scalpy

Now that is a tasty bass. On my lottery win list one of those.

Pre-penultimate gig for our residency and it was the one we thought might happen at some point. The whole room was one firm, lots of gentlemen dressed in what I call Haute de Countrywide- gillet, checked shirt brown boots, aggrieved at having to pay inheritance tax, you know the type. Just a general stand offish impress us attitude. Anyway, we get them ticking over nicely in the first half, get to the break, have ten minutes in the room we’ve been provided to modify the set to taste and return to a distinctly frosty atmosphere. Turns out two factions have had bit of argy bargy outside and now no one’s interested in partying. Until, and isn’t this just typical, we play our last song to indifference really, the dj insists we do an encore, we play Fairytale and then they go nuts and want another…. Left quietly as the police watched the would be pugilists get taxied off. Two more gigs to do- I think they’ll be much better.

Thank you, we know we’re not creating musical fusion but we like to tear it up if possible. We joke that the band has some players with serious musical ability, Ed on trumpet is a monster Baroque piccolo trumpet specialist and Matt on sax is actually a seriously good flautist that plays concertos as a soloist for various orchestra- yet we enjoy that number loads featuring as it does No Limits, Barbie Girl and I Like To Move it amongst others. Got some other camera angles from the other nights, will sort another clip for the end of the run with a shot of some skinny chap in a hat plucking away on his ASAT bass.

Fun how life turns out isn't it? 30 years of gigging and it turns out one of my absolute favourite things to play is this. Really enjoying our residency at the Green Dragon in Hereford. 5 nights in, dead easy set up, journey home, venue being really friendly and helpful, Christmas Parties well up for some silliness and letting their hair down, A-team playing in the band. Shame the day job comes in between- more coffee please! House Party Clip.mp4

If we’re being really geeky I’d consider verse 3 is A minor, the tonic minor of the bridge being in A. I’m aware this is the relative minor of C major. The early verses also modulate halfway through. They start in G# minor then use a harmonic sequence, repeating the progression but up a minor 3rd- B minor, again, the tonic minor of the chorus B major, so my preference is to think of those minor chords at the start of each phrase as a chord I. It’s potato porarto though, that young lady who said it was easy is mistaken. When it comes to it should be a doddle but it ain’t I Am The One And Only is up there with the sax solo in Respect. Trainwreck on the horizon!

Yep, so many apples we call it the orchard.

First of a run of 9 at a local hotel, 2 this weekend, three for the next two weekends and then NYE. It’s works do-s mostly. Nice room to play in and the sound guy only had his bigger FBT rig available so ‘making do’ with that. Tonight’s were a mixed bunch, some ready to large it and some absolutely not, but most were dancing and joining in. Will try and get some footage before the run is over.

We did a gig a few years back and Chesney was in attendance. You guessed it, he was asked by the hosts to sing and we had to back him. Fortunately we had chance to prepare and you’re almost right, it modulates down in the bridge before going back up. Chesney himself was totally pro, walked up, checked we were doing it in B, sang it brilliantly (he’s had enough goes after all) thanked us and disappeared into the night.

Hey Yahs back up and running after a month. Retirement do at a working man’s club type affair, no horns so tracks used. We fire up the desk and the intermittent fault we’ve been having rears its ugly head at a gig- 7 channels have this weird distorted clock running through them. No clue from the X32 community why it happens. There is a plan be in we could repatch the routing and use spare DIs etc but it’s hassle we don’t need. Fortunately the usual turn it off, unplug, leave it off and hope the best play works. 😅 After that, nice crowd, all into it and our favourite dep keys player is getting more and more comfortable, really good player and locking in nicely.

Did another of these back in the summer. Must admit I flinched when I heard the song choice but went with it. Lovely bunch of people, great studio and spent most of the day sat next to a songwriter with 7 billion streams on Spotify- George Astasio, quite a big deal in some quarters. Kit was my G&L LB100 with flats and a nordymute split into my Markbass vintage pre and a neve preamp. Sounds nice and fat. Then it was a nice Mexican meal as payment, sat next to Teena who had a million Van Morrison stories, most entertaining.

