It's A Dep's Life - Share Your Stories

[diskwave]

45 minutes ago, borntohang said:

 

The band had a house uniform with a costume change (black shirts with white tie

 Haha takes me back. A hotel season on the IOW. Three Penguins and a female singer in a gold larmay jacket...Sure we looked the part.. but what part exactly? A bunch of 1920's gangsters I bet.  Still got the set list...all those early 80's Disco stompers....happy days.

[Mike Brooks]

1 hour ago, Rich said:

Please try. You must have some absolute zingers  

Just a bit...have to consider which ones I might get sued for reporting....I'll draw up a shortlist...

[stewblack]

1 hour ago, borntohang said:

Turns out that while many people know how to start Sweet Home Alabama, significantly fewer know how to stop playing it. 

🤣🤣🤣

[borntohang]

I must admit that my final straw with those guys wasn't musical but entirely selfish. The few high points of the dep calendar were the shows during summer or Christmas when the students would come back from uni and be persuaded to come down the WMC with their parents. For a start this meant our audience would be 300% more engaged and likely to dance, but as an added bonus being the only man under 30 in the building almost but not quite made up for my many and various shortcomings. 

 

This show was one of those and I had been chatting to a lovely young student throughout the breaks. After the set the beer goggles had kicked in properly and she invited me back to hers for a game of dominos and a cup of tea. Of course I jumped at the chance:

 

"Lads, if I stow my gear away can you do me a solid and just chuck it into the room for me to pick up tomorrow? I've only got my bass and board so won't take you thirty seconds"

 

BL: "Not a chance, we'll be down hands on lugging the PA in. You've got five minutes to get in the van."

 

As he was my lift home and also had the taking for the evening I didn't have much recourse so regretfully declined her invitation and got back into the van for a sullen drive home. As we're about to set off the driver's door opens and the guitarist jumps in instead of the BL.

 

"Oh right, yeah. BL has pulled some owd lass so is stopping the night up here and we're on PA duties. He says chuck it all in the room and he'll see us next weekend, also that we need to park the van round the corner because his wife thinks we broke down."

 

Arse 🙃

[chris_b]

1 hour ago, gjones said:

Made chord charts and notes on every song.

Got to the gig that night, which was 50 miles away, to find I'd left all the notes in the rehearsal room.

 

 

I've done that, several times.

 

I had to chart out several songs on one gig. Just before kick-off I asked the BL about one of them and his answer stopped me dead in my tracks. His arrangement was totally different to the YT link he'd given me. The other 3 charts were wrong as well!! I always bring a pad so I was scribbling down the new arrangements as we went on stage.

[stewblack]

1 hour ago, borntohang said:

I must admit that my final straw with those guys wasn't musical but entirely selfish. The few high points of the dep calendar were the shows during summer or Christmas when the students would come back from uni and be persuaded to come down the WMC with their parents. For a start this meant our audience would be 300% more engaged and likely to dance, but as an added bonus being the only man under 30 in the building almost but not quite made up for my many and various shortcomings. 

 

This show was one of those and I had been chatting to a lovely young student throughout the breaks. After the set the beer goggles had kicked in properly and she invited me back to hers for a game of dominos and a cup of tea. Of course I jumped at the chance:

 

"Lads, if I stow my gear away can you do me a solid and just chuck it into the room for me to pick up tomorrow? I've only got my bass and board so won't take you thirty seconds"

 

BL: "Not a chance, we'll be down hands on lugging the PA in. You've got five minutes to get in the van."

 

As he was my lift home and also had the taking for the evening I didn't have much recourse so regretfully declined her invitation and got back into the van for a sullen drive home. As we're about to set off the driver's door opens and the guitarist jumps in instead of the BL.

 

"Oh right, yeah. BL has pulled some owd lass so is stopping the night up here and we're on PA duties. He says chuck it all in the room and he'll see us next weekend, also that we need to park the van round the corner because his wife thinks we broke down."

 

Arse 🙃

My god I almost admire him. Played you like an old fiddle 🤣 

[borntohang]

44 minutes ago, stewblack said:

My god I almost admire him. Played you like an old fiddle 🤣 

I felt he was putting himself in a precarious position regarding me not dobbing him in to his wife to be honest, but he knew how to play the game. One of the last old-school road monsters: two shirts is a costume change, that'll be an extra £50 thanks! Three disco cans on a stick is a light show, that'll be another £100 please.

