Monkey Steve

ahem...and i quote Deep inside the garden of Eden Standing there with my hard on bleedin' There's a devil in my d#ck and some demons in my semen Good God no that would be treason Believe me Eve she gave good reason Booty looking too good not to be squeezin' Creamy beaver hotter than a fever I'm a givin' 'cause she's the receiver I won't and I don't hang up until I please her Makin' her feel like an over achiever I take it away for a minute just to tease her Then I give it back a little bit deeper

There is something to be said for giving the people what they want, and when they are going to see a covers band, it's usually to hear songs that they know. They#re not often there to be musically challenged I think it's easier if you're in a more niche area of music - i was once in a metal covers band where we deliberately played stuff that most metal fans would know and (hopefully) like, but wasn't usually played by pub covers bands - the No Paranoid rule. So we wouldn't play Whole Lotta Rosie, but we would include Touch Too Much, Welcome Home (Sanitarium) rather than Enter Sandman, that sort of thing. And had we not had a massive falling out with the lead guitarist I'm sure we'd have been a roaring success 🤣 But in another band, playing old school punk covers, it was noticeable that the crowd wanted to hear the Best Of Punk compilation, and anything they could remember from Top Of The Pops back in the day (or better still, a TV advert from the last decade) went down far better than anything that we regarded as a better song

slightly late to this one, but I have a Marshall Class 5 combo - 5w class A amp - and love it It's typically set for 0.5w (as it's a later model from after they included that switch) as I really only use it for practice at home, and switching it back to the full 5w would make it very suitable for small gigs/practices. My tip is to elevate the amp or tilt it back so that it's projecting at ear level Lovely warm valve sound without getting very dirty, which seems to be what the OP is after. Pretty simple 3 band eq and that's about it - no gain. If you want a more focused distorted sound (as i sometimes do) then a separate fuzz box is needed (I favour a Tube Screamer, which works really well with the valve amp providing the warmth) No longer in production - the closest currently being made is probably the Marshall Origin. But if you can find a second hand one, well worth a try, and looks great too. At the other end of the market, a mate bought a Harley Benton 5w amp (Google suggests it was a GA5) which was briefly stored at my place before being loaned to another of my mates. Also Class A, and with a warm valve sound, with no gain or distortion on board. Lacking the 0.5w switch so the owner retired it from home practices because it was too loud, and pretty limited eq with just volume and tone controls, but in comparison to my Marshall the mate who's ended up with it couldn't hear much difference. Again, seems to be out of production, but a bargain if you can find one second hand

I'd suggest that they fail because of the lack of any actual "signature"

hmmm...I knew there were conditions around the venue, but nothing about music: https://www.gov.uk/approval-of-premises-for-civil-marriage-or-civil-partnership Possibly bands fail under "seemly and dignified" possibly just your band...🤣

only ever done a couple of weddings, both with my old punk covers band (and both because the grooms loved old school punk) While they were both excellent as far as playing the gig went, one was much better organised than the other. For the good one, we got there very early and set up while the guests were at the wedding. We could sit around drinking while everybody ate, and started playing bang on time. It was for a mate of mine and I'd gone to the venue with him a couple of weeks beforehand, and gone through all the arrangements with the venue manager, planned how we'd get in and out, where we'd set up, etc, and importantly the timing. For the bad one, meal and reception in the same big room, so assuming that we could just get in an hour before kick off meant that everybody is in there eating as we're setting up and making noise. I hadn't booked it, and our singer (who had) assumed that the bride (who was booking us) had thought through the arrangements and would have taken everything into account, when in fact she assumed that we would have thought it all through and would tell her how best to do everything. Setting up and soundchecking while the wedding guests (of varying ages and varying levels of interest in punk rock) are eating is a vastly different experience to soundchecking in a pub...

I have a Ken Taylor model Ortega acoustic 5 string bass I genuinely have no idea who Ken Taylor is - possibly he's big in Germany I got it because having narrowed down the extremely limited choices of 5 string acoustic basses with cutaways and settled on Ortega, the Ken Smith model is much better looking than the non-signature version - fancier inlays and flamed mahogany https://www.thomann.de/gb/ortega_ktsm5_ken_taylor.htm And it's a great bass Just googled him, and if Google Translate of his German Wikipedia page is accurate, then he has played with a quite impressive list of artists. It's good to learn new things

