Monkey Steve

Guilty

No matter what other people get up to, it's all fine until it isn't. Then as soon as they start annoying me (whether for reasons within or outside of the band) then everything they do winds me up. One example, a guitarist in an old band of mine was late for everything. Which was OK when the band was new and exciting and he was pulling his weight otherwise. But over time other annoying traits emerged (best summed up as "he was a lead guitarist") and him being constantly late became so very, very irritating that the band came to blows over it, more than once.

I've never had a noise issue removing the cover from my 4001 so another vote for it being you! Although, when I first got my bass the previous owner had earthed the pickup by running a wire over the body to the tailpiece (mine's a mapleglo version and it ran along the skunk stripe) so maybe you're not alone in not understanding the mysteries of the Ric's wiring I did try playing with it on when I first got the bass as it looks great, but it's nothing but a hindrance to actually playing - "talent stopper" is very apt

My old punk lot did one excellent wedding (as a favour to a mate of mine - it was my present to him). the bride and groom (especially the groom) loved old school punk, and we only played stuff that was in the charts (not necessarily poppy, bet certainly the more singable choruses) so even if you weren't a punk you'd recognise most of the set. And it was staged so that we were in a large function room above where the meal took place, so anybody not wanting to listen to the band could easily avoid us. Went down a storm. I also saw a great band at a drummer from an old hard rock band of mine's wedding. Bit of a culture clash as his dad was a retired high court judge and his bride was from a traditional Hindu family. they hired an absolutely brilliant band who did a mash up of rock/pop and indian music, which was spot on for everybody under 50. And again, if you didn't want to hear the band, you could stay in the dining room

my old punk covers band played a bloke's 50th and went down an absolute storm - music from when him and his mates were young. The birthday boy couldn't have been happier. So his fiance asks us back to play their wedding about 18 months later... ...very different crowd...

I almost had the same thing. Quit a band where I’d lent the guitarist an old Marshall combo (70’s 50w, grey fronted super lead II - lovely sounding amp that I used for years afterwards). It hadn’t actually cost me very much (from the days when old Marshall’s were two a penny, well, maybe £100 from my local junk shop I think). He didn’t have an amp of his own, and at that point was under the impression that the band was going g to continue (in fact I was the first resignation ahead of the rest of the band - we couldn’t sack the guitarist as he was the BL) I see out the gigs we have booked and tell him that I’ll take the amp home with me after the last booking. On the night of the gig he produces a no name, no value bass that he’s had knocking about and suggested that either we could swap, or maybe I could let him borrow the amp for a bit longer and perhaps keep his bass as some sort of security. er...no thanks mate. Got the amp into the back of the girlfriends car as soon as we packed down, leaving him looking sadly at the amp I the back seat as we drove off

I also did one gig on the London circuit at one of the many venues where I'd turn up and expect to be DI'd. Quite often the venues will have a couple of very basic, beaten to hell combos knocking about that you can use, and at some places that's the on stage monitoring. We arrive and a band we didn't know was already soundchecking so we get a pint, then get called through as it's our turn. There's a tiny bass amp on stage so I ask if it's the venue's or somebody else's, and get no reply. the soundman comes up, I ask for a DI and whether the amp is the venue's and he doesn't actually reply but plugs me into the amp from where he's already taking a line out. We go into a song and someone from the first band appears and starts screaming at me. So we all stop, and he's shouting that it's their amp (not his - he wasn't actually the bass player) and nobody had asked if we could use it. We then had a somewhat awkward moment where he realises that he's overreacted a bit, so I'm apologising, told him I thought it was the house amp, not a problem and I totally see their point of view, I'll just DI, it's fine, and he's on the back foot telling me that no, it's OK, they don't mind if I use their amp, it's just that they wanted to be asked first, and stopping me from unplugging, insisting that I now use the amp. When we finish soundchecking they then come up and put the amp back stage so that nobody else can use it without asking (there was at least one other band playing that night) and when we played I didn't bother using it as the amp was still backstage and I didn't want to get it without their express permission so I just DI'd. But I bought their bass player a beer and it was all fine. They even asked if we'd play with them at some gigs they had lined up.

depends...I would find it difficult if everybody else had de-tuned and I was simply playing one fret down like you suggested in the first band I did this for, everybody else came from a death metal background where tuning down is pretty common. They still call the notes by the position on the fretboard, not by the actual note that's being played, so when you're playing an open E string it's still an E even though you're actually playing a D#. So de-tuning made no difference whatsoever in playing terms and there was no confusion about what we called notes (other than it being completely wrong! - but we were all wrong together)

it may also make a difference on how much you insure with them My experience is more at large group policies taken out by companies, but the same considerations apply at a smaller level - if you place a lot of business with the company and will switch to somebody else if they don't pay a valid claim then they're far less likely to try the "we refuse everything once to see how many people that puts off making a valid claim" strategy. Funnily enough I was in Dublin for work last week and discussing exactly this issue with Irish Life (again, large company policies, not individual contracts) and they explained that their reputation in Ireland is that they are known for paying out rather than putting policy holders through as many hoops as possible and disputing claims. Possibly it's a bit chicken and egg - are they paying claims because they are a huge insurer, or are they a huge insurer because they are known for paying claims? It's possibly one area where the internet is actually a good thing, with on line reviews, comparison sites and talking shops like this one, difficult insurers get a bad reputation quite quickly

