Monkey Steve

I got the reissues of all of the Scorpions early/classic albums. There was a time before Winds of Change that they were a seriously good metal band and the run of albums from Lovedrive to Blackout are some of my favourite albums of all time. But what becomes apparent reading the booklets and listening to the interviews with the band is that he move to producing awful, radio friendly AOR music was all down to the producer Dieter Dierks looking at Def Leppard's album sales and deciding that we wanted to have a go at producing a Mutt Lange style album

In my experience, it's not an issue when everything's going well - turn up, do your job, no complaints and everyone's happy. When things aren't going well for whatever reason it can become another reason to complain about somebody. Or possibly it's more that when you are only being judged on your contribution to the band, it's easier for the band to focus on playing issues rather than letting things like how good a friend you are, how you always get your round in and are always up for a beer, etc muddy the water. It's definitely harder to sack someone you see as a good mate even if their playing is well below par

ah - so it's not just me then. Mine still worked fine, but the connection to the clip sheered off so it's effectively unusable, and it's not like I looked after it especially well so that may well have been down to general abuse that I inflicted. Shame it's not more robust...but then it is pretty cheap so I guess you get what you pay for.

I once did something similar to a dirt cheap Telecaster (something to do with Fender using up old bits of hardware after a factory fire or something)...less heat gun and more sandpaper, sweat and swearing. Took ages. Not sure I'd have done it if I'd paid proper money for it Revealed some far less attractive wood than on this one. Instead of varnishing it I oiled the body, after reading something about how that improved the tone by allowing the wood to fully resonate. hard to tell if that was what changed the tone given that i also drilled holes to make it through-strung and upgraded the pickups...but it's definitely a much better sounding guitar than previously so let's assume it was down to the oil setting free the wood Downside is that the body shows every knock and scuff - fortunately I love the beaten up look

I've got a couple that I tend to use when I'm playing an acoustic or just can't be @rsed to plug an electric in. An Ortega that I got free with my Ortega acoustic bass (for no good reason as that has a built in tuner). works fine, solid if unspectacular, no problem with the low B Then more recently I got a D'Addario eclipse. Top marks for the display - colourful and very intuitive. Points deducted as it fell apart after a few months of use...but I will probably replace it as it's just much better to use than the Ortega

One of my big issues with band mates has always been the differing interpretation of what "being really committed" means in practice. Always seems to be the lead guitarist who says that he's completely committed to the band when it's forming, who starts cancelling rehearsals because Arsenal are at home or on TV that week, or he's booked tickets to see a film with his other half, or has to do the weekly shop so he's going to be a couple of hours late... Never had a problem with anybody who has a decent excuse, including commitments for other bands. And while I've always enjoyed the social element of hanging out with band mates, it usually tends to be two or three of us, and there's never been any judgement on the band member who can't stay for a pint after practice or needs to get home for some other reason, as long as they can make practice on time.

Has anyone come across the opposite, a band member who could not make gigs but refused to allow deps to be used? I haven't personally, but it happened in a mate's fairly successful tribute band, not because of competing bands but because the lead guitarist decided that he wouldn't travel more than a few miles for gigs, and wouldn't commit to playing every weekend for (understandable) family reasons. The band tried to work with him, and suggested that they get a dep in for any of the gigs that he couldn't make. He threw a complete strop and took it as an insult, how dare they consider playing without their lead guitarist? They pointed out that he was costing them all money, but he wasn't having it...didn't end well for him.

