OldGit

A Thursday wedding (!) in a posh wedding Mill/Tithe Barn place near Bath. Booked us a good year ago and we had all the normal conversations about liking about 2 hours to setup and sound check, once we gain access to the room, more if it's up stairs etc . Couple came to see us play elsewhere and were dead keen. Then about 4 weeks ago a "wedding organiser" got involved. "You'll start playing at 7:59, You will play until precisely 9:15 when something else will happen and I need your set list to co-ordinate with everything else" Eh? "Start at 7.59? Sure, if you can give us cleared room and unfettered access to the stage area at 5:59" "Oh but the speeches don't start til 6.45 so you'll get in at about 7" 7? wedding speeches that start on time and only take 15? ROTFL At this point I was wondering if the wedding organiser had ever done a wedding reception with a band ... "OK well we'll set up as fast as we possibly can but, after 15 years of doing this, I can tell you that it's extremely unlikely that we'll be ready to go much before about, say 1hour and 59 minutes after we gain access to the room ... oh and that's what I've been telling the bride and groom for about a year now, and it's not changed ..." It went on "Did we really need 2 hours? Could we play CD's through the PA whilst we setup and sound check? Could we come in before the reception to setup up and then hang around for 5 hours before playing (yes, but that's 4 times the normal fee 'cos then we can't go to work that day and we are very very expensive consultants on a massively huge daily rate - liar!) That and the fact that of a whole side of the family was coming down from Glasgow for the wedding made for a few nerves before. Rock ceilidh and men in kilts do not always co-exist happily as the Scots tend to know how it "should go" and which tune goes with which dance and how to do the dances correctly etc. They learn it in School.. Well we don't really play it like that. Sadly Brides and mothers of brides don't always judge their family's approach to this subject well so we have had a few "interesting" conversations in the past with men in kilts about the way we do things ... Ms Wedding Organiser re-arranged the day and shifted the speeches. When we arrived at 6:30 for our revised 6:55 get in time, they were on puddings. We got in at 7:05! I missed The Archers but, hey, life in a band is tough some times.. We set up tucked in a corner of one of a pair of pretty tiny rooms, with arches and a step between (ooops broken leg alarm!) and on the floor .. no stage and a room full of reeling Scots in wedding reception mode ... hum I feared for my teeth and foot pedals .. Kicked off at 8.45 with a CD track for the Bride and Groom to lean against each other and shuffle round to for their first dance .. Jack Jones, pretty good, added that to our list of songs to learn.. 30 seconds in everyone joined in. That ended and we grabbed them for the first called dance. A crucial time as this is when you find out just how keen they are and how well the instructional part of the evening will go. It was immediately obvious that there were two camps .. the sober (many of whom were pregnant) and the Young Male (mostly) Scots ... One set of dancers got it fast and danced great. The other set just freestyle hoolied .. and that set the tone of the whole evening. A great night was had by all and only lots of beer was spilled, some on us and our foot pedals and monitors etc. The Groom was pretty much lost to this world when we arrived and there were a few fallers, mostly the clumps of drunk men wheeling around the dance floor in between their set-dancing relatives .. It is possible to dance at a ceilidh holding two pints of lager but it's not advisable ... We pulled everything in close but still had to fend off a few wobbly people, and the boom mic stanbds went fully upright .. an SM58 in the mouth hurts ... We were mentioned in dispatches for a great night, our extreme tolerance and for coping well with the challenges but, really, once the wedding planner had decided to do it our way, it was an easy one because whatever we played they got up and danced, not always in the way we had planned but that doesn't matter ... Oh and the Kiera Knightly - alike young woman really going for it in a very flimsy "diving in the fountain" stile diaphanous dress was very distracting ..... Summer Weddings My gear sounded great. I restrung my pretty Shuker Bolt on 5 string E-C and this was its first gig like that. It went very well and only a few fingerings were strange enough to need a bit more work .. Thomostik strings are a bit hard on my delicate Elixir liking fingers though so I may have to address that. Got in at 2.30 so a bit wrecked today. ... My next gig is a dep for a quiet Welsh Tympath band at a wedding in the Orangery at Bristol Uni .. That will be a tad different

[quote name='Ou7shined' post='242402' date='Jul 18 2008, 09:31 AM']Heh heh guess what sitting atop my 410? [/quote] Not a dodgy MB LMII with questionable pedigree for just £70 less than a fully guaranteed new one? Hope it's not one of the early ones that had some trouble with power blocks and overheating .....

