Monkey Steve

didn't we get into this on another thread a while back? Maybe not Fender? The defence offered was that as a manufacturer it makes little difference to them because they get the wholesale price no matter what and actually letting sellers drop the price means more sales for them, but they were trying to maintain minimum prices offered on line so that they were comparable to what bricks and mortar shops would have to charge because of their overheads

the best/worst one was a guitarist from one of my very first teenage bands, who's not very good playing was made even worse by his refusal to tune up mid practice/gig. He'd done so at the start, and despite playing an 80's Strat (with not the most stable of trems) he saw needing to tune up again as some sort of weakness, an indication that he wasn't any sort of musician if he couldn't hear that he wasn't in tune (not helped by the fact that the other guitarist had perfect pitch and didn't need any sort of tuner at all). In fairness he proved his point - he wasn't any sort of musician and couldn't hear that he wasn't in tune But he did have a unique tone - you could hear one note and know it was him playing

that was how we used to do it in the good old days - electronic tuners were laughed at as a complete waste of money when I started playing because everybody took an E or A off of one of the other instruments (which we trusted to be close enough to in tune). Though it did mean breaks during gigs while guitarists tuned up (anybody else listened to the live discs from the Motorhead 1979 reissues? Fast Eddie seems to spend half the gigs trying to get his guitar in tune) I've also read a couple of interviews with producers who prefer this when they are recording bands (Brett Gurewitz for one) because it's far more important that the band are in tune with each other than at concert pitch (quite why they can't achieve this by all being at concert pitch is unexplained)

I'm on my second D'Addario one and have no problems with the low B. Admittedly it's the second one because the first fell to pieces, as did a previous non-D'Addario one - as per @DoubleOhStephan seems to be an issue with cheap headstock tuners. But I like the D'Addario's display, and I only use it in the front room for both electric and acoustic bass and guitars so it's fine for me. Wouldn't take it on stage.

basses that don't come with a five string option basses that come with a five string option but rather than just widening the neck and hardware, the manufacturer does a complete redesign so what appeals about the four string design is now absent

mate - that brings back memories from many moons ago. I used to love Upside Down from the Polka Slam fanzine 7 inch - think I bought it in the queue for the Marquee. And despite loving it, pretty sure i never bought any of their other stuff. Haven't played it for years...might be listening to it again tonight...

My ex worked in a high street branch of a very well known bank in the late '80's/early '90's. This was back in the days before banks had a legal obligation to give bad references for former employees who have been dismissed, or even suspected of anything dodgy, and she had lots of tales about branch managers taking "early retirement" after large amounts of money was found to be missing, because the banks didn't want the bad press that might come with sackings and prosecutions. Armed with a neutral reference confirming their experience of managing people's accounts, they often reappeared at a different bank in a different town to start again. Anyway, she told me that at her branch in a fairly busy bit of South London, they would regularly have visits from foreign nationals, typically straight off the plane from South American, who wanted to open an account in which to deposit their holdall (and in more than one case, a suitcase) full of US dollars. They never had any papers beyond a passport, and rarely spoke English. And because the branch managers got an annual bonus that was partly based on the amount of new accounts opened and the total level of money on deposit, they were very keen to be as welcoming as possible so that word might spread amongst the other South American travellers, even though the bank had a strict policy on not accepting anything that looked like it might come from the drugs trade.

I am great at remembering the current set list...and once we stop playing something the notes just empty out of my head. i depped for a band about a year ago and spent weeks rehearsing with them to get their set into my brain - an hours worth of very technical stuff and riff upon riff upon riff that typically didn’t repeat. Played the two shows without a problem and barely a fluffed note. Now I can hardly remember how the songs go, let alone what notes to play

Stu Hamm playing bass when I was dragged along to see Joe Satriani on the Surfing With The Alien tour Not because he was especially animated or was breathing fire, but when he played his bass solo it was such a refreshing break from the previous hour of masturbatory widding we'd had to endure from Mr Satriani - actual melodies, even a bit of humour

is the note one higher than the highest you can get to on the highest string? i.e,. it's the 21st fret on the G string, not on the E, A or D string? If it is, then as per @Dad3353 just bend it up half a tone on the 20th fret If it's not then as per @jacko play it on the next string Proper bass player's answer: get away from that end of the neck and play it an octave down at the 9th fret

In defence of the banks... Have you seen the legislation that they are expected to follow? And the penalties for getting it wrong? There is no wiggle room or any space for common sense, it's all about proving beyond doubt that everything is legitimate, no matter how inconvenient it is for the customer

