why there are so few cockney protest singers. Well, here's the sort of protest song I think Bilbo had in mind: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AeY79vyO-A"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AeY79vyO-A[/url]

[quote name='Earbrass' timestamp='1334940238' post='1623862'] There are already too many people shouting 'No'; shouting is all some people are capable of. Being angry and breaking things is easy. Building a better alternative, on the other hand, is hard, unglamorous work, which requires discipline, humility and an ability to compromise and understand others' points of view. [/quote] Oh, so the plus one. Thing is, it's entirely understandable that young people get all shouty and angry. It's what they're for, after all. To deny them their righteous, hormonally-driven fury would be to snap one's fingers at Mother Nature and to shear off a formative experience. But to make a life's work of putting anger at the heart of progress is self-defeating, simply because it's very difficult to reach a considered, sustainable compromise when one is all steamed up. No, I reserve what little scorn I have left for middle-aged gobsh*tes who prance around giving it the big angry I am, simply because it's more fun and easier than grinding out a deal that both sides can sign up to. Closer to home, contrast Mr Weller's profitless, undirected Sturm und Drang with Mr Bragg's cheerful disposition and sterling work with projects like Jail Guitar Doors and I think we all get the picture. Which is what m'learned friend Earbrass was saying, I suppose. Consider my post superfluous. [color=#ffffff].[/color]

I think that music can be a vehicle for a desire for social change, but it is not a progenitor of that desire. The desire predates the expression, IMO. But it can be a rallying call or, at the very least, an agreeable soundtrack upon which may one look back with pleasurable nostalgia. The problem is that music is a tool and that tool can be wielded by anyone. For every Woody Guthrie and for every Marseillaise ([i]Aux Armes Citoyens![/i]) there is an Edward Elgar and a Horst Wessel Lied. Music can be a vehicle for repression as much as it can be a vehicle for change. As for shouting, angry young men and women, well, they have most recently manifested themselves in the Rap movement. If we're looking for a contemporary UK movement, I don't think the agriculturally-clad youngsters of nu-folk are about to start making petrol bombs. In sleepy London Town, there ain't no place for a street-fighting man. [color=#ffffff].[/color]

[quote name='visog' timestamp='1334857760' post='1622534'] Janek's got a new album out!? What's it like?[/quote] More here: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/172675-janeks-new-album/page__view__findpost__p__1603695"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/172675-janeks-new-album/page__view__findpost__p__1603695[/url]

Whatever may transpire on arrival in the US, you might want to check the UK HMRC website re: bringing items back into the UK. Without paperwork to prove otherwise, UK customs might think you bought it in the US during your trip and stiff you for some duty, VAT, etc.

I think the point he's making is that re-releasing it is the opposite of sticking two fingers up, particularly as it seems to be the record company that's pushing the idea. And, butter ads notwithstanding, I think he's right.

[quote name='nick@ibassmag' timestamp='1334500619' post='1616865'] Hi all.. [/quote] Well, two days have elapsed since I posed a fairly simple question. Perhaps the delay is because Mr iBassmag has not subscribed to the thread.

Hello isteen and welcome Hope you enjoy the forum!

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1334578791' post='1617867'] hmmmm, sometimes the lack of audience can be down to other factors. Publicity, location, finance, commitment etc. [/quote] True, one cannot eliminate every impediment. But much of this in the band's purview. Publicity - DIY Location - Well, where one plays and which venues one approaches is definitely the band's choice. Finance - Starve Commitment - Well, band or audience? If band, commitment is the band's problem. If the audience, well it's like Cornflakes, innit? Sometimes people say 'F**k your silly Cornflakes" and switch to Shreddies. So you have to find some new people to buy the Cornflakes. The point I'm trying to make is that it's not the audience's job to support the band. It's the band's job to support the audience.

