Monkey Steve

Can't say I've had the same problem, but there have been times when I've needed a new spark - something to get me to want to pick up the bass and play again. Sometimes it's as simple as new strings.

exactly this. If he was the BL and it was "his" band then while it's still worth discussing, you're probably not going to get very far, and the question is whether you want to be in a band where people get treated like that. At best you might get him to put his points across in a more polite way However, he's not, so the question is whether the band is going to put up with him behaving like this, and if not, is he going to change? I'd echo the idea of having a chat with the other band members first, to see how unhappy they are with him behaving like a toolbag. I've been in bands with members like this before, and it's not pleasant, but it does take someone to stand up to them. Is he as good a guitarist as he thinks he is? How difficult would he be to replace? I've certainly procrastinated, or avoided the issue when one band member has been behaving badly for one reason or another, and it's never ended well, but often the band hadn't wanted to deal with it, either for fear that the band member couldn't be replaced very easily, or simply not wanting to have that awkward "it's not us, it's you" conversation. It's fine to make suggestions about arrangements, how people are playing, etc, but there is a way to do it so that it's constructive, and it's not by spitting your dummy out if you don't get your own way. And putting a solo into a cover version where it's not in the original - somebody needs to give his over inflated ego a good kicking and explain that the concept that a "band" means that it isn't all about him.

Pitchshifter at the Garage on Friday night. Haven't seen them for close to 20 years. Superb gig - full of energy, playing an excellent collection of songs, and the singer is a brilliant frontman. Aided on one song by Mikey from Sikth Excellent bass sound - crisp, full and dirty, and very present in the mix. Finished with Genius, great song led by the bass. Loved it

yes, having a great bass line could be why you like the song, and thus the band. But equally having a great bass line may not do any more than roll a turd of a song in a little bit of glitter. So given the choice, for me, a band who play music that I like even if the bass player is pants is always better than a great bass player playing music that I dislike

depends on the context: if somebody is asking about my profession then I am not a musician (I even winced when ticking the "semi-professional" box when insuring one of my basses a few weeks ago, knowing that this covers anybody who gets paid anything at all for gigs) But if somebody watching me play asked "who is that musician?" they would be completely correct

at least you know in advance I went to see a mate's band at a festival last year. he'd been complaining about the bass player (actually a guitarist who had blagged his way into the band, knew no bass technique at all, and had a rather agricultural approach to the bass lines where enthusiasm outdid accuracy every time) and I was going to make a point of listening out for how good or bad he was. I'd seen them a few times before, but this time they sounded much better than usual, much clearer, like they had new arrangements for the songs. Then I noticed that I couldn't hear much of the bass, but when I looked at his hands he wasn't playing the correct notes for some of the songs So I had a word with my mate afterwards and asked him about the new arrangements. He looked at me blankly...then the penny dropped "On no, we low-passed him, told the soundman to take him out of the FOH mix. he's coming through the backline so he thinks he can still be heard out front, everybody's happy" In fairness, they did sound much better than when you could hear him playing the wrong notes In the interests of full disclosure,, I'm helping them out for a couple of gigs at Christmas, and the subject of reinstating the "low-pass" has been discussed for any songs that I haven't mastered at that point

To the OP, far too many very similar stories to tell about auditioning singers. the closest was a 70's hard/classic rock type originals band, with swaggering, melodic vocals, we'd recorded a demo with a name producer, and sent that along with the lyrics to all the candidates. We'd done the "half hour slot" trick where we said that we definitely had other people coming so they all had to be on time and out the door at the end of their slot, but in practice had a good quarter or half an hour between contestants so that we could extend it if things were going well. The first person to try out barely spoke - hardly the swaggering frontman we were looking for. Despite having had the demo for a couple of weeks he had only learned one song. We played it once and he made a horrible, shouty noise, like he way trying out for a death metal band, and a million miles away from the vocals on the demo, missed his cues and sang over half the solo (actually, he wasn't alone in that). We played that song again - just as bad - and asked if he wanted to try any of the others on the demo we'd sent. No, he hadn't learned them. Er...OK...so that'll be all then, thanks for coming. On the plus side it only took about ten minutes On the "my husband objects"...I have seen it before. In one particular case, where a girl in a mate's band got married. the band wasn't especially busy so it wasn't a great drain on her time, they'd practice every few weeks, book a couple of gigs a year - mates that had a band rather than musicians. It became noticeable that she was less and less available for practices (I once helped them out for a couple of rehearsals for a gig that never happened and she only came to one of those) and I was later told that she'd left the band completely because she didn't think he husband appreciated her being in a room with four other blokes for a few hours...now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure that for the one rehearsal I did that she came to she had to leave early because hubby was picking her up at a specific time. I've seen it work for male band members too - like Blue says, young kids can kill a musical career at the pub band level. I've also seen the girlfriends who love having a boyfriend in a band that she can go and see turn into the wife who thinks it's time he grew up and stopped trying to be a popstar when he's the wrong side of 30!