I had the opposite once and it was just as bad. A mate had organised a gig in a basement room at a pub in London for his 50th and knowing lots about music but nothing about organising gigs had asked me to help out. It ended up with four bands playing, two of which I was in, one playing guitar and one playing bass, with the third band being the bass player from my guitar band'a other group. A fourth band that the birthday boy knew from work was going to open, this being their first ever gig. So to save on a nightmare of gear changes we sort out a share with the drummer (in both of my bands) letting everybody play his kit, I bring the bass rig and a guitar amp for anybody to use, and another guitarist from one of the bands bringing his amp. Sorted, everybody just has to bring instruments and pedals. We soundcheck, and once the first band has done it, it's fairly plain sailing for the sound man, just minor tweaks to his settings. then the openers arrive, late, and insisting that they were only going to play their gear, drumkit and all, which all had to be lugged down stairs, set up in front of the rest of the gear, and they then spent half an hour arguing with the soundman that they couldn't turn down and definitely weren't too loud *they were way too loud* because that was "their sound". One of those gigs where the soundman sits back, pops his earplugs in and says "your funeral". They weren't that bad a band, but nobody watched them apart from my mate, who wanted to show his support, because whenever anybody opened the door to check them out they got a wall of ear-splitting noise and went back upstairs to the pub

as someone who spends a lot of his life looking at and interpreting contracts, the point about the legal language used for insurance policies is definitely deliberate, but it's not there to try and confuse you (well...possibly it is, if the insurer is taking advantage of the real reason that it needs to be used). It has to be used to make certain that there is no dispute over what the exact terms are. If something can be interpreted in more than one way then it will be, and that way madness lies. If in any doubt, speak to the insurer or your broker and ask them to explain it to you - it's exactly what they are there for

exactly...it's not a biggie, but there is a bit more brightness, bit more zing

did it in my last couple of bands, always at the singer's request - one asking that we de-tuned by a whole step. wasn't a huge fan of that, but it wasn't the end of the world. Not so much that the strings flap about (and none of that a semi-tone down), more that it seems to lose a bit of snap and zing off the strings. We discussed it a fair bit with the guitarists - we'd all have preferred to play at concert pitch - but the audience is far more likely to notice a singer struggling to hit the notes than a very minor tone difference in the guitars.

completely second this. Insurance companies are very well known for pointing at the small print when telling you why they are refusing to pay out, and very much not known for paying out when you did something different because that's what you assumed would be fine.

I'd draw a line between amps and instruments and I've happily let people borrow the amps/cabs/PA/etc in the past. I view amps, cabs, etc as completely repairable - if somebody blows up my Ampeg or drops my PA cab down a flight of stairs then they can be fixed or replaced Instruments are a different matter though, it's much more personal. I don't really care about scratches or dents (I put enough of them in the instruments myself) but there are some things like a snapped off headstock, or lumps out of the back of the neck, that just can't be made good. That said, i did once lend a mate one of my Les Pauls for a band we were in together and got that back in a much more roadworn state that I would have hoped, but that was after a lot of playing and gigging, and in fairness he did offer to get it fixed when he gave it back (the most noticeable problems were a couple of lumps knocked off the binding on the body so it could have been fixed quite easily). I also let him use one of my basses when his current band recorded their last album, and that came back in pristine condition. I probably wouldn't lend him anything that was going to go on tour...

In fairness, it's better to find out what the bloke's like from his ad than ask him to join your band and find out as the weeks drag on...

Me, aged 19, walking into a Denmark Street shop to buy my first non-practice amp: I want a bass amp please Salesman: you'll want a 100w Marshall then *points to pile of second hand Marshall heads* one of these must be for bass, have a look. That's my experience of buying a bass head in 1988 in London - stacks of used Marshall valve heads for about £200. I left the shop with a 1977 Super Bass II head (and had to return to Denmark St the next week to get a cab - a Marshall 8x10 that cost me about £150 - the same as they would have charged me for the 4x12 that I was asking for, if they had one in stock). All my guitarist mates played old Marshall valve heads too, and it never occurred to us to look for anything else. Lasted me for years but took a lot of tweaking. It was one with separate "bass" and "treble" channels with four inputs which you had to daisy chain together to use both channels at the same time, and balancing the eq was far more about getting the volumes for the two channels right than using the eq knobs. Also found that someone had modded it so if you pulled out the Middle knob it added a bit of growl. Loved the sound, but not the most reliable bass ever. It blew up the week before a gig - the second time I'd had to replace the transformer - so got a Hartke in a hurry, and flogged off the Marshall. Since gone to Ampeg, which sounds much better than the Marshall ever did and has so much more control