We’re a function band and medleys have become a blessing and curse for us as a) we’re pretty good at them, they keep people on the dance floor and most people at these things have the attention span of a toddler so they’re a useful tool but b) you don’t half crunch through material which just widens the search for songs and you need players that can handle the changes. We mostly book musos who have done a lot of orchestra pit work so that helps. I do the arrangements, so I start with the selection of songs, research the keys and tempos and put mini groups of songs together, then look for possible overlaps like a DJ doing a fade from one song to the next. I try not to shift keys by more than a semitone. Some modulations I’ll use some tricks to make it. Then I have a book I’ll score out all the bars, work out the structure, put double bars in and rehearsal marks. I then start a Sibelius file, put a piano in, then without putting a note in type out the form, so the file matches my book. Keys transcription comes next, followed by trumpet and sax at the same time. The file gets re-saved and I’ll add another trumpet, bari sax and trombone for our larger gigs. This file gets exported to logic, where I have a routine of putting in the click and rehearsal marks again, then I’ll add any sweeps/ risers/ additional keys or guitars, percussion. Four files get exported from that- guide, click, additional instruments and horns for smaller gigs with them on track. They go to MainStage for playback. After that it’s another computer for MainStage keys sounds. Once those are decided it’s back to Sibelius to add the changes to the chart then those can get exported to pdf for players. I’ll do a crib sheet for guitar and drums too, then sit down with my wife so her lyric book has the same rehearsal marks. That’s about it 😬 Most of the medleys have between 5 to 15 songs in, some have taken a week to sort, but the prep means actually rehearsing/ performing them isn’t that tricky.

Further to recent posts about preparing for this week’s run of shows, a quick update. The pit, having dried out for the time being is fully operational but a tad dark. Using the iPad for the part means I’m not getting the same view of the fretboard so have made some rudimentary fret markers…. Meanwhile the md’s tempos continue to be excitable- the indicated bpm for the last song in the first act is 144, the guitarist measured it as 178. The dancers on stage must exhausted.

Bit of a dull gig last night. 40th birthday party, again, in an echo-y barn (again again again) and no one listened to us the first set at all. Everyone went outside to watch the rodeo bull shenanigans they put on the same time. Bit of a crowd the second half, but the venue is a cider factory and it was quite clear birthday boy was only interested in getting absolutely plastered, and his speech at the start of the 2nd set clearly indicated he was doing a good job in that respect. Then on to today’s adventure, band call 2 for footloose. Starting to manage to rein in the md and excitable drummer with the tempos. Not playing my finest but too tired from day job. A couple of notable moments, after the rehearsal we head down to the pit, being a former municipal swimming pool is was formerly the deep end. The recent weather meant it was trying to return to its former role. And our beloved md, forever tinkering with the drum part, adding triangle here, cowbell there, (yes we all said it) asked the drummer to do a suspended cymbal roll and a fill at the same time. When the drummer replied he wouldn’t for the same effect with regular sticks the md asked- ‘do you have any double enders?’ Many double entendres followed.

Not a gig as such but done the band call for Footloose. MD is a classical/ musicals kind of guy and has got the tempos right up, crazy fast. Better do some work between now and the show run…

AKA Linda McCartney mixing

40th birthday party at Red Barn just outside Hereford. Lots of families with lots of children running round, and whilst the venue is stunning in an amazing location a) it sounds like a barn, all boomy and chaotic and b) everyone sits outside as it’s so pleasant. Was hoping it would shed it down again. We had sections of the crowd dancing all night but it didn’t turn into a properly mad night. On the plus side- free Beefy Boys burgers for all (I had the blue cheese, delicious if messy) and the easiest ape sticks set up- just stick ‘em to the wall. Was doing the obligatory shot of my first wife under said lights when my second wife photo bombed it.

That is supposedly Son Of A Preacher Man. I had to just use another transcription I found online for that one which lead to a minor iPad calamity swopping charts, but that ☝️is gobbledygook.

Can you tell what it is yet though? One of my favourites by an all time great bassist.

Long day doing a fundraiser for a theatre company I’ve played loads with. It was a pick up band, so one rehearsal on the day, matinee gig and then evening. It was a community do so the musical calibre was of variable calibre and the inexperienced md, despite working very hard on the charts doesn’t have the technical chops to write with the correct musical grammar, which is a proper headache when songs in Bb minor are written in A# for example. The occasion was a 60s singalong- let’s see if any takers can recognise these two groovy classics. Anyways, lots of discussion and teamwork and we managed to put a show together, did about as well as I could do gluing tempos together between a lower section brass band drummer and an enthusiast dancer with a tambourine, off for a lie down and looking forward to a regular gig next weekend.

