Monkey Steve

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1497476666' post='3318597'] Rime of the ancient mariner!!! that's 13-14min right there in a single song You can add Alexander The Great at nearly 9 minutes, and Hallowed Be Thy Name which is almost 8 minutes... "hey, it's just 3 Iron Maiden songs" [/quote] the irony was that after splitting than band up (I told the lead guitarist in question that I'd had enough of him and was quitting when unbeknownst to me the drummer had sacked him the previous night) the drummer, singer and rhythm guitarist (basically everybody except me and the lead guitarist) formed a Maiden tribute band and didn't ask him to join! If he hadn't been such a tool he could have been in the band of his dreams. Sometimes Karma really bites you in the backside

I've only used Discogs as a buyer so don't know what they are like as a seller, but for valuations they are good, as is eBay - just search and see what others are selling for. My experience of selling old vinyl (had a clear out a few years ago) tends to be a bit like selling an old bass to a shop - they have to make a profit so you're lucky to get half of what it's actually worth, and from the experience of mates who did the same, some places have a very low rate per record when you are selling in bulk. Handy if you are getting rid of a load of stuff and/or need the cash in a hurry, but if you're not in a rush then you can get a significantly better price for anything of real value by flogging it yourself. If you do want to look for a dealer to take it all, one place that does specialise in buying metal is here: http://www.vinyltap.co.uk/sell-vinyl-records

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1497276823' post='3316954'] I agree... I think the selection has to have a broad appeal for it to work. But I hope there are satisfactory ways to compromise. I liked the method suggested above, where the songs chosen came from well known bands and the songs themselves were well known, just maybe not the top "hit" but the second... something that will still be instantly recognised and liked, but not always the most obvious song that everybody does. [/quote] funnily enough song selection was one of the key points that ultimately put paid to the band of mine that did this. Not from the audience - the No Paranoid rule was always well received - but from one particular band member who only wanted to play Iron Maiden or Cult songs because that's all he listened to in the '80's so he couldn't conceive that anybody might recognise songs by, say, Motorhead or Judas Priest. He'd spend whole rehearsals arguing that rather than Bomber, which clearly nobody would recognise, we should add Rime Of The Ancient Mariner to the other five Maiden songs that we already knew because you can never have too many and it's good to have spares and to be able to rotate them. And he was quite serious. When I told him that I wasn't going to learn another Maiden song he accepted it in very poor grace and came up with another Cult song that we could do as we only had three on those and our imaginary audience would love them.

i had a great time, and I've found before that the line ups that don't inspire me very much tend to be the most fun as I'll spend more time wandering around listening to new stuff. Also ticked off a lot of bands that I'd heard of but didn't know their music and having done so I'm in no hurry to see them again...mostly the somewhat dull, slightly operatic "prog metal" brigade like Opeth, Coheed and Cambria and Anaethema. Didn't experience any particular sound issues with the main stage, a few windier moments but everything i watched was from right next to the mixing desk/tent and it all sounded good from there. Same on the second stage - a few moments where the wind took charge but didn't hugely affect the sound from where I was. Also noticed that when at our meeting up spot (sat at one end of the second stage field outside the Motley Brew tent, who provided tea and cakes to one of our party) there seemed to be a point about half way through the afternoon where the volume suddenly went up and you could hear the second stage sound much better wherever you were. the only one who had noticeably terrible sound was Raven's Eye (I think...there was another band called Raven Age who I didn't see, pretty sure i got the right one) where the guitar was largely absent for most of the set, like the sound man had popped to the loo and hadn't noticed that the guitar slider was at zero. Highlight for me was Prophets of Rage, with the Lounge Kittens a very close second. Honourable mentions for Slayer (back on form after a terrible, lifeless set at last year's Bloodstock), Hacktivist, Sikth (me alone in my party in liking them), Dinosaur Pile Up, Mastodon, Ministry, System of A Down and Steel Panther (though I agree about the humour getting a little dated...basically it's the same jokes they told the other times I've seen them at a festival, but they do know how to play to a massive crowd). I'll need to check the posters to remember half of the bands i saw in the tents. Best surprise of the weekend was a band we only watched because they were described as "satanic space vikings"and went to see what the hell they would be like - Kverletak (I think). Great fun, and really enjoyable.

