Monkey Steve

sorry, but that's completely wrong - a festival is not a public place. Just try getting in to Glastonbury without a ticket

As I understand it (and it's an ever changing landscape) the current position is that a lot depends on how the photo was taken and it's purpose. There are two conflicting interpretations of "human rights", that it is the photographer's right to photograph people in a public place, but also that the individual has the right to a private life. As it applies here, it's not the copyright position per se, it's the ability to then use and potentially gain financially from that use - it's not that the subject owns the copyright, it's more that taking the photo is an invasion of privacy and the pictures cannot be used by anybody. "Public area" is one point - was the subject actually in a public area, not just something that could be seen from a public area by the photographer (and long lenses are right out). So you can take a picture of my house as long as you are on the pavement, not standing in the front garden, but if you are using a telephoto lens to catch me in the shower then you're in trouble. A legitimately taken picture of a celeb in a public place can usually be published, but cannot be used to advertise something, because the celeb has a right to the use of their image for endorsements, not the photographer. The changes that Big Red X hints at are interesting, and follow photographers suing celebs (notably Kardashians) because they have used paparazzi shots in their tweets, which breaches the photographer's copyright. So the Kardashians are hitting back to argue that the snappers should not have use of their image to generate cash, or be able to prevent the celebs from using the image themselves for free. hate to say it, but I'm pretty much on the side of the Kardashians here I would suggest that in this case: The festival itself is not a public area. The owner of that non-public area can allow or ban photographs from being taken (for instance you don't have the right to take photos in shopping centres, shops or restaurants, although they should post something to say that photography is not permitted, and if they ask you to stop taking pictures, the law is with them). So there isn't necessarily any right to take the band's photos, but having had their photos taken the band may have limited ability to stop them being used The festival may have made it a condition of entry that they have the ability to use all images and film shot there, and that everybody in there consents to being filmed and the use of their image. For bands playing that's usually something that they agree to as part of their fee and would be covered in the contract...if there is a contract The best argument from the band is probably that they did not consent to their image being used to promote something, but I think it's a stretch to argue either that they would be able to earn money for simply having their picture on a poster, or that showing their picture playing there last year implies that they will be playing this time. Plus, as others have said, do they really want to be known as the band who kicked off about not using their image? That's not going to get promoters queuing up to book them

I have plenty of experience of the opposite - a four or five band gig (more if it's a charity bash) with an inexperienced promoter where we think everybody has agreed in advance to be sharing backline to save on soundchecks, and the (usually inexperienced) openers arrive with a van full off stuff that they insist on using, pushing everything back because the soundman was thinking he'd only have to do a quick linecheck before they went on and the doors are open before the openers have finished arguing about how loud they think their amps need to be in order to get "their sound" Glad yours turned out OK in the end

For the OP - in my experience of covers bands (more on guitar than bass) once something's in the set it tends to get ignored and then morphs over time, and sometimes it's a surprise when I've listened to the original after some years. Sometimes it makes me change things, sometimes I can't be bothered if our version is working fine. But if I do hear another cover version and I think it works better for some reason, I might have a think about picking the best bits out of that - it's happened once or twice For Happy Jack's derail - it would need to be a significantly serious mistake and right at the start of a song to get a band of mine to re-start anything. A missed cue or playing the wrong riff that the songs hangs off of, that sort of thing. If it's anything else then crack on and fix it as you play. Never a good look on stage, always seems self indulgent, like the gig is more about the band playing than the audience listening Though, if anybody's got Between Wine and Blood Live by New Model Army, calling the f#cked up version of Purity "Impurity", stopping and starting again so that they're all in the right key and leaving it on there as a separate track is brilliant

if it's affecting his performance then he needs to be told, and very firmly. A singer in an old band of mine had a bag full of issues - low confidence if he was sober, a genuinely serious drugs problem, and an inability to say no to a drink (more of a binge issue than alcoholism). If he'd had a couple of pints he was great, better than if he was stone cold sober, but if he'd been up all night stuffing coke up his nose he'd miss practices, and when he was there would sing appallingly. We had to sack him after one too many awful gigs

