Muzz

Completely agree - see my moan/rant about last Friday in the Who Did You See Live Last? thread...tho the main ars*holes were two blokes in their sixties...

My other half and I go to gigs pretty regularly, but always at the bottom end of the price/venue market - luckily, there's some really good bands out there touring that you can see for £20 or less. She/we have a group of friends who are even keener on live music, and they loop us in on stuff we might've not noticed. Whenever a ping comes through to hershe'll ask 'Do you want to go to see xxxxx?', my first response (in order) is 'How much and where?' We've found Twickets to be a great resource for cheaper tickets, too: for example, we went to see Larkin Poe last Friday for £20 each, when the cover price of the tickets was £38 I've moaned before about big stadium stuff and how much I don't like it (at one point we'd walked out of about five or six on the trot as it was a pointless exercise), but the smaller gigs are newer bands, they're hungrier and more enthusiastic (and generally not creaky old geezers) and the experience is just so much better. We'll look at a gig, then go listen to the band and decide if we'll give them a try, we've discovered some great new (and new to us) bands this way. The Picturedrome in Holmfirth is my favourite venue; good sound, rarely too loud, free parking, you can find a bar that isn't four deep, and I don't think we've paid more than £25 to go see anyone there. The price of tickets is what you pay for giving Spotify a tenner a month to listen to anything you want, while the artists get very very little of that. Then there's Ticketmaster/Live Nation, who have sewn up all the big venues and cranked up all the prices...again, the artists see a small percentage of that...

Yeah, it didn't help him all that much; we played it down at the time, but he was very frustrated at school because he assimilates things very fast indeed, and then was pretty much coasting (and was bullied badly for that), which didn't help again with his first year at Uni, when suddenly he had to change his methodology and his coasting plan didn't work any more, and his reduced ability to concentrate and slog through a subject he's not gripped by was an issue. He's adjusted OK though (he'll be doing his Masters next year, and is making terrible noises about a PhD after that), but very high intelligence isn't, as you say, the boon some might think it is. Wisdom is the most useful side of thinking, but no-one's born with it, and it takes years of experience to accumulate... As they say 'Intelligence is knowing tomatoes are a fruit, wisdom is knowing they don't go in a trifle'. I spent most of my time with him growing up focussing on that side of things...

My lad did a Mensa Test (the proper one where you book in and attend, not something shonky off the internet) at 12 (he'd been mithering me for a while, so I took him down one Saturday), and that's always described as an 'intellgence test'. He got his results back (with an invite for Mensa membership) and scored 162 on the Stanford Binet, which is pretty much off the scale, so on paper he's very very very intelligent indeed. In the real world, however, I wouldn't trust him to sit the right way round on a khazi three out of four tries, he's as daft as a brush 90% of the time. There's definitely a limit to the usefulness of some 'intelligence'...

Larkin Poe Friday night at the big Academy, and one of the most accomplished gigs I've ever seen. Wasn't over-familiar with the material, bu it didn't really matter, just a joy to see that level of effortless-looking musicianship. The sound was very good, and I didn't even need my attenuators for most of it (obviously the levels went up towards the last four or five songs, so I slipped them in for that, but I hadn't needed them prior), especially for the half-dozen bluegrass songs done around a single mic with acoustic instruments only...which brings me to a bugbear of mine: people who pay good money for concert tickets and then yak ALL THE TIME. I moved twice, once away from a pair of old farts propping up the bar not even facing the stage who were clearly half-deaf, judging by the volume of their conversation: there's a bar just outside the concert space where they could have had this essential conversation AND still heard the band, but nope, despite a good deal of shushing (especially during the very quiet bluegrass section) from various people they just battered on oblivious. My other half stopped me going over to them to point out (in short sentences) their massive lack of consideration, we just moved, unfortunately by a couple who were clearly on an early date, sadly the bloke couldn't stop himself parping on every ten seconds, to the decreasing delight of his paramour. I was taken by the arm and we moved again, and all was well. TLDR: if you like something very, very polished and accomplished from Nashville, Larkin Poe get a big thumbs-up from me...