I've flogged some spares on the event pages on Last FM before - tends to be genuine fans and people just wanting to get rid of spares at face value meeting up ahead of the gig - booking fees were typically a pint

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1496841907' post='3314230'] I was always led to believe that nickels were less bright and zingy than SS. I thought that would be a problem as I like a lot of zing. Then I started buying the Harley Benton nickels and found the difference barely noticeable! Best advice is to give some a try and see how you like them [/quote] Agreed - I find that the Pro Steels have a slight extra "zing" when they first go on but the difference between them and the nickels isn't massively noticeable, and I don't lose sleep if i can't get hold of the Steels, or if I need to change one in isolation and don't have a match

Because being in a band is better than not being in a band - at it's root just playing music with other people is better than any alternative thing to be doing with my time. I love gigging, i love rehearsal, I love drinking with band mates and shooting the breeze before/during/after gigs and rehearsals. A bit glib and reductive perhaps, and back to the OP perhaps a more interesting question would be why do you stay in a band that isn't fun?

I'm off to it, and have been a non-camping person for as long as I've been going (I did once kip in a mate's car the night before back in the Monsters of Rock days when it was one day). My mates that used to taunt me about missing out on the full festival atmosphere are now all converts to my preferred option of a hotel in Derby where there is a bus service to and from the festival each day, you have your own bathroom and somebody cooks you bacon in the morning. Too many war stories of people getting gear nicked, sleeping in puddles of mud, and generally feeling miserable after three days in the trenches when it rains. This weekend looks just as miserable weather wise so it's off to the pound shop to pick up some plastic ponchos on the way home...to be worn under what claims to be waterproof clothing but turns out not to be on days when it doesn't stop raining... OK line up this year - love System, hate Biffy Clyro so that would have been an early night had Rob Zombie not been on the second stage while they're playing. Aerosmith always seem to play on a Sunday night so whether I see them this will depend on how "festivalled out" I am after four days of relentless drinking and standing in a muddy field by then. Quite a lot I like on the under card though - Prophets of Rage, Slayer, Krokodil, Mastadon, Hacktivist, and the Lounge Kittens, and plenty to discover in the smaller tents (trickier if it does solidly rain all weekend).

a vote for D'addario for me - ideally Pro Steels but the Nickel XLs seem to do OK too. Both stay really bright for a good long time

Thin Lizzie have the odd bit of Sax on there, and I could see AC/DC It's A Long Way To The Top with sax replacing the bagpipes, and there's a lot of stuff that has horn sections on the odd song (some Aerosmith, Chili Peppers) and some that have horn sections in the band (Rocket From the Crypt, Mighty Mighty Bosstones if they're not too ska). And beyond that I reckon you can get away with new arrangements with non-original instrumentation, as long as you're doing it really well (and that's the test...). Maybe don't sell the set as being sax based and see whether the punters think it's a nice surprise... For song choice, my last covers lot were doing hard rock/metal but with an emphasis on doing stuff that wasn't cliche'd or that every other hard rock/metal covers band would do - the "No Paranoid" rule. Basically so that we wouldn't get bored, but always stuff that we thought the crowd would know. So we'd do a Metallica song but it would be Master Of Puppets rather than Enter Sandman, Neon Knights rather than Paranoid, Touch Too Much rather than Whole Lotta Rosie, etc. Specifically stuff that any punter who was going to see a metal covers lot would know and like, but didn't usually get to hear. We only ever played a handful of gigs (and split up due to lead guitarist issues when we were gearing up to make a proper push on getting gigs) but the ones we did play went down really well, and always the same feedback - "it's really nice to hear somebody playing stuff that isn't the same set that everybody else plays" So i reckon you can get away with some more unusual/less obvious song choices if the crowd are there to hear that sort of a thing in the first place. We reckoned that our audience would probably know 60-80% of what we played, and only played stuff by very well known bands - it was never "here's Meanstreak by Y&T which you won't remember but you'll love once you hear it" it was "here's a less obvious song by Anthrax or Megadeth or Iron Maiden". And we structured the set so that if there was one song that we knew would be less well known, we followed it up by a more well known one so there weren't whole passages in the evening where everybody would be scratching their heads.