I'm the opposite - at 18 it was rare to bring beer to a practice (except for that band who rehearsed in the back of a pub), but the last few bands I've been in it's been fairly standard to bring a few bottles. But the rehearsals are about playing, not drinking, so it's rarely more than a couple of pints over a three or four hour rehearsal, and it never affects the playing. The last lot I depped with are semi-pro (they don't play a lot of gigs, but they get pretty well paid when they do) and easily the best musicians I have ever played with. I'd heard tales of their strict "no drinking before we play, it impedes the performance" rules so I didn't bring beer to the first practice...so had to drink some of the lead guitarist's that he had stashed in the studio. Turns out that rule is long gone, and as long as you can perform, they don't mind what you ingest. But again, the rehearsals were about the playing, not the drinking, nobody was there to get drunk. Made for a very relaxed, productive atmosphere

quit twice: First band, everybody except the lead guitarist/BL wanted to move in one direction, the BL wouldn't budge, so after months of discussing it with him, and then complaining about him behind his back, I'd had enough and politely gave my notice in - I'd do the last gig we had booked and then I'd move on. But knowing that the rest of the band would follow suit...the guitarist said he had no hard feelings when I quit, but I didn't see him for ages after the rest of the band went, so i think he may bare something of a grudge. Actually, whenever I have seen him since we've got on OK (and this was 20+ years ago) but the shame is that he's never played in another band. But it was genuinely musical differences, not a personal falling out Second band, a not completely dissimilar situation, where me and the drummer (who had formed the band, although we saw it more as a democracy than as "our band") were sick to the back teeth of the lead guitarist and we were in other bands that were much more fun and happy to let this one go. He'd gone from being a good bloke when we formed the band to being a controlling prima donna, and it all came to a head when he sent me an e-mail full of abuse for not appreciating his genius (for full story, see "my worst bandmate" thread). Rather than giving him a list of exactly why he was an irritating bellend who was getting sacked, I just replied to his e-mail a couple of days later and told him to look for another bass player as he wouldn't be seeing me again and once again knowing that the drummer would follow me out of the band. Turns out the drummer had already sacked him over the weekend for being an irritating bellend, but that was the end of the band So basically, whenever I quit a band, they cannot carry on without me!

The couple of times times I've come in to an established band with a set to learn - both permanent and depping - it's always been, like you, where I've been asked to join/help out. The bands were always very supportive, and happy to work on stuff where I was making mistakes as long as i was putting in the work and showing that I was taking it all seriously. For one band I learned 27 songs in three weeks (and took to the stage with my set list covered in notes) and for another I learned an hours worth of fast, technical songs in about two months. Despite it only being ten songs, the second lot was a much harder learning process, and the fact that it worked was down to hard work on my part and a lot of effort and support from the band, but them knowing that it was all to their benefit to do that. Your lot sound like a reasonable bunch. and it does them no favours to play their next gig with a bass player who's struggling on some of the songs. Like Mikel, I suggest asking them for their preferred set list, and discuss whether it's worth swapping some songs for others on their master list that you can get up to speed on quicker. They might have some staples that are undroppable, and if they are trickier to play then you know you need to get started on them early rather than picking off all the low hanging fruit and leaving the harder stuff for later. But the important point is to get it nailed down as soon as possible, so you know what to work on

hmmm...I'm not going to dig into this any further, but I did once have a band mate who would match a lot of the descriptive elements of this (singer/played bass but not in my band/fat/speccy). However, he was the opposite in attitude - always completely professional, would do a lot of the logistics in arranging the gigs and never, ever let us down, and was generally a lovely bloke. Haven't seen him for the best part of a decade, or played in a band with him for the best part of two decades, so i guess he could have changed...

in my experience, it's a lot to do with the pickups (with the caveat that i tend to have quite a noisy style, so I'm not necessarily looking for such a clear note). My first five string was a Wal, and that really boomed, much louder and distorted than the rest (which Pete Stevens told me was normal and to be expected, it's a lot of string flapping about!) and it was similar but not as bad on my first Warwick 5er. Both bolt ons by the way. Wasn't a huge issue as i wasn't using the B a lot, but it definitely shaped my playing, and I'd tread a little more carefully on the B string than on the rest. I've found something similar with 7 string guitars, the sound can be unbalanced. Then I got an ESP/LTD with EMGs, and while I don't like the sound of the pickups that much (they're OK, just a little characterless) they had the best balance of sound across the strings - and incidentally a thru neck. Didn't get on with the bass, but it did make me realise that the set up and pickup height has a lot to do with the balance of the B string, and it's never been a particular problem since then (and all my current and recent 5's have been thru necks, so my experience is quite different to FDC's). So I'd start with looking at the height of the p/u under the B-string and see if you can get better balance from there

