Monkey Steve

couple of thoughts First, while you still can, it may be worth widening your search to the EU - no import duty to be paid if they have them in stock and available. That said I see that some UK shops have them listed as available for pre-order - have you contacted them to see when they are expected to be in stock? It is a newish product so may not be out here yet Next, it doesn't seem to be a specific Tom Araya signature pickups, simply the same pairing of a 35DC and a 35J that he has on his basses. Unless I've missed something, you could just buy them separately: a Google search is telling me that a shop called Guitar Sound in Chichester has them both in stock (though I've never bought anything from them so don't know about that particular shop) If you still want the TA set, and nobody can tell you when to expect them to be available then you could contact the UK distributors for more info: https://www.selectron-uk.co.uk/ Finally, if you do end up having no choice but to order from the States, then discuss the shipping and tax position with the shop/seller concerned. The easiest for you is if they charge you for the tax up front, but only large sellers tend to do this. If they don't then you'll need to settle the tax, plus any admin charges from the shipping company for dealing with the tax, before they'll release the pickups. My favourite for this is Amazon.com as they will always charge you up front, and refund the balance if the actual tax is less. In fact, having just checked, the best price I've seen is actually on Amazon.com who will ship to the UK and will charge you for the tax up front: https://www.amazon.com/EMG-Signature-Active-4-String-Guitar/dp/B07MZR4DYX/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=emg+ta&qid=1565786580&s=gateway&sr=8-5 $176 including the tax and shipping, about £145 on today's exchange rate, vs £170 on the UK sites

yeah, this seems odd that an unknown band (no offence intended, just that it's the impression the OP's given in their post) would be expected to play for a couple of hours, even for a "headlining" set. Check back with the promoters and find out what they are actually expecting - maybe they have a DJ booked for the last 90 minutes. When you're absolutely sure on how long the set is going to be, use that to make your argument, that you can mess around with the arrangements all you want after the gig, but the priority here is making sure that you play the set that you have as well as possible, which means all of the songs. Changing arrangements is an added risk that the band can do without - what if somebody's mind goes blank on the night, or their muscle memory reverts to the previous arrangement. I back @Muzz that you just need to take the lead and set the agenda for the next rehearsals. You can do it in a non-confrontational way, that you're not against mucking about with arrangements, just that the band has another, much larger priority right now

I won't comment on whether the PA is any good, but I will tell you that the kick drum should not be put through the PA! The drummer will disagree because drummers are of little brain and being positioned above their bass drum while playing they do not understand that just because they can't hear it above the level of all the drums and cymbals that are pointing at them doesn't mean that the audience cannot hear it perfectly loudly

I'm not a prolific user of forums, but I'd say that it's a truism that people tend to use ones that largely agree with their own viewpoint (in a broad sense, not a "P basses are good/bad" sense). So I'm not that surprised to see people who like BC being less keen on TB. For me personally, I'm not that fussed, live and let live and if I don't like a website then it's pretty easy not to go back there. I do think that the tone of any site reflects the moderators, and without wanting to blow smoke up anybody's backside I think BC gets it about right in allowing some challenging debate, but shutting things down quickly when they become abusive. Having seen a (non-bass) forum effectively get shut down by trolls, it's good to know that somebody is keeping an eye on things. I do have some sympathy for the over enthusiastic shutting down of "political" and gun related postings even at a non-political stage, because the whole subject is so toxic and divisive in these post-truth days, particularly on that side of the pond

