Bass Player Wanted, No gigs

[discreet]

[quote name='Lysdexia' timestamp='1507760590' post='3387858']
It's a load of fun. Which is a tremendous value - playing for the joy of it.
[/quote]

I have come to realise that since I posted this comment. I like rehearsing too, but would rather see it as a means to an end. My opinion only.

[peteb]

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1507749124' post='3387762']


Over time I'm getting the feeling that my local bar scene and cover band culture is different than in the UK.

First of all our patrons are music and people lovers. I never see anything remotely like this "drunken idiots" crowd you speak of.

[/quote]
In my experience the gigs full of drunken idiots are few and far between. Most 'music pubs' are not like that at all. You would feel completely at home at all the gigs I do these days.

[blue]

[quote name='ahpook' timestamp='1507755591' post='3387838']


So you're complaining about the outcome of a hypothetical situation ?

In my book that's just moaning for the sake of it. YMMV.
[/quote]

That's cool I call it commentary.

The issue has generated s lot of interesting ideas and positions.

Blue

Edited October 11, 2017 by blue

[blue]

[quote name='peteb' timestamp='1507763119' post='3387876']

In my experience the gigs full of drunken idiots are few and far between. Most 'music pubs' are not like that at all. You would feel completely at home at all the gigs I do these days.
[/quote]

That's good and kind of what I thought Pete.

Blue

Edited October 11, 2017 by blue

[blue]

[quote name='Lysdexia' timestamp='1507760590' post='3387858']


It's a load of fun. Which is a tremendous value - playing for the joy of it.
[/quote]

We can play at home for the joy and gigging is always a joy. The only difference is when you gig you get joy and money.

Blue

[blue]

[quote name='ricksterphil' timestamp='1507757904' post='3387848']


We did a gig a couple of weeks back at a local place (The Maze) on a local bands night where each band gets 30 minutes. A total of 3 people turned up but they had a great time and told us so afterwards. It would have been great if the place was full but even so we thought it was worth the effort
[/quote]

3 people engaged with a band is better than 1500 uninterested people.

Blue

[Leonard Smalls]

Last January a couple of local lads and I started a band - we initially looked for a singer but no-one seemed to be available apart from a death metal growler (we're not that sort of band!).
So we resigned ourselves to having the guitarist sing - which has actually worked out quite well. We've written 12 songs and have our debut gig coming up in November supporting [url="https://www.facebook.com/icarusfallsukband/videos/1064856900313301/"]these guys[/url].
We recently had some interest from a good local singer which would have left our guitarist free to be Steve Vai a bit more.
However, she wasn't interested at all once she discovered that there's no pay; she couldn't understand that locals don't like to pay to see bands - though they might be persuaded to pay £5, maybe £6, for 3 bands. The PA and sound man costs £250, local council insists on bouncers (it's in the community centre) - £250. Insurance is £100, and the community centre want £50 as well as all the bar take. So that's £650, with £100 for poster printing, tickets etc.
The venue has a fire limit of 150, so that means max possible take of £900 at £6, or £750 at £5.
So at £6 to get in, the maximum that can be shared between 3 bands (assuming sell-out!) is £150, and the Icarus boys have to come up from Down South, plus 2nd on the bill are about 1.5 hours away.
Which means nowt for our band. So she's sitting at home waiting for a call which probably won't come, and we'll be getting [s]canned off stage[/s] the adulation we so richly deserve!

[Happy Jack]

And this ^ highlights what this discussion seems to have ignored, which is that the drivers for gigging are (or at least can be) wildly different depending on whether you want to play covers or originals.

My own very limited experience is that I've played in several covers bands, and I've played as sideman to several songwriters. I don't actually write any songs myself.

Within that very limited experience, covers bands seem to form with the specific intention of playing gigs in exchange for cash, while originals bands are more about "getting our music out there" and tend to be satisfied with a much smaller number of gigs, usually involving payment in the form of three beer tokens for each band member.

There's no right or wrong here, no better or worse, but the two approaches are as similar and as different as driving a car -v- riding a motorbike.

Personally, I really enjoy rehearsing and I simply love working up new material. Despite that, it would never occur to me to join or form a covers band unless there was a very serious intention to get a significant number of gigs - I'd see one a month as a bare minimum. Rehearsing is fun partly because it is intended to lead to a performance; rehearsing for its own sake would get very stale very quickly.

I am still a member of both King Ralph and Karena K - originals bands. Those two bands together have generated maybe 10 gigs in the last two years. That's cool too, but only because I play another 30/40 gigs a year with covers bands!

[FinnDave]

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1507764451' post='3387882']
We can play at home for the joy and gigging is always a joy. The only difference is when you gig you get joy and money.

