Stub Mandrel

OK, I'll go with 'the bass is very quiet'... certainly the lowest part of the mix, but oddly it's the part everyone remembers.

We used to do Hi Ho Silver Lining (cheesy!) and the keyboard player did the solo 🙂 More suggestions: Green Day, Cream, Grand Funk Railroad, Blink 182. Come to think of it I'd love to be in a band that did Cream and Grand Funk...

Royal Blood, White Stripes (then one of you can go to the bar during those songs)

My first audition was a joke. They gave me a tape, I had a week so I went to see my brother and he helped me more or less learn the outline of all the songs. Got there and they said that the tape was just a guide to the sort of music they were into. Two guitarists who didn't have any songs written but just vaguely jammed at random and seemed surprised that I didn't have clue what they were doing. Really dented my confidence, but in retrospect I realise they were the clueless ones, even if they could play a lot better than me. Next band were the opposite, gave me a few straightforward songs, I turned up, I wasn't perfect but they enjoyed it and that was it. Other two bands, one I just fell into as I already knew some of them. The other we met up in a pub and exchanged tapes of bands we used to be in. The audition was the guitarist teaching me the Bruce Foxton-style basslines to all his songs on his guitar. As I (to my surprise) was the first person he found who could play them, I was in. <edit> Our sound was very close to the Beautiful South, one of the few successful bands to be based around male/female vocal duettes.

The bass is almost inaudible in the original!

I think it is a myth that most audiences don't want to hear new material - certainly outside of the birthsdays/weddings/ etc. I've yet to meet someone from a covers band that doesn't say 'we slipped in a couple of our own songs and they went down surprisingly well'. Both the 'originals' bands I was in went down at least as well as the covers band I was in too.

I find it hard to sell things, it's a bit easier to give them away to someone you know will feed and care for them 🙂 I feel musical instruments are very special things, because they have a voice and also they are very tactile, like well-loved tools only more so. Sometimes they have great personal meaning - like my Epiphone acoustic I saw in a secondhand shop and paid for by my parents as a 21st birthday present. Hah! Typing this made me want to go and play my violin - I had a go at 'John Barleycorn' and it was so bad I just gave up.

Silver Lady was a low point 🙂 Tomorrow I'm having a first musical meet up for our 'band'. Slightly traumatised to see Stand by Me on the agenda... 😲

You'd think they would get in someone familiar with the song 🤣 Actually its chaotic, but they enjoy it and so does the audience, which is what matters!

Pontypines? ... Never heard of them ... Blimey! Look more like MontyPithones to me ... surely not a coincidence?

Oh dear, learnt that for the list I'm working on now along with Fortunate Son. At least it has a few different bits. <edit> strange, it does seem Creedence are better known now than they were back in the 70s/80s!

I just hope they aren't Proud Mary and Bad Moon Rising for your sake 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuZyMx2NXZM

Nice way to make money, possibly he plans to buy one if it sells? Very common on Amazon, some books of mine appeared secondhand at higher prices than new the week they came out...

Pshcho Killer was, I think, one of the first songs I rehearsed when I joined the band and was usually our favourite opener. Back in those days with no internet and little budget for tab books interpretation of bass lines was pretty loose - I don't think I heard the originals of several songs on the list before I was playing them. Oddly no one ever said 'that's not the right bassline' even when they were completely made up! I don't recall playing 'Grip' or 'money for Nothing' and looking at the ticks this might have been the list I was given when I joined and the ticks are the ones we had sorted at some point, it looks a bit long even for a double set - but we definitely did all the ones 'below the line'. I don't think it was me who chose the Strangler songs, probably Rob the keyboard player. At the time I had probably seen the Stranglers more times than any band other than Hawkwind!

You should be 🤣

Space Ritual I'm a massive Hawkwind fan, but I'm ashamed to admit I'd forgotten just how far above the bar this one is.

And are totally uninfluenced by Hawkwind -) Bob Crumb, of course.

Mixed feelings about that. If someone said to me 'to be honest I don't like the music you play, but I'll help you out' I wouldn't be upset! If they moaned publicly in a way that identified the band it would be rather unkind.

So's Apocalypse in 9/8, but perhaps a bit more interesting to play...

Bonus points for the smiley!

In mitigation there was a lot less to choose from in 1987!

Not particularly obscure, but for some reason I love this one:

Make sure he gets physio as soon in the process as possible and if they offer an operation take it. Also for a musician, they should be setting it at an angle which will give him enough movement to be able to play, even if he loses quite a bit of motion. My wife broke her wrist 18 months ago and it still isn't and won't ever be right 😞 after a month or so they said 'this really should have been operated on straight away'... She'll never play the piano again (not that she could before...)

Great to see a chair that looks fun - I'd be worried all the other kids will want a go. Back in the 70s when I was in the scouts one of the lads had SB, he got around on crutches and never missed out on anything other than the most physical of activities (like football) he was good at sailing and canoeing and no one cut him any slack. With modern treatment I'm sure things will go great for Iris. 🙂