I've seen both sides of this with old bands In one the singer was less than faithful to his wife, and just thought that it was how blokes behaved. Never used the band as an excuse though, or copped off with any of the punters at the gigs (more that he would make arrangements to meet later) so we never got directly caught up in it. For one earlier band, practice was always on a Sunday evening in a room above a pub. My then girlfriend would drop me off, and the guitarist's wife came with him, and the two wags would disappear for the evening and then rejoin us for last orders in the pub after we'd finished and packed down. When the guitarist's wife left him a couple of years later (after the band had broken up) it emerged that what happened most weeks was that she would get my girlfriend to drop her off somewhere, and pick her up a couple of hours later, and I'll leave it to your imagination to work out what she was up to for that time. I'm so pleased that my girlf took the view that if she told me I'd have to decide whether to tell the guitarist and she didn't want to put me in that position.

Contestant #2. have to say, this one's probably the winner, being somebody that I not only wouldn't be in a band with again, but don't want to hang out with either. A drummer mate of mine was playing in a rock covers band, and doing OK with it - plenty of pub level gigs, and while not earning a living from it, all his expenses were paid for and he had a few quid to take home with him whenever they played. His background was in heavier music (he's the drummer that asked me to join the thrash band in the story above) and he'd been chatting to this band's lead guitarist, who also liked the heavier stuff. Me and the drummer had been kicking our heels a little after the guitarist left an originals band that we were in, and he came up with the idea that we could start a new covers band to run parallel to the rock one, doing heavier stuff with this lead guitarist. I knew the guitarist a little at this point, having been to a few of their shows. A bit on the quiet side, but quite funny and seemed like a good bloke, and while not a stunning guitarist, a decent enough player for the pub covers band level (and a mastery of picking songs with long, bluesy solos that made him look good). He was keen to bring the other band's rhythm guitarist with him, which was fine by me (I knew him much better, a great bloke, if not the greatest guitarist, but a good guy to have in your band and seemed able to cope with most of the rhythm playing). It all went well for the first few months, and picked up after we found a singer with a fantastic voice. But after a while me and the drummer noticed that the set list was getting a bit skewed. The idea was to play songs that a metal fan from the '80's or '90's would recognise, but wouldn't often get to hear in pubs - the No Paranoid Rule. Me and the drummer drew up a list of metal club floor fillers that we remembered from our teenage years and early twenties. The guitarist only really liked Maiden, the Cult and Guns n Roses. Whenever anybody suggested a song by anybody else, he would argue that the completely fictitious crowd wouldn't know it, so why don't we do another Maiden/Cult/GnR song instead? I once had to tell him that I fundamentally disagreed with his argument that the (non existent) crowd would not recognise Bomber or Overkill or anything else by Motorhead and that we should learn Rime Of The Ancient Mariner instead because everybody loves that one and the punters will all know it. My argument being that we already had five Maiden songs in our repertoire which was at least three too many for any gig and I wouldn't be learning any more until we actually had some more variety. If he wanted to play in a Maiden tribute band that was fine, but it wasn't this band as I wasn't interested. His answer was to suggest that we did a fourth Cult song, and when that got knocked back, he bullied the rhythm guitarist, who's turn it was to suggest the next song that we would be working on (which never really got followed when it wasn't the lead guitarist's turn), into agreeing that we should have a third GnR song. It was becoming a problem and stopping us playing because we couldn't get a set list together to be able to start playing live. Whenever the band picked a song that he didn't like, he just didn't bother learning it, so was never ready to run through it at practice, and why don't we play this other song that he does know instead? There were several songs that only made it into the set because after months of waiting for him to learn them we told him that regardless of whether he'd done his homework, we were playing them in the studio and he could either join in or go home and come back when he had learned them. He then found all sorts of difficulties in the arrangements and some of the trickier lead parts for those songs that meant we had to keep working on them, and maybe it was dragging on for so long that it wasn't worth it, eh? In fact all this did was highlight some of his other playing limitations, mainly his appalling sense of timing. For instance, he could not play the lead licks at the start of Back In Black, because he could not pick up the timing of