TimR

We did a gig a few weeks ago with a dep drummer who didn't make eye contact. Ending songs, and altering tempo when we had started too fast or too slow was nigh on impossible.

I suspect they have other arrangements in place to compensate. I think Stevie Wonder is the band leader and everyone will be taking virtual clues off him. Plus I suspect everyone is listening extra hard to what everyone else is playing. Not making eye contact indicates to me that they aren't aware of anyone else in the band.

That shouldn't matter to anyone. The band should carry on regardless and the audience certainly shouldn't see any facial expressions indicating something is amiss.

Don't play with musicians who don't make eye contact. How does that even work? It's essential.

But at the same time, I think it's valid to ask, what would the Beatles sound like and what would they'd have done if they had access samplers and pro-tools. I think there's a line.

Never assume you're in, you can be chucked out of a band, or the others can shut the band down and start it up again the next day with the exact same members, songs, but with a new bass player and new name. Well, not even always a new name.

The only problem with adding things to boring songs, is they often end up a complete mess. They're only boring to play, non-musicians, listening and dancing (and buying the original) obviously have a different opinion.

Sometimes you can be joining a band in a transitional phase. Not always a bad thing, could be an opportunity to put your stamp on things. I'd stick around for a few rehearsals to get the feel of the dynamic as just because you've been sent one communication from one person, doesn't mean they hold all the cards.

I have no idea what a Capo does. Bit I also have come across a load of guitarists who call an Ab a G# regardless of the key and plenty who don't know the difference between a major or a minor chord. As long as they tell you what key you're in that should do. But might be worth doing a lot of ear training so you can hear intervals quickly.

I've always found it a bit odd that people only have one band and don't play in side projects for fear of upsetting the rest of the band, or are upset when a member of the band plays with another band. I'm always up front with bands I join. I will be paying with other people and doing dep work, if we are not practicing or have a gig booked.

Which is why it's important that everyone knows the score. She can then make up her own mind whether to hang around waiting for the drummer and risk you guys having moved on, or find another project. Ultimately, are you actually considering going back or not? If you're not, then don't mess people around. They'll have long memories and people talk.

I'd suggest that you tell the drummer the rest of you are going to work on another seperate project in the mean time and ask him to contact you when he's ready to gig. Then no one is leaving, kicking anyone out or holding anyone back.

If the B sounds dead and the others sound OK, I'd look at reasons for that. I don't think strings lose much if you're not playing the bass much. Buying singles isn't particularly easy for Bass, or at least that's my experience.

Our singer had to leave in 2019. We had been playing classic 'Dad Rock', David Bowie, Rolling Stones, Led Zepplin, Jimi Hendrix etc. We now have a girl singer who is around 20 years younger than us. Gone are all the old songs that no one danced to, we have learned (with a lot of leaning persuasion on the guitarist) a load of tracks by Pink and similar artists. They're fun and take quite a bit of arrangement to make sound good on Guitar and Bass. Lots of the tracks are keyboard and strings heavy on the originals. We have a younger audience now who get up and dance and gigs are falling into our laps, and the music isn't that hard to play, just takes some work to arrange them. It makes a change.

Yes. Sounds to me though that the rest of the band don't have very good ears. Especially if the drummer is playing inappropriate fills. They're probably more interested in what they're playing individually than fitting in with the rest of the band.

What do they change?

You should have a good listen to some talking heads tracks. Tina Weymouth is a monster player. Their tracks have incredible groove and the interplay with the drums is what makes it more complicated than it initially sounds.

I'm just wondering how the mechanic will react when I next take my car to a service. "Have you got the key to your locking wheel nuts sir?" "Well actually, I think youll find they're locking wheel set screws." I'm just writing to VAG right now to ask them to update their owners manual...

There's no unthreaded portion.

Seems you can't generalise between screws and bolts because there are so many types. I would have said bolts go into nuts and set screws and machine screws are specific variations of bolts that go into already threaded material. With a normal 'screw' like a self tapping screw, wood screw, plasterboard screw, etc screwing directly into unthreaded material. The machine 'screws' that hold my wheels onto the hubs on my car, are somewhat confusingly commonly known as wheel nuts. It's odd for engineers to be so loose with definitions.

Machine screws.

You'd struggle to find an M8 screw.

@AndyTravis you can play any tune that has chords, a melody (and a vocal line), with any ensemble of musicians. I will never understand 'musicians' who won't play a song because the band doesn't have the same instrumentation as the 'original'.

Probably a blessing in disguise.

No straw man you specifically stated a peanut was a nut. And you said you'd seen 'may contain peanuts on a bag of peanuts'. The wording of a packet of peanuts says 'warning may contain nuts'. It may also contain warnings about oils used in the production like sesame seed oils. It's irrelevant what the technical class of nut is. If the general public buy a bag of mixed nuts to eat, they won't be expecting acorns and conkers.