just remembered, I'm also responsible for breaking someone else's gear! I still maintain that it wasn't my fault. It was a Network Rail charity gig that was on at Dingwalls every year (most of the band worked for them at the time) - any employees who were in a band could put themselves forward to play and would get anywhere between five minutes and half an hour. We'd provided the backline for all the bands the previous year, but this time somebody else wanted to bring their guitar amp (presumably for "their sound") and was told that that was OK but everybody would be sharing it. Suited me as it was a Mesa Boogie and at the time I was using an old Marshall but with a SansAmp that did a Mesa impression. Strict instructions that while everybody could use the amp, we were banned from touching the eq. I plugged in for the soundcheck, amp sounding a bit ropey, play a few chords and see if I can sort it out using my pedals, loud bang and amp stops working. It wasn't me guv! Fortunately my defence was water tight - as instructed, I hadn't touched any of the knobs, just plugged in. So the owner looked a bit sheepish and took the blame for letting the other bands down by bringing an amp that didn't work. But I did feel a bit bad that it had broken under my watch, and was a particularly expensive bit of kit

I'm usually pretty relaxed about sharing gear at gigs, and on occasions when I've brought my own backline I'd much rather other bands used my kit than all the fannying about changing amps and having to have way too much gear on stage, especially on multi band bills. The only time I've had any issues was when supporting Splodgenessabounds - I was playing guitar and was sharing my amp anyway, and their guitarist asked if it was OK to use my pedalboard. It was actually pretty funny - just randomly hitting pedals as he was playing to see what it did to the guitar sound. But the stomping on the stomp boxes was somewhat over-enthusiastic, and at the next practice a couple of the pedals weren't working because he'd stamped on the wrong end and sheared off the power socket. Only cost a fiver to get the replacement bit for the repairs, but still mildly annoying at the time. Using my instruments is another issue and you'd only get to do that if you're a really good mate. One I loaned a Les Paul to when we were in a band together, he actually dropped it and chipped the binding, but immediately told me an offered to get it repaired. But i was happy to lend him one of my basses when he was recording his current band's last album. Not sure I'd let anybody I didn't know/trust take any of my gear home...and even if I did know them that's not the same as trusting them. Some people just don't look after stuff properly. I joined a band once and after the first rehearsal it was agreed that the rhythm guitarist (who I didn't know) would store my amp head and the drummer (who I did and had asked me to join) would take my cab (I didn't drive). Then a couple of months later the rhythm guitarist was talking about some new band he'd heard of and I'd said that I had their album (back in the days of vinyl) and was on the verge of offering to lend it to him when the lead guitarist tapped me on the shoulder and quietly suggested that I shouldn't do so. He explained that he'd been to the rhythm players house and his own record collection wasn't exactly well cared for - records out of their sleeves left on the floor, piled up all over the place, left against radiators, sat on by the cat, etc. So it wasn't that he would treat my stuff any worse than his own gear, but rather than he treated his stuff appallingly badly. Still, not much damage he could do to an old Marshall head if he's just taking it home every week, right? Turns out he was just sticking it in the garden shed and over the following winter the cold and damp weren't doing it much good (and his gear also suffered, he just didn't seem to understand why). I found an excuse for why it would be much better if my amp head was actually cared for by someone else in the band, to save him the bother of having to cart my amp around...

for any high value purchase it's worth asking about a bank transfer and then using some sort of foreign exchange service. When I got my Warwick Custom shop Stage 1 I saved several hundred quid compared to my bank and PayPal just by getting a better exchange rate offered on line. Mind you, it's worth doing as bit of due diligence to make sure that the one you use is genuine, as with any on line financial transaction