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1334577790' post='1617838'] Chris B: Truth Dispenser [/quote] Like a mighty Pez dispenser of truth, even. Respeck! (clicks fingers like homie, rheumatism flares up) [color=#ffffff].[/color]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1334576211' post='1617790'] I guess for some writing more crowd pleasing stuff is not engaging enough to want to invest time and effort in (and, dare I say it, it may not be where their talents lie). [/quote] [i]Of course.[/i] Gig-wise, everything depends on 'the crowd's' expectations. If a lot of people turned up to one of your jazz gigs and enjoyed themselves, you'd have pleased the crowd and - by extension - yourself. Though I wonder about the last part, sometimes. Does the sound of happy laughter curdle the gigging jazzer's blood? Probably why they threw me out of Ronnie Scott's. And [i]of course [/i]some peoples' talents do not lie in writing crowd-pleasing material. They lie in writing crowd-displeasing material, which is why they're staring at an empty room. Mission accomplished. Anyway, I don't know why we're talking about originals. Bass players can't write songs, as any fule kno. That's the guitard's job.

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1334573774' post='1617722'] Ceiri Torjussen's 'Concerto for Eight Flutes' is not going to get the Dog and Duck on its feet and won't make him a millionaire but it will interest a certain clientele and has a legitimate right to exist.[/quote] Bilbo is right, as is often the case when we agree. Entertainment is everywhere in everything and need not be the sole preserve of covers bands. Yet covers band gigs is the thrust of this thread, unless I am mistaken. Hence the focus thereupon. That said Mr Torjussen's flutey epic certainly does have a right to exist, funded though it may presumably have been by his soundtrack work for those art-house faves Die Hard 4, Cheaper By The Dozen and - er - Dracula: Legacy. See, [i]there's[/i] a radical concept to set the feathers flying in the Basschat henhouse. Knock out some crowd-pleasing stuff and use the money for projects with a more selective appeal. But then I just don't get this either / or thing to which so much importance is attached. Why not write original material which is also crowd-pleasing? Oh, I forgot. Originals is - apparently - all about art and challenge and brain-ache and twatting around with clever scales. Silly old me. [quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1334575069' post='1617763'] I think that's deffinitely true, which is why some below-par musicians get plenty of gigs. [/quote] The reason why below-par* musicians get plenty of gigs (in a competitive market) is that they (or their band-y confreres) are better at getting gigs than some above-par* musicians. That's the only reason, afaics. [size=2]*Band rankings as defined by BABB (British Association of Bedroom Bassists. Tongue-out smiley, 'kay?)[/size] [color=#ffffff].[/color]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1334573063' post='1617701'] [/quote] Stop that or it's for you, my lad. [quote name='charic' timestamp='1334572733' post='1617685'] So you've never been with a non-muso and listening to a track and they've said "that sounded really good"? That could well have been very difficult to play [/quote] Never. Well, there are musos, non-musos and punters. Muso = Nice run. Mixolydian? Non-muso = Sounds like King Crimson. I've got the vinyl of Lark's Tongues In Aspic but I don't go to see bands. I smell. Punter: Do you think he likes me? Where's Zoe? She's got my handbag. [color=#ffffff].[/color]