A couple of weeks late (I've been on holiday), but...went to see Florence Black at the Academy in Manchester with some friends. I wasn't massively familiar with their stuff (my friends were the fans), but they were supported by the Virgin Marys, another one of those financially-advantageous two-piece bands...I should, as a bassist, be fundamentally opposed to bands without bassists, but they were OK: not as good as The Bonnevilles, but better than Royal Blood, at least for me. To the headliners; straightforward rock trio, and after hearing how low they were (not volume, see later) and watching the two at the front checking their tuning after every song, I looked up their tuning, and they have songs where the (4-string, mostly Stingray) bass is in Drop A...not doom-y in sound, just rock played very low and...very loud. Very, very loud. Honestly, probably the loudest band I've seen at the Academy, I was sooooo glad I had my attenuators in; I popped one out halfway through, just to check, and it felt like I'd had an ice pick kicked into my ear. I'd probably go and see them again, but I'd be hoping they back it off by about 10db... Larkin Poe tomorrow night, I'm looking forward to that...as long as they're not at 125db all over the room...I doubt it, tho...

Ahhhh, NYE...generally ours have been positive, even better when the DJ says 'Can you finish and be off for 11:45 so I can do the countdown?' Of courrrrrse we can... 🙂 We did have one disaster, thanks to a promoter who we didn't use again (amazingly, that can be a two-way street), when we turned up to a £25 ticketed do at a Working Man's/Liberal/Con/Labour Club*, and by 'we' I mean our guitar/acoustic trio doing all sorts of stuff, to be greeted by the landlord/sec with a cheery 'Where's the f*cking rest of you?'. After explaining I was considered medically complete he informed us, with furious gesticulations at the promo signage, that he'd booked a 7-piece soul band, and the sellout crowd was expecting that. Attempts were made by both parties to contact said promoter (we hadn't had any contact directly with the landlord, so it was very clear who was to blame) but unsurprisingly he wasn't answering his phone. We set up and gave it a go for the first set, but it became immediately obvious that by the time drink had flowed in any greater quantity we'd be needing chicken wire a la Blues Brothers, and the DJ saved much further pain, embarassment and possibly violence by saying 'Pack up and get out, lads; I'll take it from here.' We were packed down and out the door by about ten. When we finally got hold of the promoter days later he was so embarassed (presumably after a biblical bollocking by the landlord) that he actually paid us in full. One consolation on the night (other than the early finish) was the thought that somewhere a small pub was, presumably delightedly, squeezing in a 7-piece soul band they hadn't booked... * I forget the exact flavour, but uniquely it was less than a mile from my house at the time...swings, roundabouts...

I've been on the other end of that - a friend's wedding, her Dad was paying, so it was a big country house hotel, verrrr posh, but he'd also booked a Jazz band, because he liked jazz. We all buggered off outside (some of us even crashed the wedding in the other wing, because it looked great) and stayed there, while her Dad, her Mum and a couple of their friends stayed in the room and tapped their feet.

Ohhhh, bad weddings...I'd forgotten about them. The absolute worst, because you feel for the couple, even though there's always a back story to a very bad one. We played one once where the couple and their immediate families (about a dozen of them) had gone to get married in NY's Central Park, then hired a real hole of a place for the cheapest evening reception they could. Terrible food, but big B&W pictures around the place of The Chosen Few all looking delighted in the US for the actual wedding. You could taste the resentment in the room. The 50 or so people other than the immediates were all on their phones the entire first set, then when the rubbish food came out, they all buggered off, leaving about 15 people. We were paid off and never did the second set. Still, it was full money and a very early finish, and luckily quite local...

