Barking Spiders

I've never bought into the Jaco myth and much prefer Neils Henning Orsted Peterson's and Joe Pass's take on Donna Lee.

Today in the car, stuck in traffic in Leamington, I was playing From Manhattan to Staten by Down to The Bone. Track 7, 17 Mile Drive, is my new fave DTTB tune

I'm a bit surprised. 330 views and only 6 posts. This being a bass community I'd have expected more interest seeing as NHOP's playing is staggering fast and clean and much harder to do on an upright rather than a B/G

Dont think we've had any Talking Heads yet. Time to amend that

Thought as BCers you'd be interested in this from Rick Beato's channel. I first came across NHOP via Joe Pass albums as I was learning jazz guitar at the time. NHOP was a phenomenal player. Even if you're not familiar with jazz I'd also say NHOP is someone any bass player in any genre HAS to check out.

A couple of tunes by Three Johns, back in the day when there quite a few leftie bands from Yorkshire

Right now it's Homework by Daft Punk. Still sounds fresh after all these years

Here's one hell of an underrated/overlooked band, 23 Skidoo. That this vid has just 370 views sums it up really. I guess they were too different and inventive for the general public in the early 80s.

Arent they more part of the jazz-pop thing of the mid 80s along with Sade and Animal Nightlife? Anyone remember this cracking Peel fave? Wish Planet Rock would play stuff like this and other bands mentioned on this thread rather than bluddy Foreigner, Styx, Dire Straits, Smith Kotzen etc all the time

Making sure this thread stays on page 1 here's my fave from the Sisters of Mercy and the first track I heard by The JAMC on Peel

Couple of my fave Joy Division tracks here

I dread that term too. I've been in function bands where I got my cut but still considered myself an amateur who gets a bit of pocket money at the weekend. I wasn't playing for money regularly enough to be called 'semi pro'.

Just not having bottles of p1$$ or a few dozen mouthfuls of sputum aimed at us I considered payment enough.

As an amateur I actually used to find offers of payment a bit of a burden as it meant there'd be certain expectations we'd have to live up to and if we weren't considered much cop there'd be a fair bit of aggro from dissatisfied punters. If they didn't much like us but we were playing for free the worst we'd get is being told to 'p1$$ off, you're shoite'.

One of the best albums of the 80s is Call of the West by Wall of Voodoo (also one of the best band names). I see that on the Wiki page some plank called Geoff Barton only gave 4/10 in his review in Classic Rock. Knob'ead! So here's the lead single from it, the brilliant Mexican Radio

Six pages in and way past time for some Pixies

Or maybe people don't ask for payment because they've got well paid regular jobs?

I've been in bands doing more unpaid than paid gigs and to my knowledge we were never taking the food out of the mouths of professionals. Usually it was a case of us the unpaid band vs some Judy warbling along to pre-recorded backing tracks. We didn't always win.

I've seen more than enough bad bands at all levels who frankly should've refunded punters their entrance/ticket money and who also definitely should've been advised to just stick with playing music as a hobby. At 25 I realised I wasn't made of the right stuff to go pro and so listened to some sound advice and went and got a regular job.

While I enjoy a good spectacle e.g. Rammstein at MK stadium, you can't beat a good old fashioned gig with a party vibe, plenty of banter and a touch of argy bargy so it's a big 👍 to the lads from Macc. Honourable mentions to The Beat, Flook (the folk band), and Show of Hands. I don't care how technically brilliant a band plays or how big a spectacle a show is , if there's no charisma from the band and no bants then it's no good.

Question is, why should punters pay to watch bands they've never heard of or which don't have an established following on the circuit. Surely it should be a privilege for any untried and untested band to have the opportunity to perform to an audience?

I think whether your band gets paid or not partly depends on how established and known you are on the circuit. When I've been in bands that are an unknown quantity to everyone except family members and the pet dog no way would we have expected owt other than a free pint.

Never mind not being paid, the real downer is the alcohol free bar!

The best find for me over the last year has been Filter who came out around the same time as grunge became the thing. For a while they were quite big in the US with two platinum albums but weren't much known in Yurrp. Their sound is a melodic half way between grunge and industrial, the main man having been in Nine Inch Nails. Only came across them through Rick Beato's top 10 songs in drop D on his YT channel.