Playing songs in a covers band you dont always like.?

[Bridgehouse]

Just now, peteb said:

 

Lee Sklar play gigs with his friends in local bars when he's not on the road with big acts. Probably the same sort of gigs that you and I do! 

 

We have had a few sign up to Basschat, but they don't tend to stick around (although Guy Pratt & Neil Murray occasionally post). 

 

 

I shall rephrase for your benefit.

 

And those guys aren't going to be 

 

a) in your average covers band playing in the Dog and Duck exclusively, excepting those who are doing so for the fun of it when they aren't on the road with big name acts

b) asking for support and advice on an Bass Forum because they don't have professional experience, and aren't professional musicians who have joined up for a bit then run away because fora are often littered with threads like this

[peteb]

1 minute ago, Bridgehouse said:

 

I shall rephrase for your benefit.

 

And those guys aren't going to be 

 

a) in your average covers band playing in the Dog and Duck exclusively, excepting those who are doing so for the fun of it when they aren't on the road with big name acts

b) asking for support and advice on an Bass Forum because they don't have professional experience, and aren't professional musicians who have joined up for a bit then run away because fora are often littered with threads like this

 

You can rephrase it all you like mate. The bottom line is the better you are, the more likely you are to nail things after one listen and the better you will be at busking... 

[Bridgehouse]

3 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

 

Horses for courses,YMMV, one man's roof is another man's floor, etc.

 

Me, I'll practice just enough to do a sub-standard job that nobody notices. Anyone who comes up afterwards and says that I didn't play the bass line like it is on the record I tell them 'Well, f__k off home and listen to it there, then'.

 

Oh so that was you was it?

 

I went home, checked, and Alan Longmuir definitely played Ab on the end of the 2nd line of the verse on Bye Bye Baby

[skankdelvar]

6 minutes ago, peteb said:

Guy Pratt

 

Is he still on here? I thought he slung his hook after... well, you know, The Thing.

[TimR]

4 minutes ago, peteb said:

We are all trying to play at a higher level, which takes work and requires experience. But some guys are already there and they can nail things first time that we would take ages to get. 

 

Maybe. I've only been playing for 40 years, in thrash metal original bands in the 80s, in big bands, theatre pits, down the dog and duck, function bands, jazz quartets, depped for various bands. Alongside pros and very good semi-pros. 

 

My general advice would be to play absolutly everything and anything with as many different people as possible. And don't practice tunes you know, stick Spotify on random and just play along to whatever comes up, whether you like it or not.

 

It's not about fancy licks and complicated lines, it's about getting the simple stuff right. 

 

I've had band leaders, on meeting me at the dep gig, say keep it simple and watch me for the changes. 

 

I've never had one say, play loads of flashy stuff and improvise to make it all more exciting. 

[tauzero]

3 hours ago, Bridgehouse said:

Actually I’m reminded of a time I auditioned for a covers band. I spent hours learning half the set on the fretless Shuker. Literally hours. 
 

I turned up to the audition and as I was getting the bass out the lead singer said

 

”Oh, sorry mate - we don’t do any Paul Young covers..”

 

They realised it was a fretless straight away? Took my band a year.

[peteb]

1 minute ago, TimR said:

It's not about fancy licks and complicated lines, it's about getting the simple stuff right. 

 

I've had band leaders, on meeting me at the dep gig, say keep it simple and watch me for the changes. 

 

I've never had one say, play loads of flashy stuff and improvise to make it all more exciting. 

 

Very true

 

[skankdelvar]

Just now, Bridgehouse said:

Alan Longmuir definitely played Ab on the end of the 2nd line of the verse on Bye Bye Baby

 

Would you believe I've had real life, post-gig conversations like that?

 

Well, I have. Drummers get the same sort of thing except it's along the lines of 'Bonham definitely does four on the kick coming out of the fill' but most drummers are saps and just stand there and take it, not me, no siree. 

[Bridgehouse]

Just now, tauzero said:

 

They realised it was a fretless straight away? Took my band a year.

 

When you drag that Shuker out it's difficult to confuse it with anything else.. 

 

It turned out that the Singer was the previous Bass player, and the rest of the band had told him he wasn't cutting the mustard on bass, but his vocals were good - so insisted he stopped playing bass and got a new one in so he could concentrate on his singing. 