Back in the day, it was unthinkable to be in more than one band at a time. These days, it seems to be pretty much standard. I don't see any reason why a band should dictate what I do on the days when I'm not playing with them. My own experience is that it depends on how busy the bands are - tricky with two bands that are rehearsing a lot and playing a load of gigs, but when one is busier than the other, it's fine. the only time i did it for a long a period it matched up quite nicely - everybody in band #1 were in other bands, most of them in another band that was fairly busy so we never got that busy, and they liked to practice midweek. Band #2 was much busier, but liked to rehearse at the weekend. never any rehearsal clashes, and whenever a gig for either band came up it was flagged good and early, and it was down to me not to accept anything that clashed. Which was fine because everybody else was doing exactly the same, balancing their own gigs before accepting any new ones. I can see that it would become a sore point if one band member's diary meant that the band had to turn down a lot of work, but I don't see that as any different to a band member who doesn't want to play when Arsenal are at home, or when the gig is more than twenty minutes drive away. In band #2 one guitarist made it very clear from the start that his other (signed) band were his main priority, and if there were any clashes then the other band would always win. We were happy with that, and did a couple of gigs without him without anybody falling out or getting upset about lack of commitment/playing gigs without him. What then did become an issue was when the same guitarist announced that he didn't want to play any low level or midweek gigs...but that's another story...

Always on the lookout for new bands, both "new" as in recent and "new" as in I haven't heard it before. I have mates who are the opposite - don't want to see the support band if they've never heard of them, would rather arrive late at the festival rather than see a band they've not heard of. Seems like a wasted opportunity to me. Don't listen to music radio, don't tend to look at YouTube, so mostly I'll get into new stuff by seeing a new band at a gig or festival, or from reading something about them that interests me. Also I'll Soundhound anything that I like the sound of that's being played behind the action on a TV show - got into Hilltop Hoods from a track off of State Of The Art that was on Grimm, the final Gil Scott Heron album from a track on Elementary. Spent a good deal of time in the New Blood tent at Bloodstock the other week (highlight was Crawlblind, I think...my phone had stopped working so that's who should have been on at the time the band I liked was playing, based on checking the app when i got home) and following last year's festival i got CDs from bands that were on the second stage when I went in there to get a beer and I ended up listening to their whole set: The Courtesans, Masses of Molasses and Florence Black (not what you're expecting from the name) - all excellent in completely different ways. In the "new to me" category I got the whole Turbonegro back catalogue after seeing them at Download this year (and would recommend Apocalypse Dudes as my pick). Amazon Marketplace, where you can usually get a CD for a few pence plus p&p is my go to resource for checking out bands with a few releases under their belt that I've missed - 30 years of of Turbonegro releases = £50.

what, the singer charges the band to use his own PA, or is he hiring one for the gigs?

it's the name of the bloke who founded the company

Perhaps add that if you want a more complicated tone adjustment then that could also be solved, perhaps using something like a Boss GEB-7 that has a volume level as well as eq

Funnily enough I was discussing almost exactly this point with a guitarist I was having a jam with this weekend - it was actually his issue because he's been working on a new technique where he uses a pick for the bass strings and finger style for the treble - the problem wasn't switching styles between songs but different volume across the strings. He tried using a much lighter pick and that largely solved the issue. The OP's issue isn't one that troubles me personally, but I'd have thought that if it's purely a volume issue then the solution is simply that the volume needs to be adjusted somewhere, whether on the bass, amp, or somewhere in between. My own personal solution would be to use something like an MXR MicroAmp, a straight forward clean boost pedal that you can kick on whenever you switch to finger style.

Oh, Metallica - the Castle Donnington 1985 disc that comes with the super deluxe box set reissue of Ride The Lightening

+1 for the TU3 When I started it was seen as very uncool to use an electronic tuner - you'd tune up using some other method before the gig/rehearsal - tuning forks, pitch pipes - I had a flexidisc that came with a "learn to play the bass" book I'd got with my first bass - and then tune to each other once you got there (great if there was a keyboard player, but I remember what seemed like hours of "play an E...now pay an A...now play an E..." and picking harmonics). The rhythm guitarist in one of my first bands always sounded dreadful, and we once proved to him that he was subtly out of tune on each string (which didn't help his dreadful playing) - he still refused to buy a tuner. Then I got one of the first Zoom multi effects pedals and it came with a tuner as a standard function and it was amazing. Much consternation from the rest of the band that I was using a pedal to tune up. Though the pedal wasn't much cop so it soon got left at home. Then I went through all sorts of cheap options, small handheld ones that couldn't be used on stage (I still have a Yamaha one that I use for tuning up when I change strings - brilliant tuner), cheapo pedals that didn't do well with a low B and stopped working after a few months, convinced that these would all be fine and even if i needed to replace them every sop often that was far better than shelling out the big bucks for an expensive pedal that just did tuning. then I had a bit of spare cash, thought I'd finally get a "proper" tuner and bought a TU2. What a revaluation! That then got smashed at a gig so i got a TU3 to replace it, and now have a TU3w, just because it's black!