[quote name='Thunderthumbs' post='118796' date='Jan 11 2008, 08:16 PM']She ended up saying it was brilliant, and that she just wished she'd have found us on her own rather than paying an agent £200 simply for passing our details on to her. His paperwork also had the wrong arrival time, etc. So it's best to work directly with whoever organising the wedding if possible.[/quote] You have to make sure your website is easy to find using google, your key search terms will be your town or region. Wedding band searches are something like wedding band Glasgow wedding entertainers Glasgow wedding blues brothers band Glasgow etc So make sure your meta-data reflects your geographical area, Then your website has to say "we are in Glasgow" on every page. All bands will play anywhere for the right money but a bride (or bride's mother) wants to know they are dealing with a local band and not paying a load out for travel etc. so tell them where you are (on every page) Have a strap line like: John and the Gorbals: Fantastic Professional Glasgow Wedding Band Hyperbole can put off some people so if you claim to be the "Best wedding band in Glasgow" you'd better put it in quotes and have a testimonial to back it up. The whole thrust of your website (for weddings and functions) should be "we do this all the time, we really know what we are doing, and other people think we are really good at it. You can trust us" Not literally, of course, but with a subtle mix of quotes, testimonials, tales of past successes, etc

[quote name='fifeq' post='242116' date='Jul 17 2008, 08:27 PM']new song on myspace so please check it![/quote] [url="http://www.myspace.com/danceofthestarlings"]http://www.myspace.com/danceofthestarlings[/url] It's easier if you make it a clickable link

That live Isle of Wight version of All Right Now is on Virgin XL Music on Demand on a telly near you at the moment. Sounds a lot better than it does on Youtube ..

I play in an English Style Ceilidh band too .. No rules in our band .. We are more than likely to play Sweet Werewolf Summer Alabama tonight at a wedding and for a dance My home work when I joined (from a rock-pop-general background) was the CD "Morris on" and also, "Son of Morris on", partly os our guitarist is on them (in the audience ) +1 on Rick Kemp. My fave track of his is the newish Blackleg Miner with slap into .. sure it's still folk and he plays a very growly Overwater ... Your best bet is to ask the most influential person in teh band for recommendations as there are as many styles of this as there are bands, more or less. If you play a bit like that person thinks is "right" you'll be OK. Oh the other general guideline is to keep it really simple for the first couple of times through the dance to let the dancers "get it". I often don't play at all during the intro and the first time through. Then I'll just play roots, bringing in the interesting stuff as it goes along. i also play up the dusty end and louder and quieter too.. That adds dynamics and interest to the tune too. I play in one band now and then where everyone plays the tune all the way through from start to end .. They don't do dynamics ... It's a dep so not my place to say anything but 15 minutes of that per tune is a tad boring ...

[quote name='Adrenochrome' post='241534' date='Jul 17 2008, 09:40 AM']The originals band were certainly never interested in 'playing the game' [and still aren't in their current incarnation].[/quote] Then I'm afraid being treated badly is par for the course .... it's one of the costs of doing it your own way. You could always try playing the game whilst retaining your musical integrity. It is possible.. But you still have to be stunningly entertaining live to make an originals band "successful" by any normal measure.

[quote name='mike257' post='241404' date='Jul 17 2008, 12:04 AM']Most of the line-up from the film still tour as a band, a sessioneering mate of mine plays hammond for them!! EDIT: For the fact that I've just looked at their website, and it's only the drummer and the bassist left now. At least they've got the important ones then [/quote] The band started gigging for real after the film when they realised they could do it for a living. Note they didn't go on to become film stars. Rock and roll has long been a way out of the ghetto. I love that film, it shows a lot of the grind and grime involved in creating a local small time band and getting it to do a gig. It was such an eye opener for civilians who had just seen Spinal Tap, the Monkees and TOTP and thought it went like that. All spouses and potential partners should see it so that they have some idea what happens when you go out twice a week to rehearsals but never gig

[quote name='Adrenochrome' post='241499' date='Jul 17 2008, 08:45 AM']...done that for a while, right up until 2 years ago in fact. How well treated and looked after my covers band was just highlighted how badly my originals band was being treated.[/quote] Well that all comes back to your drawing power and that comes back to how entertaining you are and how well you play the game. If your originals band stuffed the venues to the gunnels with enthusiastic punters you'd be treated very well indeed by the promotors.