It had largely passed me by until I got the reissue but it is very good

yes - this one isn't the finest of the bonus live recordings (initially things seem a bit distorted, although it improves as it goes on. Although I got it at the same time as the Motorhead 1979 re-issues, and it is far superior to those. But very bass heavy (if anything a little light on the electric guitar - that's a nice change!) and he was clearly playing with a few effects at the time

Oddly timely - I've just been listening to the Jerthro Tull live in Den Haag in 1980 that comes with the Stormwatch remaster, and Pegg's bass is front and centre of everything (as is right). Filthy tone - brilliant stuff

Yes. His explanation wasn't that it was definitely wrong, but that it wasn't definitely right so he wasn't going to pay top dollar. Plus the refinish, and the attitude of the salesman There's a good post on the Roman Guitars website from a few years ago basically saying that vintage guitars aren't worth the money, but pointing out that in the days before they were worth stupid prices, Fender necks got swapped all the time, guitars were resprayed, pickups were taken off one vintage guitar and put onto another, tuning heads were upgraded because the standard ones were rubbish, etc, and nobody thought anything of it. And add to that the fact that manufacturers were often quite pragmatic - got a load of ten year old parts you found at the back of a cupboard? Put them on to this year's model. So nobody can say for sure whether a vintage guitar is right or not

A bit off topic, but an ex-guitarist of mine (I won't call him a friend...because I can't stand him) would take a set of screwdrivers and hex keys with him whenever he went to buy a guitar, so that he could dismantle it and make sure that it was as described. He once left the salesman in a vintage guitar shop in Denmark Street with a '70's Strat in several pieces when he removed the neck to check that it was as "all original" as claimed and could see that it had been refinished and the date on the neck didn't match with the date on the body. Told me that he'd normally politely point it out, reassemble the guitar and decide whether to ask for a discount, but on this occasion he'd had half an hour of being told that it was definitely all original, they knew what they were talking about because they were the experts, so he just gave him a look of disgusted contempt and walked out.

yes, excellent point. If you're serious about buying a bass, there's no harm in discussing what you don't like about the instrument and seeing if the shop can sort it out before you part with your cash (or leave) - they want your money after all

The OP raises two points the first, that the set up should be good, is, IMHO, indisputable. It doesn't make any business sense to have a poor set up on more expensive basses - if anything the shop should be having better set ups as the price increases, to persuade the punters that paying the extra money will get them a better to play bass. (as an aside, some years ago an Aunt of mine went round her local TV showroom and re-tuned all of the cheaper TVs, it being a common sales tactic to set the cheaper models with slightly worse pictures to make the more expensive ones look much better than they were). If one potential buyer either buys a cheaper bass because that plays just as well, or leaves the shop because the expensive bass they wanted felt dreadful, then the seller has completely failed at their job. And given that musicians typically start on cheaper instruments and work their way up the price range, getting a reputation for selling instruments at every price that are easily playable can only be a very good thing for the shop The fact that many of us can and will do our own set up, and know that a high action isn't forever, doesn't mean that the shop can get away without doing the basics. I would suggest that the OP shares their experience with the owners The second point is around the quality of the instruments themselves. Difficult to comment without seeing the instruments themselves, and very surprised to see a comment about poor quality on a Dingwall, although it did occur to me that they might be a little shopworn. But as a generalisation I'd say that, compared with the market twenty or thirty years ago, the difference in quality between the bottom and top end of the market isn't that huge - certainly I would expect a "starter" bass to have a decently playable neck. Hardware and timber might account for a price difference, possibly a little more attention to detail, but I'm not sure I'd expect a £1400 bass to be worlds apart from a £500 bass

I was largely immune to his charms until I heard this: love the mix of industrial and blues, and the fact that he was pushing the boundaries in making new music - great album. Sadly his last - I would have loved to hear what he did next

