Twigman

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='465194' date='Apr 17 2009, 04:17 PM']I dunno, costs me £18 every rehearsal.[/quote] Yep not cheap - we pay £13 per hour for ours (including backline).

[quote name='escholl' post='465156' date='Apr 17 2009, 03:48 PM']anyone who's in the originals scene just to make money is doing it for all the wrong reasons anyways. but if you're not in it to make money but just to do something you love, why are you so concerned about making money anyways? surely it's more important to you that your music should bring happiness into other peoples lives? it is to me, at least.[/quote] I find we are making more money now than we were in the late 80s when we were regularly putting out albums and touring. [quote name='escholl' post='465156' date='Apr 17 2009, 03:48 PM']this is a decade old argument now but it's my firm belief that free downloads have not hurt the industry -- it's just given them an excuse to whine about it because they're too stubborn to change their ways. they had it so good for so long, and now the power has been put back in the hands of the audience they don't like it.[/quote] It has definitely [i]helped[/i] us by allowing our music to reach a far wider audience. Our label in the 80s - Midnight Music had a very poor marketing strategy which severely limited our exposure..now we are on Cherry Red who are a little more clued up but we, ourselves, are embracing the interweb and getting more work directly as a result. [quote name='escholl' post='465156' date='Apr 17 2009, 03:48 PM']as far as the prices paid for an all day festival, well, that's nothing to do with the internet, is it? the fact is, if your music is freely available, more people will listen to it. and the more people that listen to it, the more people who will see you live. and want to buy your cd. and your stuff.[/quote]Potentially the fees for playing at the more high profile festivals are sky high. The pyramid stage at Glastonbury pays up to £250k for a set..........and that's only the 2nd stage, not the main stage. Not that we'd ever get to headline the pyramid @ Glastonbury - in fact getting a slot at all is proving very difficult if not impossible. That said we've never had it so good.

I've had my Squier JV 62 Precision for 26 years now - I love it.....but that's not really a Squier is it?

[quote name='Huggy and the Bears' post='464835' date='Apr 17 2009, 11:28 AM']Any ideas???[/quote] Hire proper rehearsal facilities. My next door neighbour used to let a local kids' band rehearse in his huge shed but although I applauded him supporting a local kids' band, it was most annoying living next door.

A different angle!!

[quote name='OldGit' post='464176' date='Apr 16 2009, 05:26 PM'][url="http://www.garageband.com/song?%7Cpe1%7CS8LTM0LdsaSgYlG3Zm0"]Too late ...[/url][/quote] Or even Deadmau5 [url="http://www.deadmau5.com/"]http://www.deadmau5.com/[/url]

Some observations on todays music 'scene'... Those of us old enough to remember vinyl records lived through the golden age of DJ tune selection. Every record in your box had its own sleeve, some with a picture, some without. But vinyl records had hundreds of memory tags which helped you remember the tune, from the picture to the type faces used, the finish of the cardboard to the width of the spine. Even the memory of when you bought it, where you bought it, from, why you bought it, what you did to the record after you got it (tore the edge off the sleeve, put your coffee cup on the sleeve) and where you put it in your record box helped you remember it. And if you played it a lot the actual record itself would become lodged in your memory; the weight and colour of the vinyl, the groove pattern, the label, your fingerprints. And, of course, the artist and the title of the track would help as well. But there were many occasions where you could remember the tune but not remember the artist or title: you had a more complicated memory of the track, but a useable one nonetheless when it came to pulling it out at the right moment in your set. In many respects the artist name and song title weren't critical. But now they are. Nowadays they are often all we have. What strikes me in this age of downloaded digital music, is how hard it is to remember tracks from just the artist name and track title, especially given the increase in how many tracks you get sent or buy. And this is made more difficult because people are using the same rules for artist names and song titles that they used when records came in cardboard sleeves with unique cover art. Its OK to call yourself Unchallenged Emotion and call your track Monday Morning if you had some fancy logo or photo on the record that made those things come to life. But if all we have to go on is a line of text in iTunes or Beatport, what chance have we got to form some kind of emotional attachment to you or your track? What makes it all the more maddening to me is when there is a very memorable part of the track, maybe even the main hook, that doesn't get used as the track name. "Oh I know that one, its got the girl saying "Save Me" in it." Why isn't it called "Save Me" then? In the good old days it was considered a little crass sometimes to be obvious about your song titles. (Song 2? "Whoo-hooo"?) But these days, you have to be obvious, surely. With so little difference between one downloaded file and another, you have to work even harder to get noticed and be remembered. Things have changed. So, if I may be so bold I'd like to make a couple of suggestions: feel free to ignore them as I haven't convinced myself I know the full solution to the problem at all. The first is to think about using your real name as your artist name, if you are a solo act, and not pick some meaningless name from the online artist name generator that I'm sure exists out there that come up with crap like "Unaffected Electricity", "Truncated Toiletries" or "Conjugated Verb". If it is meaningless to you it is certainly meaningless to everyone else, and people tend to forget things that are meaningless. If you don't want to use your real name, come up with something memorable, something that instantly conveys something visual or emotional or both, like, er, Dead Mouse. And the second thing is to think long and hard about what the track should be called. In almost every example the song file is not your best bet ("Wednesday Doodle") as it will mean a lot to you but nothing to everyone else. I'd say the main hook, or some other signature element ("Pjiano") may give you some good ideas, and certainly if there's a vocal stab, however brief, seriously think about naming the track after that, no matter how late it entered proceedings. There's nothing new in any of this, by the way. Take a listen to "Footsteps In Snow" by Debussy. I'm sure in this case the song title came before the music, but the point is they are one and the same. It does exactly what it says on the tin. On the other hand I'm sure I've heard Chopin's "Op 15, #3, Lento in G min" but I'm buggered if I can remember how it goes.