[quote name='MananaMan' post='241223' date='Jul 16 2008, 08:24 PM']Yeah, I see your point, but then we' were talking about cover bands taking potential audiences from originals bands. These people are already going out to the pub, better (in my eyes) they go support original music than not. Of course, better to support live music than anything else but then I'm just arguing with myself...[/quote] I see it diferently to you, clearly, as I see the market for covers and orginals as two totally different things with just a little overlap. If I go to see a (usually) young unknown orginals band everyone assumes I'm a supportive and transport providing parent who should be off elsewhere and not hanging about embarrasing his kid, a record company/venue scout, a drugs officer or a perv... However I fit right in to the normal covers band gig audience which is generally 30+ Faced with just orginals bands to see live I suspect that the majority of people who would go out to see a covers band would just do something other than see an orginals band. There's so much choice these days including staying in and listening CDs of old music [quote]No, Mustang Sally is a great song and probably better than 99.9% of all songs ever written (especially if you include all songs written by bands that aren't popular). Not sure if it was written for The Commitments,[/quote] eh? cough cough cough! splutter Blige mate, are you 12 or something? You do know the Commitments were a covers band influenced by another covers band - the Blues Brothers - don't you? It always tickles me that the Blues Brothers tribute bands are tributing a covers band No Mustang Sally wasn't written for The Commitments. Nor was anything else they played in the film. [quote]or if its an older tune, either way I'd rather see it done by the people I associate it with most - The Commitments.[/quote] You know the Commitments were not a real band? They were a bunch of actors in a film.. That's not real life. It wasn't a documentary about a real band, like, say Spinal Tap for instance. Just checking [quote]Maybe I'm just old fashioned. Or a tw@. Probably the second methinks.[/quote] ha ha nah .. Just a different viewpoint.. [i]"John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room has had a sign on the stage for more than a decade that says, "No Mustang Sally.""[/i] Excellent! Just glad I'll never play there

