Dr.Dave

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1348843706' post='1819052'] Infinite tolerance of mediocrity and the uninspired is what makes 'live music' a dubious attraction for many. [/quote] And unfamiliarity with the entertainment provided puts off many more. If you want to educate - start by creating interest by entertaining.

[quote name='Low End Bee' timestamp='1349179271' post='1822772'] I Wish I Were Back in Olde Brentforde Towne by Ye Jetfonickf is indeed the B side Dr Dave. Here's the link to the demo [url="http://soundcloud.com/thejetsonics/the-jetsonics-cruel-lizzie-vickers"]http://soundcloud.co...-lizzie-vickers[/url] . The bass is too loud. [/quote] That's excellent - thanks for that.

[quote name='Low End Bee' timestamp='1349169931' post='1822561'] Play as many open strings as possible. Hey nonny nonny. [/quote] Then write a song that bleats on about how good the fretted notes used to be. The B side can be about how much you miss Brentford and long to go back there someday.............. even though you haven't actually gone anywhere.

Just to be a misery and upset everybody............... If the state of the economy means that we're all more likely to get on with making music with what we have rather than continually seeking to blame our tools and hankering after something 'better' - I think that's no bad thing.

I'm up front on stage - always have been. Energetic and an 'entertainer'. I don't mind eye contact as I'm not shy but sometimes worry some bruiser will take offence in the rough shitholes I play in so generally pick on an illuminated exit sign to stare at. I supppose I'm extrovert but I like time alone too. I have a measured (several times) I Q of 137 so I supppose I'm intelligent - talking bollocks is just a hobby. Beard - yes. Tattoo - not for a gold pig.

[quote name='Doddy' timestamp='1348841907' post='1819011'] Just out of interest,while many people are happy to see a singer perform with all of the music on track,how many would be satisfied to see a band perform with all of the vocals on track? [/quote] Firstly - singers with B T's don't make me happy - I just don't think they're doing much wrong if other folk are entertained by them. Secondly - a lot of 'personal appearance' type gigs are done by singers miming to their own backing tape. It wouldn;t float my boat but - again - if the punters that are there are happy , who is anyone to say it's wrong. Something being crap doesn't make it wrong.

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1348771090' post='1818051'] But you usually get a mediocre singer doing the same old....... I mnea, when was the last tme you saw Ronnie James Dio doing a BT gig in Lanzarote? [/quote] I saw a backing track bloke knock out a brilliant 'Butterfly Ball' in Puerto Del Carmen , then announce to his audience of largely non-rock fans (by the look and age of them) that if they liked the song they should ' broaden your minds - check out the late Ronnie Dio and his music' Maybe some of them did. Attack that , then !

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1348738787' post='1817487'] Missed the point. It is the difference between 'playing' the samples and having them played for you by a machine. If you start the sample and stop it in real time as part of your performance, it is no different to hitting a cymbal and stopping it; the musicians are responsible for the noise and where it occurs in the performance. If you start the tape and play along with it, and will crash and burn if you don't do exactly the same thing every time, it is no different to playing along with a Jamey Aebersold cd in your bedroom and you are a slave to it. Bores me rigid. A great example woiudl be Bill Bruford's Earthworks 'Up North' (look it up on youtube)., He is playing samples on a Simmons kit and it is a really interesting use oif the technology of the day. If the riffs he was playing were on a tape instead, that would suck. Unless I am missing something, Rush don't play along with tapes, they trigger stuff as they play, be that with a keyboard, bass pedal or whatever. I have no problem with that. But playing along with a recording that contains massive chunks of pre-recorded stuff is [cough] a bit naff, innit? Imagine going to see play where a lone actor performs his lines to a pre-recorded version of the play; a kind of 'Shakespeare Minus One'. It would suck all the life out of it. [/quote] I've not missed the point , mate. I just recognise it as a very thin one - and anyway it's an even finer line you're drawing. Cast to point - Mate of mine needed to pay the mortgage so started doing a solo guitar vocal with backing tapes. He did everything on those tapes (bar a couple of basslines I did because I was round his gaff) bass , guitars , keys , even - get this - proper miced up drums. Alll recorded in his garage with his own studio gear. Just to put the icing on - he even did a couple of tunes he wrote himself , and thereby took some of his own music to an audience he could never have reached otherwise. Because of th money he made he was able to continue writing and recording his own songs. What's he done wrong?? What's he done that makes him any less of a musician? What he's done is make a few bob by entertaining more folk than he normally does!! You might do a double take here but I happen to agree with a lot of what you say re, covers bands , trib bands , and now this. I totally respect your consistent line which is always to encourage new music - art rather than craft. Can't see how anyone could knock that. Trouble is , you tend to do it by discouraging other forms of entertainment and I can't - for the life of me - see why.