 

It was enough of an emerging train wreck to make me bail before a note was played. But to be fair that was probably a combination of the guitarist wheeling in a full Marshall Stack and a pedalboard the size of a dinner table and the keys player poking his head round the door and asking if someone could give him a hand with his two lesley cabinets.. 

[Bridgehouse]

2 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

 

Would you believe I've had real life, post-gig conversations like that?

 

Well, I have. Drummers get the same sort of thing except it's along the lines of 'Bonham definitely does four on the kick coming out of the fill' but most drummers are saps and just stand there and take it, not me, no siree. 

 

I'm pretty sure a lot of us have. 

 

In fact, I had a five year penury in a folk outfit playing a combined set of instruments that made a one man band look pathetic. 

 

We didn't even do covers - it was original stuff. I put some pretty complex flute and whistle lines on a whole bunch of songs which, to be honest, were mostly improvised at recording, and thus nigh on impossible to play live without mixing it up a bit - especially after a few pints of local ale. However, countless times some geezer or other would pop over after the gig and remark that my "phrasing on the solo in blah blah wasn't the same as the recording, and had I consciously decided to disrupt the flow of the melodic interchange with the guitar and violin?"

[skankdelvar]

Anyway, yeah, if you can't learn a song in one pass there's something wrong with you. Acquired motor skills, willpower, posture, tin ear, inner monologue, could be one of a hundred things.

 

Some solutions: have lessons / sack off tab and learn to read music / wear loose trousers.

[skankdelvar]

1 minute ago, Bridgehouse said:

However, countless times some geezer or other would pop over after the gig and remark that my "phrasing on the solo in blah blah wasn't the same as the recording, and had I consciously decided to disrupt the flow of the melodic interchange with the guitar and violin?"

 

There's an answer to people like that.

 

String 'em up. It's the only language they understand.

[Bridgehouse]

1 minute ago, skankdelvar said:

Anyway, yeah, if you can't learn a song in one pass there's something wrong with you. Acquired motor skills, willpower, posture, tin ear, inner monologue, could be one of a hundred things.

 

Some solutions: have lessons / sack off tab and learn to read music / wear loose trousers.

 

Or have a natural talent for music like a girlfriend I had at uni. We rather misguidedly decided to form a band together. As a rakish, unkempt and mostly drunken student my own view of my musical talent was, eh, overinflated. Ok, I was classically trained and performed in semi-professional choirs for 10 years, but that didn't translate to bashing a guitar and attempting the latest hit from James or Blur. 

 

On our first *cough* album, we had an argument about the keys part - she claimed I wasn't being specific enough for her as to how it should sound. I rather sarcastically said maybe she could make it sound like Rick Wakeman and stop p***ing about. When we got to the keys break she played pretty much the whole of Catherine of Aragon note for note. 

 

It didn't end well. 

[super al]

15 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

 

Is he still on here? I thought he slung his hook after... well, you know, The Thing.

What Thing?

 

I missed it (I might've popped out for a bit 🤷🏻‍♂️)

[Bridgehouse]

3 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

 

There's an answer to people like that.

 

String 'em up. It's the only language they understand.

 

One particular gig - I believe it was the Cromer Folk Festival on the Pier, after such a gig and such a resultant exchange with a slightly older chap with a knitted sweater came after a crab supper and three pints of Fully Rigged Ship or some such other local ale, and my response, IIRC, was a rather large belch in his face.

[skankdelvar]

Just now, super al said:

What Thing?

 

I missed it (I might've popped out for a bit 🤷🏻‍♂️)

 

I shouldn't have mentioned The Thing.

 

Forget I spoke.

 

It's all for the best.

[skankdelvar]

1 minute ago, Bridgehouse said:

One particular gig

 

Gig Goer: "The phrasing on the solo wasn't the same as the recording"

[skankdelvar]

7 minutes ago, Bridgehouse said:

a girlfriend I had at uni.