No, it’s Bun Davis. I think Frank was in the band before Bun. Another top bloke

ooh, good topic! Here's mine Me and my oldest musical friend, a drummer that I've been in bands with on and off since we were teenagers, were at a bit of a loose end. We were notionally in a three piece band, but the guitarist had been, all guitaristy and it wasn't really happening. The drummer was in another band at the time, playing rock covers, and he suggested that we might form a heavier version playing metal. he knew that their lead guitarist loved heavier music, and the rhythm guitarist could be persuaded to come along too. The lead guitarist being a nice bloke, not a bad guitarist...oddly lacking in the egocentric selfishness, let's call it the C-gene (because what it really is won't get past the swear filter) that all good lead guitarist have got. Or so we thought... We find an excellent singer, and everything's coming together...but the guitarists are becoming a problem. the rhythm guitarist is a really nice guy, but not very good. However, he was a fixture in the rock covers band, everybody liked him as a person, so as long as we can turn him down a little and he's not making too many obvious mistakes...but he is struggling to learn the songs and it had taken months to get a set together. But the lead guitarist's C-gene is starting to show. He won't learn the songs that the rest of us want to learn, he is permanently late - often two or three hours late to a four hour rehearsal (which is never his fault...until he tells us why he's late and it always sounds like it's his fault) and whenever he makes a mistake it's always somebody else's fault, particularly if he makes it at a gig. Hissy fits a plenty. While he's a not bad lead guitarist, his sense of rhythm isn't great and it'd been showing in some of his playing. If you're going to act like a diva you need to be the best musician in the room. I'd place him fourth out of five - I'd put myself third, and while he's a better lead guitarist than me, I'm a better bass player than he is a lead guitarist. Me and the drummer are regularly discussing how to sack him. Well, the drummer is discussing how to punch him, I'm keeping it limited to dealing with his musical issues. I've told the story before on other threads, but it came to a head after we recorded a demo. The lead guitarist had got the data files from the studio on the premise that it was just so he could try mixing it for his own amusement, to see how it compared with a professional, and despite us having paid for it to be mixed, and the rest of us being happy with how it sounded (well, with 2 of the 3 songs, the last one being murdered by the rhythm guitarist having been allowed to play a solo) he spat his dummy out at me wanting to press it up on CD to send out for gigs, because he hasn't finished his re-recording and re-mixing and we should all have the decency to wait for him to finish. This being some weeks after we'd had the final mixes from the studio, and he'd finished his version of just one track (which was no better than the studio mix). I got a very rude e-mail from him on the Friday about how ungrateful i am at not appreciating his genius, and I stew on it over the weekend, before sending my reply first thing on Monday morning saying that I'd had enough and he should start looking for a new bass player. Knowing that the drummer would back me up and quit too (we'd had enough of the band for assorted reasons, mainly him) but genuinely not caring because I was in an originals band by that point and was enjoying that far more and didn't need the covers band. Little did I know that the rock covers band had played a gig that weekend and he'd tried to blame the drummer for his latest mistake, missing his cue for a very well known solo in a very well known rock song. Very loudly blaming him in front of everybody else in the band, and very incorrectly. Unaware that the drummer already hated him, he found himself sacked from both bands before I hit Send on Monday morning's e-mail. What happened next... I carried on in my originals band, playing with some musicians who are reasonably well known in extreme metal circles (although that's not what we were playing). We played around the London circuit for a couple of years, at much bigger and better venues than I'd previously been used to. This led to me depping with a fairly well known extreme metal band last year, headlining at the Underworld and the Rebellion, and swanning around like a rock star for an excellent weekend of appalling behaviour. And my current active (not actually very "active") band is playing covers with most of them. One of my ongoing arguments was that the lead guitarist only liked Iron Maiden and the Cult, and he kept insisting that we should only play Iron Maiden and Cult songs "because the crowd will know all of those and they won't know the songs from those obscure bands you keep wanting to play like Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Motorhead". The drummer and singer (who both love Maiden) started a Maiden tribute band, and invited the rhythm guitarist along (although, perhaps luckily for them, he dropped out). Had he not had such a prominent C-gene the lead guitarist could have been in an Iron Maiden tribute act as a side project. That band broke up after a couple of years, with the drummer going on to join an originals band, playing a lot of shows and recording their well received debut album before life intervened and he moved to his favourite part of the world to do his dream job. The singer, having previously been in an AC/DC tribute band (and sounding exactly like Brian Johnson) was asked to join Chris Slade's Timeline - that band that Chris Slade runs when he's not on tour with AC/DC. He's played the main stage at Hellfest, headlined the Underworld a couple of months back, and is loving being a paid semi-pro musician. That leaves the rhythm guitarist...who joined a new rock/metal covers band with the lead guitarist, with a very familiar sounding set list. In fairness, he was the one person who didn't fall out with the lead guitarist...although we always wonder why the lead guitarist always wants him around, given that he's the harshest critic (and on a demo for the rock covers band, he'd recorded over the rhythm guitar tracks without telling the rhythm player). We suspect it's because he likes being the top dog in any band, and keeping the rhythm guitarist around means that there's no debate about who's the best guitarist. But you can't keep a good C-gene down for too long. the band play a lot of gigs on the local circuit, and had a few in the diary when the lead guitarist announced that he was quitting with immediate effect and they'd have to find somebody else to play the gigs they had booked in the next few weeks. I'm not sure I'd have wanted to be at the next one, when the rhythm guitarist played all the solo parts, but they soon found a replacement and have carried on largely as before, still playing a lot of gigs in the local area I'm not aware that the lead guitarist has been playing in any bands for the last couple of years