when to play. If you're going to deliberately play some songs badly, the risk is that people will think that the fault is you, not the song. As ever, when there are problems with the music, it highlights all of the other petty stuff that you can put up with when things are going well. He was no stranger to the hissy fit when things weren't going his way, and was a master of blaming others for his mistakes - if a gig didn't go well then it was usually my fault for being too loud so that he couldn't hear himself...despite him being able to hear himself just fine at the soundcheck. Or somebody not playing the cue he was expecting, and how can he be expected to play something right if we're putting him off. But the main problem was his perpetual lateness. He was never on time for anything - gigs, rehearsals, a night in the pub. Which, again, was never his fault - he always left for gigs in plenty of time but his satnav apparently always sent him the wrong way, or there were roadworks, or the turn off wasn't properly signposted. It was more of a feature with the other band as they played a lot more gigs than us, but he was showing the same issues about song choices, etc with them, and it was wearing a bit thin with everybody. He insisted from early on that he couldn't guarantee when he could get to the weekly rehearsal because he never knew where he'd be working or when he would finish. Practice was in Surrey and the studio booking ran from 6.00 to 10.00 but all of us came straight from work (three of us in London) so we'd generally roll in by 6.45, ready to set up and kick off at 7.00. the guitarist was rarely there by 8.00, and frequently didn't arrive until 9.00. And a few times he'd ring to say that he wouldn't get there until gone 9.00 and we'd pack up and go home, not having played anything of note. Until we started a new rule that if somebody cancelled on the day they'd have to pay the full cost of the studio...then he managed to show up, albeit often only for an hour's actual rehearsing It later emerged that his version of coming "straight from work" was to drive home, pick up his girlfriend to do the weekly food shop, put his gear in the car while she cooked him his tea, and once he'd sat down and eaten his meal, then set off for practice. He thought it was unreasonable to expect him not to have his tea before setting off...while the rest of us survived on crisps that we got at the studio, or maybe a sarnie that we'd picked up from a corner shop on the way there. This particularly grated with the drummer who had got married and moved to the Kent coast, so was giving up a night at home with his lovely new wife to pay to sit in a practice studio not playing the drums for more than an hour most weeks, and then kip on my sofa. There are many, many similar stories across both his bands - one that springs to mind was him dropping out of a long standing Christmas booking with a regular venue that the other band had because he'd now bought tickets for him and his girlfriend to go to the panto that night and it was unreasonable of the band to expect him to miss out on that when he'd already spent his money (they did it with a dep, and it was the start of the end for him with them) So, always late, always blaming others for his mistakes, unwilling to understand the concept of compromising or doing what the band agreed on, and not as good a musician as he thought he was... Basically the good bloke we thought we'd got in the band turned out to be a bit of a c#nt. Which seems to be a feature of most lead guitarists, but the best one's I've played with embrace it and limit it to their guitar playing rather than being a c#nt at all times It all came to a head when we recorded a demo, so that we could send it to pubs and finally get out and start gigging properly rather than picking up the odd show from venues we knew. We spent a day at a studio doing three tracks, and paid extra for the engineer to do the mixing after we'd finished. A few exchanges of e-mails and we get a mix the rest of the band are happy with - after all, it's only purpose is to send to pubs to get gigs so it's not worth spending any more time on it. The guitarist had paid the studio for a memory stick with the data on it so that he could plug it into the Pro Tools he had at home, purely to mess about with it himself (so he said) and see how what he does compares to a professional. It then emerges that both he and the rhythm guitarist have been re-recording some of their parts (possibly justified for the rhythm guitarist) and there is radio silence from the lead guitarist for a couple of weeks, broken when he sends round his own mix, what did we all think? The drummer, who now wants to strangle him, sends a much politer response than his true feelings on the matter, that while it's nice that the guitarist has bothered, he's happy with the studio mix so why don't we just send that out on the demo? The singer has been on to me saying FFS!!! let's just send the demo out, how much longer do we have to wait? The guitarist replies to the drummer - he hasn't finished with his mix of the other two tracks and we should wait for him to do that before we press up any demos. I check with the drummer - he's happy for me to go