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I was a founding member, and spent 26 years, with a KISS tribute band. We wore the full outfits and boots (custom made and VERY expensive), had custom guitars made (and existing guitars customised) and took the musical/vocal/arrangement accuracy very seriously. To me, that's what makes a 'tribute' band, rather than a 'cover' band. I even went as far as to learn firebreathing and we filled our performances with the expected pyrotechnics too.... It all paid off though... We were the first KISS tribute to perform all over Europe & Scandinavia and played numerous international fan conventions too. Over the years we played with, played for and/or appeared with almost all original and latter members of KISS as well as appearing on both of Gene Simmons worldwide TV shows. We performed for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Def Leppard, headlined festivals and launched products (Volvo etc). We also performed at music 'trade shows', played Halloween at the Cafe De Paris in Monaco and toured Japan with The Bootleg Beatles, Counterfeit Stones, T-Rextasy and Royal Family (Queen show), gaining endorsements from Washburn, Ibanez, Cort and Spector along the way.... We even discovered that KISS were keeping up date with our performances and later found that a mid song breakdown/arrangement I had created had been adopted by KISS themselves in their live show! It was very hard work, but great fun and gave me life experiences that will stay with me forever. I also spent spare time in originals bands and cover bands over the years so have seen both sides.... Tribute haters gonna hate...... usually from their bedrooms...... but I guarantee I worked 10 times harder during every 2hr tribute show than haters ever have onstage....

I don't actually care whether a band is tribute, covers, or so-called originals. All that matters is ... are they any good?

But why? If you have a particular enthusiasm for the output of one artist/band, who is to say it is unhealthy or a bit silly to concentrate on playing that material? I listen to a very limited range of music, and am happiest when playing the music from that range. As it is increasingly unlikely that I will ever be invited to join the original band, playing with people who share that enthusiasm, to audiences who also share it, is the next best thing.

A House In The Boonies / S13 Ep4 / Wales Final Broadcast Transcript Run Time 29’:22” Pre Creds: Presenter (Wendy) to camera “This week we’re in Wales helping Ron and Marjorie to find … A House In The Boonies” Opening Creds – Theme Music: ‘Plinketty Plonk’ Scene 1 – Establishing segment Wendy to camera: "Ron and Marjorie Blart currently live in a poky, condemned one bedroom flat in London but hope to exchange it for a gigantic mansion in Wales possibly with turrets. Ron’s a retired astrophysicist and Marjorie’s a lion-tamer so they need some land for Ron’s collection of radio telescopes and an enclosure for Marjorie’s pride of lions” Shot of lions ripping zebra to shreds – Incidental Music: ‘Banjo Breakdown’ Wendy smarming to camera: "So how did you two love-birds come to be married?" Ron and Marjorie to camera, holding hands: Incidental music: ‘Disco Love Theme for Ukulele” Ron: “We met when Marjorie’s circus came to perform at Jodrell Bank. It was love at first sight” Marjorie: “I’d never seen a little man with such a huge telescope” Music stab: ‘Trombone Wah-wah-wah descending’ Wendy: So what’s the most important feature you’re looking for in your new House In The Boonies? Marjorie: The master bedchamber must have have lots of light. And I want a snug little room somewhere to do colonic irrigation. It's a hobby of mine. Ron: I’d need an absolutely stable gravitational environment with no electro-magnetic eddies… Wendy: Right… Ron: … but it’s not a big issue as long as Marjorie’s lions are happy. Particularly Rex… Marjorie: Yes, Rex. Rex is a bit picky. Wendy: (simpers) Well, we’ll be looking at three luvlay generous properties after the break Break Bumper Music: ‘Pizzicato Plonketty Plink Plinketty Plinketty Plonk’

I watch Later. Actually, I record it and ff through the stuff I don't like. I sometimes see a band that I like. I've no idea why people like the stuff I don't, but they seem to, so why should I call their music crap and slag off one of the only music programs on TV? I'm in favour of the TV companies filling their schedules with live music. We need more. Later is a good program and TV would be the poorer if it was cancelled.

PRECISELY!