 

Sometimes when I'm chained to my desk answering pointless emails I look back on those quiet 3AM moments travelling back from some show at Dogcock Conservative Club, Nowhereshire. Three of us sitting in the back on a pile of beer bottles covered in carpet, watching the M1 fly by through the holes in the van floorboards while a pissed BL gently weaves between lanes, and I think "what a bloody stupid way that was to barely earn some change"... 

[jezzaboy]

The last time I did a dep thing was about 15 years ago. It was in a place called Bonnybridge just outside Falkirk, some old hotel on the main st. It was all the drummers fault as he was desperate! 

 

He gave me a list of songs, most of which they didn`t play, the one`s I did know weren`t in the original keys and the corner of the bar we were playing in was so small that the guitarist, who had a massive beer belly, couldn`t see his pedal board and I changed the pedals for him. 

 

Never again!

[okusman]

Done a fair bit of depping.

I think it’s a healthy thing for me. It always makes me reflect on what I am doing…and why. Cues, learnt behaviour, assumed signals; it all gets chucked back at you.

Most recent was 6 piece function band a a military black tie dinner. 4 deps, 2 had never played with any of the other musicians. It was a little bit squeaky bottom, but you realise pretty soon that there is a pot of material that 95% of musos have somewhere in their head…

[chris_b]

3 hours ago, okusman said:

 . . . It was a little bit squeaky bottom, but you realise pretty soon that there is a pot of material that 95% of musos have somewhere in their head…

 

If everyone can count to 4, communicate with each other, keep eyes and hears open and start and stop together, you're 80% there.

[Dad3353]

1 hour ago, chris_b said:

If everyone can count to 4 ...

 

Hmm... with waltzes, javas and more in some repertoires, that could get interesting..! 

[tauzero]

58 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

 

Hmm... with waltzes, javas and more in some repertoires, that could get interesting..! 

 

I have heard Delilah rendered in 4/4. Not an experience I care to repeat, there was a certain fascination to it though.

[NancyJohnson]

Not a full time dep, but asked to step in a help a band in need.  Short tour, south of England.  Did my homework, gigs failed to materialise, so parked.  

 

Few months later same thing.  Did my homework.  One evening rehearsal in Brighton Electric (which was fun considering I was working in Denham, north of Heathrow at the time).

 

We were to do a warm up in High Wycombe (bottom of the bill) and then two or three showcases in central London.  High Wycombe was awful; I mean, we played fine, but there were only about five people in at that point.

 

Guitarist cut the set short, drummer moaned constantly about everything and then the London dates were cancelled.  Didn't see a penny.

[police squad]

I once turned up to see one of my favourite local bands (whom I have depped with on bass a few times) and the guitarist was taken ill. They couldn't get their regular guitarist dep, so I did it.

The singer couldn't believe it, that I knew all the songs on guitar. This was 30 years ago now, I eventually joined them full time, 10 years later.

 

The worst dep I did, I thought I could wing it. Quite an eclectic set but I am very good at busking, unfortunately the guitarist/singer was pretty rubbish and the songs I knew he played badly, so it was a bit of a car crash. I should have put more work in.

 

Best dep was for a Jam tribute called Total Jam. Mates of mine but I had 2 weeks to learn 30 odd jam songs, some of which I had never heard. I really worked my butt off for this one and delivered really well. I learnt some great Jam tunes as well and even sang David Watts (as Bruce does). I've depped with them a few times since

[Lozz196]

Kudos to that, 30 of Bruce Foxtons basslines in 2 weeks is an achievement to be proud of

[police squad]

18 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Kudos to that, 30 of Bruce Foxtons basslines in 2 weeks is an achievement to be proud of

it was great fun and I realised what an influence he has been on my playing, many of my fills sound like his

I was listening to the Jam this morning, seeing what I can remember. Great band

[BigRedX]

I've dep'd once. 

 

About a year after I had left the dad-rock covers band I used play with I got a phone call from one of the guitarists asking if I could help them out for a gig in two weeks time as their replacement bassist had injured himself and was unable to do it. Since the evening in question was one of the rare weekends when I didn't already have a Terrortones gig, I said yes on the understanding that the set would only be made up of songs that I had played before with them, and that they send it through as soon as possible so I had plenty of time to familiarise myself with them again.