used to get a couple of distinctly different varieties of this when i was in a punk covers band. Sometimes we'd get people trying to "out punk" us by asking if (having just played a set of well known punk songs that the average punter would know) we knew anything by a much more hardcore band (so we'd play the Clash & the Sex Pistols, etc and they'd ask us if we knew anything by the Exploited, etc). That was usually being cornered between sets or after the gig rather than while we were playing and that was fine, I/we never minded talking to punters when we weren't playing (and we had a bit of a reputation for being very approachable to chat after we'd played, and learning specific favourite songs if it was a wedding or a birthday, that sort of thing), and they'd usually be happy with a "no mate, we don't know any of their stuff" or an explanation that that's not what we're trying to do. The other type, which I found really tedious rather than annoying, was from people who'd seen us before telling us to play their favourite song (that they'd seen us play before) next. After a few different attempts at getting them to be less irritating ("we're not a jukebox" etc) we settled on "we might be playing it, we might not, you'll have to wait and see". Possibly a variation on "it's in the second set/encore" and it seemed to satisfy the punter that they hadn't been ignored, meant that if we were going to play the song later in the set then they'd be happy (and we could make a point of that when we introduced it) and if it had been dropped for whatever reason, well, that was fine - too late for them to get upset about it and we'd never actually committed to playing it.

[quote name='bassman7755' timestamp='1496420289' post='3311323'] And quite right too - audiences only ever notice the band noticing (frowns, reproachful looks etc), they never notice the actual mistakes. I had ban one singer from telling people stuff like "weve only practised this once so it might not go to well", not as bad as apologising for mistakes but the principal is the same: act like your totally confident and know what your doing all the time, never overtly react to things going wrong, look like your relaxed and enjoying it even if things are going to hell musically and 99% of people will not know any different. Now while people will say that this means audiences are thick/ignorant or whatever, I dont think its a simple as that - senses are related and are affected by what people are expecting. If people see a professional looking band who are enjoying themselves they will hear the song played properly even if is isnt. I know this is a powerful effect because I have on the odd occasion been in the audience for bands that I have previously played with or depped for and have never spotted the mistakes that they have moaned about afterwards - I could only tell that mistakes were being made because of the facial expressions. [/quote] Oh, I completely agree...and I know that it comes from assuming that the average punter listens to things like me and my musician mates, which of course isn't true in the slightest. Some of the stuff we messed up over the years would have me looking at the band and thinking what a bunch of amateurs, do they even know they've got that wrong or are they that incompetent? and I'd hate to think that the audience think we're that bad we don't even know we've got it wrong. I did once play with a band where at our debut gig the singer was soooo drunk (and likely not just on booze - we subsequently found out that he had a massive drugs problem, but that night he was solidly drinking on an empty stomach) that he was completely unable to sing, couldn't remember any of the lyrics and when he did manage to make some noise was doing his best dying moose impression for a few songs, before collapsing into the drum kit (a novel finale). Nobody in the band minded when I apologised to the crowd that night.

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1496409526' post='3311208'] I'm just curious. I can maybe understand the guitarists tuning down, so they can keep the same shape of chord. It would really cause me problems though, tuning my bass down. I'd be mentally transposing the line, so would end up making a complete mess of it. [/quote] No, if everybody tunes down then you're all playing the same notes on the same frets. It was all originals so there was no transposing for any other versions involved. It's not like we learned something in E and then decided to play it in D through detuning or transposing, we wrote/learned it in D, albeit that we were playing what would be an E at concert pitch. We even referred to the names of the frets rather than the names of the actual notes if that make's sense - we'd say we were playing an E even though we were actually playing a D. And when we tuned up half a step we carried on playing exactly the same thing, it just happened to now be a D# rather than a D and still looked like/we still called it an E. the rest of the band were all in established extreme metal bands (this one wasn't) and it seems to be standard practice in that field, which seems odd to me that they will all de-tune a six string to a D, or B or lower, rather than all just buying 7 string guitars. That said, I've been in other bands that have de-tuned a semi tone for the benefit of the singist, that it's easier for them to hit the notes...I genuinely can't understand this - surely they can hit all the notes in the scale so why is it easier to sing a song originally in E in D# when the next song might be originally in F which is now E? I get why one particular song might be easier in a different key, but all of them? That makes no sense. But apparently it's a thing.

