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Why's that then? Because you want to pretend that situation didn't happen and people like that don't exist? It did, they do, and there's lots of them. I make no apologies for noticing. Don't take it out on me just because it doesn't fit with what you like to think certain people are like, or your patronising ideas of how they should be portrayed. You should bin your own self-righteous indignation and virtue signalling.

No worries there for the drummer, listen through once, maybe twice, and it's down 'pat'. Easy peasy.

Dirty Roses: Summer of 69. Not an intentional structure change, it's just that despite us having done it for several years, the drummer still can't sort out a fill for the end of the middle 8. TBH, we really ought to drop it. Tainted Love. Just an ending that works for us. Twist and Shout/La Bamba. We just do it as a medley at the end of the night, it's generally fairly random where we switch from one to the other and where the lead breaks come. Paranoid. No structure change, it's just that I think I only play about 90% of the notes because my fingers don't work fast enough. I'd love to drop it. I think that's it. Bonnevilles: Born on the Bayou. Not sure if we've done a structure change or not, haven't listened to the original since we rehearsed it earlier and worked out what we would do. Off the top of my head, that's it. It's not just cover bands who change structures, if you have a listen to the original "Don't you forget about me" off Glittering Prize and compare it to the live version on Live in the City of Light, there's quite a major restructure. And then try and find a Youtube video where Simple Minds play it the same as they do on that live album, rather than yet another way. And I really don't know why it happens. I know the guitarist in the Bonnevilles has commented on how I play Sweet Child O' Mine because I play it as per record with the correct hold of two bars on the A at the end of the Em C B A bit, as does everyone else I've played it with, but another band that he plays with does it some different length (stuff that, I'm playing it the right length!). So once a mistake has established itself, it's often difficult to extract it.

My current covers band and previous covers band made changes to songs that I don't really understand and I don't know the origins of. I'm not talking key changes or replacing a sax solo with a guitar part, I'm talking about structural changes. These changes include chord sequence changes, complete rewrites of sections, changing the way a song ends, changing the intro, etc Now, these aren't avant guarde bands, or artists doing reinterpretations. They're pub/club/function/festival covers bands. Some of it is so subtle it hardly seems worth it, some of it is just plain wrong, some of it seems like someone was just trying to be creative and add their own twist. I'm yet to come across one that is either an improvement or that is easier to reproduce than what is on the original. This must be a more common occurrence than I previously thought. I can't really remember dealing with it in the past. What's your experience of this sort of thing? A few I've experienced recently to get the ball rolling: 1. Mr Blue Sky (reprise at the end). Instead of 12 bars of Db then C then B etc there's a completely different ending that uses G A Bb with a riff. 2. Long Train Running. It goes G///|G///|Eb///|Eb/D/| at the end of the verses instead of G///|G///|Eb///|D///| I have to concentrate to not play it like the Doobies. 3. Message in a Bottle. Has a different ending that you'd never guess. 4. Other songs: the chord sequence for the guitar solo is simplified. I see some logic but knowing the skills of the guitarists, I just can't see why they needed it simplifying.

Bonnevilles rehearsal, went over two new songs - Confidence Man (Jeff Healey Band) and Born on the Bayou (Creedence). Unfortunately the drummer was a bit behind as he'd been listening to Born on the Bayou and some other Creedence track because he hadn't spotted who Confidence Man was by and had found a CCR track that had a name vaguely similar to Confidence Man. Still, we managed to go through both songs a few times and work out how we were going to play them (I might have a listen back to the originals to see how close we are). Plus I've suggested another couple of old ones, Shaking all over and Summertime blues, although I would like to do them like The Who did them rather than the more pedestrian originals.

Bendricks Rock tonight. After yesterday's excellent gig we focused on four new tunes. Another Girl Another Planet London Calling Alive Kelly's Heroes That last one wasn't very familiar for me, but is great to play - some subtleties and a wee bass solo. Overall four banging tunes, we're just angsting over what to drop.

British Legion/Ex-servicemens clubs are a mainstay of local music these days, many are open to all.

Hexs in the bath in case Pure Cremation pop round with a flamethrower .

"ToneDirt"

Only if the would-be purchaser doesn't then buy a different instrument, and the factory only makes that component for a USA manufacturer and can't change to making another (or the same) component for another manufacturer.

Excellent, haven't seen Robin since my last Midlands bash - pre-covid!

you'll find that speakers sound very different up on poles. any hard reflective surface will reinforce the bass frequencies in particular and you'll get an extra 6db for each reflective surface. Spacing something away from a surface creates two paths to the ear and you'll get a time delay between the reflected sound and th direct sound from the speaker. That creates points in the frequency response where you get cancellation. I use the same speakers up on poles as PA and on the ground as floor monitors with one of my bands and DI the same bass signal into both. I don't use backline. I have to cut the bass to the monitors by at least 6db or the bass frequencies just drown out everything else on stage, the same signal is crystal clear out in front of the stage. Whether that bass reinforcement is good depends upon what you want to achieve/like. The 8" cab you've built gained a lot of love sitting on the floor but you can experiment with it on a pole. The best stand of course might be your other 8. maybe a stack of four would sound good I've used my 6" cab for open mics. It doesn't have the bass of the 8" cab so I tend to find a corner or a rear wall for it so I can use the bass reinforcement. It's good to experiment and you can learn to use the reinforcement as an extra tool.it's free bass boost if you need boost. A real nuisance if you don't.

When a man is tired of buying basses, he is tired of life.

Last Wednesday was my first rehearsal with the covers band I joined recently. They've been busy gigging for over 15 years and are keen to get me integrated. We went to Firebird Studios in Bristol, which I think is top notch. It's very well appointed. We got through 20 songs and other than a couple of bits where they deviate from the original recordings, I felt that we were pretty much giggable. A great bunch that have really welcomed me and gave me free reign to run the rehearsal as I wanted. They feel that as I'm new to the band but definitely not new to bands, that the best way was for me to drive the bus. I started us off with some easier songs to get warmed up then did what I considered to be the ones that might have needed some detailed attention and then went on to some of the more fun ones to play so that we would end on a high. Other than having to restart one song because I inadvertently trod on my FX power supply and disconnected it, everything went smoothly. We're back in this week doing the rest of the set and running through a few that are new to them too, so I'm really looking forward to us all being in the same boat from that respect rather than me playing catch up. Recording the rehearsal seemed to be a new concept and got a few questions. I explained that I intended to build a library of play-along tracks for home practise that will be better than using the original artist recordings. I also mentioned that it's just good practice for any band to record and listen back to gigs and rehearsals as QA/QC. I use a Zoom H2n and then slice up the file in Logic and use the generic mastering. It's pretty good and more than fit for purpose. Edit: The "deviations"? 1. Mr Blue Sky (reprise at the end). Instead of 12 bars of Db then C then B there's a completely different ending that uses G A Bb with a riff. 2. Long Train Running. It goes G///|G///|Eb///|Eb/D/| at the end of the verses instead of G///|G///|Eb///|D///| I have to concentrate to not play it like the Doobies. I don't know why or what the origins of these are, I'm just playing 'em "wrong" so it fits in. There were a lot more of these anomalies in my previous band and didn't understand any of them. It's almost like they've been put in there to trip up deps/newbies 😃 It's probably worth a thread of its own...

The guitarist just messaged with another gig for the book. He didn't really fancy it so slapped an extra 50% on what we normally charge, and they went for it without hesitation - sweet! A fat wedge always helps the night pass quicker 😂

Constable. Smiley Culture