ballistic. I warn the singer that the band might well be looking for a new member before too long... I send a fairly polite, but direct response, last thing on Friday night from my work e-mail, saying that we've paid somebody to mix the demo and that the rest of the band are happy with it, nobody agreed that the guitarist was going to mix it, we could have been sending the demo out a couple of weeks before now, we're not going to wait God knows how much longer for him to have another crack at it, we need to start looking for gigs. The guitarist replies when he gets in from work on the Friday night, but I don't see it until Monday morning. However, before i get to work on the Monday the rhythm guitarist has sent me a text saying that it was nice while it lasted, and the singer is texting that surely we can make it up... I get in to find an e-mail of abuse - how rude we're being to him (despite his effing and jeffing at me in his response - it wouldn't get through my company's swear filter if he'd sent it to my current work address, but no, it's me being rude to him), he's put all of this effort in and we don't appreciate him, we agreed that he would take the Pro Tools tracks (er, no we didn't) and we should have the decency to let him finish, and what about the artwork he did that we didn't like (he's right, we didn't, it was awful, the sort of thing that would actively stop pubs give us gigs) why should he bother making all this effort when we're all horrible to him. Like we're lucky to have him in our band and should be bowing down to his genius, not complaining that he's taking too long to sprinkle his magic dust on our pitiful offerings, and if he decides that he's going to do something without checking with us first then we should be pleased, not unhappy. I was in two other bands at that time - one with the drummer that was pure fun doing punk covers, and one playing originals with significantly better guitarists than this one. So I wasn't going to miss it at all. rather than take apart his e-mail and answer him point by point, or and tell him exactly what I thought of him, I took the high road and sent a very simple reply saying that I'd had enough, I wasn't putting up with him any more as it hadn't been any fun for quite a while and he could look for another bass player (knowing that as a minimum he'd also need to find a new drummer, and probably a singer too). So officially I quit. I was secretly hoping that he's send a reply so that I could tell him exactly what I thought of him, but as it turns out, there was no need. The drummer then e-mails me to explain that the other band had played a gig on the Saturday which ended with the drummer screaming "I am never playing in the same stage as that c#nt ever again!!" so technically the guitarist had been sacked from both his bands before I quit. Hence the rhythm guitarist's text. I saw the guitarist a few weeks later - in the first of several ironies to follow, we were going to a Cult gig, and I'd bought tickets for him and his girlfriend some months before. To nobody's surprise they were late, meaning that I missed the Mission who were support. they then didn't have the money to pay me for the tickets. It was cordial if distinctly cool, I suspect mostly because his girlfriend was there, and having popped into the pub to pick up the tickets he manufactured a reason for them to then disappear rather than going straight into the gig with the rest of us. I haven't seen him since, and that was, what, five or six years ago now, maybe more. The next irony was that the rest of the band excluding me and him formed an Iron Maiden tribute band! He wasn't invited, and actually the rhythm guitarist knew that he wouldn't be up to it and dropped out quite early on. If only he'd played nicer he could have been in his ideal covers band. And lastly, I listed to the demo for the first time in years a few months ago. You know what, it's really good, that's the shame of it all. Except for the one Maiden song on it, which is terrible because he let the (not very good) rhythm guitarist play one of the solos. great bloke, below average guitarist. Maybe the audience wouldn't have been so keen on our Maiden songs after all. He spent a lot of time complaining about how bad the rhythm guitarist was (and on a demo for the other band that he was allowed to mix, he took him completely out and re-recorded the rhythm parts without telling him), so we could never work out why he was so keen to have him in bands...we suspect it's a bit like a young girl I used to work with who made a point of only ever having fat friends: she was very slim and pretty,and wanted to make sure that she was always the prettiest one in the group. So it seems to the rest of us that he prefers playing with a below par rhythm guitarist, who always makes him look good, and is slightly in awe of his bog standard playing skills. He did start a new band, and as expected took the rhythm guitarist with him, and they were almost a carbon copy of what we were doing. the band is still going, but without him. he quit to spend more time with his family, telling them that he was done and wouldn't be playing the two gigs they had in the diary for the following month. Basically still a c#nt