Off the top of my head and in no particular order (and ignoring the Disc Live type gigs recorded to be sold to the punters who are there): Foo Fighters live at Hyde Park DVD Motorhead - The Birthday Party Black Sabbath - Seventh Star, live bonus disc from the deluxe reissue (truly terrible quality) Venom - Live at Hammersmith 1985 (a Friday Rock Show recording that seems to have made it on to CD now) Megadeth - Live at Hammersmith 1987 (ditto) I suspect that there are more that I've forgotten about and I have a few bootlegs of gigs I was at too, but sadly no Live & Dangerous type classics I also have one near miss - I saw Faith No More at Hammersmith the day before they recorded You Fat B#stards at Brixton

yeah - I've made the mistake of taking gear in to little local shops where the owner claims to be able to do repairs and maintenance and had very shoddy work done. The bigger ones tend to have a dedicated person who actually knows what they are doing (as a generalisation - I'm sure there are some terrible people in the big shops too) As a wider point, it occurs to me that the death of the shops is because they are largely a male preserve...stick with me. Henry Juskeiwicz recently said that Gibson weren't selling guitars to half the population because guitar shops were in the rough areas of town where young girls wouldn't want to go. I don't agree with a lot of that, particularly in the UK, but I did think at the time that music shops (rather than Gibson) probably suffer because they largely sell stuff to men because men hate going shopping. Or at least men generally don't enjoy shopping anything like as much as women do. My experience of going shopping for, say, jeans, with a girlfriend is that I will go to the jeans shop that I know stock Levis, pick out the pair of Levis that I already know that I want, try them on to make sure they fit, pay and go home. When any of my previous girlfriends have wanted some jeans they would take me round every shop in town, try on every different style and make of jeans in every colour available, before usually going back to the first shop and buying the pair they found there three hours previously, because they've now made certain that they are the best ones in town. Let's celebrate this as a difference between the sexes and not sexism, and I'm happy to concede that some men love shopping and some women hate it (although every woman that says they hate it who I have gone shopping with was clearly lying). To the topic at hand. Men buy most of the strings, leads, picks, etc. By now we have a pretty good idea which set of strings we want, and now that we have the internet we can simply let Google find us the cheapest deal. Even if we don't know which set we want, now that we have the internet we can simply let Google find us a range of reviews, ratings and opinions to help us make our mind up. We don't miss going round all of the shops in the area to see what brands and gauges they have, compare prices and have a chat with the shop assistant about which strings they would suggest because we never actually enjoyed doing that in the first place. Add to that the distance selling regulations meaning that even if it's something you want to try first you can return it if you don't like it, and there's really no need to leave the house for anything. Brilliant! If your business is selling stuff to people who would really prefer a different way of buying it then you're going to suffer when that new way of buying it appears. I remember Anderton's when they were a middling sized shop down a back street in Guildford in the days before the internet, and they deserve huge credit for seeing the changes on the horizon and being ahead of it all.