 

Less than a week before the gig after further prompting the set list finally materialised and while it was all songs I had done with them before, rather than being numbers from the last time we gigged, it was years since I had played a lot of them and some I'd only done once or twice before they were dropped from the set. On questioning this, it turned out that their current singer couldn't do the gig either, and a previous vocalist had been enlisted. The resulting set was made up of all the songs I had ever played with them that he could also sing. It took me several evenings of hard work to get everything to an acceptable standard. I hadn't played some of the songs for such a long time that I was essentially learning them afresh.

 

The gig went OK, but ultimately it wasn't a very pleasant experience for me. Too much hard work for too little fun. I won't be doing it again any time soon.

[casapete]

In my old function band we had a 3 piece brass section, some of whom were teachers and 

couldn’t always make the gigs so we got used to having a fair few deps in.

If the gigs were in London we’d have deps who could only do the gig if near a tube station,

and they would turn up already dressed in a dinner suit carrying their instrument. No mic

or music stand etc, and would never help with anything other than just playing the notes.

They’d be off like a shot after the last song too - became quite funny really. Had some 

great players though, absolute pros who probably gigged most nights. 

When we were doing 3 or 4 sets during long days at weddings, we would change our

stagewear. We had some pretty loud suits for the evening sets, and when having them made

we thought we’d better get a spare for any deps. As most of the brass guys were often shall

we say on the more generous side, the dep suit was made as an XXL. I shall never forget doing

a society wedding in Ireland with the dep trumpet player (5 feet 6 tall and skinny as anything)

dressed in this suit, looked like we had a schoolboy standing in. A few days afterwards we saw

him playing with a band on Later with Jools Holland, looking very cool and hip. Could have

made a fortune if we’d had some pics of him playing with us. 

Edited April 10 by casapete

[bassbiscuits]

Best “skin of teeth” dep I did was when half of the band I was in met half another band who were missing their bass, rhythm guitar and drummer in the car park of the venue about an hour before the gig which was a wedding or party of some sort. 

It was all a bit last minute to say the least, but as both were similar bands it had been decided that we’d probably know enough common ground to get thru 2x45mins.

 

Not so. 

 

The bog standard stuff (brown eyed girl, summer of 69 etc) worked but I recall a Madness medley being “one step behind” as I struggled to work it out on the hoof.

 

The whole gig was a bit of a fiasco tbh. Nobody involved has played together since either!

 

Ive done a couple of other random one-off deps where it’s clear a band member (the singer usually) really doesn’t gel with me at all and it’s been a relief all round to get paid, say nice things and drive home safe in the knowledge that you’ll never be onstage together again!

 

I’ve done some lovely dep jobs and also some really ropey ones standing in for a mate etc, which have been embarrassingly bad even to the most casual / drunk listener. In each case been glad it’s not my band.
 

 

[bassbiscuits]

To add to a couple of the earlier comments, I reckon my playing has improved loads through depping. Playing stuff you wouldn’t normally learn, meeting other musicians and making contacts with them etc. It works brilliantly for me. 

[paul_5]

Yup. I'm not playing live anywhere near as much as I used to, so periodically running through setlist for bands I occasionally dep with helps me keep my piggies wriggling and also makes sure that there's less 'cramming' to do when the dep gigs come in.

Edited April 10 by paul_5

[martthebass]

15 hours ago, tauzero said:

 

I have heard Delilah rendered in 4/4. Not an experience I care to repeat, there was a certain fascination to it though.

I'm not even sure how that'd work 🤣

[bassbiscuits]

29 minutes ago, martthebass said:

I'm not even sure how that'd work 🤣

That’s hurting my brain 

[chris_b]

I was in a duo with a guitarist and Amazing Grace was in the set. One night he started it in 4/4 (should have been in 3/4!) and I had 3 mins of hell, firstly trying to understand what had just happened, I didn't even recognise which song he was playing. I should have sat there and let him play it on his own, but I tried and failed to fit the old bass line into the new time signature. He did apologise afterwards!

[stewblack]

Something I've learnt when playing unfamiliar material, if I get lost it's better to play nothing than hack around randomly trying to fill the silence.

No bass beats wrong bass every time. Wait for the merry go round to come back to a horse you recognise and jump back on.

Oh and worrying about mistakes benefits no one. I might think I'm being conscientious and professional berating myself for every slip, but in truth I'm just making myself tense and stressing about stuff which has gone.

Focus on the next note not the last one