that's a lovely stripey beast! I'm about a year away from getting my hands on mine - placed the order last Jan/Feb, when the estimate was two years, but I see that the website is now saying 27 months... That may suit me if it stretches to March/April as that's when my annual bonus arrives which will be paying off the balance!

first of two I'm going to nominate. My first serious band, 30 years ago, playing thrash metal when it was still new and exciting, and the first band I'd been in where I didn't know everybody else in advance. I was the last in, and at my first practice the guitarist (and BL) showed me the riffs to a couple of songs, we run through them, and then we're away. The singer steps up to the mic...and it's dreadful. Like a dying, vomiting dog. There wasn't any attempt at a melody, just shouting in the deepest voice he could manage. Now, there is a place for that style of vocals in extreme metal, but we were far too melodic, touching on prog even, to be in that category. To add to this, when we started gigging, the singer had no on stage personality whatsoever - no confidence or showmanship (he is a bit of a dull man anyway), just stood at the mic, staring at his shoes, making a horrible noise when he was singing, and muttering a few words between songs, never engaging with the audience. Me and the drummer (my mate, who'd invited me to join) complained about him endlessly - it was really affecting the band as everybody agreed that the music was great but the vocals were awful - but the singer was there because he was the guitarist's best mate and he was never going to get sacked. This went on for a couple of years. Then we did a fairly high profile gig as main support on a four band bill, and a load of my non-metal liking mates came along. As the band finished and started packing down, the singer left the stage to get to the bar, to be told by my mates that he was terrible, not the band, just him, what with him not being able to sing and everything. We had a gig the next day and after we soundchecked he announced that he was leaving the band to move on to new projects! I already knew the story of what had happened, as did the drummer, so we sniggered and had more than a few celebratory pints, but not ones to look a gift horse in the mouth we said nothing and let him keep his dignity. We certainly didn't do anything to persuade him to stay (which I think is what he was hoping for). And that would have been the end of it, someone I would never be in a band with again because he has no musical ability, but not somebody I'd avoid contact with... But he's stayed in my circle of friends, and I see much more of him these days than before - we go to a lot of gigs and festivals together. So for the last 25 years I have heard a non stop stream of fake news about how he's always one step away from being in new band, how he's working on a new project, how people said he was a great singer (based on one comment from 20 years ago taken out of context - he does that a lot), and including himself in any discussions that me and my actual musician friends have about bands, gear, etc. He seems to genuinely believe that everybody loved his vocals in the old band and that we wanted him to stay. To hear him, he's currently in between bands, and the casual observer would never know that he hasn't been in a band for a quarter of a century. Worst of all, he saves special disdain for the musical exploits of his former bandmates - me and the drummer mainly, who have remained active in bands from then until now. I'll save the numerous stories, but he manages to dismiss anything we do, but if there is any praise being given, he will bend over backwards to make sure that people know he was once in a band with us, like he's one of the cool kids. When I was depping with a name band for a couple of gigs at Christmas, I joked that he would tell me to my face that it wasn't anything special, and behind my back tell everybody he knows that he's mates with the bass player in this band that they will have heard of. That is exactly what he did. So about a year ago we were out for a drink and the subject of bands came up - him complaining about the delays in yet another one of his projects that never quite seem to happen, so i told him I'd been talking about forming a band with a singer from an old band of mine, who knew a guitarist, and i knew a drummer, etc. He spent the next three hours banging on about how that was a really bad idea because that singer (now fresh out of rehab) couldn't be trusted, he'd let down my old band, what was I thinking? Every time anybody tried to move the conversation on he kept dragging it back to this singer and why he was a bad choice. His girlfriend got fed up and went home, leaving me to listen to him going round and round in circles about it. Which sounds bad, but was a beautiful moment, because it finally gave me the excuse to say to him that I didn't know why he was fixated on telling me that this other singer was awful, but if he was trying to suggest that I should instead be asking him to join my new band he should forget about it because he cannot sing, has no musical ability whatsoever, and I will never, ever ask him to be in any of my bands. Ever. I slept very well that night. He seems to have selectively forgotten that night, or at the very least decided that he definitely wasn't suggesting that I ask him to be in a new band and is back to his usual, deluded self. Oh well, still worth it.

possibly we should add that names should be changed to protect the guilty, or at the very least protect BC from lawsuits...