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1348665280' post='1816633'] The difference is that, unless they have changed since I last looked, it is all played/triggered in real time and not a button pressed at the start of the track and then played along to verbatum until it finishes. [/quote] Ahhhhhhhhh....... now I get it. It's not the button's marked 'start' you object to , it's just the one's marked 'play' !!

My thumb tends to rest on the pup or on the E string (if I'm playing on the D or G) a lot of the time. It spends just as much time floating about , or more accurately pratting about in some silly show off pose or other. I don't 'need' to anchor to play OK , if that's the question being asked. I'm not really bothered where it goes. My left hand is allergic to staying on the neck when I play open strings so moves off and waves about - holds mic stands - throws even more ridiculous posy shapes etc etc. Even for an odd couple of notes. Insecurity I suppose , thinking that the punters will think I'm 'pretending'. Silly because they generally wouldn't know - or care - if I was playing it with my ear lobes

Fair play to anyone trying new ways to make music. Personally........... Nige - I promise you , if ever I get given one it's yours the same day

[quote name='BottomE' timestamp='1348579062' post='1815431'] There may be a case for taking some kind of legal action against the venue when the acts are described as "Live Music". Some of these duos must be using about 80% tapes/midi files and actually playing only 20% of what you can hear. Maybe a trading standards issue? Fasle description? Not fit for purpose. [/quote] Don't agree with that. Even 20% is enough to differentiate between somebody playing/singing and a bloody D J , karaoke or piped music etc. Besides - a 4 piece band might be using a recorded synth part and a click track or similar , where would you draw the line? Someone's in a bar singing live and playing a guitar. That's live music. The backing tapes are on top of that. I wouldn't stay and watch but that's just me. As a description of the entertainment going on inside a blackboard by the door saying 'live music' seems OK to me. Most I've seen also show a poster of a fat tosser in a sparkly jacket with a jason king moustache and 'Saint' put in front of there surname so I don't think anybody would be confused by what they're getting.

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1348577051' post='1815392'] I guess its also about the environment. Lanzarote is probably going to attract a certain type of customer [/quote] It does. They're called 'holidaymakers'. Ignorant , philistine plebs , obviously ! Be so much better to walk into a bar on your jollys and find 7 miserable old tossers in leather elbow patches playing moondance for 3 hours with their back to the audience , applauding each others extended solos mid song and looking really pleased with themselves!

I wouldn't watch a backing tape gig and I wouldn't watch public karaoke which I think backing tape gigs encourage. Not interested. Having said that - when I get to 55 , if my employers will let me go early , we'll be off to live in the Canaries where I'd quite happily consider doing a backing tape in a bar gig once a week or so to supplement my pension and keep my hand in. I expect my current stage persona would have to go...... 'Now then , you sad crowd of cnuts' etc. Might not go down well with the grey euro mob !!

[quote name='MacDaddy' timestamp='1348248368' post='1811471'] They even had Old Peculiar on tap - dangerous for a school night! [/quote] A pedantic northern gobsh*te writes..................... What they had was Old PeculiEr - not PeculiAr. The A version meaning particular or strange , the E version denoting an area containing places of worship. Thus Old Peculier is named for the ancient parish of Masham.