OK, you asked... We were a thrash band back in the days when that was new and exciting, and having replaced our vomiting dog style singer with one who had a far more classic rock type voice, we were able to find a lot more melody on the songs where previously there had just been tuneless shouting. I was last into the original line up and has been wanting the old singer out from Day 1 but he was the BL/guitarists best mate and I didn't really get a say. Me and the drummer had a lot of celebratory pints on the day he quit. Anyway, taking advantage of this new vocalist, the rest of us were trying to write and arrange songs with bigger choruses, more stripped back verses, etc to let the vocals shine. Not a massive switch - less Cannibal Corpse and more Anthrax. But the guitarist didn't like it - if a song didn't have a flattened fifth or an atonal run in it somewhere he'd put one in. We discussed it with him and he just flat refused to change - he'd started the band, he was going to play what he wanted and only what he wanted and he didn't like songs that didn't have some element to make them (he says) interesting/(we say) difficult to listen to. Ignoring the fact that by then most of the set was already quite melodic so it wasn't much of a change, more an organic development of what we were already doing. We weren't looking to turn into Def Leppard. So there then followed months of grumbling about him behind his back, and every minor point that we were happy to put up with when everything was going OK became a complaint - his playing that had been fine previously and was entirely acceptable for the level we were at was suddenly a bit limited and limiting, his gear wasn't good enough, he didn't own a pair of jeans only baggy jogging bottoms and that was a terrible look on stage, etc. But we'd never got anywhere close to sacking him, not least because it was his band and we were all pretty good mates by then (and my girlfriend was very good friends with his then wife). He then committed the cardinal sin of playing a new song that he clearly didn't like (but the rest of us did) as badly as possible so that he could refuse to play it live because it sounded awful. I'd had enough, told my fellow plotters that I was going to force the issue, and announced at the next practice that I was off to start something else as I wanted to do the stuff we'd been talking to him about and he didn't want to do, and I'd see out the remaining gigs that we had booked. It was all very cordial - I wonder in retrospect whether he was fed up with me constantly writing stuff that he didn't really want to play. I didn't know that the others would follow me out the door, but I had a pretty strong feeling that they would. The day after the gig the guitarist rang the others to discuss replacing me and who they could ask, and they both told him "er...well, actually, you'll need to find a drummer/singer too" I don't regret leaving, but in retrospect it wouldn't have been necessary if we'd made it much clearer that his band was going to fall apart if he didn't make the sideways step that the rest of us wanted. The shame is that he never played in another band, and sees that one as his big chance, the one that got away.

I'm a 5 string convert, probably due to my age - 5's were not widely used when I was a teenager learning to play so bass players would only ever have 4 strings. As soon as I tried a 5 string I was hooked and have never gone back - I do retain my first serious 4 string, a 1975 Rickenbacker, but mostly for sentimental reasons and I haven't played it in anger for years. The last time I took it to a rehearsal I got very frustrated that there were things I could do on a 5 that I couldn't do on the 4. Anything I could do on a 4 string I can do on a 5, so for me only having a 4 would limit my options. If you like the Warwick but want one with a wider neck...well, if you have the budget, you could just ask Warwick to make you another Streamer 5 with the neck profile you want. Not the cheapest option (I should know, I did it). However, there are wider necks out there (Broadnecks) and Warwicks are generally pretty cheap second hand. Might take you a bit of time and patience, but if you want to stick with a Streamer you should be able to track one down

Quit two bands, been fired once. everything else just seems to lose momentum for one reason or another, usually when one key member quits/gets fired and can't be replaced, or where life gets in the way and nobody is too fussed about continuing. I think I'm still notionally in at least two bands that haven't actually got together for some years. For the two I quit: Originals band, the guitarist (& BL) was digging his heels in over a subtle change of direction that the rest of us wanted to make. So I quit, and the rest of the band followed. All very civil, shook hands after the last gig we had booked. Covers band, the lead guitarist was a complete tool bag, and a few of us had been discussing how unhappy we were and should we fire him? Then he spat his dummy out at me in an e-mail to the whole band when I was completely in the right, and my point of view had been discussed with the rest of the band and agreed with. I politely declined to continue to be in a band with him as my other (originals) band was a lot more fun and free of stress. I actually regret not rising to it and telling him exactly what I thought of him - to this day he probably believes that he was in the right and that I just preferred being in my other band (which was doing a lot better than the covers lot) In answer to Blue's original question: Why? The only thing guaranteed to make me start hating rehearsals enough to quit is if one of the band is such a massive c#nt that I can't put up with them any more, and as above, when the band isn't going to do anything about it. The only other instance I can think of is if life gets in the way and there is no way to continue in the band When? As soon as I've made my mind up to quit. In person if there's a rehearsal or gig booked, by e-mail or whatever social media the band are using if there isn't. Usually I'll have discussed it (well, more like complained about the person in question) for some time beforehand so it won't be a shock to anybody else. If it's a "life's got in the way" scenario, let everybody know what's happening as things develop and that there's a chance that I may have to leave the band How? As civilly as possible. I may well not care about upsetting the offending band mate, but I'll try and stay on good terms with everybody else - you never know when you might cross paths again, and usually I'm quite good mates with them. I'll do any gigs that are in the diary if they want me to, and am happy to help out with any new bass player that they can find (provide tabs for originals, etc)