There seem to be a few topics that dance around this, that you quit a band, refused to join a band, had your worst gig experience, etc because of some toolbag that was in the band with you. I also just got an e-mail from a mate who's a drummer and has moved to a smallish place which has a thriving music scene, meaning that everybody plays in about four bands and you can't just recruit people to form a new one, you have to first cross check everybody for any ongoing feuds or you'll never get past the first rehearsal. So let's have some full on venting - let it all out! Who are the worst people you've played in a band with? When I thought of this I had in mind asking everybody to pick just one person, and for it to be based on them being somebody you can't stand to be around, rather than somebody who just wasn't up to the gig musically, but on the basis that I'm torn between two people who fall on either side of those criteria, I'll let it go, do what you want. After all, the Forum has proved time and again that doesn't really care about rules for replies, so I'll instead ask some questions: For context, what was the background of the band in question? First teenage band playing in the drummer's garage, or experienced musicians on the verge of greatness? What is their level of talent? How did it end - a sacking, a resignation, or are you still in the band with them? Did you ever get to tell them what you thought of them? Would you ever consider being in a band with them again? Oh, and obviously, all the details of what did they do to annoy you, but that goes without saying

but then you'd have no stories to tell...

yeah...er...Pete seems to be having a few, ahem, issues of late https://www.nme.com/news/former-bauhaus-frontman-peter-murphy-kicked-gig-sweden-2420367

so can I - it's genius! Unusual to say that about a drummer

a drummer mate of mine just went to an audition for a new band. he said they're kind of dance-y stoner/shoegaze, which he's never been in to, but he's confident that before too long they'll be industrial metal as that's the drums he's going to be playing

I see that the "reasons why you quit a band" thread has resurfaced, and about 90% of the replies were "because somebody in the band was a complete bellend" Having done the audition and identified the bellend in question, I can't see why you'd want to go back for more, it's unlikely to get any better... ...though it's always nice to be wanted

well, he's not from Glasgow for starters... And his Dad's from Edinburgh/Leith so that should make him a Hibs supporter...

It's a trap!!!

I dipped into the thread a while back, but never really answered the OP's question For me, playing music is best when you're in band, and the purpose of being in a band is to play gigs. Maybe it's because I'm from the pre-YouTube generation when the options for playing to yourself in your bedroom were fairly limited, but that was the only point of playing an instrument when I started. That's specifically why I bought a bass at 18 - all my mates played guitars so I spotted the gap in the market and could instantly be in in a band. Worked a treat. While I've had periods not being in a band, when I am the aim is always to write/learn songs and start gigging. I'm relaxed about months of practice with no gigs booked, but actually playing to an audience is always the aim. Doesn't need to be every week, or even every month, but it will be the long term intention of the band, to go out and play. In order of fun from least to most: talking about being in a band playing bass alone playing bass in band rehearsals/jams/songwriting with others playing a gig So it's not that I don't enjoy the first three, it's just that the fourth option is clearly the best. I know plenty of people who have this the other way round, and love telling everybody that they are in a band, talking about their projects, planning what they are going to eventually do, far more than they actually want to play music in front of people. I also have plenty of bad experiences in the whole breadth of "band" context, but actually playing the gig is almost always great fun...or is so terrible that it leaves you with an excellent story about what went wrong (some of which may have appeared on other threads). Last gigs i did were at Christmas, depping to help out a mate's band, and I'm not actively in any other band at the moment. But something'll turn up in due course.

yeah, I sometimes get something similar - I'll be playing a bass line and can't "hear" what I'm going to play when that finishes. But I've learned to trust muscle memory - by the time I get to the end of that section either it'll have come back to me, or my fingers will remember and my brain catches up "oh yeah, that's what happens now". never had it affect a live performance (all my mistakes were badly playing stuff I could remember)