Bassist Pet Peeves

[casapete]

1 hour ago, Quilly said:

When you finish the gig and are looking forwards to a few bevvies and the bar closes

This happens to us a lot. Premier Inns have bars which sometimes close at 10pm. 🥵

[oldslapper]

Unorganised band members.

Lazy band members.

Band members.

Members.

 

 

[steve-bbb]

keys...... you know.... that left hand thing 🙄

[redbandit599]

Kebab shops that close before we've finished loading out. Rude.

[Buddster]

6 hours ago, Linus27 said:

Other band members who set up and leave you no room to set up where as they have enough room to not only swing a cat but to swing an entire zoo. It's like c'mon guy's, look at the stage and space yourself out so its equally balanced.

Our drummer did that recently. In order not to be hidden behind the singer he decided to set the kit up to one side. On a smallish stage.

Fair enough. . 

But it was on my side, that had me, the bass cab, his monitor and the stage box with all the cables. On the other side.... Nothing, apart from a huge hole (as the guitarist used pedals/small amp). Looked completely lopsided. 

 

Phew, glad to finally get that off my chest. 

[shoulderpet]

On 10/05/2022 at 18:38, uk_lefty said:

6. Venues not giving you sensible drinks for free and generally treating the band as a huge inconvenience

 

Oh man that is a good one, I have played so many gigs where the venues treat the band like cr@! , I remember one gig where the venue owner was literally asking us how long we were going to be packing up our equipment immediately after we had finished our set.

 

With regards to drinks all the venues I have played in have been pretty cr@!, 1 drink seems to be the standard. 

 

One venue we played we were told we would get a rider....turns out the rider was 1 pint per band member

[AndyTravis]

Once sat in a rehearsal room when someone said “the bass player should be seen and not heard”.

 

Red rag to a bull.

 

here I am 25 ish years later, an derrière who pushes to be heard. I’d rather not be seen 😂

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, shoulderpet said:

 

 

With regards to drinks all the venues I have played in have been pretty cr@!, 1 drink seems to be the standard. 

 

One venue we played we were told we would get a rider....turns out the rider was 1 pint per band member

 

That's been pretty much standard since the 80s, although these days many venues won't.

[tauzero]

Tambourines. Not when operated by qualified persons, but when the singer leaves it dangling from the mic stand within reach of the audience and some deluded plsshead grabs it - the bloody things are audible over a full drumkit, let alone (as my previous band had) a cajon player, even a loud one.

 

When the bassist is (as we so often are) the PA person too, and after getting the PA set up and everyone who's going through the PA has had their desire for a soundcheck satisfied, the rest of the band standing round looking somewhat accusingly at you as you finally get round to setting up the bass rig.

 

A very minor peeve currently that could otherwise be a major one - guitarists who have to bring their own amp and cab to get their own sound. This is happening in the band I've just joined, but the guitarist in question is very prompt and had his rig and a second rig for the lead guitarist already set up when I arrived (on time).

[Quilly]

Trying to sell gear on local buy and sell sites. 

- Is the item still available ? (then radio silence when you say yes)

- Can I swap my crappy item for yours ?

- Gan I give you half the money you're looking for?

- Will you drive across the country to hand deliver the item even though your ad clearly states 'pick up only' ? 

- Turning up at your doorstep trying to haggle even though price was agreed 

 

 

[Rich]

22 hours ago, Quilly said:

WRT # 5, all a venue manager needs to see is an electric guitar/bass guitar and  - 'you're too loud' 

Yup. At a pub in Melksham once, we had a complaint from a customer who said we were too loud. This was 5 minutes after we arrived and we were still bringing our kit in from the cars at that point. We pointed this out and he said we "looked loud". But then again, it was Melksham. They still think electricity is the work of satan there.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Rich

[Franticsmurf]

So many of the above have I experienced first hand or seen that I've stopped hitting the 'like' button to acknowledge them. I guess we all have our triggers and, dare I say it, we have probably provided a pet peeve for others on occasion, whether justified or not. I remember witnessing a huge verbal fight between the drummer and keyboard player in our band a few years ago. It started with glaring looks and the odd word between numbers in the second half of the set and ended with a loud (and frankly entertaining, as I wasn't involved) screaming match on the pavement outside the venue during the carry out. I believe it was a drum volume issue. A few gigs later, my radio transmitter failed on stage (dead battery which I had tested as usual before going on, so probably a fault of some kind). I had a lead and plugged in and missed perhaps 20 seconds of the song. The same keyboard player turned on me during the break. 'Unprofessional, cr@p kit, why bother turning up'. I was his pet peeve for the night (perhaps justified in his head).

 

Some of my pet peeves, in no particular order:

- the band member who doesn't help with carry in/out 

- not sticking to the agreed and rehearsed set (allowing for some leeway due to venue/audience). A subset of this is the random arrangement, where verses, choruses and lead breaks seem to swirl around in an arrangement known only to the band leader. 

- the singer calling out 'we do requests' setting up the rest of the night to be a glorified karaoke/juke box event. Inevitably linked to...

- not playing the requested song properly, or at all.