 

[Bridgehouse]

9 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

 

Gig Goer: "The phrasing on the solo wasn't the same as the recording"

 

Somewhat drunken flute/whistle/mandolin/mandola/octave mandolin/harmonica/melodeon/english concertina/djembe player:

 

Edited October 19, 2021 by Bridgehouse

[Bridgehouse]

2 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

 

 

If the "go-er" bit relates to her ability to listen to any piece of music on any instrument and instantly play a fully arranged piano rendition of said music, then yeah - she was a steam train. 

 

It was actually bloody annoying. 

 

"I wrote this cool riff for our next song" 

 

*plinks out vague tune on [random instrument] slowly, and a bit haphazardly*

 

"Oh, you mean this?"

 

*Plays fully accompanied version of said tune with every embellishment known to humankind*

 

"Yeah. That."

 

*watches manhood wither in front of own eyes*

[Bridgehouse]

The interesting twist to the uni-girlfriend-instant-copy-player story was she was utterly incapable of writing any sort of original tune. 

[Skinnyman]

37 minutes ago, peteb said:

 

You can rephrase it all you like mate. The bottom line is the better you are, the more likely you are to nail things after one listen and the better you will be at busking... 

It can be done.

 

Bill Bruford tells this story in his autobiography (paraphrased here on another site…)

 

It's 1983, and Bruford and his King Crimson bandmate, bassist and Chapman Stick player Tony Levin had been hired by DiMeola to play on his latest album and had travelled to a residential studio in Nebraska for the session. They'd been told that DiMeola liked to start his sessions fairly late, so they arrived at the studio at midday as agreed in advance. No Al. They set up the drums and got ready to record. Still no Al. Bruford, who says that the grossest insult one musician can give another is to keep them waiting, is not amused. Nor is Levin.

Four hours later than agreed, just as Levin is wondering aloud how it might affect his otherwise sterling reputation as a session player (seriously, look him up) if he were to just leave, DiMeola arrives and proceeds to small-talk with Bruford, Levin and the studio engineer while changing his guitar strings. Eventually, he starts to run through the songs he wants to record. Bruford sits at his kit, Levin sits silently in a corner, his bass still in its case. Bruford and DiMeola run through the songs, repeat a few tricky sections, discuss exactly what is needed. Eventually, they arrive at a fast run that Al wants the bass to play in unison with his guitar, so he urges Levin to, maybe actually get his bass out so he can play it once or twice before they record. Levin declines. 

When it's time to record a take, Levin gets his Stick out and plugs in, not playing a note. They play, Levin plays his part flawlessly, tricky run and all, then overdubs a perfect double-track. The process begins again for a second song. Again, Levin plays and double-tracks his part perfectly.

It's getting late, and the agreed time for the session is over so Levin packs up his gear and heads for the door. Just then, the engineer somehow manages to erase a two-bar section of Levin's part. Suitably embarrassed, he begs Levin for five more minutes to re-record the missing part. Levin agrees, and again puts the part on tape flawlessly, packs up and makes for the door again.

Oh crap, says the engineer, we're two notes short of what I erased. Tony, can you just...

But he's out the door.

Now Al DiMeola is going to have to pay his engineer to review the tape of the session (and it *is* tape- this is 1983 and Pro-Tools is distant sci-fi fantasy) to find duplicates of those two notes, copy those sections of tape and splice them in to the gap.

Which is probably going to take like, four hours.

Yeah.

[Frank Blank]

14 hours ago, Bridgehouse said:

When you drag that Shuker out it's difficult to confuse it with anything else..

Funny you should say that but on first glance I mistook it for the Dordogne and hurriedly got the family in the car to enjoy a couple of weeks in the sun. Mind you I was out of my noggin on space rusks so who can say?

Edited October 20, 2021 by Frank Blank

[Boodang]

Question; should I join a covers band when I don't like all the songs they do.

Basschat answer; I can learn a song in one listening. 

 

I should imagine bubinga5 is not so much wondering whether to join a covers band so much as whether to take the strings off his bass and hang himself.

Quite psychologically interesting to read the replies though!

[Newfoundfreedom]

7 hours ago, peteb said:

 

That isn't going to happen, just as it is unlikely that you will be able to play many Beatles songs after one listen. However, there are loads of great songs that you definitely can! 

 

It only took me three weeks to learn Get Back.

 

I am a bass legend!