Doesn't make sense to me either, probably because that's not what I'm saying. Download a 30Hz test tone and play it through your bass amp or over headphones. Does it sound musical? Can you even hear much at all? 30-40Hz can certainly add a lot of weight to a bass instrument, but it doesn't add much to the 'musicality' of it. If you play that low 31Hz B-string then it sounds fat because the lowest fundamental is helping to underpin the overall sound, but much of what you're hearing is the harmonics above that. And you can roll of a lot of that 31Hz fundamental without affecting the overall tone or 'fatness'. Try it. Maybe with a compressor In a live gig setting, I'd be very wary of doing anything around 30-40Hz other than dialing it back due to the chaotic acoustics in most venues. If you're recording DI in a studio, it's a very different kettle of fish because the room is taken out of the picture and you can tweak to taste post-recording.

I'm in a Bowie Tribute band, but we're a bit different as our lead singer is female. Jane (for that is her name) does a bit of dressing up and uses the jagged metal tie on 'Man Who Sold the World. The rest of us just wear mostly normal clobber as you can see....that's me in the hat btw! We don't replicate the music note for note and have written an original tribute to Bowie song. Best part is we all take it seriously but also have a laugh, work hard on performances and audiences seem to like us. http://www.facebook.com/missbowieband

The 'buyer' refused the eBay refund I sent and insisted that I send the bass, so I have refunded him directly through PayPal (and have an acknowledgment from eBay that he has now received it). I'm guessing from his tone that he'd already sold it (eBay listing closed early), had seen a nice £600 pay-day coming his way, and is now rather miffed. What goes around comes around eh

Bedroom: Lovely, bass-rich, slightly mid-scooped tone with a hint of top-end 'air' (sniffs cork, quaffs, spits) Live band: Mids-boosted clank, leave everything under 100hz to the kick drum

Usual YT rumbling led me to these guys and I dig it, jazz bass with chromes through an B15 - bliss!

Anyone notice this trend? The BBC seem to be major offenders. Anything that's not serious drama, such as a programme about shopping, or a fluff-doc about some family business in Kettering, always has a constant moronic soundtrack throughout - usually featuring plinky pizzicato strings for a 'lighthearted' feel, or possibly an aphasic idiot whistling a merry tune accompanied by some jolly ukulele chords... and it's always too bloody loud! I get the impression this drek is to keep the population calm and sedate... much like the sort of easy-listening prevalent in the nation's secure units, loony bins and associated banana cabanas. Crime drama and other 'serious' programming is even worse. It's got to the stage where I cant even tell if something horrible is about to happen without the obligatory 'low synth drone', presumably intended to instil a sense of foreboding in the viewer... Any other feckless time-wasting, square-eyed, slack-jawed quinquagenarians agree..?

Here's mine.

I was in a Stereophonics "tribute" band ...we didn't look like them ..though weirdly I played in an originals band at the same time whos's singer was the spitting image of Kelly jones ( great singer but didn't sound anything like Mr Jones) We did mess with arrangements a bit and I didn't stick to the root note bass lines that Kelly jones insisted were played on "his" songs. I don't care if you like the idea of tribute bands or about anyone's idea of what constitutes a tribute band ...I had a fantastic time made decent money and played main stage rock city to 2000 (ish) people, all singing along to every song , three times....I'll die a happy man.

What really gets on my tits is with most things the music is always around blow your head off volume and you can hardly hear the talking

I'd noted on a few visits to my Dad's house, he's started watching TV with the sound off. No subtitles, no sound, nothing. It's quite nice once you get used to it. Much easier to make up you're own plot lines and game show rules.

I would phone you and talk you through this... but I suspect you wouldn't be able to hear me over your tinnitus.

Cheating? Don't be silly. Writing the answers up your arm when taking exams is cheating. Having the words etc to hand is being prepared.

My contempt for the facile, simpering jauntiness of daytime TV incidental music is utter and complete. Were it possible to enact without risk of penal servitude a savage, physical retribution on the gurning halfwits who manufacture these odious 'programmes' I should proceed accordingly and with gusto. Faugh!

I got the Sire V3 that was up last month and as far as I can see there is nothing wrong with it 🤔

Absolutely. And sustain too... A common misconception on here and elsewhere is: "What on earth would I want my bass to have good sustain, I don't play any long notes?" When in fact sustain is more about how the instrument generates harmonics, which are fundamental to a good tone.