for a covers crowd, as long as the choruses are in tune you can basically play anything, nobody's listening to anything else. An old punk covers band of mine, where i was playing lead guitar, used to get annoyed with me because I'd register every mistake and be grumpy that we'd stuffed something up (and I mean big, noticeable stuff, fluffed intros, missed cues, singing the chorus over the verse, messing up riffs - that sounds worse than it is, we weren't that bad but played a lot and you rack up a load of mistakes over time, especially at our enthusiastic amateurs level). they banned me from apologising on stage because nobody had ever complained or even mentioned the stuff we got wrong and correctly reasoned that what I notice as a musician who knows what everybody should have been playing isn't what a drunken crowd notice. the last gig we ever did was as a favour for a mate who was showing a load of punk films as part of a film festival with us doing a set afterwards. Almost nobody came. Not helped by it being in a room above a pub that also had a band on that night. But the half dozen people that were there were dedicated punk fans. We launch into Another Girl Another Planet and I have a complete brain fade. The song is far better known for the opening guitar solo than its chorus - it's been on loads of adverts over the years, a really epic, soaring 16 bars. To this day i can play it at the drop of a hat - in itself it's not very tricky. But that night I fluff the first note and just couldn't catch up - I cobble together something that's in the right key but it's nowhere close to the original, and the mate who's roadying for me, a very good lead guitarist who only knows me as a bass player from being in bands with him, is looking at me and shaking his head in a "you've let the band down, you've let the audience down, but most of all you've let yourself down" way. We finish the set, and i go for a chat with the sparse crowd and organiser, and mention how badly I messed up the solo. Nobody noticed anything wrong. And not a polite "don't worry about it, it's was OK *we did notice but we're being nice about it*" but rather "really,? when was that? which bit did you get wrong? sounded fine to us, just like the original" In summary, the audience are idiots and we deserve better. people who really notice when we f#ck up and hold us to account

I've always been lucky enough to join or form bands with people i know and it's always been pretty organic. having joined a new covers band a few weeks ago with people from an established originals band who are shortly to be recruiting a new bass player (there are some dots that can probably be joined here) it all came from my last band with the guitarists and singer from some other established originals bands in a particular genre (we weren't playing that stuff) and that's led to my name being in the frame whenever vacancies or new bands in that genre come up. Blue's tactic of stalking the band he wanted to join isn't that bad an idea, and where the band is spoiled for choice it is all about them knowing your name and availability, and if they've been in bands with you in the past and know that you're not a dick and can play to their standard your name should come up next time they need a bass player. I know Blue says that if his current band folds he's probably out of a job and that's it for him, but what he will have is his reputation for being a reliable bass player who's happy to play what the band require and go out every night of the week. Maybe it's different in Milwaukee but over here that would count for a lot if he's looking for something similar. Clearly this means i have absolutely nothing to add about replying to bassist wanted ads, but having tried to find other musicians for bands through ads I do feel like i should be offering a defence. there are plenty of good bands placing genuine ads, but they may not be great at selling themselves, so I'd always suggest taking what they say on face value rather than trying to second guess what they actually mean (allowing for the fact that people always over-sell themselves), but follow it up by having a chat/swapping some e-mails to get some more details. Treat it like somebody who's sent you their CV - you're just seeing whether they have the right basics but you're not going to give them a job until they've had a proper interview.

[quote name='Dan Dare' timestamp='1496343249' post='3310756'] If a singer starts in the wrong key, the band should go with him/her. The end result is what counts. Related to this, what are peoples' views on the "right/wrong" key in which to play a song? I've known some insist it has to be as the original. Surely the singer's ability/range has to be the deciding factor. Yet I've encountered people who don't feel this way. In the last band I played in, the guitarist made a big fuss because our singer wanted to sing Grapevine in B (the original is in Eb, but our singer's voice is considerably lower than Marvin's was). Seems mad to try to force someone to struggle with and mess up a song, rather than pitch it where it is most comfortable for them. [/quote] I disagree with your first statement - the singer needs to get back in tune because the rest of the band trying to work out what's happening and switching key mid tune just makes a complete mess (and some band members may not be up to transposing the song on the fly). Of course, that's not to say that the singer can get back in tune so this may not solve the problem... For changing the key of originals, I agree that it needs to work most for the singer, and i can't see why anybody would be very precious about it unless there are playing issues that can't be got round like open strings needed in chords (although, capos...). let's be honest, the chances of anybody in the audience having perfect pitch and being upset because they can hear that the tune is in a different key is simply not worth worrying about.

ooh yeah, being out of tune as opposed to in the wrong key is really painful, and you can see you're playing the correct note so clearly somebody else in the band is out of tune... As explored on another recent thread, fear of this is why I'm on the side of obsessively tuning up between songs...possibly brought into focus by a guitarist in one of my first ever bands when we were teenagers who was possibly some kind of tone deaf - he couldn't hear when his guitar was out of tune even when chords were completely and unintentionally discordant, but thought it was "sad" that people used electronic tuners rather than tuning up by ear, and having tuned up before a gig felt that he had done his job and thus no further tuning was required for the rest of the night.