bit late to this one, but my suggestion is to ask the band what they would prefer - a few songs where you are note perfect, or a rough working version of all of them. Manage their expectations. Worse thing you can do is walk in with a rough, working version of them all only to find that as they're a tribute band they are looking for note perfect and would have been happy with two or three given that you've only had a a week. My top tips (and I'm doing this at the moment - learning a set for a band I'm helping out for a couple of gigs next month, all originals) - back to the cheat sheets. What works for me is to put a playlist on my phone and listen to that continuously to get the songs structures into my head, then to work on each song individually, and to focus on one song until I've cracked it. Pick off the low hanging fruit first, the ones that you already know pretty well or can work out fairly easily Then when I've worked out all the parts, listen to the song and just write down the structure of how it all fits together - intro riff x4, A-G riff x 2, A-D riff x4, etc - whatever shorthand works for you. What I then typically find is that, having written it all down, I can then remember it without needing to refer to the notes. I have a slight advantage here because the band is practicing three times a week, so once I've worked a song out I can add it to the parts of the set I'm playing along to and run through it (rather than sitting out the songs I haven't yet learned) but in the absence of that, I'd suggest adding a run through of all the songs you have learned to date before you work on the next one. I have time on my side so can work on one or two songs per week, but it actually takes me about two or three hours solid work to crack a song, so it's more about finding some clear time to do it. Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings are working for me - down time where I don't have to worry about getting up early the next morning, or the stress of work. You're probably not in the same position if you've only got a week to get through all of them One last tip - even when you think you've worked it out, keep listening to the whole play list. It may just be me but I can picture the notes being fretted as I listen to the tracks I've worked out, and I can then hear where the bass is doing something different to what I've worked out (usually where I've assumed that a riff is repeated four times and actually there's a different change on the last one, etc)

great album - one of my all time favourites. Not the bass sound I aspire to, but it's exactly right for Fugazi

Each to their own, but I'll listen to a band I like first, and if they have a good and interesting bass player, so much the better - Art Liboon's playing in Mordred is a great example. I don't think it's an exact science - I might like the band more because the bass lines are particularly excellent or interesting, but I'm very unlikely to listen to a genre that I'm not very interested in just because the bass lines are great. the comparison I'd make is that I know that professional opera singers are very talented, but I don't like any opera that I've heard so I'm not going to start listening to them rather than Motorhead just because the singers are more technically adept than Lemmy. I have tried to get into the virtuoso stuff but it leaves me cold. 30 years ago I got dragged to see Joe Satriani on the Surfing With The Alien tour by a guitarist friend who thought it was the best music ever made. Stu Hamm's bass solo was the one bright spot in an otherwise utterly dull evening, so when I found a Stu Hamm solo album I bought it anticipating a brilliant set of songs played by a great musician. Can't argue about the great musician side of that, but the only song worth listening to was the Moonlight Sonata. the rest of it was technique over song craft, and I have no interest in that