Having now gigged with this lead can I add that it is easily caught up in my right foot and it was really annoying that I kept having to sweep it away..it seemed to want to tie me in knots.....I think it's because it is so thick...it really won't do as it is told.

[quote name='EssentialTension' post='463818' date='Apr 16 2009, 12:09 PM']Fields? You were lucky. We only had uncleared forests.[/quote] Uncleared forests? You were lucky. We only had molten rock and lava...not even the primordial soup.

I used to play with a pick on some of our songs. I find I can play much more quickly with a pick and when playing 32nd (4/4) or 24th (6/8) notes is a lot lot easier with a pick. However recently I have suffered an injury to my neck which has caused a nerve problem which has made the ring finger and little finger on my right hand completely numb. This means I no longer have any grip strength in my right hand and can't actually hold a pick with a firm enough grip to pluck the strings! - This means I've been forced to translate the picked songs to fingers which I'm finding tough when fast playing is called for....

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[quote name='4000' post='463647' date='Apr 16 2009, 08:45 AM']What I find depressing is the complete lack of availability of gigs for originals bands, certainly in our area. We're averaging about a gig a year these days, which is pathetic.[/quote] We have not played in the UK for 20 odd years. They're still mad for original bands in Italy and Spain and Greece etc and they pay well too.

[quote name='AM1' post='463379' date='Apr 15 2009, 08:46 PM']Yeah - as the question goes, is the music scene at an all time low?? Online downloading just seems to have killed off bands making money and even touring bands are not exactly rolling in it.[/quote] I disagree.....after years in the doldrums, the internet has opened us up to whole new audiences and we are touring again after many years off. If it wasn't for the internet we'd be sucking on our pipes and donning our comfy slippers rather than jetting off round europe to 'entertain' a whole new generation of manic depressive teenagers!!!

[url="http://www.trace-elliot.co.uk/pop_product.php?flag=GB&lan=UK&key=2701"]http://www.trace-elliot.co.uk/pop_product....UK&key=2701[/url] Hmmm So how do they sound?

On my recent trip to Italy: I used a Mark Bass Head with an Ampeg 4x10 cab in Rome - I didn't get on with this. and a lovely Ampeg head with a SWR 4 x 10 cab in Vicenza - I liked this a lot. In Athens I am told I will have a Trace Elliot 1215V 1x15 combo. Tell me about them.

So that's 3 different punters so far......

We're all over Youtube!!!!! HURRAH!

[quote name='Twigman' post='455536' date='Apr 6 2009, 03:09 PM'] We leave tomorrow. Getting excited already and we're not on stage 'til Friday!![/quote] Leg 1 complete Rome was so so - all rather disorganised and we were severely stressed but Vicenza was FANTASTIC

[quote name='Skybone' post='455504' date='Apr 6 2009, 02:40 PM']maybe you could pay for someone to stand somewhere off stage and be your "Pick Monkey". [/quote] This sounds like a goer.

We leave tomorrow. Getting excited already and we're not on stage 'til Friday!!

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[quote name='KevB' post='455171' date='Apr 6 2009, 09:47 AM']On a jazz or a precision it is usually in the top of the scratchplate.[/quote] Aye that is how my precision plate got badly warped..I'm looking for another solution. I reckon a few blu-tacked somehwere might mean there's one not fallen off by the time I need one.

[quote name='bremen' post='455162' date='Apr 6 2009, 09:41 AM']Blu-tak[/quote] I never thought of that.....hmmm

[quote name='EdwardHimself' post='455158' date='Apr 6 2009, 09:35 AM']That's quite amazing, you have a keyboard AND a bass player?[/quote] You taking the mick?