[quote name='hiram.k.hackenbacker' timestamp='1496320593' post='3310472'] I found this on the notice board at my local studio. I know the owner of said establishment and he assures me it is genuine. [center][/center] [/quote] in fairness that is from a drummer, sorry, drumber, so the fact he can even hold a pencil puts him in the advanced class

[quote name='Burrito' timestamp='1496317140' post='3310424'] The best way to cover any mistake is to look disapprovingly at a random band mate and hey presto, the audience thinks they are the one who messed up. Works every time! [/quote] had a lead guitarist once who would not just glare at somebody else but go into a a complete rant at them in between songs and off stage after the gig whenever he made a mistake, sometimes even the following week at rehearsals after one of his mates had given him some poor feedback about the gig - no matter what he did wrong it was always somebody else's fault. One day he chose the wrong band member to pick on, being the drummer in both the bands that he was in at the time, who responded by telling him not to bother coming to any more rehearsals for either bands because he was sacked.

I vaguely remember something about being trapped in the era when we become adults. My grandmothers were both born during the first World War, and much like Jack's they were very old people as far back as i can remember them. Basically they dressed like the Queen Mother... My parents are both baby boomers born during the second world war, came of age during the '60's and in their mid 70's still mostly wear jeans (well, with a nod to a comfortable pair of slacks these days). I'm now in my late 40's and I can't imagine wearing anything other than jeans or combats and T-shirts when I'm not in a suit for work, at an age when my Grans were both in full Queen Mum mode.

[quote name='crez5150' timestamp='1496302043' post='3310262'] Generally I make a site visit as part of our wedding package. Meet with the client and the event organiser at the venue where you can see for yourself what you are dealing with. Questions usually arise from the visit. [/quote] Assuming it's anything other than a village hall, this. I've only ever done a couple (the bands I've been in aren't function bands but you'd be surprised at how keen men of a certain age are to have an evening of punk covers at their wedding. The brides, less so) but the venue will/should be used to this as part of the arrangements. You just need to turn up when it suits everybody, have a look around where you'll be playing to check for power sockets, etc, and ask whether they have any in house PA & lighting or whether you need to bring your own.

we are men, and thus we are basically 12 forever If you disagree, just consider your response if somebody gave you a Scalextric for your birthday - (i) a childish waste of somebody else's money or (ii) wow, brilliant? I'm guessing there aren't many (i)s

[quote name='project_c' timestamp='1496236198' post='3309777'] It's definitely an issue, I keep dropping hints but it's not working so I think I'll need to be a bit more firm with them. [/quote] Also, this.. In my experience "dropping hints" very rarely works, especially if you want them to do something that they clearly don't really fancy. They probably think that it's something funny you always say after a gig about needing to practice more (ha ha, because he thinks we're terrible, what a joker, he's never happy, etc) and they always ignore it because you never say any more about it afterwards to make the point that actually you're serious. Keep coming back to it but the first step is telling them exactly what you think about the need to practice more in a way that makes them give you an answer, and take it from there depending on what their response is.

has anyone used a Hipshot D-Tuner/extender? Not for me as I'm a confirmed five string fan, but possibly an option for someone who might only need the odd low D (or lower - I see they do one that will drop the note as low as a B...which asks the question of whether you might simply drop-tune the E string anyway and leave the rest of the strings as normal...assuming you don't mind re-learning your positions for the one string

agreed - it's a very different set of questions if you're dealing direct with a pub/club manager than if you are dealing with a promoter. Also makes a difference if it's just you playing or if there will be other bands on the night. You're on the right lines though - your main questions are to be clear on what gear you need to bring and what time you need to bring it. I'd also suggest asking about parking & loading - venues tend to be quite uninformative about the fact that they are on a dual carriageway and you'll have to lump the gear in from two miles away, or that you can park in a loading bay but will have to pay to leave your van in the multi-storey over the road while you're playing.