Yep - I routinely have to raise the action whenever I get a new bass, or get an old bass back from having any work done on it. Originally it was when i was learning some slap bass - needed some clearance under the strings - and now my standard technique is a very aggressive Entwistle-esque tap which needs some space to stop it becoming more clank than note. While I'm sure I'm not unique, I'm happy to accept it's unusual enough that it's nobody's fault for assuming I'd want a lower action Linked to this, "the lower the better" does seem to be a bit of unchallenged wisdom that everybody knows to be true, even when it's not. A mate of mine who has loads of guitars but genuinely cannot play beyond a few barre chords, has left some with me to store while he's in a smaller flat than usual (long story, not worth the re-telling). He "knows" that the action should be as low as possible (and also that the pickups should be as high as possible) and most of the guitars were unplayable when he dropped them off - and I mean unplayable: on one guitar the strings were actually resting on the frets, and on a couple of others you couldn't play a note without fretbuzz, intonation all over the place, etc. When I pointed this out to him (and did very quick set ups to fix them) he insisted that there wasn't a problem because the action was low and that was always a good thing, what was I talking about?

On the topic of a Band Leader, all the best bands I've been in have had a very effective one, driving everything forward. And they do it while keeping everybody on side, to feel like we're all pushing together, we're not being forced to do things against our will I've been in bands with fantastic musicians that have got nowhere because they lacked somebody who could do that, the ones where we all sit around moaning about not having any gigs booked, but with nobody who spots that the way to solve that is for them to spend some time actively looking for gigs, or a booker, or better management, etc. I know I'm not that person, and while having a good BL doesn't mean that the band will be successful, all the successful bands I know have one

I have been that guitarist! Old band, the only one I've played guitar in, and our original bass player (one of the two mates who formed the band) left because family life got too busy. Me being the last one in, having replaced the original guitarist who left when his job took him away. We looked for a new bass player, and eventually got in a mate of mine who I'd know for years, and knew to be a not very good guitarist who had recently bought a bass. We only let him audition as a personal favour, and I'd stressed that we had other, more experienced bass players trying out so not to get his hopes up. He absolutely nailed the audition...helped by the guy we thought we wanted dropping out at the last minute. So we had to offer him the spot. There then followed a very uninspired year or two of band activity, with the new bass player never living up to the promise of his audition. What the original bass player lacked in talent he made up for in hard work and enthusiasm, especially live...the new guy was of limited talent and lacked any stage craft to make up for it. So when the original bass player sorted out his family stuff and started dropping hints about missing the band and having enough time to devote to it now, there wasn't much debate amongst the rest of us, we had to let him come back. It still felt like "his" band. I let the soon to be departed bass player know exactly what was happening as it unfolded, that his predecessor had reappeared and was making noises about a return, and that the band was open to it. When I had to let him know that he was being asked to leave, he was OK about it - understood what was happening and why it was happening, and admitted he'd have done the same if he was in our position. It can't have been easy for him, and the fact that we're still great mates says a lot about his generosity of spirit. I also think that being open and honest with him all the way through helped a lot. A similar possibility has previously arisen when the original guitarist got a transfer back to the area. He'd let it be known that he'd be coming to one of our gigs, and i still felt like the newbie, so I'd asked if he would be expecting to get up and play a couple of songs. To his everlasting credit, the BL immediately said that he couldn't play with us, that I was the guitarist and that was the end of the matter. Though massively in my favour was the fact that the original guitarist wasn't very good...

he did make the point that the weight of mahogany varies quite a bit depending on the density of the individual piece of wood. Something I then found out when I got a couple of Les Pauls with identical chambering, and one is noticeably much heavier I'm not aware that it was something he promoted at the time, so his grumble was not just that "that's what Wals weigh" but also that if the reviewer had asked for a lighter model, he could probably have found one (although, probably "lighter" rather than "light")