Blue
[/quote]

That's not the only difference for me, Blue - at a gig you get joy, money, and audience reaction/feedback, which is the most important reason for gigging in my my book.

[Beedster]

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1507796936' post='3387960']
Rehearsing is fun partly because it is intended to lead to a performance; rehearsing for its own sake would get very stale very quickly.
[/quote]

One man's 'rehearsing' is another man's 'playing music with mates for the pleasure of it'

[FinnDave]

[quote name='Beedster' timestamp='1507798726' post='3387981']
One man's 'rehearsing' is another man's 'playing music with mates for the pleasure of it'
[/quote]

I think there's a difference, 'rehearsing' means doing something in order to prepare it for performance, playing with mates for the pleasure of it is an end in itself. Both equally valid, but to my mind, a rehearsal is playing with gigging as the goal.

[Beedster]

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1507801446' post='3388008']
I think there's a difference, 'rehearsing' means doing something in order to prepare it for performance, playing with mates for the pleasure of it is an end in itself. Both equally valid, but to my mind, a rehearsal is playing with gigging as the goal.
[/quote]

Which was exactly my point Dave, although perhaps not as clearly made

[FinnDave]

[quote name='Beedster' timestamp='1507804726' post='3388037']
Which was exactly my point Dave, although perhaps not as clearly made
[/quote]

[BigRedX]

[quote name='peteb' timestamp='1507763119' post='3387876'] In my experience the gigs full of drunken idiots are few and far between. Most 'music pubs' are not like that at all. You would feel completely at home at all the gigs I do these days. [/quote]

When I played covers the drunken idiots were also few and far between, but then we mostly played charity events with audiences that appeared to consist almost entirely of friends and family of the other band members. However since then I've been to see several covers bands play what I would assume are more "normal" pub gigs because I know people in the bands. Most of the audience ignored them and those that didn't used the presence of a live band as a excuse to act like dicks. And these weren't what I would consider to be "rough" pubs.

[Happy Jack]

In all fairness, some drunken idiots can add something to the evening.

I'll just leave this here. The fun starts about 40 seconds in ...

http://youtu.be/QojmLHWgBMw

[ricksterphil]

At least he behaved himself on stage but in my book that's a 'removed by the bouncer' offence.

Did a gig once in Nottm and a load of Blades* fans came in before we started. They started trying to get on the mic and sing to their mates - our sound guy rugby tackled one of them and threw him back into the crowd. It got very tense - we were backs to the wall with no obvious escape route - and it looked like we were done for (there were at least 20 of them). Calm quickly followed when two police helmets (being worn by policemen, obvs) appeared at the back of the room (called in by the Landlord who knew there would be trouble). Phew.....had visions of taking my bass off and swinging it like a club to ward off the kicking we were clearly in for. It was my lovely black Rickenbacker 4001 (another in a long line of 'shouldn't have sold it' basses) so I'm glad it didn't have to double up as a weapon.

*Sheffield Utd

[peteb]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1507810255' post='3388097']


When I played covers the drunken idiots were also few and far between, but then we mostly played charity events with audiences that appeared to consist almost entirely of friends and family of the other band members. However since then I've been to see several covers bands play what I would assume are more "normal" pub gigs because I know people in the bands. Most of the audience ignored them and those that didn't used the presence of a live band as a excuse to act like dicks. And these weren't what I would consider to be "rough" pubs.
[/quote]
Currently I play pretty much exclusively what would be considered to be 'music pubs', where punters come to see the band. I can't think of a recent gig where the band was ignored by any significant section of the audience and there is never any trouble, even (especially) in the biker bars where there could be potential for violence if anyone was foolhardy enough to cause any problems.

Edited October 12, 2017 by peteb

[stingrayPete1977]

[quote name='peteb' timestamp='1507819409' post='3388198']

Currently I play pretty much exclusively what would be considered to be 'music pubs', where punters come to see the band. I can't think of a recent gig where the band was ignored by any significant section of the audience and there is never any trouble, even (especially) in the biker bars where there could be potential for violence if anyone was foolhardy enough to cause any problems.
[/quote]

Same here, I wouldn't stay in a band that played those venues if they were being ignored, crap band or crap venue choice I'd say.