Just goes to show that we're all wired differently I'm of the "as long as I know what I'm playing I'm fine" school, in fact I can't wait to get on stage and play, and would much rather do that than hang around backstage for hours. But I recently did a gig where (long story short) before the two bands played there was a bit of a karaoke thing with people being asked to get up and play songs they know, and as one of only two bass players in the room I was being leaned on to get up and play songs that I didn't know very well or hadn't played before. I played the one song that I had played before (and was dead simple) and refused to play any others because going on stage when I'm not confident that I can play the songs properly makes me really uncomfortable. Somebody likened it to getting up and speaking in front of large groups, which is something that I sometimes have to do for work, and I'm the same - as long as I've prepared and know what I'm going to be saying I'm absolutely fine. I've done a personality assessment which shows that I'm border line between an introvert and extrovert (I exhibit traits for both) which makes sense to me: I'm not a "look at me!!" show off at all, like singers or lead guitarists, but as long as i know what I'm doing I'm pretty confident I'm also pretty good with a few pints inside me, and tend to find that (for me) there's a relaxation sweet spot after about four or five pints. One anecdote...an old band of mine supported Edward Tudor-Pole a few years ago. Really nice bloke, and puts on a brilliantly energetic show. And tours a lot. But before he went on, one of my lot bumped into him back stage and he was sh#tting himself (not literally). What are you worried about, you'll be fine, they're all here to see you, and you must do loads of these shows? "yeah, but you're only as good as your last performance". Genuinely worried about messing up and what if anything went wrong Needless to say he was brilliant

You'll get loads of different opinions on what other people like, but it's all about finding what you like. My personal opinion is that you get what you pay for and the bigger your budget, the better the bass, but there are plenty of people here who will completely disagree and sing the praises of bargain bucket basses that they love. Where are you? As the others have suggested, have a day out in your local shops, or even travel to your nearest big city, and try as many different basses as possible. We can certainly point you towards some shops that have a good selection to try out. Then when you've found one or two that you really like, you can devote your time to tracking down the best price. +1 to buying second hand, and keep an eye on the small ads here, or you may find a shop that will give you a part exchange on your Ibanez

all depends on how you measure the "profit" but this is quite illuminating: https://beerandpub.com/briefings/running-a-pub-2017-cost-guide-for-tenants/ Lots of different scenarios and different types of pub, but the basic maths is that the mark up on what the pub sells (booze and food) is around 50%, but the costs of running the pub, paying the staff and the electricity bills, etc, have to come out of that, so it's actually a pretty slim margin. I'd suggest that the landlady's thinking about the "profit" from putting on a band will be the full (50%ish) margin on any extra beer and food sales above what they would normally expect to sell on that night, because they pub would have to cover it's fixed costs anyway. So in this case, they'd need to generate about an extra £500 gross to cover what they are paying to the band: an extra 20 punters averaging a spend of £25 each would do it. However, what it wouldn't account for is whether the pub would otherwise be making a loss on the night (which they might measure across the week rather than on each night) It stuck me that the bands are on a Sunday night, which is often pretty quiet, so any bump in sales could be pretty noticeable

Exactly - some venues/promoters do not help themselves. An old band of mine used to play locally, and we'd ring up pubs to get bookings, send them posters to be put up, do our bit to let our mates know that we had a gig on...and then quite often turn up to find that the pub hadn't even put up either our posters or anything else to alert people to the fact that there would be a band playing. seemed to be a lot of "well, we're quiet on a Thursday so we've got nothing to lose by letting you play"

The bottom seemed to drop out of it back in 2008 when the banking crisis/recession hit. A couple of regular venues that I played saw a huge drop in the number of regulars who would come in for their music nights, or come in at all. Crowds dropped from being absolutely rammed to being a dozen, maybe a couple of dozen at the absolute most, and while paying £150/200 wasn't going to break the bank for a one off, if that was most nights of the week then they couldn't keep it up for very long. One place tried everything, and were booking bigger bands in the hope that they'd get more people in...didn't work

I remember them being a well known and quite well regarded brand that was almost unobtainable in the UK back then. About 30 years ago I had a chat with their UK representatives at a Mamas Boy's after show at the Astoria (long story, not worth the telling) and they were very pleased with themselves for having just signed an endorsement deal with Pat McManus ("so, does he get free guitars and amps then?" "er...we have an arrangement..."). I asked them why they were bothering to offer a UK endorsement when they didn't seem to actually about have any of their stuff in the shops - I'd seen a few (not many) guitars but I'd never seen a Carvin amp in any shop. They conceded that this was true, but it was because they saw themselves as being a prestige brand and only wanted it to be available in select, hand picked outlets. However, they were about to have a big push on Carvin amps, so keep my eye out for those, because they'd just signed a deal with a high end shop round the corner in Denmark St - Hanks! They couldn't understand why I laughed at them (for those who don't know Denmark St, Hanks only stocks acoustic instruments, not the place you would go if you were shopping for a hard rock/metal guitar amp)