[quote name='MananaMan' post='240268' date='Jul 15 2008, 06:18 PM']Hmmm.... some interesting points there folks! OG, if I was booking all the venues in this fair land, the one and only decision on whether to book a band is this : are you good? By that, I mean, do you write good songs (doesn't have to be mind-altering stuff, just songs that hang well together with a bit of thought put in), and do you play well together. I'm always about the vibe, man. Certainly I think I've got a reasonable ear, had many bands through the door that went on to much greater things, many more that didn't but all of them were very well received by the punters.[/quote] So how do you get the punters there in the first place? They have to know about the band and how good they are. Certainly if you only ever have "good" bands in your venue that helps in a general sense but your rant about NME and R1 promoted average bands pulling a crowd says it all. It's about marketing and building a following. In the same way your venue has to market itself (as well as the bands) and build a following. People need to know that, if they can be bothered to go and see an unknown band at your place, your QC process will ensure that it will be a good band, whatever genre it is. It's "tell a friend" slightly removed, and the venue booker is that filtering system. [quote]Our methodology thus far has been simple: every time you get up on stage, blow everyone else playing there out of the water. Or at least, try.[/quote] Yup post number 6 in this tread "If you want to earn money from playing don't play pubs or clubs. Stick to functions, do a brilliant show every time and you too can join us well paid function players. Simple really. " [quote]Sounds simple put like that, but its all about crafting the sound and feel of every part of every body's playing so that everything works together. Get the dynamics right, get the groove right, get the mood of each and every f****ng note right. Get the balance between each player right, in each section of every song. And if its not PERFECT, don't play it. Ever. That's what I mean about hard work! Obviously, we've not done all of this in a mathematical fashion because then there'd be no soul, its just something that we've evolved over time and a lot of rehearsals / beer / arguments. Its been a long slog (there's one song in the set that, me and the singer worked out the other day, we reckon we've played something like 1000 times in the last three years...) but I think its been worth it - and that's not a statement or arrogance, thats a statement of fact (yeah, fact as I see it, big-headed tw@). Come and see us play live if you don't believe me![/quote] Well that is one way and obviously the one that works for you but have you ever seen John Otway? Bad songs, bad playing, bad shirts, bad singing, brilliant show, huge following. Diff'rent strokes .. [quote]Its also the fault of TV shows such as X-Factor that have made people believe that mediocre performances are OK as long as you prat about a bit and look pretty / cool / whatever. For the people responsible for this brand of telly, I advocate the use of the Final Solution. Seriously.[/quote] That's Ok the people watching X Factor who think that's real are not coming out afterwards to watch originals bands ..... TOTP used to do the same thing during the miming years. People booking our band would wonder why we needed all that gear when Rod Stewart didn't even have a microphone .... [quote]Bassic, would more bums not be on seats if every band was bloody amazing?[/quote] No 'cos people have to decide what they spend their valuable time on. In one way the bands we have now are all amazing, compared to how amature bands were in the 60's. If you took the average contemporary pub covers band back to 1965 (with their gear, especially monitors ) they'd be superstars. The bar is higher. The better bands will always win out [i]in their specific market.[/i] It is so wrong to assume a death metal band is competing directly with that funny cover trio mentioned before. Better always means more entertaining in a live situaton. "More entertaining" will, again, totally depend on youe genre and market. [quote]Why are songs by famous people automatically better than songs by someone you've never heard?[/quote] They are not. The problem is when people think the other way around; that an original song is automatically better than a tired old hack like Mustang Sally [i]simply because it's original[/i], nothing else. [quote]At the end of the day, I think I really mean to attack the cult of celebrity rather than anything else. People in cover bands - if you could get the same money playing songs that you or a member of your current cover band had written (and that you had more of a personal engagement with), wouldn't you rather do that?[/quote] Well yes but I'd also want to go out in my covers band and do covers (and covers of a cover like the Black Crowes' Too hard to handle Wonder why that is their best known tune ...) 'cos I love the reaction you get when you start Love Shack Just use the Shrek approach: From Monday to Thursday you go out as yourselves; the apparently "ugly" green hard to get to know obnoxious underpaid under appreciated originals band then Friday-Sunday you go out as the Hollywood style instantly approachable witty shapely princess Fiona covers and function band ..

[quote name='ARGH' post='239615' date='Jul 14 2008, 11:02 PM']I just wish there was more cash,I see the crowds,I see the draw,and some tightwads wont dip their hands in and pay another 20 quid.[/quote] Put on your own gigs then ....

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='240712' date='Jul 16 2008, 11:09 AM']Some great ideas there. Another thought is, with all the Jazz bass clones out there, how about a big shoot out with Fender vs the likes of Alleva Coppolo, Sadowsky, Lakland, Bacchus, Clover, even say brands like SX... the list goes on (if you can hold of brands like that) - and see if you really are paying for the Fender name, or the exclusivity of a more boutique brand.[/quote] How about it blind ... ie all identfying labeling and headstock shapes hidden Now that might be very interesting

[quote name='Clive Thorne' post='240585' date='Jul 16 2008, 08:41 AM']Actually OG, you raise a further point there. Do current classical composers get peed off because the orchestras/audiences insist on playing/hearing Beethoven/Bach/Mozart & such?[/quote] Oh they do. I used to work with a contemporary composer of some note and he was quite upset at the lack of opportunity there was for new works. Much worse than the situation for originals bands. Zero scope for DIY productions in his feild [quote]Some of the restrictions that are put on theatrical production are (IMHO) really ridiculous. Our local primary school put on joseph & the coat thing, and one of the license restrictions was that no-one was allowed to video it - how petty can you get.[/quote] SIDEBAR On a slightly related theme, Harvey Goldsmith was on the radio last night saying how great it is that everyone now videos rock concerts on their mobiles and posts them on Youtube the next day. A rock journalist was saying how the written review is virtually redundant because before he's written it 200 people have posted videos of bits of the concert. It was a very positive article about the upside of the practice. The Eagles got a mention too for still ranting on from the stage recently at people taking photos at their concerts "I know you're still in Hotel California, guys, but the world has moved on since 1976" Sadly I can't find a youtube of Glen Fry ranting on stage about being filmed Harvey was very realistic - what damange does it do? Nothing, it helps sales of the real video and CDs and downloads.. /SIDEBAR The corollary to our topic, in the theatre, is the total (economic) domination of "pop song theme" musicals over real theatre. It's teh same as covers vurses orginals and tough stuff like Jazz; More people are prepared to shell out the small fortune it now costs to go to the theatre to see stuff that's easy to get a grip on like Mama Mia or We will Rock you or High School Musical than anything totally new (or even old - Shakespeare, Ibsen) or unfamiliar/challenging.

