Stub Mandrel

Not sure I'm ready for Won't Get Fooled Again - I've just watched the isolated bass live version 😲

I've changed the thread title, 🙂 This is the current shortlist for the 'weekend warriors' event I'm doing. We will probably end up doing five. Stay with me Feel like making love Living after midnight Going back home Custard pie Sgt Pepper Boulevard of broken dreams Won't get fooled again Crazy little thing called love Have you ever seen the rain

Guilty secret? I'm really not sure anyone should risk listening to this, my first band practising about 1988, recorded on a ghetto blaster thirty feet from the stage in the huge empty hall at Kenfig Hill Labour Club.

MY mum made me write down all the words to that one, playing it over and again on my little blue and white battery powered record player. Why has he got blue plectrums stuck to his shirt?

Had a first session with the drummer and one guitarist today 🙂 We managed to make a basic showing of most of the songs we had lined up and a couple were within reach of decent. Main thing is we all seem to have a very similar attitude - we all brought 'ordinary' comfy instruments rather than the flashest kit, all happy to play at ridiculously low volume, same taste in music, and all prepared. I did need to here a few things played back to get the groove right, but more practice will sort that. We even managed stay with me which sounded half decent once we realised we were playing it far too fast. Found it very easy to jam along together - my ear is much better than it was, I never used to be able to drop into the right key so easily - that's what practising to the radio does for you! Now, where's the spandex?

My brother bought that when it came out, smuggled past Mum and only played when both parents were out 🙂 Probably still owns the f-bomb record, the whole hip-hop canon not withstanding.

Edith Piaf makes me want to strangle myself with my own intestines... give me Planet Rock any day 🙂

I never realised how much Billy Fury looked like Paul Gambacini.

During an interview with Spinner UK, King was asked if he had any favorite cover versions of this song. He replied: "...And, of course, the one that held up in my head the most was John Lennon's version. He took it and made it as if it should have been his song as opposed to mine."

Back in the early 90s I played loads of pub + small club gigs all original material. All-cover and tribute bands were much less common. Perhaps expectations were different then?

If all else fails, there's always a foil wrapped zucchini.

I find this really sad if it's true. I don't think it's self-indulgent to perform your own material even if you aren't the beatles.

Moment of inspiration... I'm sitting here designing a scratchplate for an electric ukulele (sorry!) playing with bits of paper and wondering hoe to get a nice shape taht fits ona broken P-scratchplate. The top horn just won't fit and look nice. DOH! The solution was literally staring me in the face 🙂

I'll coem and take it away for a small fee if you really don't want it 🙂 BTW it's a Burns and it's giving me GAS!

I wonder if there's a market for a Spinal Tap tribute? There are more than a few people out there who secretly think Stonehenge is a true classic 🙂

Only so they don't have to use Edge.

I've hit a raw nerve with this one. Surely it's Ben E. King's vocals that make the song. I really don't see what's so special about the bassline, just a simple walking line like the joggers in the park that go round and round and round...

It's normal size here whenever it appears.

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.