Killing Joke at the Roundhouse on Saturday night. Missed all the support due to the need to drink beer, but made it in time for KJ, where we bumped into a bandmate who was on the guest list (but had the same crappy upstairs seats us us). Sound was OK, if not brilliant, but KJ were on great form. Possibly because it was the last night of the tour they stuck pretty much with the greatest hits setlist. Bass wise - Youth made a horribly mushy, indistinct sound from where we were sitting, messing up one clear solo bass part from the last album by using a wah that took away all the sharpness of the notes and added to the already present mushiness. May have been a problem due to our location, but overall there was just a low bass noise rather than being able to tell what was being played. However, Big Paul was on it completely - great performance from him, and I noticed him correcting the timing where the rest of the band were all drifting off tempo during one of the earlier songs. Jaz got better as the night progressed too. Not the best gig of theirs I've been to, but still a good night

so...I previously posted that I'm now firmly a player of 5s... I'm helping out a band who play stuff in two different tunings. My main 5 is at the band's studio which I tune up or down between songs, leaving me with an acoustic 5 at home, and my old Ricky 4001 4-string that was my main bass throughout my 20's. I was at home last week learning some of the band's songs that were is standard (E) tuning, and lovely as the acoustic is, I thought I'd try the Rickenbacker as it's a much faster, slimmer neck, and the songs are pretty speedy. Fell straight back in love with it - such a great neck to play. Took it to the studio on Sunday, and the band are also in love! Their original bass player played a 4003 on their first four albums (albeit for all of the songs in C that I use the 5 for) and were telling me how great the sound was...felt slightly bad for my Warwick 5, which has a much fuller sound, but the 4001 has so much treble and bite that it really punches through. So for the immediate future, I will be playing both...does really make me want one of the new 5 string 4003s though.

I'm a man in my middle years, been playing in bands at different levels on and off since I was a teenager, mainly originals, but have played in a couple of covers bands over the last decade or so and it turns out they can be great fun, albeit not my first choice. Quite varied tastes and have often found myself in bands that are playing stuff that sits within the outer reaches of the venn diagram of what I like, if not being what I'd ideally like to be doing. Not doing it for the money so don't need to be getting paying gigs every weeknight and would be far more interested in something that appeals to me musically. However, I'm not really interested in a band that is going to spend the next six/nine/twelve months rehearsing in the hope that a gig will magically appear, ideally I'm after something with a strong BL who's going to take care of that side of things. 1. Not entirely my sort of thing, but not a million miles away and if I had nothing better on, I might be up for it. Probably if I'd been looking for a while and hadn't found anything that I like the sound of better than this. I'd much rather be in from the start for any band so it being a new project wouldn't phase me at all. Possibly worth dropping them an e-mail for more details - suggested setlist, experience of the band members, and most importantly where they intend the band to go: jamming once a week for fun or playing every night for cash? Not a brilliant ad - quite vague - but probably enough detail to get the right people replying 2. No interest at all. More covers, but they don't sound like my sort of thing at all. Also, they use the word "party". The no drugs and booze thing - I can see where they're coming from, possibly from a bad previous experience, or possibly they just don't want to take the chance or want to be known as a professional, reliable outfit. Personally I love a drink, but only when it's appropriate, so this wouldn't put me off in isolation if all the other boxes were ticked (but they're not). Good ad in that I can tell that I'm not at all interested in being in this band 3. Probably the one that appeals to me the most: originals and loud guitar music, and a wide range within that rather than a strict definition of what they do and everything they've mentioned appears in my venn diagram somewhere (though goth would not be first on my list) They lose points for not being able to spell "bassist". Not entirely sure that it's the band for me, but I might ask them for a demo and a bit more info. Also, I can google the band name and see what their profile is like. Good ad - lots to go on around the music side, which is what I tend to look for over the business side 4. Maybe. My singing ability is good BVs rather than great lead, but I do love playing in a power trio. Better ad than #1 - expectations and intentions are much clearer

that's a harsh review! I'm off to see them at the Roundhouse on Saturday - any particular reason for your early exit? I wasn't planning on drinking excessively beforehand but perhaps i need to reconsider (though I was listening to the CD of their Berlin gig on the way to work and that seems fine four or five songs in...well, Jaz's vocals aren't the best I've ever heard but the band seems to be on form otherwise) Did you catch Turbowolf? I must have seen them before as they seem to play every festival I go to, but I have no memory of what they are like

yes, true, but not as a hired hand for a European tour. I'm happy to play for free, or even at a marginal loss - why expect anything else after so many years, and it's something that I genuinely love doing. But if somebody told me they were going to fly me to another continent for a couple of weeks to help out their solo career, I'd need to take time off work and and they weren't actually going to even cover my expenses, just so that I could make him look good (well, in theory anyway, I don't think it's the band's fault that it's gone wrong) I've have to have a serious word with myself.

that's scary - the band weren't even getting paid!