I like listening to classic songs over and over (that's why we buy CDs isn't it?) and I like playing them too. It's appreciation in another way.

[quote name='bassket_case' post='239012' date='Jul 14 2008, 11:20 AM']Just a comment about the mag - could we see an upright bass section soon.. or a shootout of electric upright basses? I know nothing about them and would be intrigued to see something as there doesn't seem to be a lot of information out there. I can't recall ever reading a review or article about them in a bass mag? (Apart from that cardboard box one!)[/quote] The Stagg was reviewed a while back - in fact it resulted in a rush on them and a few months' shortage .. it was a good review, or good for the money anyway. but yes I'd like to see a comparison shootout for the most availble ones. Those Bogdon basses look OK but the way the guy advertises then on my local Gumtree annoys me .. "Upright bass for £40" screams the big print "plus £50 postage from america" whispers the small print...

[quote name='Maxcat' post='240092' date='Jul 15 2008, 02:49 PM']Probably dont want to be regarded as an aficionado of Chaps however in this context Im a fan. Were they seen in "The Nam"?[/quote] Nah down south ... near Bristol Airport ... in a tent full of pink cowboy hats and very realistic replica hand guns, a bucking bull and a well dead pig on a spit .. (rain was expected "hey let's fill the dance floor with gear!") Fun gig though

[quote name='Maxcat' post='240084' date='Jul 15 2008, 02:39 PM']Yeah I was going to ask you about that. Are we talking Shania Twain Chaps or Gloria Estefan? On reflection it actually doesnt matter. [/quote] Errrrrrrr I'm clearly not in your league when it comes to knowing all about chaps According to Cowboy Bobs Dictionary, they were "Woolies". Like this without the dark bits

[quote name='Maxcat' post='240053' date='Jul 15 2008, 02:15 PM']Steady OG Steady Was that a Stand Up or a Stand Up Bass? [/quote] Ha ha well it's happened each time I whip mine out. Last week it was a woman in full on sheepskin chaps ... She made a happy man feel very old

[quote name='andyefk' post='239992' date='Jul 15 2008, 01:22 PM']First outing of the Stagg went really well - just stuck to two tracks, but they went down really well, sounded awesome through the markbass head too... Andy[/quote] Just wondered ... for research, like ... did a bunch of women in the audience tell you how much they liked the stand up bass?

[quote name='inyabass' post='239440' date='Jul 14 2008, 07:30 PM']Yet another member of the bass department here. Name : Mark Wilkinson Location : St Albans Years behind the bell : Well over 30 Bands : Loads Gigs : Shedloads.. Available for bah-mitzvahs, funerals, weddings etc etc.. you know the drill. Welcome to me.. MM[/quote] Hi Mark, Welcome to the fun ....

[quote name='Rayman' post='239920' date='Jul 15 2008, 12:20 PM']It sounded great, but different to the Roland. The Roland was very bright and punchy, with some low end bringing up the rear. The Trace sounds totally different. I expected quite a bright tone, but it was quite low and thumpy in the mix. Obviously the 1x15 will make it bigger at the bottom, and that's exactly what I wanted, so I guess I need to find a simillar tone to the Roland from the 2x10 if I can, with some thump from the 1x15. It'll take some serious fiddling to achieve I reckon. Anyway, yes, It sounded very big, and very clear, with lots of bottom end, so aside from the fault, I'm happy with it so far. But 2 flights of stairs to the rehearsal room, with that combo....................[i]groan [/i] .[/quote] Ha ha Markbass and Neo next then

I'll be interested to see how these sell as I still have a box of bits off my 62 P bass ....