- club entertainment secretaries - most are fine, but one or two are only in it for the power and love nothing more than to wield it. Often characterised by becoming unreasonably directive only in the presence of others.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 6, 2022 by Franticsmurf

[Leonard Smalls]

Annoyances for me are:

-folks who noddle away loudly at rehearsals, oblivious to the fact that the rest of the band are actually trying to work out the song structure

- guitarists who can only get "their sound" by having their distortion pedals set to full gain on everything, so when they aren't playing the amplified system-noise is almost as loud as when they are! Our guitarist does this, and now the whole band turn to him and say "this wouldn't happen if you had a Helix!". And the guitar man would usually say "I can't get my sound with one of them, it's digital" (he hadn't tried one). So at our album recording recently the engineer mentioned his noisy pedals, so we tried my Helix which gave him better tones with absolute silence in between. Hopefully he'll buy one!

 

[Nail Soup]

9 hours ago, tauzero said:

Tambourines. Not when operated by qualified persons, but when the singer leaves it dangling from the mic stand within reach of the audience and some deluded plsshead grabs it - the bloody things are audible over a full drumkit, let alone (as my previous band had) a cajon player, even a loud one.

Also some singers are not good with a tambourine - and yes it cuts through everything.

They look easy to play, but there is an actual knack to shaking it in a good rhythm.

[Marky L]

When you have some new songs to learn (covers) and put in a load of effort prior to rehersal and make up crib sheets for the others if needed and then at rehersal you hear one of the others (the one that sits down all the time..) say.. "Yeah, I've listened to them in the car a few times".

 

That same band memeber who always gets to gigs first and parks right by the load in, gets all his gear in but then doesn't move his car so others can enjoy a shorter distance struggle with their kit.

 

Who also could only ever end a song with an overly elongated and utterly boring crash bang wallop rock and roll ending. I think a fifth of our gig time were his bloody endings! I brought it up and said you can only do three or four a gig and seriously trim them down. We seem to be sticking with it now.

[FinnDave]

1 hour ago, Rich said:

Yup. At a pub in Melksham once, we had a complaint from a customer who said we were too loud. This was 5 minutes after we arrived and we were still bringing our kit in from the cars at that point. We pointed this out and he said we "looked loud". But then again, it was Melksham. They still think electricity is the work of satan there.

I've played several times in Melksham - all were certainly memorable! I was talking with my neighbour this morning about the place - she used to work in the mental health field there. It was a challenge, apparently.

Edited July 6, 2022 by FinnDave
punctuation

[Lozz196]

4 hours ago, Rich said:

Yup. At a pub in Melksham once, we had a complaint from a customer who said we were too loud. This was 5 minutes after we arrived and we were still bringing our kit in from the cars at that point. We pointed this out and he said we "looked loud". But then again, it was Melksham. They still think electricity is the work of satan there.

Yep, had that, at an outdoor gig in a field mikes from anywhere got told - whilst wheeling the cabs to the field - we’d have to watch our volume levels. Maybe too many bands do play as loud as possible but that was a rather quiet band, albeit with three 412s as the backline.

[Quilly]

6 hours ago, Rich said:

Yup. At a pub in Melksham once, we had a complaint from a customer who said we were too loud. This was 5 minutes after we arrived and we were still bringing our kit in from the cars at that point. We pointed this out and he said we "looked loud". But then again, it was Melksham. They still think electricity is the work of satan there.

It’s the look of an amp or electric guitar. You could be blasting them with an accordion on a tannoy but that’s fine 🤷‍♂️

[Misdee]

Does anyone else keep looking at the title of this thread and thinking it's about a bassist called Pat Peeves? I fall for it every bleedin' time...

[Dad3353]

Pat Peeves..? Old Mavis 'Lick'em' Peeves son..? Isn't he doing a five-year stretch in Belmarsh for trading stamps forgery..? 

 

Edited July 6, 2022 by Dad3353

[Misdee]

The Pat Peeves of my imagination is playing the pubs and clubs of the North East and  still telling the story of how he nearly auditioned to be the original bass player in The Sweet but missed the train to London due to a mishap involving a crate of brown ale,  a glamorous barmaid and a pair of silver hotpants.

[FinnDave]

31 minutes ago, Misdee said:

Does anyone else keep looking at the title of this thread and thinking it's about a bassist called Pat Peeves? I fall for it every bleedin' time...

Surely no  one could be that dumb?

 

I thought it was about Pat Reeves.

[Dad3353]

Pat Reeves..? Ernie Reeves third kid..? Wasn't he expelled from the Rotary Club and banished to Helsinki for water-colour painting green Smarties blue..? 

[FinnDave]

Just now, Dad3353 said:

Pat Reeves..? Ernie Reeves third kid..? Wasn't he expelled from the Rotary Club and banished to Helsinki for water-colour painting green Smarties blue..? 

That'll be where I've heard the name before, I knew it rang a bell.

[Stu-khag]

charity gigs where too many bands have been booked. 

 

being asked to turn up 3 hours before you are playing and then having to wait around whilst the other bands soundcheck. you then have to manage put your gear around theirs with no time for even a line check or tune up.