But the issue here is that he was his own promoter - he was pretending to be a promoter/agency and booking the venues. So he knew very well that he had no following and hadn't sold any tickets. For a gig in these types of venues I would expect the headliner to be getting a fee from the promoter, regardless of how many people turn up, and for the band to make sure that all of their travel expenses, etc are covered. Clearly if the band is also the promoter then that's not happening, so this is a very expensive lesson. From the tone of his other YouTube videos, etc, sounds like he was happy to lose money so that he could claim to have been on a headlining European Tour From the venue's point of view, having agreed and been paid the hire fee, they have to open up and provide the staff. However, venues do tend to assume that there will be a certain level of punters through the door for alcohol sales, so while they have to put on the show even if there's no audience, they won't be best pleased or keen to have you back, hence the naming and shaming/blacklisting For all that, if he had the brass balls to do it in the first place, it's a shame that he doesn't have the brass balls to ride it out. If we read in, say, an Iggy Pop biography that the Stooges did the same thing in 1967 we'd all think it was a brilliant bit of rock n roll history

Played nothing but 4's for the first ten years of learning to play and being in bands, then got a 5 and that was the end of 4's. Just works better for what I play, and never had a problem dealing with the extra string. May have helped that my first 5 was a Wal, so if you're going to pick one, start with the best. If I'm day dreaming or shopping around for a new bass, i will discount anything that doesn't have a 5th string. Although I have kept my 1975 Rickenbacker 4001 as the one bass I'll never sell, no matter what, I still love it, even if I rarely play it these days. It's not necessarily that I always need the extra notes, simply that they are there if I need them. that said...I've been learning a lot of songs for a couple of gigs with a band over Christmas, and two songs are off their last album, all in standard tuning so the guitars only go down to E, with the rest of the set being on guitars that are down-tuned to C. Currently I'm using one 5 string, tuning up from low B to C for most of the set, and then back down again for the two songs in E. I'm debating whether or not to bring my Rickenbacker out of retirement for the shows so that I can swap basses rather then changing the tuning, as none of the songs in E actually use any notes below the low E, although I do play some of the notes on the B string further up the neck.

yes, it is going to vary from band to band...possibly my choice is influenced by having a very unreliable singer in my last band, so we got used to working on everything else in his absence. From my perspective it wasn't really a long term issue - I wouldn't want to practice for four or five months without a singer, but as a one off or even a couple between recruiting a singer, it's not a big issue (actually, I've probably practiced for a few months without one, getting a band up and running before we could find a singer)

my experience of auditioning singers: Roughly 2/3rds of people who reply to your ad will never have sung in a band before, and at least 2/3rds (not necessarily that same 2/3rds) will not actually be able to sing. X-Factor has a lot to answer for. In itself the lack of experience is not necessarily a bad thing, but I've seen more than a couple of people trying out who could hold a tune when singing along to a CD, but didn't have the skills to sing with a loud, live band. The YouTube point made earlier is a good one. While it doesn't necessarily solve everything, the amount of not very good singers who post stuff is, frankly, amazing, and can be weeded out at that stage rather than having to waste a rehearsal. You may need to be quite direct in letting them down...I did once try a "you're not exactly what we're looking for, it's us not you" reply and got pestered for weeks by the singer who clearly thought he was brilliant and wouldn't take no for an answer. I tend to have a bit of sympathy for those who do not have recordings, just in case they're excellent and simply haven't been in a position to post anything, but you might reasonably take a different view My own preference is to arrange for two or three to come down on the same night. Expect at least one of them to cancel on the day... Allocate them, say, 45 minutes, but tell them they only have half an hour. At least one of them will not be able to sing and you'll be very grateful for the excuse of needing to get them out of the door because somebody else is waiting, but if you manage to find a good one, you can extend things. Pick two or three tracks, make sure they have good copies of any originals and all the lyrics. If it's covers then let them pick from your list, if it's originals, perhaps throw them a cover of two that the band knows which they may be more comfortable with. My preferred method is to play everything at least twice, once to get warmed up, know the structure and hear how the band plays it live. But if a contestant has had the songs for a week or two and can't get the structure, or sings over the guitar solo, then that's a flat No from me. Finally, record everything. One thing I have found is that different band members can "hear" things completely differently, depending on where they are standing, how much they are concentrating on their playing, etc. While a great singer should be obvious, I've been in bands that had serious disagreements about whether more marginal singers were good or bad that were solved by listening back to the recordings.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of rehearsals without the drummer...possibly there's a sense of resentment that we're paying for a studio when we could actually be doing it in someone's front room. But mainly it simply doesn't feel right - I can rehearse without a singer or a rhythm or lead guitarist, but if there's no drums then it completely changes the feel of the practice, and i get a lot less out of it. Fine if you're using the time to write new material, or once in a while you're work on arrangements or learning/breaking down specific riffs, but not for five months, Do you have any way to record the drummer before he moves away? If you can, get a recording of just him playing all your tracks, that you can play back through the rehearsal room PA. Should be enough to keep you ticking over.