Got a bass clef that's the length of the inside of my left forearm from inner elbow to wrist For non-bass specific musical ones, I have the Black Flag logo on my inner right forearm, and the squiggle/logo from the cover of Wig Out At Denko's by Dag Nasty on my left upper arm

did at gig as a farewell to the landlord/lady who were moving on from a very well run music pub that a couple of my bands have played a lot over the years. We came a long way, but loved the place, and we'd been asked back specifically to headline this farewell weekend gig, the band playing punk covers. We'd previously supported a few old school punk bands there, one being Splodgenessabounds, and on the night Max Splodge, who lived fairly locally and had been in a few times when we played, was there and asked if we knew Two Pints Of Lager so he could get up for a song. We'd previously played it but not for a while, so had a run through and put it into the set. We get to that point in the night, Max gets up to join us, everything's going great... ...then the guitarist from one of the support bands, who is having a little too much fun, decides that he should join in as well, grabs one of the mics and starts shouting along with Max. Out of time and out of tune...but that doesn't matter does it, it's punk? Crowd noticeably unimpressed. Max gives up and retires to the back of the room before the song finishes. The extra guest decides that he's going to stay up for the next song on the set list, and our singer, who was all for audience participation (he once had to hold me back from punching an over enthusiastic punter who kept jumping into me as we were playing, knocking my mic into my teeth, because he thought that such behaviour by the crowd was fine, they should be able to have a few beers and enjoy themselves) put up with it for a verse and chorus - again out of time and out of tune - before gently easing him away in a very firm but polite manner, like he was addressing a schoolboy who's had too much Sunny Delight - "thanks, I think that's enough now" *turns off mic at the PA*. Possibly he'd seen the look in my eye, possibly he'd judged the mood of the crowd, but I was actually very impressed with how he dealt with this bloke who was spoiling the evening for everybody except himself - he just accepted that his performance was finished and went back into the crowd

Something, anything for a change, or a new spark. for me it’s changing the strings on the bass - the fresh, zingy brightness of new roundwounds always makes me want to play, and playing makes me come up with new bass lines try some different things and see what works for you

Personally, the bad gigs are the ones with nobody there, so anything that contributes to that is a bad gig. I can put up with dickheadery from other bands, sitting around, loading out in the wee small hours ahead of a long drive home, etc, but it all comes back to the landlord/promoters who think that they've done their bit by booking you to play and don't think that they need to do so much as put up a poster or add it to their Facebook page because the band will do all of that and bring the punters with them

@lownote12 you sir have stumbled upon a playing method that I like to refer to as Jazz Odyssey This was about 30 years ago, and I stumbled across it in a similar manner to you, albeit that I was at that time very new to playing the bass. For me it was just getting used to where the notes were on the fretboard and how to play different scales. I've never been one for learning to play songs unless I need to know them for a band, so I'd spend hours noodling away along to records just to see what fitted and what didn't And I totally agree that often it doesn't matter what you play, as long as it's in the right key. The downside was that this bled over into what i was playing when I was in my first band - far too busy and didn't suit the songs at all

for the others under review - I have the same "meh" shrug around Audioslave, and again, a real shame because it's two of my favourite bands combined, and while the albums have the odd good song, I'd struggle to hum you any of them Blind Faith & Cream - good and bad in parts.But any band that did Can't Find My Way Home or White Room gets a thumbs up from me Sabbath with Dio - one of my all time favourite bands The Firm - good shout. I tried to love them, and actually quite like a lot of the second album (and Chris Slade's band still plays Radioactive in their set)...but no, somehow missing that spark that great bands have My nomination for a disappointing super group is Murder Inc - Killing Joke meets RevCo/Ministry. Amazing on paper...shows what you miss when you remove a BL like Jaz Coleman or Al Jourgensen

I'm going to say it quietly I quite like the Lulu album Now, that does need some qualification. I can't stand Lou Reed's vocals on it, they ruin it for me, so in fact I've only ever listened to it a couple of times, but I really like the music - IMHO some of the most interesting stuff that Metallica has done in a couple of decades. It's a shame it got such poor reviews, and they went back to their standard insipid dullness on their next album *grabs tin hat*