The first warning sign is if the landlord/bar staff tell you when you're loading in 'It's quiet tonight, it must be because (select the excuse of your choice here ) it's just before payday/it was packed for the footy last night/everyone's on holiday/etc', at that point you brace for single-figure crowds. The real kicker is when you empty the place...or the place empties while you're on. You can tell yourself there's lots of reasons, but it still stings. I always cyber-stalk the venue beforehand, and if 90% of their social posts are about the food or the footy, it's gonna be an uphill struggle...one such place was where we played two weeks ago to the singer's girlfriend and one punter (the other dozen or so punters were down the other end of the pub in the pool room), I went and sat with the punter in the second half (the joys of wireless), introduced him to the singer's girlfriend and we asked him if he had any requests (not something we normally tolerate, but we felt obliged because he sat there all night and seemed to be enjoying himself). Couple of weeks before that an even more annoying crowd, 90% of whom who buggered off after the food service had finished, there was one table with the landlord/lady and half a dozen of their friends half way down the long room. We finished most songs to silence, not a clap, and then right at the end when they were all pisht and we said goodnight they were shouting for more encores (and I mean we did three and they wouldn't shut up). I asked them 'Where was all this noise half an hour ago? It was like a morgue in here.' We may not be invited back, but it's definitely no loss.

Daltrey's autobiography's very funny; on the night he flushed Moono's entire stash after walking off at the end while they were trashing the gear (off their collective gourds on uppers), Moono went for him... "I only hit him once. And I apologised when he came round." They sacked Daltry, but took him back after negotiating a settlement: "The band wouldn't do loads of drugs until after a gig, and I wouldn't knock any of them out again." 🙂 I've had a fairly easygoing run of being in and out of bands, nothing more savage than the aforementioned ghosting sort of thing, but on one occasion (and I've mentioned this before) I did have a blazing row with the other three - the details are unimportant/forgotten (late 80s this was), but they did have their old bassist on call, and sure enough he joined immediately - but the whole sturm und drang of the episode was slightly undermined when, after arguing/shouting/gesticulating around the pool table at the rehearsal rooms, I stumped off to the car with my bass and amp (an SVT at the time, and it's tricky enough to stump off carrying an SVT...my back was clearly better those days), came back in, remembered my 810 didn't have wheels, and had to ask the band for a lift getting it up the stairs... I haven't stumped off anywhere since...

Used it properly last night, it's very useful; no more digging around in the depths of a rucksack for leads which, no matter how well you coiled and tied at the end of the night, still seem able to turn into Indiana Jones' pit of snakes in between gigs and auto-tangle. Another kinda small thing, but useful: it's designed to sit upright, which again makes things easier to delve into. The zips are waterproof/resistant, too, which the constant downpour off the Pennines tested in Rammy last night. I'm giving it 10/10, price notwithstanding...if it lasts as long as my last one, it'll work out about £8 a year...

Hokay, so to stave off the pangs of GAS (tho I'm struggling to find what I'm after (a really lightweight (<7lb) P)), and after giving my ancient gigbag a sniff (no sniggering, it's not an euphemism in any way), I decided to replace it. It's been used for more than 15 years at every gig now, and is showing the strain (as well as the stains) of a hard life. I found this on t'th'internet, and even though they're not cheap (£119 delivered), first impressions are very good. Here's a pic before I go any further: Not mine in the pic, obv - the giveaway to that is the mic; I have the dulcet tones of a donkey with a twisted ankle, and am completely at peace with that these days. Anyhoo, it's a joy if, like me, you happen to enjoy things being where they're supposed to be and having their own place. The two main storage areas have Velcro partitions (three at the top, six at the bottom) to customise the space, as well as two capacious side pockets, and there's a well-padded back pocket for a laptop/tablet. It sits upright, too, which is handy for packing/unpacking. It's actually smaller than my old backpack (a Wenger one), but I've got everything I use in there, including half a dozen cables, my Stomp, my Just In Case BDI21 (which is more totem than item, seeing as I've never had to use it - I think its mere presence makes other things keep working), power supplies, a 4-gang power extension, tools, batteries, strings, inears, wireless, etc, etc, and there's still room for more. It's a bit like a Tardis with shoulder straps... Build quality and padding is excellent, it'll be getting its first run out tonight, but I'm sure it'll make things easier. As mentioned, it isn't cheap, but I figured the last gigbag did hundreds of gigs over 15 years, so it's an investment.