[blue]

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1507796202' post='3387956']
Last January a couple of local lads and I started a band - we initially looked for a singer but no-one seemed to be available apart from a death metal growler (we're not that sort of band!).
So we resigned ourselves to having the guitarist sing - which has actually worked out quite well. We've written 12 songs and have our debut gig coming up in November supporting [url="https://www.facebook.com/icarusfallsukband/videos/1064856900313301/"]these guys[/url].
We recently had some interest from a good local singer which would have left our guitarist free to be Steve Vai a bit more.
However, she wasn't interested at all once she discovered that there's no pay; she couldn't understand that locals don't like to pay to see bands - though they might be persuaded to pay £5, maybe £6, for 3 bands. The PA and sound man costs £250, local council insists on bouncers (it's in the community centre) - £250. Insurance is £100, and the community centre want £50 as well as all the bar take. So that's £650, with £100 for poster printing, tickets etc.
The venue has a fire limit of 150, so that means max possible take of £900 at £6, or £750 at £5.
So at £6 to get in, the maximum that can be shared between 3 bands (assuming sell-out!) is £150, and the Icarus boys have to come up from Down South, plus 2nd on the bill are about 1.5 hours away.
Which means nowt for our band. So she's sitting at home waiting for a call which probably won't come, and we'll be getting [s]canned off stage[/s] the adulation we so richly deserve!
[/quote]

Sounds like if you ran an ad for this type of band you'd have to make it clear that gigs would be far and few in between and that right now it's a "for fun only" opportunity.

Interesting, my band, we don't play venues where people would have to pay too see us.

Blue

[blue]

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1507812075' post='3388127']
In all fairness, some drunken idiots can add something to the evening.

I'll just leave this here. The fun starts about 40 seconds in ...[/quote]

That guy seemed pretty much harmless. Seemed like he was actually trying to be decent. Lol

Blue

[blue]

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1507798460' post='3387976']


That's not the only difference for me, Blue - at a gig you get joy, money, and audience reaction/feedback, which is the most important reason for gigging in my my book.[/quote]

Agreed,however I would say positive audience reaction and feedback is actually part of the joy.

Blue

[Bassmonkey]

[quote name='peteb' timestamp='1507819409' post='3388198']
Currently I play pretty much exclusively what would be considered to be 'music pubs', where punters come to see the band. I can't think of a recent gig where the band was ignored by any significant section of the audience and there is never any trouble, even (especially) in the biker bars where there could be potential for violence if anyone was foolhardy enough to cause any problems.
[/quote]

Pete and I live close to each other and sometimes play at the same venues. As with his band, we typically play bars and pubs and are certainly never ignored. We have a really loyal set of fans who seem to turn up week after week. We have had our share of fools though, never violent though and the worst offenders are the ones who fall over the front line, we often end up pushing likely offenders away so as to protect ourselves from mic in the teeth injuries as the faller desperately tries to stop them selves falling and grabs the mic stand. I can handle that but, as with recently, the really pissed ones drive me nuts. Often middle aged women who a. should know better and b. mates should take better care of. Im not too shy to have people removed where they're incapable. The rich tapestry of being in a band I guess

[stingrayPete1977]

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1507832239' post='3388301']
That guy seemed pretty much harmless. Seemed like he was actually trying to be decent. Lol

Blue
[/quote]

One of my bands has developed a small following when we play certain venues, which is really nice, one guy comes and stands/dances right up the front all night so I presumed he was both enjoying himself and probably checking out our attractive young lady singer at the same time, after the third gig I realised he was checking me out, I am a bit slow sometimes like that He bought me a drink after the gig last time, nice bloke but not my type what with the penis and what not.

[odysseus]

It all depends on what the people in the band are aiming for. I've been in gigging bands, I've been in studio-only bands. If you want plenty of gigs around here, then you're going to have to play the same type of tired old covers that everyone else is playing (unless you are in your teens and got a college following). That can be fun, but the 'fun' element wears off real quick when you're a bit older.
I've been in plenty of writing/studio only bands, and that's more fun because the band can follow their own direction without having to accomodate the level of populism required to get a gig schedule. To be honest, some of the stuff myself and my friends have written would have very little appeal to the average pub crowd, and we're all too old to be considered hip, but we enjoy the whole creative process (and the social) immensely. I guess it boils down to whether everyone in the band is getting what they want out of it. And yes... fun!! :-)

[blue]

[quote name='odysseus' timestamp='1507836337' post='3388330']
It all depends on what the people in the band are aiming for. I've been in gigging bands, I've been in studio-only bands. If you want plenty of gigs around here, then you're going to have to play the same type of tired old covers that everyone else is playing [/quote]

That's too bad, as you indicate "around here"

In some markets, if a band is good and has built up a following over many years you don't need to play easily recognizable tired covers at all.

We're a cover band to a degree, however we have 2 CDs of originals. We probably play a half dozen originals over the course of a typical 4 hour bar gig. And I would doubt anything else we play would be considered a tried and recognizable cover.


Blue

Edited October 13, 2017 by blue