right, back to the OP My suggestion is that 3/4 size is ideal for a kid. I speak with no authority on kids whatsoever, but as the bloke that everybody knows plays guitar and asks what they should get for a child who is interested in taking it up, and as Lefty says, it does very much depend on the kid, and also the kid's school A couple of mates have asked me what they should get for their spawn, on the basis that their school provides them with a guitar for lessons but they want one to practice on at home. Simple answer - what are they playing at school? Then get one of those. Most likely a classical guitar, but easy enough to check. But the "they don't like the bigger guitars" is pretty common for younger/smaller kids, and having donated my first ever electric guitar to a mate's son - a no-name 3/4 size that I got for £50 - it's a great stepping stone until they are older and ready to move on to something larger. The longer scale won't deter the determined child (and i know plenty of excellent guitarists who learned on full sized guitars when they were young) but the parents who asked for my advice knew exactly how easy it was to put their children off if it was going to be a struggle to play the instrument Then there's the "they've learned on an acoustic want an electric guitar, what should I get them?" and again, it's about seeing what the kid wants. A mate of mine very nearly spent a couple of hundred quid on a solid body electric at Christmas before finally heeding my advice to "take her to the shop and let her try a few of them out, don't just buy her one" at which point he found out that she really wanted a semi-hollow (in fact more because of how they looked, but that's everything to a teenage girl) The rest tends to be determined by your budget. If they're just starting then you probably want to keep the cost reasonably low, just in case they move on to skateboards or Call Of Duty in six months time.

Not had an issue on bass (in truth I've never had noticeably different scales on any of my basses, although it did put me off buying a Gibson EB2, not the scale itself, but the slack feel of the strings) but on guitars, it's not the scale length that throws me, but (as others have said) how the instrument hangs. Being used to Les Pauls, I can't get on with SGs because playing standing up they feel like the frets have moved across by two or three. Which is annoying because they are great instruments to play sitting down, but required too much concentration to gig with (sure i could have solved it if I had more patience). SG got sold on. Now have a similar issue with a 7 string Explorer, but I'm sticking with it, and looking at moving the strap buttons to see if it'll hang differently Back to basses, the multi scale length of a Dingwall (other fan frets are available) has always put me off, but whenever I've spoken to people who play them they tell me that they feel very natural to play and they much prefer them. Anyone with experience?

You're not wrong - Dirk Wears White Sox is by far the best thing he/they ever did...though at the time I was another ten year old who thought it was a bit weird compared to Kings Of The Wild Frontier...went right off them on Price Charming...

My mates Specifically the fact that all my mates played guitar, so as a music obsessed teenager I could buy a bass and immediately be in a band with them It worked too

has it been coming for a while? Just seems odd that one incident would make it all kick off in isolation, and you skip straight to the band being finished

Yeah, an excellent bass sound in isolation will suffer in the mix when up against the guitars which seem to suck away a lot of the treble end, so a dirtier bass sound than you'd usually use works really well. Last recording I did the engineer put the bass through a bass fuzz (which was then put through an SVT which was mic'd). It wasn't the sound I'd have picked, but it worked really well. in the mix. Time (shortly) before that in a different band I was DI'd from the output on an amp, with the amp sound coming from my VT Bass pedal - sounds just like an SVT when playing live, and sounded great in isolation. But without the extra dirt, it wasn't as powerful in the mix

I started playing bass as a teenager because all my mates played guitar and i could be in a band really quickly because nobody else was playing one and it seemed a lot less complicated than having to learn all those chords and stuff. Took to it immediately and I reckon I'm at a much better level playing bass than I would have got to had I focused on playing guitar instead. Plus all the bands I've been in and stuff I've done because of playing the bass - if I'd picked up a guitar then I wouldn't have got into bands I started properly playing guitar about ten years after that, and have played as many gigs on guitar as I have on bass (because the one band I've ever been in playing guitar was really busy - that improved my playing no end). But I still see myself as a bass player who knows a bit of guitar, and while I can hold my own on the bass with some very good musicians, I'm nowhere near as good as them on guitar (one of my tests for guitarists who want to join a band is whether they can play the guitar better than I can - if not then they aren't good enough to be in my band, because I'm pretty average...this has offended some guitarists that I know quite badly). Basically I've found my niche and wouldn't swap it

Thanks Stub - I got the argument turned round in my reading of it But my point still stands - I simply disagree that the Company who was at that point paying the agencies for supplying the temporary staff could have recruited them as permanent without paying a fee to the agencies, just by running some ads. They'd have gone out of business pretty quickly if they left that loophole open, and it's been standard practice for well over the 30 years that the incident took place

sorry - I genuinely don't understand the point you're trying to make. I've re-read your post and still don't understand why you think that there's any problem in the company paying the agency to convert your temporary employment through the agency into into permanent employment with the Company Just saying "finders fees" doesn't help me. The Company and the agency have done exactly what I would have expected them to have done. Can you not explain what the issue is here?

that's pretty much where I've found all of my band mates over the years

I think we're talking at cross purposes If a company is employing people through an agency, the contract with the agency will require the company to pay a recruitment fee if they want to make them permanent. That's standard, because you weren't working for the company, you were working for the agency