I don’t actually have much personal experience of Rays first hand so as far as the tone of the Solo’d MM pickup I don’t have a particular frame of reference. What I will say though is that it isn’t only useful as a blending option with the P - it’s actually an incredibly useful sound in its own right. I’ve found myself playing along to tracks with a dense mix of instruments and soloing the MM has given me the perfect starting tone that cuts through the mix better than any other pup setting.

Well, you seem to have got an accurate picture of them then!

I’ve just realised, @mcnach, part of the reason for my purple wood grain bass GAS was seeing your Maruszczyk “JazzJake” custom. To be fair I was already GASing for that colour/wood combo but you added fuel to the flames

Ok mate no need to shout, I heard you this time. Maybe you EQ’d those out of the bottom end......

It's a shame that there has been a post belittling tribute bands , music people love is heard everyday through headphones on the move and LPs in peoples homes so why would the visual and live performance recreation not be a next step for some fans. The one thing I love about the musicians I know and call friends both weekend warriors and pros is their love of life and tolerance of people just being into whatever it is they love, be it tributes , originals or running a Sonia fan club

How about posting a live video of your band and let the ridiculous tribute band bass players see what makes you so much better.

Dear Dan Dare, The word 'tribute' has nothing to do with 'fake'. A 'tribute' is actually what is correctly known as a 'paean' - meaning 'a creative work expressing enthusiastic praise' or ' an expression of praise or exultation' (Wikipedia) This may all sound a bit nancy noo, but that's the way it is. By the way, I personally am not a huge fan of tribute bands, but, hey..........................

I don't think I particularly looked like one, but the smoke machine definitely helped!

Anything by King's of Leon just awful

This poem was in the order of service at a memorial service for a young Bass player I knew, taken too young. I appreciate that not everyone shares the poems view on bassists "place" in a band, but the sentiment was definitely shared by the young lad.🙂 Thought I'd share it.

Was 1979 really 39 years ago??? Thanks....I'm now feeling so much older...

I played for a while in a groovy little Paul Rodgers tribute band, playing stuff by Free, Bad Co, some of his solo stuff and even a cheeky Queen number or two. We made no attempt to look like any of those bands as no amount of wigs and loon pants would cover up the fact that we were all "men of a certain age". The "dressing up" thing wouldn't have worked for us, but if you and the rest of your band can pull off a decent visual resemblance to Nirvana, Peter Paul and Mary or Napalm Death, then have at it, I say. Having seen a bunch of "heritage acts" phone in some rather lacklustre shows in the last few years, a decent tribute act is most definitely a viable option, if you want to hear your favourite songs played by musicians who aren't yet victims of the ravages of time. Just make sure that if you're making a decent wedge in clubs and theatres by playing another bands tunes, that you make sure PRS know and they can chuck some royalties at the original artists.

Tribute suggests it is being done in some way to honour the original. I doubt many people in tribute bands dislike what they play, and in my experience they do it for the love of the music in question so tribute band is perfectly acceptable within the meaning of the word.

I hope you're not accusing me of plagiarism? Thanks

LOL, I'm sorry, accusations like that can follow you around I just saw "sounds familiar" and "Location: France" and thought who do I know in France.... Well I feel better now, that's us both out of a sticky situation!! Hat, coat... I know ha ha!

Whilst talking about tone... It’s not all about eq - some guys may want to look into saturation - this isn’t overdrive or destitution per se, in fact, if you perceive it as such, you have gone too far. The saturation effectively excites the harmonics and can give your bass a lot more “being there”, than just eq alone. Your ears are getting bamboozled and all of a sudden, your bass tone will just sound massive in comparison.

An alternative approach is 2 MDF boards, with a partially pumped up bicycle inner tube folded up between them. You can tidy it up with a bit of edging around the bottom one to hide the tube as long as the top board fits inside without touching it.

I agree that just about any of the songs listed can be a bore or a suffer to get through To me though, if the crowd likes it and I can just play in auto-pilot mode then I will do it But don't ask to practice these!!!

Sometimes, you have to dress the part or it would be all wrong. I didn't replicate Jim Lea's bass gear.

I do. It's weird, incredibly hot, and a lot of fun. We don't make much money - it's mostly just a laugh and a chance to play some nice venues for other fans who appreciate the music too. Got quite good at changing costumes in less than thirty seconds too.