I find this a really difficult one, because it's bloody hard making a living in the pub trade these days: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/24/pubs-closing-rate-one-every-12-hours-new-figures-show/ So I have a lot of sympathy for any pub who actually wants to put on live music, which is very hit and miss, and I've seen my share of excellent music pubs having to change direction and reopen as gastro pubs because food is where the profit margins are. On the other hand I don't have sympathy for landlords who expect the band to go more or less unpaid so that they can remain in profit, unless it's a pub that I have particular affection for (one of my favourite venues was a pub that never paid the bands a penny...but kept you in booze all night, was always full of punters having a great night...sadly that landlord left and it no longer does music). I've always been at the hobby end of things, so while I'll usually get paid for gigs I'm not at all fussed if it covers expenses, and I'm more than happy to go without any pay if others in the band need to cover petrol, etc. As long as it's a good gig to play...

While I've had my fair share of cramped stages, I've only ever had one band member, surprise surprise the lead guitarist, who made a point of marking out his territory with no regard for the rest of the band, usually me. Happened at every rehearsal and gig, he'd set up his pedalboard in front of my amp while I was sorting out the amp, then would set up his amp as I scratched my head at how retarded he must be to have put his board in front of my amp and where am I going to put mine? Didn't seem to be anything personal against me or the bass in particular, just that he was a massive c#nt who thought that he should be given extra room because he was special. Usually I'd just kick his pedal board back where it should be. Solved it permanently by turning up so loud at one practice that all he could hear was the bass, and he had a massive strop about not coming to rehearsals to listen to other people play before storming out. I p#ssed myself laughing, as did the rest of the band when I told him that if he'd actually let me stand in front of my amp then I wouldn't have to turn it up so loud and that perhaps if he actually stood in front of his amp he could hear it better. The next week he announced that he was going to set up in a different spot in the rehearsal room so that the rhythm guitarist could hear him better and could follow what he was playing...yeah, right mate. And at gigs made the rhythm guitarist set up on the same side as me - funnily enough we never had a problem.

is this some sort of weird Fleetwood Mac tribute?

On a more practical level, if you're DIing anyway and want to save even more weight I can thoroughly recommend leaving the amp head at home and using an amp sim pedal like a Tech 21 VT Bass (my personal choice - a very nice Ampeg SVT impression). Unless the amp is actually colouring the sound, and you can't duplicate that with some sort of eq pedal, it's not really adding anything

bloody singers!

Saw Elvana at Download this year, and the singer made a point of saying how much the bass player would hate being singled out for attention, then got the whole crowd to shout "bass guy, bass guy" over and over. Bass player sheepishly looked up, then went back to staring at his shoes, clearly wishing for it all to stop

not my guitars, and clearly the owner won't have a clue whether they are badly affected by the weather or not!

I think we have to appreciate that what seems simple and obvious to us isn't necessarily simple and obvious to everybody. A mate of mine recently dropped off a selection of his guitars to store in my loft while he is (possibly) temporarily living in a much smaller flat (long story, not worth the telling). Despite having a large selection of guitars, he has absolutely no musical ability, but he likes to make out that he is in fact an experienced guitarist and loves joining in and holding his own when other guitarists are discussing instruments, amps, effects, etc. This is usually received as well as a certain Trump offspring at the recent G20 summit... Anyhow, he'd clearly read something about guitars being easier to play if the action is low. So he'd lowered the action on all of his guitars to the point where half of them were unplayable, and where you could get a note out of them all the way up the neck the intonation was way off. He has heard of intonation but isn't really sure what it means, so has dismissed it completely. He understood that the guitars he's left at my place didn't play as well as the ones that he was taking with him, but didn't understand why because he's lowered the action and that's something that improves the guitar, isn't it? He's an IT project manager, so not stupid, although he does vastly overrate his practical abilities (like, he thinks he can play the guitar - he can't) Half an hour with a set of hex keys and all the guitars were significantly more playable and not nearly as terrible as I'd always thought they were when I'd played them before.