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1334572444' post='1617673'] I didn't mean to be derogatory about covers bands. They can be "good" but their priority is to entertain their audience, where as my priority is the music.[/quote] We knew that. It's all good [quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1334572444' post='1617673'] Another example is Tool. When I saw them there was almost no movement, deffinitely no audience interaction etc, they were just playing for themselves, and it was one of the most amazing gigs i've ever seen - full of energy.[/quote] Ah. So you found it - [i]entertaining[/i]? They [i]entertained[/i] you? Learning how to wave at the audience is only step 1. Learning how to be entertaining [i]without[/i] waving at the audience is step 2 [quote name='Mog' timestamp='1334572520' post='1617678'] I'm comfortable with or without pants...............and theres photos to prove it! [attachment=105233:habit.jpg][/quote] Ah, the old 'Comedy Nun' gambit. Probably more controversial in The Emerald Isle[sup][size=2]TM[/size][/sup] than over here, but I'm willing to give it a go.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1334571686' post='1617650'] NOW you're talking! [/quote] It's the only technique that matters.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1334570368' post='1617612'] I think it depends what you're trying to do. If you want to play covers in pubs or crowd pleasing pop/rock, then yeh, who cares how good you are as long as the audience likes it. Personally i'd rather be in a good band [/quote] Well, yes. Although I sometimes get the feeling that some people on BC would rather they could dispense with the annoying requirement to deliver something in return for the entrance fee. The mantra would seem to be "Playing bass would be great if it wasn't for audiences, bookers and other musicians. It is [i]possible[/i] to play covers and be a good band. [quote name='Mog' timestamp='1334570395' post='1617614'] Its the worst part of being a musician innit? Having to watch some pants band and knowing that they're getting paid for it when you maybe aint earning regularly. [/quote] Which band is [i]more[/i] pants? The one performing or the one [i]not[/i] performing? If the function of a band is to perform and get paid, then the pants (but working) band wins. Which means we're the losers, not them. We're the ones who have to up our game. [quote name='discreet' timestamp='1334570609' post='1617622'] And what's wrong with doing both..? [/quote] Nothing at all. But how many of us can? Watch any band, you can always see the old 'Tricky lick incoming' frown at the neck. Oh, we can knock those licks out, but how many of us know how to work our visuals into a mix with what the frontman's doing? [quote name='charic' timestamp='1334570444' post='1617615'] That's until you take into account recording [/quote] Well, yes. Because, as we all know, when punters download a song the first thing say is "Ooh, nice bass lick coming out of the bridge, mixolydian was it?" Y'know, I despair sometimes. The whole point of being in a performing band is not about licks and gear and scales and 'self-expression'. Those are just some of the tools [i]by means of which[/i] one delivers the outcome of making people happy, getting paid and maybe copping a quick hand-job while you're loading out.

It's always tempting to vent over this sort of thing. After all, one has put so much effort into mastering one's instrument and one's material and being musicianly and whatnot. But really, it's not remotely about this other band's technical failings. Somehow or another, they must be doing [i]something[/i] right because they've got the gig and the OP hasn't. Perhaps someone in their band is a consummate gig-blagger. Perhaps their marketing is better. Maybe a booker looks at their setlist and thinks "That's the right mix". Maybe they played for free. Maybe the drummer's related to the booker. Whatever the reason, they've exploited it and there's little benefit in us going down the "Bookers are stupid and punters are stupid" route because you have to work with what you're given. Selling a band in to a booker is like selling anything else. Find out what people want and give it to them. Problem is, many of us start out by focussing on what [i]we[/i] want to play and how to play it - genre, material, arrangements etc. That's the wrong way round if your aim is to secure regular gigs at local venues. The crafty ones survey the market and focus as much on how they present their offering as how they deliver it. As for punters not noticing, well who cares if they notice or not? Our job is not to present a faultless musical display but to entertain them in the broadest possible sense. Let's face it, if people will happily dance to a record, they're clearly not too bothered about the 'live' component. They just want a beat and a tune, preferably one they know. Audience engagement is about much more than playing the right notes, yet how often is this critical issue discussed on BC? Hardly ever. The reason why we're collectively less successful than we could be is because we spend too much time on here agonising about tone and cables and guitarists' irritating little habits. Frankly, looking an audience member in the eye and smiling at them is a lot more productive than executing that fancy lick we spent all afternoon learning. But we never learn. [color=#ffffff].[/color]

[quote name='thumbo' timestamp='1334514172' post='1617098'] I was gunning for a bit of a Bonham appreciation thread when I posted up the link, how did we get to the Peart bashing? [/quote] It's just ... Chinatown, Jake. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1yUvdQnERk"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1yUvdQnERk[/url]

Competence, feel and technique aside, I think I'd rather be in a band with Mr Peart than the frankly unhinged Mr Bonham. Bit too high-maintenance for me.