again, depends on the gig small pub/club where everything is coming out of a backline - take my rig (Ampeg SVT 2 Pro, Marshall 1 x 15 and Warwick 2 x 10) and play through that, nothing going to the PA Anything bigger where the whole band will be going through the PA then I'm happy to DI (using a Sansamp VT Bass pedal, and ideally an Ampeg SCR-DI, which between them do a pretty good impression of the Ampeg amp and eq) leave the amp at home and just have the bass through a monitor. I don't have a dedicated DI box, although there is one on the SCR-DI, but in my experience the venue will have a DI box labelled "bass" just waiting for me when I arrive Next month it will be somewhere between the two - a couple of small/medium sized venues where we're providing backline for the other bands to share (the promoters have booked four bands, so it'll make change overs much easier if we share as much gear as possible), but everything will go through the PA. While I don't care and am happy not to use the amp, as i understand it (the band has played these venues before, but I haven't and am just helping them out for these gigs) the in house sound guys will prefer to take a line out of the back of the amp, which allows the amp to be used as an on stage monitor. Fine, whatever.. I'm not actually taking my rig - the band has a Hughes & Kettner QT 600 stack (I think 1 x 15 and 4 x 10 cabs) I'm not very precious about my on stage sound anyway - if i can hear enough to know whether I'm in tune then I'm happy to trust that it's all fine out front. Happy to leave the endless tweaking of knobs that makes no discernible difference to the off stage sound to the guitarists who seem to really care about what they sound like on stage - I'll bring a book to pass the rest of the soundcheck once my two minutes have been concluded.

couldn't agree more. The rule should be one guitar each (if there's more than one) and one spare between then in case of a mid-song broken string. Seems to be another iteration of "but I need this to get my sound" that they use to justify having their amps at ear bleeding levels

sadly not...or was he and I'm choosing not to comment on his private life However, Brian May was/is a resident of a village close to where I grew up and was to be seen on occasion I cannot comment on his choice of beer or newspaper

I left this thread a week or so ago, thinking that we had all agreed that JD should be left alone by the gutter press, and was a little surprised to find that there was still yet more to say on the subject. Imagine my surprise that it's gone a little off topic... So to the heart of the thread... I used to regularly go to a town centre Wetherspoons, about 20 years ago, with my then girlfriend, for a pint and lunch after a hard morning's following her around the shops. Perfectly fine at that time of day - beer and food were cheap and cheerful, but you probably wouldn't want to go there on a Friday or Saturday night. Studiously avoided them for the following decade, dismissed as soulless caverns full of chavs. Then a CAMRA devotee started including them in his birthday pub crawls. One thing they do well is keep their beer properly - check out how many appear in the Good Beer Guide. And over the last few years they have added craft beer to their selection, and have kept the prices very low. So if you know nothing else about the local pubs, you can almost certainly get a very reasonably priced pint of good, well kept beer in the local Spoons. Rarely my first choice of where to go, but always a good default There's still a fair amount of chav-infested town centre pubs, but you're always going to get that where the model is stack 'em high and sell 'em cheap, and it's more to do with being a town centre pub than anything else. One of my locals publicises the fact that it keeps the price of a pint quite high specifically in order to deter that sort of punter. Actually, I far more object to the places often being full of families with screaming kids. But there are plenty that aren't like that and in my experience of even the town centre ones, they're typically so vast that you can usually find a quiet corner where you will be left alone by the crowd (perhaps that's just my off-putting persona).