I doubt that it's because they can't get them in if they tried, but more what we've been discussing, that they probably aren't going to take a punt on stocking another brand of sticks when only one person has asked for them and his other customers are less discerning

A mate of mine had a similar issue with GAK - had something listed on line at a certain price, so went to the shop to find it for sale at a higher price, with the explanation that the two businesses basically traded separately. In the face of a threat that he would simply go home and order on line, they got within a tenner of the one line price + p&P, so he took that. He's also had issues with them not having stuff in the shop that is shown as in stock on line. This was a couple of years ago so it may have improved since then. Anderton's have always been much better - they hold a lot of stock in their shop, at the same price as on line, you can order and pick up at the shop, and if you turn up wanting to buy something that is shown on line but isn't in the shop, they'll send somebody off to the warehouse to pick it up.

My local is now Andertons, and they are great for what they provide - internet beating prices (because they have a huge internet presence) and a lot of stock. Never had a problem with their staff. But I'm not a regular visitor. It's a bus ride away and, although I haven't tested it since their recent improvement in their bass stock, previously I couldn't count on them to stock what i wanted for strings, etc. So it tends to be either emergency buys "I've got a gig tonight and I need any strings i can get my hands on" or stuff that I could buy anywhere on t'internet but they will likely have in stock at a good price and will let me try - pedals, etc. Last things i bought in there were a pedal board and a couple of MXR bass pedals...over a year ago now... I'm not really one for wandering around a shop just for a look at what they've got unless I'm actually shopping for something. If I'm buying a bass or a guitar then I'll happily travel wherever to try it, and would only go to Andertons if they have the model i want to try listed as in stock. Pretty sure i never went there for any of my basses over the years, but over the years I have bought a couple of guitars in there and a Mesa Boogie guitar rig. For stuff like strings it's the internet - I can get exactly what i want and I can shop around for the best price. I've seen a couple of smaller, more local shops go under over the years, and the problem in selling to me was that it just wasn't worth them stocking the stuff that I was going to buy. I'm just not their target customer - they made their money selling starter instruments to people who don't much care about what gauge or make of strings or picks they were being sold.

I would expect to see heavy metal (in it's many forms) at the top of the list. Possibly it's because the genre celebrates "guitar heroes" and makes air guitar a normal(ish) thing for fans to do. I know plenty of metal fans who have a guitar tucked away somewhere, seemingly thinking that they just need a bit of spare time to sit down and work out how to play it. I have one friend in particular who owns at least six guitars and a bass and a load of recording equipment, who basically can't play a note. At the other end of the spectrum, I read something a year or two back which said that Taylor Swift was inspiring young girls to take up the guitar, and that teenage girls were the fastest growing sector of acoustic guitar sales in the US

I've played with a few musicians who have this sort of "song blindness" before - typically singers who can't follow cues, but there has been the odd drummer who can't follow the changes and rather than play something neutral until they can pick up the tune, will instead put in the expected fills or changes at the wrong place because they know it's coming and it might be then... Not sure it's the same as the OP's issue, which sounds much more like the drummer is bored and playing something unexpected in order to keep himself amused, rather than him missing a change. I think we're all getting to the same point - the OP needs to have a chat with him to point it out, and then see how he reacts. I'd suggest getting the rest of the band on side first