[quote name='chrismuzz' timestamp='1348413725' post='1813300'] I think the best idea would be to have the nut made from the same material as the frets so that it all sounds the same... [/quote] Go one stage further and choose an instrument with a 'false' fret. Should play and sound the same.

Brass for me , on my 73 Precision. I bought the bass in 1978 and my Dad made it for me a couple of years later out of a yale lock he got off a building site bog door. He used my old strings as makeshift 'files' to fine finish the slots to the correct width (a procedure I've copied with other nuts since). Took him hours. No more Dr Dad , I'm sad to say. But it's my most precious musical item. You can burn the bass for all I care so long as I get the nut.

Damp squib in Leeds getting damper - so we we unleashed our secret weapon halfway through the 2nd set. Mustang Sally - the tune so collectively hated by us snobby musicians. 3 lookers straight up on stage to be backing singers ......... morphed the ending into Lulu's 'Shout'................... place went mental. Back into our regular rocking set with our newly found audience still going nuts all the way to the end and screaming for more. Lesson to be learned , folks.

I think what you're talking about is a life issue rather than just a musical one. Older folk do seem to diss the young's abilities a bit. As a gigging non youngster though , I get the other side of the coin. We've even been told that when we were seen earlier setting up gear that the punters thought we were the band's Dads !! I tend to not worry about it too much and remind myself of the tale of the two bulls. One old and one young. 'See those cows over in that field' says the young bull. 'Let's charge over and shag a couple'. 'No' says the old bull. 'Let's stroll over and shag the lot'.

This thread's awesome.

I don't worry about stuff like this because I long since realised that your average joe or joanne knows very little about music and particularly the way it's made - and they don't want to know, They're happily ignorant. I could get upset about that or I could get on with what I'm doing and to hell with them. I choose the latter. Respect only your audience's reaction to what you do - don't make the mistake of ever respecting their knowledge or judgement. Not ever. I also think that many bass players revel in being the down trodden forgotten man who stands at the back. They like to moan about their lot while blaming others for putting them down. I've no respect for that either.

Thing about desert islands is there's nobdy there , so it'd be a Precision wothout doubt. If it was a funny desert island , though , where I was playing gigs in different bands - all playing different types of music - where versatility took priority over personal taste - I'd have a Jazz.

The thing is - there are some members of the population that go to work all week then it gets to the weekend and they want to be entertained - not educated. They want to go to a boozer - have a few pints and watch a band do stuff they're familiar with. Sometimes that might be a straight trib band - a covers band - a fat bastard that insults them and takes the piss while bludgeoning well known tunes into all sorts of strange shapes (not that I know anyone who does that!!)......... That doesn't mean they can;t go see a play the following day - or visit an art gallery - or listen to a CD someone gave them of a new band - or go see another covers band. Folk are allowed to do what they want - it does not detract from what anyone else is trying to do. It does - however - seem to give some folk an excuse as to why there's nobody in their audience. Besides - something I'd impress on young bands in particular - Playing other people's music is a good way to see if your skills are developing enough to be able to recreate your original ideas with a degree of competence. You can't bend or push the rules unless you know them first.

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1346833363' post='1793675'] I'm going to write a tribute novel.... 'In a hole in the ground there lived a Boggit. Not a rotton, muddy, wet hole full of the ends of caterpillars and a mouldy smell, nor yet a arid, empty, dusty hole with nothing in it to lie down on or to drink: This was a Boggit hole and that means luxury. It had a square door like a cupboard, painted yellow, with a shiny, green copper knob on the side. THe door opened onto a wide, long hallway with half-panelled walls and floorboards provided with sturdy chairs and one peg for the Boggit's hat and coat - the Boggit hated visitors'. You wouldn't would you? [/quote] Now now - we've talked about you and your childrens books......! Besides - the LOTR has been tribbed , it's called Star Wars.

[quote name='lowdowner' timestamp='1346784167' post='1793241'] Ouch! that's incredibly down-feeling (but probably true) enjoy it whilst you can huh? [/quote] Sorry - I'd been listening to Leonard Cohen !