They are just a very old design now. Go back 10 years or more, and there wasn’t much that could do what they do for the size and weight - now there are many small heads and cabs that can..and more. I also don’t think the later models added any performance...if anything they seem to have more circuit noise than previous versions.

I loved Tower of Power and i am not a funk fan. The singer can realllly sing.

The band I was in, Inter managed to get a record deal. We were part of the post brit-pop scene and worked our rears off playing as much as humanly possible to build up a following. Started to get a name for ourselves and released a song on the Pet Sounds label and then later on our first single, Happy Ending in 1997. This got noticed by John Peel who said it was his favourite single of 1997 and gave us our first John Peel Session. This promoted us even further and it got to the point where Virgin were trying to decide to sign either us or The Stereophonics. They chose the Stereophonics in the end but we still managed to get a half decent record deal. We were all about 28 and got about £36k advance each for 3 years plus £5k to buy gear and then royalties from merchandise, sales etc. Going to the Bass Centre with £5k to go buy whatever I wanted was the best feeling in the world. I bought a Stingray, a Status and a massive top of the range Hartke rig 😊 We recorded our debut album at Loco Studios in South Wales which was where Oasis, The Manics, Stereophonics and many others had recorded stuff. The studio was also owned by Geoff Downes of Buggles fame and John Payne of Asia who both played on the album. We lived at the studio for three months in our own cottage and even had our own chef 😊 Our producer was Mark Wallis who has recorded with everyone but is most famous for recording the IT Bites album, The Primatives album, The Smiths, The Travis album and was the engineer on U2's Joshua Tree. Prior to choosing this producer we came very close to going to Seatle and recording the album with Rick Parasher who recorded Pearl Jam's Ten album but we told the record company no as we wanted to sound English still and not end up sounding like an American band. The album, titled Got My Nine sold 7k copies in the first week and we released 3 singles, National Paranoia, Speed Racer and Radio Finland. All got mainstream radio airplay and led on to a second John Peel Session, a live Virgin Radio Session and an XFM session. Also one of our tracks was used to advertise Casio G Shock watches in an advert for Spanish cinemas. We also did other TV stuff with tracks being used on Eurosport and Rebel TV. Q Magazine gave the album 4 out of 5. We continued to tour which was amazing with our own crew etc. and were doing really well but then things started to go wrong. We were getting offered some big things like going on tour with Feeder in Germany, film soundtracks, gigs in the States but the record company was saying no to it all. To cut a long story short, we found out we were being ran as a tax loss so initially the record company were happy to pump money in to us (the album alone cost £120k to record etc.) but as we started to get more successful they put the brakes on. We were literally being hung out to dry and missing out on great opportunities which at the time made no sense. Anyway, they breached contracts so we sued them and won and that was the end of it. It was incredibly hard work, constantly recording, touring, song writing, promoting, photo shoots, interviews etc. but I have no regrets as I lived my dream for 4 years, the best time of my life with the most amazing experiences. Plus I still get the odd royalty payment now and again 😊 More details below. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter_(band) Other things I've done is go on tour with Paul Weller in another band, supporting him for 4 nights at the Roundhouse in Camden and recorded an album at his studio in Ripley. He also played on the album and I had to teach him to play this piano part that we wanted. I've been the Bass player in a video for a charity song that ELO were recording. Played at Brixton Academy using The Levellers back line. Supported Cactus World News and Let Loose and best of all chatted to Andrea Corr whilst making a cup of tea 😍😍 Now I play in an amazing 50s and 60s cover band, doing about 100 gigs a year and totally loving it.

I was watching something on the Now TV box last night and then turned back to my normal service without remembering what channel I’d left it on previously. It was a music program with a band laying down some awesome funk. And what a mix, everything just right, with the bass nicely audible. This can’t be the BBC I thought to myself, wrong. Later is back and the band were Tower of Power. David Garibaldi back on drums with Marc Van Wageningen on bass (no Rocco but Marc is just as brilliant ). I’m now looking forward to the extended show on Sunday. Other acts included Snow Patrol & Plan B, TBH I just fast forwarded but the mix was still very good - about time.

Things some of us get up to. Wish I could play em.

I loved The Sweeney theme tune from the 70s, does that count as a groove?