Bass players still poor relations in a band...?

[xgsjx]

If the guitarist made the same comment to me re "Something funky in A minor", I'd have responded with "Paedo?".

As for Jamming with widdling guitarist, it's fun.  I can be a widdling bassist when I need to & will play off the guitar & then go back to my main job of laying a solid groove for him to widdle on.

[peteb]

27 minutes ago, thebrig said:

Mostly through musician websites like JoinMyBand and BandMix.

That may be where you're going wrong 

[Barking Spiders]

2 hours ago, lemmywinks said:

This has been my experience of jam nights too, even the ones that start off with the best of intentions are ruined when the usual suspects start turning up and start fretfapping . Awful musicians playing awful music, no thanks.

Yep, add me to this list. I'm hard pressed to think of a worse way of spending an evening. Blues rock is tedious at the best of times (for me anyway) but endless 12 bar blues jams with Alvin Lee/SRV wannabees reeling off hackneyed licks makes me ill

[Geek99]

On 08/02/2018 at 10:43, jonnythenotes said:

I was at my usual jam session on Tuesday night, and one of the regular guitarists, turned to me and said, "something funky in A minor," then after a short pause he added, "Oh, just 'A' for you as it doesn't make any difference to the bass."  I instantly got steamed up with him, but for the sake of peace and tranquility said ok, and in the jam that followed, deliberately when through every note in every mode to show that the bass, and the bass player can colour a song with far more than root notes, thirds, fifths and the octave... So I was wondering if other 'bass chatters' have come up against this "it's only the bass player" attitude, where other musicians perceive you as the person who stands at the back, and must speak only when spoken too.       I must add that guys in my regular band understand the importance of full involvement from me, so perhaps it's mainly open mic or jam nights.  Any chance of a few similar stories from you guys who have encountered 'burn the witch' mentality....

i think "go and f&*K yourself" would be an acceptable answer to that. 

[Geek99]

22 hours ago, uk_lefty said:

Love it! Unless you're a Hendrix tribute I don't think many audiences really care about the guitar solos! I play with two very good guitarists but our purpose is to get people to dance, so they play solos that fit the original tune and keep the groove, it's not a w4nkfest. Thankfully. I have played in those types of bands and people really don't care.

New one for the profanity filter: w*nkfest.

worth noting that bass players were pretty integral to the hendrix sound; imagine "Freedom" without billy cox and "purple haze" without Noel.

[Dan Dare]

21 hours ago, project_c said:

I went to a blues jam once, it was hilarious. A group of tragically single sweaty men with long hair and expensive guitars clambering over each other to get to the stage, so they could reel off a series of predictable licks that nobody has been interested in hearing since about 1985. 

One bored looking drummer and a bass player in the corner, playing the same boring honky tonk line on repeat for 6 hours while all the guitarists whack off all over the stage whilst flooring their wah pedals. Horrible.

I feel your pain. To be fair, they aren't all like that. I know of two blues jams locally to me which are run by good musicians where the backline amps for guitars are small (30w or so) and most people can actually play. There are the inevitable duffers who show, but they do their two party pieces and are tolerated with good humour. 

[xgsjx]

Having been in one of those types of bands where it's just really the guitarist wanting to solo & play riffs in between the solos, I had no intention of ever playing in a band that played 60s - 80s rock ever again.

But then I have musical frustrations & can't commit to a band, so we jam the out of songs that I'd pay never to hear played again.

The singist in the following video never came back ( I think he was number 6).  We auditioned a new singist last week & he seems like he may come back on Wednesday, but then previous singists said they would & didn't, so I shan't hold my breath.  
 

I try to wreck these songs as much as I can.  We played Gloria by Van Morrison 2 weeks ago, I found the bassline for Ghostbusters fitted it perfectly.
The guitarist has tried to get us to play Hey Hey My My several times & I can have a great time with octave & filter on that one.

Anytime I play, I just try to enjoy myself, even if the song is crap.

[mcnach]

On 2/8/2018 at 12:47, thebrig said:

Here's another example to illustrate bass players being the "poor relation in a band"

In the band I play in, I’m normally stuck at the back behind one of the guitarists who is 6ft 5in, but at one gig recently, there just wasn’t enough room in the tiny little corner I was in, so I had the audacity to move to the other side of the stage into the only space available, which happened to be right in front of the other guitarist who was also well over 6ft, so he easily towered over me seeing as I'm only 5ft 8in, but he was not happy, afterwards he complained that I had cramped his style, especially when he was doing his solo's, when I questioned him about his ego, he just said, “no one in the audience wants to see or hear the boring bass player, they only want to see the guitarists doing their solo’s”, and he mean’t it.

 

 !!!!

what are you doing still playing with that guy?

[thebrig]

42 minutes ago, mcnach said:

 

 !!!!

what are you doing still playing with that guy?

I'm not anymore, we used to get on quite well until then, and he is quite a decent guy in lots of ways, but that was the final straw, I just couldn't take anymore of his massive ego so I quit a couple of day's ago.

[DJpullchord]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You are in the wrong band.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[thebrig]

14 minutes ago, DJpullchord said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You are in the wrong band.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not any more