In my personal experience it's usually the guitarist's fragile ego that gets the hump, not the drummers (though, possibly because about 60% of my bands have been with the same drummer and we're very much alike in being honest, knowing when things have gone wrong and wanting to fix them, plus being old enough mates to know how to deal with each other and criticise without making it sound like a personal attack). Best/worst one was a guitarist who, after there was any criticism or issues at a gig, whether mistakes in playing or problems with a venue, whatever, would want to calmly discuss it with the rest of the band, to make certain that we all acknowledged all of our mistakes, that he was most definitely not to blame and even if he had made the mistake or caused the problems it was certainly due to us putting him off. He never flounced out, but did have a couple of very funny, proper toddler style strops Actually, the best band I was in from the perspective of being honest about stuff that wasn't working was just brutal - we were all comfortable in telling each other what was good or bad, or suggesting that somebody play something slightly differently or re-write a part that we didn't like. It was a really good tone to set - complete brutal honesty in the studio where you could say anything, and once it had been said and resolved it was finished, and we moved on.

One of my local Amazon delivery drivers thought he'd come up with a cunning plan. My house has a paved over front garden/driveway big enough for a couple of cars, and I leave the two wheelie bins in the far corner by the pavement and the fence to next door. I've come home on a few occasions to find that the driver has left a parcel on my doorstep, but to disguise it from anybody walking past, has pulled one of the bins over, so that you can't see the parcel. however, what you can see is a wheelie bin blocking my front door, where neither I nor any of my neighbours would ever leave our bins. Basically a big flag to bring to everybody's attention to the fact that something's been left there. In fairness, I've never lost anything, and he did once catch me at home and asked if I minded him doing it (and said that he would never leave a parcel in the bins, just in case it was collection day). i suggested that a much better idea would be to leave the parcel behind the bins, rather than moving the bins to be in front of the parcel

Amazon won't charge until they have the book ready to send out

Loud Rocks is an album in a similar vein (and to my ears a better result) - great album

I hate being late for anything - I'd rather be half an hour early than five minutes late. But people who are late clearly think that being on time isn't in the least bit annoying to anybody else, and no matter how much people tell them it's really annoying, they know they're right and that the people shouting in their faces aren't really very upset at all. And there's always the laziest excuse that they think sounds plausible but is very clearly a complete lie that is fooling nobody. It's amazing how many times there are roadworks or the satnav has taken them the wrong way. It came to a head with this particular guitarist when he let slip that his tales of having to work late and not being able to commit to arrive on time (a half truth - he did a low level job in the building trade which relied on his boss offering him work by the day, so he had to work to whatever hour his boss wanted him there or might not get asked back the next day) were not quite the whole story. It turned out that rather than working until 7.00 or 8.00 and coming straight to the studio as he liked to imply, on a very late day he was in fact finishing more like 6.30 or 7.00, heading home, then taking his girlfriend to the supermarket to do the weekly shop or to pick up something for their tea, then back to their place where he put his gear in the car while she cooked his tea, which he then sat down to eat before setting off for practice. We quite loudly explained the concept of a sandwich, being more than most of us had to eat before rehearsals. he thought it was completely unreasonable of us to expect him to skip a proper cooked meal

This is exactly the issue. If people want a Thunderbird fiver then it would be nice to have the option of a Gibson one, and i have little doubt that they would sell fairly solidly, if not spectacularly. But better than their EB 5's. Why not make one that looks like a Gibson rather than a G&L knock off?

This probably sums it up. Perhaps it's a musician thing, but I've often come across band mates who do as much or as little as they please, only agree to they stuff they want, and assume that because they like it that way then everybody else must be happy. The best/worst one i had was a guitarist who was late for everything, and not five or ten minutes, but over time, one or two hours, for gigs, nights out, and almost every single week for rehearsals. This bothered all of us, particularly as the excuses for being late were so very obviously lies, but it particularly wound up the drummer who had got married and moved away, so was giving up an evening at home with his pretty new wife for the privilege (and cost) of driving 75 miles each way, sometimes kipping on my sofa and not seeing his wife for the best part of two days, and then paying for four hours of studio time of which two were spent sat around not rehearsing, waiting for the guitarist to show up. Really bending over backwards to stay in the band after moving away,. and getting nothing in return. When the drummer finally snapped and spat his dummy out, the guitarist was genuinely shocked - he couldn't believe how unreasonable the drummer was being in expecting him to get to rehearsals on time. needless to say the band didn't last much longer

not my favourite KJ albums (like rather than love them), but he is on a few that I do love, and he's also on a couple of my favourite Prong albums, in particular Cleansing