I have huge sympathy for both, and I think there's a link...or at least the worst offenders that I've encountered are offenders in both categories. I've ranted about it on other threads, but assuming that the talent is there, the biggest frustration I've seen in various bands, and various mates' bands is the differing interpretation of what "really committed" means. For some it's being ready to quit their jobs at the drop of a hat to go on tour, and for others it's playing with the band as long as they don;t have anything better to do. And they haven't got an early start tomorrow. And Arsenal don't have a home game. And the wife doesn't want to go shopping. The lesson it's taught me over the years is to have a chat with the whole band, quite early on, about what "commitment" means to them. No point wasting time getting a band up and running if most of the band want to be out playing every weekend but one member only wants to play once or twice a year (and likes the idea of being in a band more than he actually wants to play music). In my experience it's always ended in a quitting or a sacking. On the second point...I'm afraid that's how all musicians behave given the option of letting somebody else sort out all their problems for them. Like petulant toddlers. I'd suggest that the only way to solve it is to let them fail - not good seeing that you would also suffer, and also not good because the thing with this type is that they all like to complain about everything being somebody else's fault if it goes wrong. They will never learn, and will never get better. So before you chuck it all in, sit down with everybody, have a very honest discussion about how they want the band to progress, and what they are actually going to do about it rather than just assuming that you will take care of everything. And agree some timescales. And then once they have failed to do any of the things they agreed to do, quit.

To the OP - take notice of any recommendation of good service like this one. I've been to good luthiers, and I've been to a few bad ones, and I now only use one that I completely trust. The price isn't necessarily a very good indication of the quality of the work, so it's more about getting a good job done within your budget, not assuming that it's a one size fits all service and that you should pick based on price. Like a lot of the others on the thread I do most stuff myself and wouldn't use my guy just for a set up, but in fact he throws in a set up for free whenever he does any work on my instruments (on the basis that his professional pride won't let him send an instrument out out of his workshop with a bad set up) and the first thing I usually have to do is put the action back up to the height I had it previously (only on basses - his "lowest action possible" mantra is excellent for guitars). Not an issue for me, but it does highlight that when you pick a luthier it is worth having a good chat with them before handing over the bass to make sure that you are clear on what they are going to do, and that they are going to set the bass up to your tastes, not to theirs.

An old band of mine suffered a bit from, not exactly this, but a fear that when something goes wrong everything would fall apart (largely driven by the two least experienced musicians) We cured it by consciously working on what to do when somebody made a mistake - if the singer misses a cue (about 95% of the mistakes) then we go with him even if it means missing a solo or middle 8; if the drummer misses a beat then we carry on but listen to him and pick up the beat if he doesn't immediately catch up with us; if the bass player starts in the wrong key then the guitarist will shout in his face until he gets into the right key (me being the guitarist in that band), etc. Just knowing that the band could cope with whatever happened released a lot of the tension, especially from the singer, who then made fewer mistakes as a consequence. It happens to everybody, 90% of the time the audience don't spot it (unless the singer really messes up a song that they know)

I love playing in a band, and the best part of that is playing gigs. Don't mind the travel, the getting home in the wee small hours, the sitting around for hours doing nothing, the barely (or not even close to) covering expenses, the load in or the load out. For me it's all hanging out with your mates in the band, and not playing gigs is a very poor second choice. I'd rather be rehearsing than dozing on the sofa watching TV, and I'd rather be playing a gig than rehearsing. The only down side is the bad gig, where you play badly as a band, or the crowd hate or ignore you