Another wedding for the Hey Yahs at the Haybarn, Dulas in Herefordshire’s Golden Valley. The 8 piece line-up only just fits on the stage there but the team has gotten really good at setting up quickly and tidily, so we all squeezed on. We struggle to understand why wedding planners think cake cutting takes 15 minutes and then it’s the first dance, it’s three most of the time, so we’ve learnt to be ready when they slice away, but they called that early too making it bit of a scramble to get on stage. Some sound issues in the first half, not quite enough vocals but second half was spot on. I was much happier with my pedal settings last night, particularly the drive from the Stomp. I bought the bright onions extension switches so I can change between banks of presets much more easily- then we choose a set where I only had to use it once! It’ll be great for the future!

Almost forgot we had a gig Saturday! Stupidly local, less than half a mile from the house for a marquee wedding. Bit of an epic load in and we had the B guitarist- A guitarist is also a sound engineer and was working a local festival so muggins here had to do the knobs and faders. We were in 6 piece configuration so horns on track. Just goes to show how much the audience are hearing what they want to hear- we have a 15 minute country medley and for some reason Mainstage dropped the basic and horn track completely, leaving gaping holes in the arrangement. Did the audience care? Nope, on the chairs singing along at the top of their voices to the bare minimum of a tune, no clue stuff was missing. Rest of the gig no problems, knackered them all out so by the end of set no one wanted us to DJ (part of the contract) so chill out tunes went on, packed up and was home in record time, all of 5 minutes driving.

Funny how some years a venue becomes one you’re at loads and the next it drops off the gig list completely. So for the nth time this year we were at Lyde Court, all the usual perks, park the van right by the stage, big area to play in, loads of plugs and an enormous flown house FBT PA. The happy couple wanted 3 40 minute sets which made the evening a bit stop start and the whole band was one click off the pace after holidays etc, but the clients were happy. Finally started to get some good sounds out my Stomp too, definitely a learning curve that toy.

Yes when it comes to effects. I love my basic sound, G&L ASAT and Markbass set up, got a good octave sound too, but drive and filters I can’t quite dial in. I’ve got a Stomp now and am edging closer but home experimentation and in context with band are two very separate things.

On my ASAT that’s in passive. Not aware of there being a different version of that pre either. It’s a good tip about removing the jack but the G&L pre is not like a typical one as I understand it- the battery only operates if it detects signal from the strings moving. I’ve gone on holiday for a week accidentally leaving mine plugged in and the battery worked for another year.

My current band is in it's 12th year. We started as friends or friends of friends (the guitarist would join if his friend could drum etc) and we quickly progressed from village fetes and self organised gigs at pubs. This was after our singer who is ambitious and very positive about what is possible in life blagged us a large booking in front of the great and the good of the community and we started to play the local theatre and weddings for considerably more money than pub fees. Half the band (the core is 8 of us) got a bit casual about this work, thinking just to be booked was good enough for the clients but they weren't that interested in quality control, with charts not being played accurately, tempos not being met or chords being forgotten on a regular basis. But they liked the reputation and they liked the cash. The guitarist, much as he is a valued and trusted friend had us over a barrel as we rehearsed at his using a lot of his kit. The two singers, one of whom is my wife, and I were getting embarrassed and frustrated by this attitude as the male singer does a lot of the sales, my wife does all the organising and logistics and I do all the music prep. As a degree level trumpet player myself I grew particularly tired of writing basic charts for the horns that my students could play only for frequent car crashes to occur. I also hated counting tunes off at a certain tempo for the drummer to start at a completely different one- he had a complex about being the drummer that rushed. Our sax player had to leave after some ill health. We brought in a cruise ship level replacement. In the end I asked the trumpet player to re-audition for his place as one person playing the rhythms correctly and one of them wrong was worse than what we had before. He quit, then the guitarist realised the 20 year old dep we were using was kicking his behind and he went, eventually followed by the drummer. We restructured as a limited company and now have about three players available for each role depending on availability. If a player does a gig they invoice. If we've ended up working with players that don't turn out to fit in for whatever reason, we don't book them again. Result? A band that is friendly and happier by a country mile, also delivering musically on a much more consistent basis. If you're prepared to put in the work behind the scenes, I can thoroughly recommend this model for a band.